SDL 2.0 Release Improves 2D/3D Rendering, Better Audio & New Features

An anonymous reader writes "Simple DirectMedia Layer 2.0 has finally been released. The cross-platform multimedia layer used by hundreds of cross-platform games has seen its first major release in years. The SDL 2.0 release has many new features including GL3 and OpenGL ES rendering support, a new 2D rendering API, better full-screen / multi-window support, multiple input support, Android and iOS support, power management, and other new functionality. SDL 2.0 can be downloaded from libsdl.org."

Comments

Staticlinkable to closed software not a good thing

[rvalles]

With SDL 1.2, if there was a bug on SDL... or if in need to run the game on the new directfb/wayland/whatever frontend, updating SDL was enough.

With SDL 2 linked statically against some closed game... not so much.

Thanks!

[Kludge]

Thank you to everyone who made this possible.

Installation Information

[tepples]

Like the GPL, the LGPL requires distributions of executable applications to provide "scripts for controlling installation" (2.1) or "Installation Information" (LGPLv3) for running an application with a modified library. Console makers have shown themselves unwilling to allow video game publishers to provide this sort of Installation Information to the public.

Re:Installation Information

[tlhIngan]

Like the GPL, the LGPL requires distributions of executable applications to provide "scripts for controlling installation" (2.1) or "Installation Information" (LGPLv3) for running an application with a modified library. Console makers have shown themselves unwilling to allow video game publishers to provide this sort of Installation Information to the public.

Actually, in general, console makers are against open-source period. Technically speaking, you COULD use GPLv2 code in your game (making it GPLv2), but pretty much all the console makers prohibit any sort of thing like that. In 2009, the ScummVM team found ScummVM used in 3 Wii games and then people realized their SDK agreement prohibited open-source.

And naturally, the installation information will never be public because it'll contain private keys that the console makers would rather keep private.

About the only code allowed for a console game is BSD or BSD like (zlib, apache, etc). where the developer has full control of the code.

Of course, the Wii U, Xbox One and PS4 will probably see hefty revisions to their developer agreements as AAA titles become de-emphasized and the next gen will be about indie games.

Re:Installation Information

[Unknown Lamer]

Then.... write your own damn game library if you don't want to play nice.

The anti-copyleft trend in the "open source" world has been awful. Possibly because the kids these days don't remember how awful it was before there was Free Software for basically any task you needed. But they'll know soon enough...

Re:Staticlinkable to closed software not a good th

[Narishma]

The license change happened more than a year before Sam Lantinga was hired by Valve.

Re:Staticlinkable to closed software not a good th

[HaZardman27]

Oh, interesting; I did not know that. Thanks for pointing it out instead of yelling at me for being lazy and not looking it up ;)

Actually some pretty nice improvements

[gman003]

I've been reading through the improvements, and this actually seems like a big step forward for SDL. It's dropping antique crap like CD audio playing, moving towards a more modern GPU-focused system. They're not keeping old API bits around just for compatibility, but none of these changes seem like change-for-the-sake-of-change. I'm particularly interested in the OpenGL 3.0 stuff - getting a "modern" OpenGL context set up is a pain in twenty asses, and if they can simplify that, all the better.

Re:Actually some pretty nice improvements

[Unknown Lamer]

For me, the best improvement is that joysticks are hot pluggable now. So now all of the obnoxiousness with deprecating use of the linux joystick protocol in favor of evdev and losing calibration and button remapping is finally worth it. Combined with the sixaxis daemon, emulators and native games are downright pleasant to use nowadays (yeah yeah, you have to give evil Sony tons of money, but I like to delude myself into thinking the input device people aren't as evil as the rest of the company). If only most programs didn't get confused by the accelerometers making configuration a pain (dear fellow hackers: please require an axis to change by some threshold and not just have a non-zero value in auto-configuration. I'm looking at you armagetronad).