Can I safely mix OpenGL ES 3.1 and 3.0 in one app?

OpenGL OpenGL: Basic Coding
1

Hello,

I am developing an Android ‘graphics effects’ library. 95% of its functionality works just fine with OpenGL ES 3.0, but for one particular feature I need some parts of ES 3.1.

I thus wrote it in a way that mixes 3.0 and 3.1. When initializing my library, I first detect the supported OpenGL ES version, and if running on hardware that only supports 3.0, I switch off the part of API that makes use of 3.1 so that users of my library should hopefully never be able to make use of them.

I am however a bit worried that I have to import two versions of OpenGL ES java bindings

import android.opengl.GLES30;
import android.opengl.GLES31;
// ....
private void func1()  // plain 3.0 function
  {
  mNormalMVPMatrixH  = GLES30.glGetUniformLocation( normalProgramH, "u_MVPMatrix");
  // ...
  }

private void func2()  // uses some 3.1 stuff
  {
  ByteBuffer atomicBuf = (ByteBuffer)GLES30.glMapBufferRange( GLES31.GL_ATOMIC_COUNTER_BUFFER, 0, 4,
        GLES30.GL_MAP_WRITE_BIT | GLES30.GL_MAP_INVALIDATE_BUFFER_BIT);
  // 
  }

Is it safe to do this? I’ve tried on several target devices and everything seems to be running fine…

2

Yes.

It’s also safe to just replace GLES30 with GLES31, e.g.

private void func2()  // uses some 3.1 stuff
  {
  ByteBuffer atomicBuf = (ByteBuffer)GLES31.glMapBufferRange( GLES31.GL_ATOMIC_COUNTER_BUFFER, 0, 4,
        GLES31.GL_MAP_WRITE_BIT | GLES31.GL_MAP_INVALIDATE_BUFFER_BIT);
  // 
  }

GLES31 inherits from GLES30 which inherits from GLES20; any function or variable present in the base class will be present in classes which derive from it.