WXWindows vs SDL (which would you choose)

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12 comments, last by Xorcist 20 years, 2 months ago
I''m currently working on a cross platform, networked, 3D space flight simulation/battle game and plan to use OpenGL for all my 3D needs. I''ve heard both SDL and WXWindows support cross platform windowing systems which link well with OpenGL. But which would be better for game development. Can the two be used together? I''ve browsed over both the SDL and WXWindows sites, but wanted a genuine opinion from some people who might have some hands on experience.
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wxWindows gets my vote. wxWindows contains a lot of functionality that replaces many platform specific calls other than window creation.
For most programs I would recommend something like wxWindows, but for games? Definitely SDL (which by the way, also supports many other platform specific things such as multi-threading).

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erm, the two aren''t mutually exclusive, iirc

wxwindows is more of a widget toolkit, isnt it?
Yeah, it''s not that hard of a choice. If you want widgets and a menu bar, you use wxWindows. If not you use SDL.

No the toolkits aren''t mutually exclusive, but using them together wouldn''t have a point, so it''d just end up being a waste of time.
quote:Original post by Anonymous Poster
No the toolkits aren''t mutually exclusive, but using them together wouldn''t have a point...
Hmm. wxWindows: cross-platform application user interface library; SDL: cross-platform multimedia library. Unless wxWindows has added CD services, image manipulation, 2D (accelerated on Windows) drawing contexts, game device input and low-level thread services since the last time I checked (which would be last night), there is a point.
quote:Original post by C-Junkie
erm, the two aren''t mutually exclusive, iirc

wxwindows is more of a widget toolkit, isnt it?


Depends on how you define widget toolkit... .

Xorcist: You may have to create your own WinMain on windows to prevent conflicts between the libs, but combining them has been done. Heck, I think someone even got SDL stuff working inside a wxWindows window... no links on me though.

I suspect using wxWindows for the rendering and SDL for the cd access/multithreading/etc wouldn''t be hard to implement. But I wouldn''t expect to be able to have a fullscreen SDL window and use the wxWindows library to help render as well... without a lot of pain, at least.

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quote:Original post by Oluseyi
quote:Original post by Anonymous Poster
No the toolkits aren''t mutually exclusive, but using them together wouldn''t have a point...
Hmm. wxWindows: cross-platform application user interface library; SDL: cross-platform multimedia library. Unless wxWindows has added CD services, image manipulation, 2D (accelerated on Windows) drawing contexts, game device input and low-level thread services since the last time I checked (which would be last night), there is a point.


Maybe you should be checking right now. While you''re at it, check if SDL contains routines for "image manipulation". I have a feeling you''ll be disappointed with your previous post.
quote:Original post by Anonymous Poster
Maybe you should be checking right now. While you''re at it, check if SDL contains routines for "image manipulation". I have a feeling you''ll be disappointed with your previous post.


This was my post but it wasn''t very kind. I apologize.

My cursory glance over wxWindows showed classes like wxJoystick and wxThread. Also my definition of "image manipulation" is probably not what you want. The libraries have some significant and some insignificant points of difference but they cover a lot of the same middle ground. Trying to combine them would be more frustrating than useful.
quote:Original post by Anonymous Poster
Maybe you should be checking right now. While you''re at it, check if SDL contains routines for "image manipulation". I have a feeling you''ll be disappointed with your previous post.
You mean like SDL_image and all these libraries, many of which have attained first-class status?

You''re right, though. There is a lot of overlap between the two.

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