SDL 2.0.6 Gearing Up For Release With Many Changes

[phoronix]

Phoronix: SDL 2.0.6 Gearing Up For Release With Many Changes

It's looking like SDL 2.0.6 will be released in the very near future as this important cross-platform library commonly used by game developers...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=SDL-2.0.6-Released

[Hi-Angel]

Windows users have additionally seen a new default audio driver with much better support while XAudio2 is being dropped in the next release.

Not that I care, but I curious about the reasoning. XAudio2 is the modern Audio API on Windows (I'll make a joke on this one, just wait 9 more releases). Querying "sdl2 xaudio obsolete", "sdl2 xaudio drop", "sdl2 xaudio removed" didn't come up with anything relevant.

[mulenmar]

In before "now rewrite it in Rust".

Speaking of Rust, there's a crate for that: https://github.com/Rust-SDL2/rust-sdl2 ; apparently, though, it's annoying to use. I haven't tried it.

[figgles]

Not that I care, but I curious about the reasoning. XAudio2 is the modern Audio API on Windows.

I still see XAudio2 code in their respository as of today: http://hg.libsdl.org/SDL/file/f6b9e7.../audio/xaudio2

XAudio2 is an API that is for Windows (Vista and later) & XBOX360. On Windows, it is built on top of the existing Windows Audio Session API (WASAPI). It provides a framework for software mixing, resampling, and effects -- it's a so-called audio graph solution. These are neat, but looking at the code, SDL doesn't make use of them. They just use it as a dumb audio output device. In that sense, it's pure overhead compared to WASAPI.

[DLudwig255]

I curious about the reasoning.

If I remember correctly, the reasons for LibSDL switching to WASAPI from Xaudio2 included:

• it's a bit lower level (https://blogs.windows.com/buildingap...ws-phone-apps/)
• WASAPI supports audio capture, Xaudio2 does not. (SDL2 recently added audio capture APIs)
• WASAPI covers the same platforms (Win32 as of Vista, and WinRT/UWP, at least). To note, DirectSound and winmm support remain in LibSDL, for pre-Vista systems.

[float]

Did they finally fix it so that it works on dwm without the need to do wmname LG3D?

[kaprikawn]

In before "now rewrite it in Rust".

Speaking of Rust, there's a crate for that: https://github.com/Rust-SDL2/rust-sdl2 ; apparently, though, it's annoying to use. I haven't tried it.

I'm currently learning C++ by making a game and utilising SDL2 to do it. I'm also interested and impressed by Rust. But however good Rust may be in theory, there's a tonne of tutorials, examples and documentation as to how to make a game in C++ paired with SDL2. So much so that, not only can I do it, I can learn to do it using these resources.

Whereas with Rust, it may be possible to make a game in theory, or indeed make a game utilising SDL2, there's none of that supporting framework and you just have to figure too much out for yourself. This may be ok for experienced people, but for noobs like me, you need to go with the tried and tested, and when it comes to making games that's C++

[DLudwig255]

Did they finally fix it so that it works on dwm without the need to do wmname LG3D?

I am unsure of this, but if not, perhaps write in a bug report? https://bugzilla.libsdl.org

[DLudwig255]

To follow-up on dwm issues, I did a search for it, and it looks like it was fixed a while ago, in SDL 2.x's development cycle (which, at the time, was labelled as SDL 1.3 development): https://discourse.libsdl.org/t/fulls...ng-wms/17804/5

I have not tried it myself, though, so I cannot confirm that!