Possible thread hijack, but for those trawling the forums looking for answers:
(Behaviour under Panda3D 1.7.2)
If you compile Panda3D with OpenGL but neglect to include Cg, then (funnily enough) GraphicsStateGuardian.getSupportsBasicShaders() will return false.
ie.
This is ‘wrong’
makepanda\makepanda.bat --nothing --use-gl ...otheroptions...This is ‘right’
makepanda\makepanda.bat --nothing --use-gl --use-nvidiacg ...otheroptions...