OpenGL Programming Guide: The Official Guide to Learning OpenGL, Versions 3.0 and 3.1, Seventh Edition

Appendix G. OpenGL Invariance

OpenGL is not a pixel-exact specification. It therefore doesn’t guarantee an exact match between images produced by different OpenGL implementations. However, OpenGL does specify exact matches, in some cases, for images produced by the same implementation. This appendix describes the invariance rules that define these cases.

The obvious and most fundamental case is repeatability. A conforming OpenGL implementation generates the same results each time a specific sequence of commands is issued from the same initial conditions. Although such repeatability is useful for testing and verification, it’s often not useful to application programmers, because it’s difficult to arrange for equivalent initial conditions. ...