[SDL] 2D API evolution (SDL 1.3/2.0)

[Stephane Marchesin]

Torsten Giebl wrote:
> A few simple cases :
>
>
> 1. You are writing a 2D application, like an oldschool
> JumpNrun for example. SDL 1.2 is the perfect choice
> for you, it supports a lot of backends and is well and long tested.
>
> 2. You are writing a 2D application, but need for using
> a lot of Alpha Blending stuff hardware acceleration. SDL 1.3
> is your best choice it supports OpenGL, DirectX, X11 and the
> user can choice whatever is the fastest on his system.
> A way to make it easier is to include a little benchmark into your game
> just testing the different backends and printing out the max. FPS.
>
> 3. You are writing a 3D game. You are already bitten today even without
> SDL. You have to choice what System you use. Is your game only
> for Windows and XBOXes. DirectX is perfect. Do you want to get it also
> running on Mac OS X and Linux you have to write it with OpenGL. If you
> now write two backends and be safe or just write the OpenGL backend
> and people may yell about the bad performance is not a problem
> that could be solved by SDL. Linux users most of the time
> are pretty advanced in the knowledge of the system. Even the .... Windows
> User today install the NVIDIA or ATI driver on his system and both
> provide good OpenGL drivers.
>
>   
All these 3 cases are perfectly ok with a slightly modified SDL 1.2 (one 
supporting glSDL for example). In particular, these examples don't 
require a full SDL rewrite like what's being done.

Before you go further about adding features, please consider the example 
of hardware accelerated rotation support. I don't know of many graphics 
accelerators that can do hardware rotation and have no OpenGL/DirectX 
support. The only ones that comes to mind are game consoles like 
nintendo's super famicom (which is not supported by SDL anyway).

Stephane