Can someone explain SDL vs GTK+

  • Thread starter Thread starter Wej
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Wej

Wej

Wej

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I realise they're both open source graphics libraries, but is there an advantage of one over the other? I wanted to download Fuse, a Spectrum emulator but there's versions using both libraries and wasn't sure which to go for.

Are these libraries installed in the default Ubuntu install?
 
SDL is Simple DirectMedia Layer. Think of it as a blanket for programmers that covers the uglier parts of using hardware accelerated graphics and sound, I would imagine that ubuntu comes with the SDL libs preinstalled.

GTK+ is kind of different, it's more a blanket for programmers that covers the uglier parts of writing user interface code. Again, I would have assumed that ubuntu would have come with GTK+ libs preinstalled.

Do you have hardware accelerated graphics? You might have to apt-get install mesa-demos first, but fire 'glxinfo | grep direct' into a terminal window and if it spits out Direct Rendering: Enabled, you should be ok to go for the SDL version. If not, use the GTK+ version.
 
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