RebelSDL, or GL Galore for hardware acceleration

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inermis
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Joined: Wed Sep 13, 2017 12:45 pm

RebelSDL, or GL Galore for hardware acceleration

Post by inermis »

When you want to profit from hardware acceleration (hardware double-buffer and hardware sprites) should one use RebelSDL or GL Galore? Saying no dedicated SDL or OpenGL things are needed. GL Galore should have less overhead while SDL uses OpenGL itself, or is there an other aspect to use the one or other?
SamuraiCrow
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Joined: Fri May 15, 2015 5:15 pm
Location: Waterville, Minnesota USA

Re: RebelSDL, or GL Galore for hardware acceleration

Post by SamuraiCrow »

If you want to use 2D graphics, use Rebel SDL. It's written in C. GL Galore is just a wrapper for the OpenGL driver and isn't as handy for 2D as it is for 3D.
I'm on registered MorphOS using FlowStudio.
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airsoftsoftwair
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Re: RebelSDL, or GL Galore for hardware acceleration

Post by airsoftsoftwair »

I haven't done any performance comparisons between 2D graphics in RebelSDL and GL Galore. Anyone who is interested in this, please feel free to try and post some statistics. On Linux and Mac OS RebelSDL and GL Galore both boil down to OpenGL so I wouldn't expect any major differences here. On Windows, however, RebelSDL uses Direct3D by default which is an entirely different beast and might give a better performance but it's difficult to generalize things here because of course it's all highly dependent on the graphics board and the drivers. You just have to try.

@SamuraiCrow:
You can use GL Galore for 2D graphics as well. Hollywood hardware brushes are mapped directly to OpenGL textures so you can use GL Galore as a tool to get hardware-accelerated drawing, scaling, and transforming without having to write a single line of OpenGL code. See here.
SamuraiCrow
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Joined: Fri May 15, 2015 5:15 pm
Location: Waterville, Minnesota USA

Re: RebelSDL, or GL Galore for hardware acceleration

Post by SamuraiCrow »

I realize that you can use OpenGL to do 2D graphics but it's like trying to swat a fly with an axe. Another thing to consider is that some Windows machines (mainly high end gaming rigs) come only with DirectX driver support and lack OpenGL completely. My Atom laptop is one such machine.
I'm on registered MorphOS using FlowStudio.
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