Hi, I''ve been programming ''cheesy'' type games for years now, but for the last 6 months have been using directX (haven''t gotten into direct3d or opengl yet), and while I understand it and don''t really have any problems using it, I keep hearing about SDL on this board, and how ''simple'' it makes things. I was just wondering from all of you: Is SDL used to make real games/programs? or is it just a RAD game making tool? I went to the SDL site and was reading about it... it sounds very interesting. What are it''s strengths/limitations? Has it been used to make games that are on the big market? (diablo, unreal, quake) games like that? Is it basically just a lot of wrapper functions for directx/opengl? Any info on this would be great. Thanks - Free Your Mind -

SDL was used in Loki software''s port of Civilization II: Call to Power. I suggest that you also check out SDL''s website www.libsdl.org it is worth the visit if you are interested in finding out more about it.

I also believe it was used in a linux port of QUAKE. From what I have heard SDL has a lot of power, but I don''t think it is used professionally (except on linux).

------------------------------
BASIC programmers don''t die, they just GOSUB and don''t return.

I''ve been using SDL for quite a while now, its a perfect DirectX alternative it has input, sound, threading, etc.. and the 2D video functions are pretty fast and are alright for puzzle games, etc... or you can use all of SDL and use OpenGL for the graphics side which SDL provides easy access too, you really can''t go wrong.

Its simplcity beats DirectX, thats for sure.

Also, because SDL is open source/freeware does this mean that if you made a game with it, you couldn''t sell it? Is this the reason why game companies don''t use it? I am just trying to figure this out... it seems to be very easy and powerful, but big game companies don''t use it. I went to the SDL site, but would like some ''unbiased'' opinions on the subject.


- Free Your Mind -

SDL is under the LGPL, and doesn''t require you to release any source code or anything like that. The only exception is if you modify the SDL implementation itself, which people rarely do. You don''t need to give out your proprietary game source, and you can use it for commercial applications. It was used in many commercially successful games such as Civ II: Call To Power and Tribes 2. It is also highly portable, frequently updated, and any performance loss is marginal given todays hardware.

As has been said, the LGPL doesn''t require you to release your own source code. But, even if it did, that doesn''t mean you can''t market an open source product (you still own the images and audio data, and so on, so they can''t be freely distributed).

Some commercial projects that have used SDL (mostly in their Linux ports, and all of these examples are from Loki):
Civilization: Call To Power
Unreal Tournament
Soldier of Fortune (uses a heavily modified Quake 2 engine)
Sim City 3000
Tribes II
Postal
Heretic II
Heavy Metal: F.A.K.K.2
Heavy Gear II
Descent III
Rune
Sid Meier''s Alpha Centauri

also since on win32 SDL is just a wrapper for directx/opengl there is no reason it cant be used for anything complex that directx or opengl are used for. sdl is just another light abstraction layer to make ports to linux easier (as well as give linux an alternative to just opengl or svgalib).