GL_OES_surfaceless_context

Supported Hardware

Series5, Series5XT, Series6, Series6XE, Series6XT

Valid APIs

OpenGL ES 1.x, 2.0, 3.x

Description

Applications that want to render to framebuffer objects only, without touching any sort of main framebuffer, currently still need to create an EGLSurface for a context. EGL_KHR_surfaceless_context adds the ability to create a context without a surface, but vanilla OpenGL ES cannot function correctly with such a context. This extension provides mechanisms whereby this behaviour is defined so that there is no need to create a default surface.

A single new feature is added in the form of an enum, GL_FRAMEBUFFER_UNDEFINED_OES, which is returned when what would otherwise be the default framebuffer is bound. Any commands relying on the framebuffer will behave as if an incomplete framebuffer, of size 0 by 0, is currently bound.

Example

// Query the current framebuffer status
GLenum status = glCheckFramebufferStatus(GL_FRAMEBUFFER);
if (status == GL_FRAMEBUFFER_UNDEFINED_OES)
{
    // There's no framebuffer bound!
}