wglMakeCurrent fails on x64

StackOverflow https://stackoverflow.com/questions/19236021

Question

I'm trying to create an OpenGL window on an x64 platform. My initalization code works for x86/Win32, but fails for x64 at "wglMakeCurrent". I guess the problem is either in the setting of the pixelformat or in getting the DC (getDC()). I've tried different settings for my PIXELFORMATDESCRIPTOR already (assumed that the x64 implementation of OpenGL doesn't support that one I'm using), but had no success there. The debugger indicates that hdc may be corrupt - (its like 0xfffffffff10102e0) - however wglCreateContext returns an valid looking hglrc then (i.e. 0x0000000000010000). But even if I change the value from hdc on-the-fly to 0x0000000010102e0 (using the debugger, before the call of wglCreateContext) wglMakeCurrent still fails.

I'm on windows 8 with Visual Studio 12 RC 1. Any ideas what I'm doing wrong here? Or is there maybe some limitation of the x64 OpenGL implementation?

#include <windows.h>
#pragma comment(lib, "OpenGL32.lib")

static LRESULT CALLBACK WindowProc(HWND hWnd, UINT uMsg, WPARAM wParam, LPARAM lParam){
  switch (uMsg){
  case WM_DESTROY:
    PostQuitMessage(0);
    break;
  default:
    break;
  }
  return DefWindowProc(hWnd, uMsg, wParam, lParam);
}


int WINAPI WinMain(HINSTANCE hInstance, HINSTANCE hPrevInstance, LPSTR lpCmdLine, int nCmdShow){
  WNDCLASSEX wc;
  ZeroMemory(&wc, sizeof(WNDCLASSEX));
  wc.cbSize = sizeof(WNDCLASSEX);
  wc.style = CS_HREDRAW | CS_VREDRAW | CS_OWNDC;
  wc.lpfnWndProc = WindowProc;
  wc.hInstance = nullptr;
  wc.hCursor = LoadCursor(nullptr, IDC_ARROW);
  wc.hbrBackground = (HBRUSH)COLOR_WINDOW;
  wc.lpszClassName = "WindowClassTest";
  RegisterClassEx(&wc);
  DWORD dwStyle = WS_CAPTION | WS_MINIMIZEBOX | WS_SYSMENU;
  RECT WindowRect;
  WindowRect.left = (long)0;
  WindowRect.right = (long)640;
  WindowRect.top = (long)0;
  WindowRect.bottom = (long)480;
  AdjustWindowRect(&WindowRect, dwStyle, FALSE);
  HWND hWnd = CreateWindowEx(0,
    "WindowClassTest",
    "WindowTitle",
    dwStyle,
    0, 0,
    WindowRect.right - WindowRect.left,
    WindowRect.bottom - WindowRect.top,
    nullptr,
    nullptr,
    wc.hInstance,
    (LPVOID) nullptr);
  wc.hbrBackground = (HBRUSH)COLOR_WINDOW;
  ShowWindow(hWnd, SW_SHOW);
  SetFocus(hWnd);
  HDC hdc = GetDC(hWnd);
  int         pf;
  PIXELFORMATDESCRIPTOR pfd;
  memset(&pfd, 0, sizeof(pfd));
  pfd.nSize = sizeof(pfd);
  pfd.nVersion = 1;
  pfd.dwFlags = PFD_DRAW_TO_WINDOW | PFD_SUPPORT_OPENGL;
  pfd.iPixelType = PFD_TYPE_RGBA;
  pfd.cColorBits = 32;
  pf = ChoosePixelFormat(hdc, &pfd);
  if (pf == 0) {
    MessageBox(NULL, "ChoosePixelFormat() failed:  "
      "Cannot find a suitable pixel format.", "Error", MB_OK);
  }
  if (SetPixelFormat(hdc, pf, &pfd) == FALSE) {
    MessageBox(NULL, "SetPixelFormat() failed:  "
      "Cannot set format specified.", "Error", MB_OK);
  }
  DescribePixelFormat(hdc, pf, sizeof(PIXELFORMATDESCRIPTOR), &pfd);
  HGLRC hglrc = wglCreateContext(hdc);
  if (!wglMakeCurrent(hdc, hglrc)){
    MessageBox(NULL, "wglMakeCurrent() failed:  "
      "Cannot make context current.", "Error", MB_OK);
  }

  /* left out other unnecessary code here*/
  return 0;
}
Was it helpful?

Solution

It looks like this is a very specific bug triggered in some cases when running 64 bit OpenGL applications within a Windows 8.x virtual machine. Based on the available reports (see below), it happens when

  • the application has been compiled for x64 using Visual Studio >= 2012
  • it is executed in Windows 8.x running inside a VM (Parallels/VMWare)

I am experiencing the same issue in the Parallels VM used to compile my application for Windows. A temporary workaround was to either use a 32 bit build or compile for 64 bit using a previous version of Visual Studio (I used 2010).

Importantly, Windows 8.x running on non-emulated hardware does not seem to be affected.

Links to other people mentioning this issue:

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