I see many examples online using this
I have read some pros and cons
is it worth my time to learn Glut and OpenGL together.
will Glut slow down my code much and by what value?
GLUT is a must have if you want other OSs other than Winblowz to run your programs. Also, glut is very easy to learn, much more so than Win32 API. I dont think GLUt slows down code much since usually only under 10 glut functions are used in a program anyway. GLUT is worth learning, you can learn both glut and win32.
If you’re developing a high-performance application, I would not suggest using GLUT. If you’re developing a quick demo (even if it is a complex demo), GLUT is a good idea. If what you want to do requires significant GUI interface (lots of controls or widgets that aren’t handled by the OpenGL window), then GLUT is going to get in the way; a more native interface (or something else cross platform) would be preferable.
GLUI is a good UI library layered on top of GLUT. It’s great for prototyping and portability. There may be a performance payoff but I’ve never developed an equivalent program using GLUT/GLUI and Windows so I don’t know how much it is. Check out the GLUI site at http://www.cs.unc.edu/~rademach/glui/ The library has lots of good widgets and the documentation and examples are excellent.
allright thanks heaps for the advice.
the slowdown from glut would be far less than 1%.
personally i use glut far more than the win32 api. eg yesterday i wrote up a program to test the 7 methods of doing volumetric fog that i know to see which looked the best. nice + simple + quick to get up and running.
I agree with Zed fully. I did a simple test the other day with a program in GLUT and win32, and it was just a triangle spinning. In this context the majority of the system resources would be taken up by Win32/GLUT, so you can see the actual difference between the two. The difference was VERY small. And considering that for a larger and more complex program most of the system resources would be taken up by the rendering and not by win32/glut, so that the difference would be even less.
BTW Zed, can you maybe send me that program?? because I am right now trying to learn volumetrix fog, tis surprisingly hard to find any tuts on it. 
learning anything in any capacity is well worth the effort.
even if you decide against using glut in any of your applications, you will still be the better programmer for it…
[This message has been edited by dallas (edited 06-18-2001).]