MacNN readers are noting Apple's lack of support for OpenGL under OS X on some computers with ATI Rage Pro / Mobility graphics cards (readers are encouraged to write directly to Apple). Josh Lewis writes that the recent OS 10.1 upgrade breaks OpenGL support, however, others indicate that support has been non-existent under OS X:

"I've noticed since upgrading to 10.1 that OpenGL is no longer supported on my machine (an iBook SE 366MHz with an ATI Rage Mobility card) and I've seen many other people on Apple's support forums with the same problem on different machines. It seems that 10.1 drops OpenGL support on several of ATI's slightly older cards, such as the Rage Pro and Rage Mobility lines, to name a few.

"It's unknown to me at this time whether Apple or ATI ever intend to fix this problem. I don't really know whose problem it is or who might fix it, but it is incredibly frustrating to many, many people who own these products with these cards. It's especially frustrating that the computers are listed as "supported" while Apple seems to have decided that only certain parts or functions are really necessary to declare a machine 'supported'. OpenGL is not one of the necessary functions, I guess.

"You can easily tell if OpenGL isn't working if the "pan & scan" screensaver that worked under 10.0.4 is now only able to show pictures in a clicking slideshow-like mode with no panning or scanning. Obviously opening a game or other OpenGL dependent program will also show if your OpenGL is not functional."

by MacNN Staff