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

[Sami Näätänen]

On Tuesday 15 August 2006 16:21, Torsten Giebl wrote:
> Hello !
>
> > The problem is the combination of the average user who doesn't even
> > know what a driver is, and Microsoft's desire to eliminate OpenGL
> > as a mainstream technology on the Windows platform.
> >
> > It doesn't matter that a proper OpenGL + Direct3D driver
> > practically downloads and installs itself on Windows these days, or
> > that some serious PCs come preinstalled with the latest drivers for
> > everything. The average surfing + casual gaming PC is still running
> > a clean Windows install with nothing but the drivers included on
> > the CD. What's worse, it's *your game* that is blamed when it
> > doesn't Just Work(TM) out of the box.
> >
> >
> > "All other games work on my PC, and this one
> > doesn't, so this game is obviously crap!"
> >
> >
> > Of course, we can dream about the entire developer community just
> > boycotting Direct3D until Microsoft starts to include proper OpenGL
> > drivers on the Windows CDs - but I don't see anything like that
> > happening, ever. (That said, if it weren't because of John Carmack
> > and supporters, we'd probably not have accelerated OpenGL *at all*
> > on consumer hardware...)
> >
> > Note that AAA titles and all Free/Open Source games are just a
> > fraction of the market, aimed at hardcore gamers and power users!
> > Whatever hardware and drivers this minority of gamers may be using
> > is pretty much irrelevant to the large volume casual games market.
> >
> > Of course, there's theoretically nothing wrong with focusing SDL
> > 1.3/2.0 on power users and hardcore gamers, but it just doesn't
> > seem to make sense to me. SDL 1.2 + OpenGL is pretty much all
> > you'll ever need to support that user base, I think - so why bother
> > with 1.3/2.0 if that is the *only* target user base?
>
> Sorry i still don't understand the problem.
>
> 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.

But you forget that 2D games can have rotations and scaling etc when 
done directly using the 3D API's, but SDL 1.3 renderers don't provide 
such things. Those simple transformations could be done in SW too in 
real time with a litle bit of limited quality as a fall back. And I 
have to say that I would think that as a necessity in SDL 1.3. After 
all SDL 1.3 is a big leap forward from SDL 1.2 so why restrict the 
drawing system to the old?

> 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.
>
>
> CU
>
>
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