SDL

[ismetteren]

I am a bit confused about what SDL actually is. On the website is says: "Simple DirectMedia Layer is a cross-platform multimedia library designed to provide low level access to audio, keyboard, mouse, joystick, 3D hardware via OpenGL, and 2D video framebuffer."

Does that mean that SDL is an overlay to OpenGL? What is SDL compared to OpenGL?

ps. i know that SDL is some kind of graphics libary, i am more interested in what it has to do with OpenGL.

[Falco Girgis]

SDL is a "multimedia graphics library" or a collection of APIs. SDL has APIs for graphics, sound, input, networking, and timers.

OpenGL is an API. It is a library only for 3D hardware accelerated rendering.

The SDL graphics API is completely software rendered. It cannot do 3D. But OpenGL cannot be used alone to make a game, because it doesn't handle sound, input, and other things required. You can use OpenGL with SDL. OpenGL will take care of the 3D rendering, while SDL gets input, plays music, etc.

[ismetteren]

So when you are using 3D hardware accelerated rendering(not that i know what it is...) in SDL, you are using OpenGL.

Is that right?

[Falco Girgis]

No. You can't use 3D acceleration in SDL. That's software rendering.

If you are making a game that uses SDL, and you want hardware accelerated rendering, you will need to use OpenGL with SDL. But OGL is not a part of SDL.

[ismetteren]

Okay :D