Vista Aero and Opengl

[Dean Schrage]

I have run into some issues with mixed GDI and Opengl in vista:

the following is the recommendation:

What All This Means for the OpenGL Developer
GDI compatibility notes
GDI usage over 3D accelerated regions is incompatible with Windows Aero, so developers have two options:

Disable Windows Aero
Do not use GDI on top of OpenGL rendering.
Windows Vista introduces the new pixelformat flag PFD_SUPPORT_COMPOSITION (defined in the Driver Development Kit's wingdi.h as 0x00008000). Creating an OpenGL context for a pixelformat without this flag will disable composition for the duration of the process which created the context. The flag is mutually exclusive with PFD_SUPPORT_GDI.

If a developer must use GDI on top of an OpenGL context, use the following rules:

Create an OpenGL context using a pixelformat with GDI support (PFD_SUPPORT_GDI flag set). As this flag is mutually exclusive with PFD_SUPPORT_COMPOSITION, this will disable Aero for the lifetime of the current process.
Don't use BeginPaint/EndPaint outside the WM_PAINT message handling.
As on Windows XP, use the API synchronization calls whenever necessary: GdiFlush to synchronize GDI with OpenGL rendering and glFinish for the converse.

Question, how does one disable Aero algorithmically in code?

thanks, D

[Patrice Terrier]

Question, how does one disable Aero algorithmically in code

There are several solutions (however not simple) to run OpenGL even in DWM AERO mode on VISTA/W7. My GDImage is able to mix GDI32/GDI+/OpenGL altogether, but in all instance i am drawing everything on the GDImage surface.

I have posted in my dedicated section on the José's Roca forum an example named AeroGL (rendering OpenGL on a layered window) that "perhaps" could help you.

See also my "Boing" demo and "BassBox".

...

[Petr Schreiber jr]

Hi Dean,

if I may ask, why do you need to combine GDI with OpenGL render? Is it for fonts?

You might try to render to bitmap (Frame Buffer Object I think) and then blit it on screen + using GDI.


Petr

[Dean Schrage]

it is for the selection window. This is drawn in the GDI. but now it doens't show up. I can post the code later. Maybe you can suggest a fix.