Can I disable automatic error handling in OpenGL?

Question

In OpenGL, the default setting is to report errors automatically when they occur. They can either be queried using glGetError or via an error callback set with glDebugMessageCallback.

Doesn't this approach use unnecessary resources when no errors are actually thrown?

To save resources, I'd like to know how to disable this mechanism. I am thinking to disable it in a "release" version of my application, where no errors are expected to be thrown.

Answer 1

It's safe to assume that the internal API error checking by OpenGL introduces a non-zero overhead at runtime. How much overhead depends on the actual OpenGL implementation used.

Since OpenGL 4.6, OpenGL allows to create a context without error checking by setting the GL_CONTEXT_FLAG_NO_ERROR_BIT flag during context creation.

More details can be found

• In the OpenGL Wiki: OpenGL Error - No error contexts
• In the KHR_no_error extension description