SDL3 Preview Release Aims To Help Test The New SDL 3.0 API
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SDL3 has been seeing many improvements for this cross-platform hardware/software abstraction layer that is commonly used by cross-platform games. A Vulkan renderer is added, a storage API, colorspace and HDR related improvements, rumble support for the Steam Deck, child pop-up windows, preferring Wayland over X11, and gutting a lot of old code.
In today's SDL 3.0 pre-release announcement, the API additions have been described as:
- The API has been significantly reworked to be easier to use and more consistent
- The 2D rendering API now has support for more advanced colorspaces and HDR rendering
- The 2D rendering API now has a Vulkan backend
- An example of hardware accelerated video playback using ffmpeg has been added in test/testffmpeg.c
- The shaped window API has been replaced with transparent windows
- Time and date functions have been added in SDL_time.h
- Support for webcam video capture has been added in SDL_camera.h
- Support for handling pens and tablets has been added in SDL_pen.h
- Support for file open and save dialogs has been added in SDL_dialog.h
- Cross-platform functions for working with files and directories are available in SDL_filesystem.h
- A cross-platform abstraction for working with user and game data has been added in SDL_storage.h
- Handling of main() has been moved to a header library and an optional callback-based program flow is available
- Support for simple object properties has been added in SDL_properties.h. These properties are available on many SDL objects, and can be used for more advanced functionality.
Downloads and more details on this SDL 3 developer preview release via GitHub.
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