[SDL] the future of SDL/directx

[Gregory Smith]

On Wed, 22 Mar 2006, Jesper Juul / Soup Games wrote:

> I think that if further work on SDL is based on the assumption that 
> OpenGL will be installed, commercial developers using SDL face quite a 
> problem.

Open source games, too. Many of our users with integrated/old graphics 
chipsets don't have the werewithall to update their drivers. Fortunately, 
for the time being, they can drop back to software rendering and get 
decent performance with the directx backend.

I don't know whether the built-in software renderer in win 98-XP and glSDL 
will offer as good performance as the current directx backend...or whether 
a d3dSDL backend, should someone write one, would either.

What I'm hearing about Vista from you guys sounds fantastic, though. Intel 
and VIA/S3 are more competent at writing D3D drivers, so the 
OpenGL-through-D3D emulation would be a considerable improvement over what 
we get now...if Microsoft does it well. I've gone from worried back to my 
usual low level distrust that Microsoft will do it right, with a little 
optimism reserved for if they do.

Gregory