10-14-2018, 10:13 AM
SDL is just a layer above OpenGL, it provides a standard interface so you as a coder don't need to worry quite so much about what type of Graphic system your system has. As such is a very cool interface, it is showing its age a bit though and SDL2 is a much bigger API with a lot of new stuff that might be overkill added to it. Its intended to be quite light and so its focus os mostly on creating a graphic framework
SFML is also an interface, and like SDL/SDL2 its there to make getting things up and running fairly easy and hid the different tech aspects of different systems from you with a safe reliable and consistant interface. SFML is quite a bit more detailed that SDL, but both are attempting to do the same thing.
I like them both, and find them to be very helpful. But as my background is oldskool/console coding, I've always preferred to go direct to the hardware of a specific system which gives total control of that system... but can make cross platform very hard work.
SFML is also an interface, and like SDL/SDL2 its there to make getting things up and running fairly easy and hid the different tech aspects of different systems from you with a safe reliable and consistant interface. SFML is quite a bit more detailed that SDL, but both are attempting to do the same thing.
I like them both, and find them to be very helpful. But as my background is oldskool/console coding, I've always preferred to go direct to the hardware of a specific system which gives total control of that system... but can make cross platform very hard work.
Brian Beuken
Lecturer in Game Programming at Breda University of Applied Sciences.
Author of The Fundamentals of C/C++ Game Programming: Using Target-based Development on SBC's
Lecturer in Game Programming at Breda University of Applied Sciences.
Author of The Fundamentals of C/C++ Game Programming: Using Target-based Development on SBC's