Simple DirectMedia Layer 1.3 Wiki

The Simple DirectMedia Layer Library (SDL) is designed to make it easy to write portable multimedia application that run on Linux, *BSD, MacOS, Win32 and BeOS. By presenting a single source code level API to your application, SDL enables access to the various native high-performance media interfaces for video, audio, etc.

Using the SDL documentation Wiki

This wiki is your portal to documentation and other resources for SDL 1.3.

Use the links under the Navigation heading on the left-hand menu to access:

• user help pages
• tutorials
• articles
• books
• FAQs
• forums

Use the links under the Page Actions heading on the left-hand menu to add or update content in the wiki. For help using the editing functions see the MoinMoin Wiki Help pages, also available at any time from the Wiki Help link under the Page Actions heading.

Introduction to SDL

What is SDL?

SDL is a free cross-platform multi-media development API, used for games, game SDK's, emulators, MPEG players and other applcations.

What can SDL do?

Video

• Set a video mode at any depth (8-bpp or greater) with optional conversion, if the video mode is not supported by the hardware.
• Write directly to a linear graphics framebuffer.
• Create surfaces with colorkey or alpha blending attributes.
• Surface blits are automatically converted to the target format using optimized blitters and are hardware accelerated, when possible. MMX optimized blits are available for the x86.
• Hardware accelerated blit and fill operations are used if supported by the hardware.

Events

• Events provided for:
  • Application visibility changes
  • Keyboard input
  • Mouse input
  • User-requested quit

• Each event can be enabled or disabled with SDL_EventState().

• Events are passed through a user-specified filter function before being posted to the internal event queue.
• Thread-safe event queue.

Audio

• Set audio playback of 8-bit and 16-bit audio, mono or stereo, with optional conversion if the format is not supported by the hardware.
• Audio runs independently in a separate thread, filled via a user callback mechanism.
• Designed for custom software audio mixers, but the example archive contains a complete audio/music output library.

Threads

• Simple thread creation API
• Simple binary semaphores for synchronization

Timers

• Get the number of milliseconds elapsed
• Wait a specified number of milliseconds
• Set a single periodic timer with 10ms resolution

Endian Independence

• Detect the endianness of the current system
• Routines for fast swapping of data values
• Read and write data of a specified endianness

What platforms does SDL run on?

Linux

• Uses X11 for video display, taking advantage of XFree86 DGA extensions and new MTRR acceleration for fullscreen display.
• Uses the OSS API for sound.
• Threads are implemented using either the clone() system call and SysV IPC, or glibc-2.1 pthreads.

Win32

• Two versions, one safe for all systems based on Win32 APIs, and one with higher performance, based on DirectX APIs.

• Safe version uses GDI for video display. High performance version uses DirectDraw for video display, taking advantage of hardware acceleration if available.

• Safe version uses waveOut APIs for sound. High performace version uses DirectSound for audio playback.

BeOS

• BWindow is used for video display.
• BSoundPlayer API is used for sound.

Mac OS

• more info?

Special info about 1.3?

Interesting starting points:

• RecentChanges: see where people are currently working

• WikiSandBox: feel free to change this page and experiment with editing

• FindPage: search or browse the database in various ways

• HelpOnMoinWikiSyntax: quick access to wiki markup

• SiteNavigation: get an overview over this site and what it contains

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