When using the Windows installer for Octave, the user has the option to select
between "System OpenGL" and "Software OpenGL" renderers. The choice between
hardware or software rendering affects the OpenGL graphics toolkits
("qt" and "fltk") only. Software rendering can be used to
avoid rendering and printing issues due to imperfect OpenGL driver
implementations for diverse graphic cards from different vendors (notably
integrated Intel graphics). The downside is that software rendering may be
considerably slower than hardware-accelerated rendering (and it might not work
correctly on 32-bit platforms or WoW64). To permanently switch
between hardware-accelerated rendering with your graphics card drivers and
software rendering, use the "OpenGL Switcher" application from the Start menu
while Octave is closed. Alternatively, rename the following file while Octave
is closed:
octave-home\bin\opengl32.dll
where octave-home is the directory returned by
OCTAVE_HOME, i.e., the directory in which
Octave is installed (the default is
C:\Program Files\GNU Octave\Octave\Octave-version\mingw64).
Change the file extension to .bak for hardware rendering or to
.dll for software rendering.