What are the ways to utilize SPIR(-V) with older graphics hardware?
For example, my laptop has an Intel HD4000 GPU.
I’m quite certain that it does not support the driver versions required for SPIR-V.
However, if I wish to use SPIR-V, then what are my options? Rent GPUs in the cloud? Program some sort of emulator?
None. If the driver doesn’t support it, then the driver doesn’t support it. And if the driver isn’t being updated, it’s never going to support it. You can’t just make support happen.
In theory, you could write some SPIR-V->GLSL compiler. But there’s really not much point to it.
From this:
it looks like at least some Intel Graphics HD 4000 GPU systems support ARB_gl_spirv, at least on Linux, on Ivy Bridge GT2. Also, there’s support for later generation 4xxx series as well (4400, 4600, etc.), on Haswell GT2.
Beyond that, you might check into whether software-only Mesa3D supports SPIR-V. If so, you could ideally dev/test GL apps with SPIR-V without full GPU accelleration.