I am aware that Intel has ceased support for the GMA 3600. I don't care. I know that Intel will not release any "regular" (read: any) driver updates. I don't care. I only start this thread because I still hold on to the hope that detailed, in depth information will lead to some sort of change.
Ok, not really, it's for fellow users to know what works and what doesn't, but a guy can dream, can't he?
The following tests were run under Windows 8.1 32-bit (the graphics are slightly better and significantly more stable than in Win7; who knew?) using OpenGL Extension Viewer's built-in tests on the 1096.
General: PixelBuffer enabled leads to nothing being rendered. FrameBufferObject makes OGLEV crash with nothing rendered in older OpenGL versions and simply renders nothing in newer ones (2.0+). Quincunx multisampling doesn't seem to work. Anisotropic filtering is not available, and yet the option is available in Intel Control Panel. 4x multisampling actually works.
OpenGL 1.1: Works OK.
OpenGL 1.2: Doesn't render anything in fullscreen, suffers from flickering. Test gets 5 fps compared to 70 for OGL 1.1.
OpenGL 1.3: Same
OpenGL 1.4: Works only in windowed but with flickering and at 5 fps.
OpenGL 1.5: Same
OpenGL 2.0: Same
OpenGL 2.1: Same
OpenGL 3.0: OGLEV crashes
OpenGL 3.1 (hardware but no software support): Crash
OpenGL 3.2: same as above
On each of the tests that doesn't crash, the new effects in each version (like lighting) seem to render correctly, but the flickering and very low framerate make it difficult to compare to OpenGL 1.1. Minecraft 1.8, which IIRC started mandating OpenGL 2.0, flickers as well. Minecraft 1.7, which uses OGL 1.2 or 1.3 didn't have this problem.
I don't know how useful this will be to anyone. I do know that these drivers are terrible, AMD will be getting my business in the future, and multisampling works. That last one was surprising, I was unaware these drivers allowed any kind of antialiasing.
EDIT: For the record, the new communities site is torture to use on a netbook. Having to constantly scroll to see buttons I need or even trying to navigate using the page up and down keys isn't fun. I don't remember it being such a pain in the past.