IMHO I think people just need to get away from "2D" and "3D" API's when you're discussing OpenGL or Direct3D.
Direct3D and OpenGL are *graphics* API's. End of discussion. If you want to give your scene a "3D" appearance, then you take advantage of the depth buffer and z-plane. If you don't, you don't.
However, I would classify API's such as DirectDraw, SDL (vanilla) and PopCap as 2D just because they are based on DirectDraw on some level of their implementation.
But to get back to the OP, I've only ever used SDL+OpenGL. For me it's just as fast as using a win32 implementation instead of SDL to handle window management and the message queue. *shrug*
hth,
Is SDL Efficient At All?
wasn't the Linux mod of Quake 4 made using SDL, just what I heard, so if this is true, I believe SDL can be efficient in higher end problems ;p
... just sayin
-Karakadin
edit: errr, port, not mod, sorry
... just sayin
-Karakadin
edit: errr, port, not mod, sorry
Quote:Original post by Karakadin
wasn't the Linux mod of Quake 4 made using SDL, just what I heard, so if this is true, I believe SDL can be efficient in higher end problems ;p
I believe you're correct @Karakdin. Also the last time I played America's Army, I did notice the SDL.dll kicking around. I presume this is for the Linux port as well, but I never tried editing any of the .ini files to find out..:)
Bottom line is that SDL+Graphics API is more than capable.
Both the above games will have used SDL for cross platform (or probably linux specific in thier case) window handling and possibly input mapping. They will have used SDL to create the above, then handd everything else off to OpenGL, so technically, not using SDL in the sense the OP has been doing.
Spree
Spree
Quote:How could, something simple as a transparent bitmap across half the screen slow it down that much? I was only running 800x600, and it was running fine when the I didn't make the console window come down.
Blending (transparent bitmaps) is done in software in SDL. The bigger the blend, the slower it gets. If you want faster blend times, use OpenGL as others have already said.
Quote:I want to have a multitude of transparent and key transparent objects on the screen at once moving around as the player scrolls the screen around. My example would be something like Zelda III for SNES. Is something that complex possible to do smoothly with SDL?
Well, considering Zelda III ran at something like 256x256 resolution, I think it's completely possible to do that in SDL. ;)
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