ZDoom

Unfortunately, complaining about the state of OpenGL 2.x is going to simply get its support completely removed - it's something that, at this point, will never be fixed, and the only reason why it is there is because it is a tolerable enough "problem" to remain where it is. Once it becomes annoying enough, there's no longer a reason to have it. And stressing this topic is enough to cause that to happen.

This is not unusual for GZDoom. Like the removal of Windows 95 support - and the complete removal of any legacy OpenGL 1.x support. It comes down to - don't expect anything older than a decade old to continue to function.

In an ideal world we would not have this constant problem but innovation can't happen if a legacy continually holds it back. It's the nature of things - computers evolve, much like societies and communities do.

The computers we have today are much better than anything we had 10 years ago. And the computers that we will have 10 years from now are much better than anything we will have, today. Much as we like to throw the word "modern" around, 10 years from now "modern" will mean something completely different - and even OpenGL itself will be a "legacy" component.

I honestly don't care if those bugs get fixed.
My problem is with the fact that you claimed that anything that doesn't work in the GL2 renderer is a GL3 specific feature, which is obviously incorrect considering there's several regressions in it, meaning it is indeed broken.
Just because someone doesn't use a certain feature of the renderer doesn't mean it isn't broken.
And I imagine just telling anyone who asks about it that it's broken and going to be removed soon is better than getting useless bug reports for something you aren't going to fix.

@Graf
It'd help if the wiki didn't outright tell you to make decals and crosshairs using black for transparent and white for opaque.

From the [wiki=Crosshair]Crosshair[/wiki] page:
[quote="The wiki"]You can also use a grayscale image, with [b]white areas showing as fully opaque and black as fully transparent[/b]. [/quote]
From the [wiki=Decal#Alpha-map_decal]Decal[/wiki] page:
[quote="The wiki"]First you must create an 8-bit grayscale image, with [b]white as most-visible and black as transparent[/b].[/quote]

I imagine those are why so many people do this.
I haven't really written anything for a wiki before, so I'm not gonna fix it myself, since I could end up accidentally making it make no sense.

[quote="_mental_"]
What if someone doesn't use crosshairs and custom HUDs?[/quote]

What if someone made proper crosshair graphics to begin with?
But seeing that ZDoom32 even exists I am feeling more and more tempted to just rip out the GL 2.x support because it's just too incompatible with modern rendering techniques.
(On the other hand, I have some fears that its existence also will make some people cling to their stone age computers for even a bit longer - never mind that such computers tend to inflict more frustration and wasted time than it is worth compared to the cost of a more up to date replacement - of course replacement not meaning to get another old cheap-ass system with outdated hardware because then you'd be back to square one in no time. Anything with Vulkan incapable hardware should be considered a total waste of money these days.)

Let's make this clear: OpenGL 2.x is a fossil. You cannot expect that software will work forever on such old systems. At some time the plug will have to be pulled because it's either legacy support or new rendering features and I'm certainly not going to invest more time here.

Well, you could try ZDoom32. It has the last incarnation of the old GL renderer, it's a bit old feature wise (around the time of GZDoom 2.3, december 2016) tough.

[quote="phantombeta"]So [url=https://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=57628]broken crosshairs[/url] and [url=https://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=57431]broken HUD textures[/url] don't mean the renderer is broken? (Keep in mind that these do work perfectly fine in 1.9 with GL2.1)
[url=https://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?f=57&t=57450]Oh, and setting the "Rendering Quality" option to "Quality" does nothing anymore either. It always shows white dots.[/url][/quote]
What if someone doesn't use crosshairs and custom HUDs? Once again, if particular feature doesn't work it doesn't make a whole renderer broken. If those bugs are blockers for you it doesn't make them blockers for everybody.
Are you stuck with OpenGL 2.1 hardware and can't live without fancy HUDs? Use GZDoom 1.9.1 and be happy. It could be even faster than the latest GZDoom on such configuration.
Indeed, there are more important things to fix then broken transparency on crosshairs in legacy render path.

[quote="phantombeta"]Just because Graf said these won't be fixed doesn't mean the renderer GL2 isn't broken.[/quote]
Well I guess someone with such an old computer will have to step in and provide the pull request that fixes it then.

OpenGL 3.0 was released in 2008 (9 years ago). I know some of the older Intel chipset owners were cursed by Intel's awful OpenGL support, but at some point you have to decide how you best invest your time. Old Intel chipset computers are getting more and more rare to the point it isn't really worth it.

[quote="_mental_"][quote="phantombeta"]And GZDoom does suppport 2.1. For now. It's quite broken, though.[/quote]
[i]Quite broken[/i] and [i]particular feature doesn't work[/i] are pretty different things, no?[/quote]
So [url=https://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=57628]broken crosshairs[/url] and [url=https://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=57431]broken HUD textures[/url] don't mean the renderer is broken? (Keep in mind that these do work perfectly fine in 1.9 with GL2.1)
[url=https://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?f=57&t=57450]Oh, and setting the "Rendering Quality" option to "Quality" does nothing anymore either. It always shows white dots.[/url]

Just because Graf said these won't be fixed doesn't mean the renderer GL2 isn't broken.

Intel GMA 4500MHD (the graphics hardware inside Intel GM45 chipset) supports OpenGL 2.1 only so no special command line is needed.
GZDoom will fallback to legacy renderer automatically. Of course many features that require OpenGL 3+ won't be available.

[quote="phantombeta"]And GZDoom does suppport 2.1. For now. It's quite broken, though.[/quote]
[i]Quite broken[/i] and [i]particular feature doesn't work[/i] are pretty different things, no?

[quote="AraHaan"]However the latest I see shows only "g2.0.0" and wants to use VS2015 and somehow cant find the compiler.[/quote]
Sorry, I didn't get what you meant.

@ww
You don't need to do that, GZDoom detects what GL version you have. I think the "gl2-4" arguments have been replaced with "glversion <version number>" anyway.
And GZDoom does suppport 2.1. For now. It's quite broken, though.

Alright, I will also look into compiling latest GZDoom in VS2017 with Static CRT as well. However the latest I see shows only "g2.0.0" and wants to use VS2015 and somehow cant find the compiler.

The best way to find out is to test it yourself. If I remember right, you will want to start GZDoom with the [b]-gl2[/b] command line switch.

So, I have an inspiron 1545 that has the Intel GM45 GPU, and it supports up to OpenGL 2.1, I am wondering if such version is supported in GZDoom. :?