OpenGL version on macOS

Hi,

I am wondering if anyone else has run into this problem. I have a Macbook Pro running macOS Sierra. OpenGL in Core profile supports version 4.1, but under legacy profile only supports up to version 2.1. I am running MATLAB R2016b.

opengl info yields:

>> opengl info
                          Version: '2.1 NVIDIA-10.14.20 355.10.05.15f03'
                           Vendor: 'NVIDIA Corporation'
                         Renderer: 'NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M OpenGL Engine'
                   MaxTextureSize: 16384
                           Visual: 'Visual (Undefined), (RGBA 32 bits (8 8 8 8), Z depth 16 bits, Hardware acceleratio…'
                         Software: 'false'
             HardwareSupportLevel: 'full'
        SupportsGraphicsSmoothing: 1
    SupportsDepthPeelTransparency: 1
       SupportsAlignVertexCenters: 1
                       Extensions: {138×1 cell}
               MaxFrameBufferSize: 16384

Is there any way to get MATLAB to run in 4.1 mode instead? There is urgent need for this due to this bug.

Thanks!

[Fei Zhang]

I also found it. Mathworks has not updated OpenGL version in matlab 2020b. And it resulted in 2D and 3D ploting performance in macos is not as good as OpenGL 4.1 in windows version.

[Walter Roberson]

Reminder that MATLAB R2020b is only for Mojave or Catalina, and that Apple deprecated OpenGL for those releases, so it would not have been updated past whatever was available in High Sierra. Apple will soon stop including OpenGL at all, requiring that developers either switch to Metal or else include the complete OpenGL layer as part of their binaries. Non-Apple shared drivers are banned by MacOS architecture.

Also notice that the original user is using NVIDIA cards. Mojave was the last release with any NVIDIA-supplied drivers support, and Mojave users were noticing significant performance degradation due to Apple changes. Catalina does not support NVIDIA-supplied drivers, and NVIDIA has officially given up on Apple (which was dragging its feet on approving the NVIDIA supplied drivers that were in the pipeline.) This does not mean that existing NVIDIA cards do not work in Mojave and Catalina, but rather that you have to use the Apple drivers, and Apple only supports the NVIDIA cards that it itself sold (together with two others that Apple themselves did not sell, but only for particular models of Mac Pro, it looks like.)

There was a big fight between NVIDIA and Apple, and the users are left to suffer because of it. This is not in the hands of Mathworks.