Re: OpenGL vs. SDL for 2D

[Steve Baker <sjbaker1@airmail.net>]

Mark Collins wrote:
> 
> On Wednesday 27 February 2002 11:27 am, Vesselin Peev wrote:
> <snip>
> 
> > That's the last piece of the puzzle, and I think I made a decision already!
> >
> > So why use SDL (without the OpenGL wrapping part) from now on then? It
> > would die out relatively quickly if this is the situation.
> 
> OpenGL is a 3D API, where as SDL is more of a complete multimedia API,
> offering better sound, input and, uh, file loading support than OpenGL. On
> Linux, I tend to use both SDL and OpenGL for these very reasons.

Yes - it's not an either/or decision.  SDL provides the necessary framework
that OpenGL needs to do things like open a window, provide a rendering context
and read the mouse/keyboard/joystick.

GLUT can do that too - so GLUT and SDL are mutually exclusive but OpenGL
works with either.

Using OpenGL by itself isn't an option - it's not designed to do anything
except the actual job of drawing things.

> Of course, there is GLUT, but I don't like that very much.

There isn't a whole lot to like or dislike.  Most GLUT programs have six lines
of initialisation to open a window and register some callbacks - and then your
routines are just magically called whenever something important happens.

GLUT is *very* simple.
 
> SDL also makes OpenGL initializtion so much simpler (against some other APIs,
> like Xlib *shudder*).

Well, yes - almost anything is better than raw X.
 
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