OpenGL History

[1992] OpenGL 1.0

- - No shaders (fixed graphics pipeline)
- - Higher level than today (vertex, normal, color, transformation matrix, lights)
- - Immediate mode slower than today (every triangle is displayed one by one at every call)
- - Depreciated functionality since 2008, not compatible with mobile/web.
- - Still commonly encountered (easy to deploy on PC)

[2004] OpenGL 2.0

- - GLSL vertex and fragment shaders (programmable graphics pipeline)
- - Use of data buffers (named)

[2008] OpenGL 3.0

- - Depreciate fixed pipeline functions
- - Use of generic data buffers
- - Addition of geometry shader

[2010] OpenGL 4.0

- - Addition of compute and tesselation shaders

[2016] Vulkan 1.0

- - Full new API design (multiple GPU handling, generic computation)
- - Lower level than OpenGL (ex. manual synchronization, select GPU capability)