How to update to latest OpenGL version on Virtualbox Ubuntu Linux machine?

Question

I'm running Ubuntu 16.10 on VirtualBox version 5.1.10 with installed latest guest additions. My host system is Ubuntu 14.04 with graphics adapter:

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation HD Graphics 530 (rev 06)

According its specifications it supports OpenGL up to version 4.5 on Linux. My guest system graphics adapter is shown as:

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: InnoTek Systemberatung GmbH VirtualBox Graphics Adapter

According to glxinfo my current OpenGL version on guest system is:

> glxinfo | grep OpenGL
OpenGL vendor string: Humper
OpenGL renderer string: Chromium
OpenGL version string: 2.1 Chromium 1.9
OpenGL shading language version string: 1.30
OpenGL extensions:

How to upgrade graphics driver on guest system to newest OpenGL version possible?

Answer 1

Short answer: you can't, at least with VirtualBox.

According to the manual (link below), only OpenGL 2 is supported through the VirtualBox virtual graphics adapter. It seems that the supported version is actually now 2.1, but I can't find a reference to anything more recent than that.

[20] OpenGL support for Windows guests was added with VirtualBox 2.1; support for Linux and Solaris followed with VirtualBox 2.2. With VirtualBox 3.0, Direct3D 8/9 support was added for Windows guests. OpenGL 2.0 is now supported as well. With VirtualBox 4.1 Windows Aero theme support is added for Windows Vista and Windows 7 guests (experimental)

https://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch04.html