That's true if you want to support older OGL versions.
Personally I use the ES3 subset of 4.3 right now. Same code works perfectly on ES3 mobile HW and 4.3 desktop HW. The only features it lacks are geometry and tesselation shaders.
I'm also using compute shaders right now, even though they are not supported in ES3 they are going to be supported in the ES next update. And that gives me effectively everything geometry shaders etc can ever bring.
By using those I'm saved from checking any extensions. And there is not much they could even bring to the table.
Comments
That's true if you want to support older OGL versions.
Personally I use the ES3 subset of 4.3 right now. Same code works perfectly on ES3 mobile HW and 4.3 desktop HW. The only features it lacks are geometry and tesselation shaders.
I'm also using compute shaders right now, even though they are not supported in ES3 they are going to be supported in the ES next update. And that gives me effectively everything geometry shaders etc can ever bring.
By using those I'm saved from checking any extensions. And there is not much they could even bring to the table.
fp64, draw_indirect, multi_draw_indirect, shader_buffer_load, bindless_texture.
These are all killer features in writing fast renderers.