   Learning (modern) OpenGL
  OK, well it's been a very long time since I did any real OpenGL programming. I learnt OpenGL back before shaders even existed, and I haven't really upgraded my OpenGL knowledge since then. I have a good knowledge of the fixed function stuff though.Anyway, I have two books at my disposal: Beginning OpenGL Game Programming 2nd Ed.  and OpenGL Programming Guide 7th Edition. I was wondering, is it going to be worth my time reading the Beginning one, or should should I go straight for the red book?But my main concern is this: my computer is stuck in the stone age, I have a single core CPU and a AGP GeForce 6600 256mb. From what I've gathered my video card supports OpenGL 2.1 and GLSL 1.20 and the books use OpenGL 3 and GLSL 1.30. Does this mean that on my hardware I can't actually do anything from these books? Or will it work, but in some craptastic fashion?I really would love to learn the magic of these shader things, and how to draw stuff without using glBegin/glEnd. Thanks for your time :D
  If you have a good handle on the principles of 3D rendering in general, you should read the specification itself.  Honestly, I don't think ANY of the books out there do a good job of covering versions 3.0 and beyond, and the specs are well written and straightforward, and will tell you EXACTLY how everything works.   ;  Also try this tutorial.   ;  You can get an ATI card that supports 3.3 for a very low price these days.  The changes that OpenGL 3.x brought along have been significant and the best way to go at this point is to forget about the older versions and start learning from the newest (core profile only) spec document.  It's fairly readable too.   