[IGDA_indies] SDL commercial viability

[Brandon J. Van Every]

Brian Hook wrote:
>
> SDL is a very well proven architecture, and while it's long in the
> tooth, it also happens to be VERY well proven.

Have any commercial titles shipped with SDL *lately* ?  I'm aware of a
few from the DX7 era, like the Linux port of Call To Power II.

Last I checked 6 months ago, SDL doesn't do HW alpha blending.  Alpha
blending is often a modern eye candy requirement, and part of the
contemporary motivation for "doing 2D with 3D."  SDL has got SW alpha
blending but it's slow.  I suppose some games can make do with anything,
i.e. even plain old Windows GDI suffices.  I'm not sure if the OpenGL
layer solves HW alpha blending problems, or if using the OpenGL layer
would create undesired deployment constraints.  Anyone know the answer?


Cheers,                         www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every               Seattle, WA

"We live in a world of very bright people building
crappy software with total shit for tools and process."
                                - Ed Mckenzie