RE: Sdl

Larrik · Jul 26th 2004, 12:01pm

For my new project, I'm using SDL, and I don't know if you are familiar with it. It's basically a cross-platform games development kit, providing powerful graphics features (especially 2d) with a simple interface. It's written by professional game programmers (I don't have a list). I haven't been using it that long, but so far its really good. I believe that it is often used to port games to Linux, but its uses go far beyond that.

What do you guys think of it, if you've tried it? It's definately a great way to throw together a 2d game (like LuckyC is doing), with much cleaner code and no DirectX bullshit.

MRom · Jul 26th 2004, 12:23pm

It was written by one of the guys from Loki when they were still doing Linux ports of popular PC games. It's great if you're doing cross platform games because it takes care of many of the platform specific areas like windowing, input, timers, and threading (though not as feature rich as if you were uisng the native platform's threading functions/methods). You can also create an OpenGL context if you decided you want to do 3D renderings as well.

I've looked into it, seeing as how I'm trying to make my current game as portable as possible, and thought it was a pretty good solution (I'm mainly interested in just gaining access to OpenGL, don't need the 2D really). There's also GLFW, which takes care of a lot of the same things as SDL (cross platform windowing, input, timing, threading), but it focuses solely on setting up OpenGL on different platforms. Only "problem" is that it's not quite as mature and feature rich as SDL (some windowing options not available, as well as functions needed to deal with detecting a system's endianness, just to name a few). Because of that, I'm probably going to end up using SDL for my game and keep a close eye on GLFW to see how it develops.

Although you problably meant no DirectX coding, but as far as "no DirectX bullshit," remember that SDL still uses DirectDraw behind the scenes if it is available.

garbob · Oct 28th 2004, 10:09am

I've played with it a little, and does hide a lot of Direct X paperwork. I'd really like to get some hard numbers from a linux based SDL. last time I tried it my Windows install had an edge the linux

the difference was minor but it was good enough to cause some "Hum...errr" and uncomfortable moments for some of my linux crazy friends

please don't flame me, I like linux but my jobs tend to keep me on Windows platforms

Kain · Oct 28th 2004, 11:10am

I've used it. I like it. I think it is a great tool to use to put a simple game together without worrying about the graphics implementation.

Larrik · Oct 28th 2004, 7:12pm

I assume you were running KDE or Gnome, in which case Windows (XP, at least) will destroy it in the games department. You would need to shut off a lot of stuff to get Linux up to speed for games. Of course, it depends on how well the drivers for your hjardware are written and crap, but Windows was written from the ground up with games in mind (they knew they'd NEVER get anywhere without the support of the gamers and companies), and Linux was never really truly intended for it.

Interestingly, the story of Unix's birth goes along the lines of "two guys wanted to play a certain game (at work, I think?), and their computer couldn't handle it, so they wrote an OS that could for it." Which I find hilarious , given how many people scoff at using the computers for games (while buying the newest hardware so that Word still works...HAHAHAHAHAHA).

garbob · Oct 28th 2004, 7:40pm

the difference, I'm pretty sure was sub par drivers

Windows was not designed with gaming development in mind Direct X is a very late comer to Windows. Its taken them a while to get it comfortable to actually use

Larrik · Oct 29th 2004, 1:34pm

Windows 95 was most certainly intended for games, though the initial system it launched with for it wasn't even close to what they needed (they knew they wanted to get games on the system...they didn't know how to do that, though).

At least, this is what I read, though I don't remember where (it was a book, though, not some internet forum or anything). OF course Win95 needed to bridge the gap between the old DOS programs and the new way, so it was certainly a weaker platform than the current generations (I think ME was practically ideal for games, but I'm under the impression that everyone hates ME)

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