SDL2's OpenGL Renderer Now Provides Some State Caching, SDL 2.0.9 Is Looking Great

A few days back I wrote about the SDL library improving its 2D rendering code with a new batching system to yield greater performance. Since then the improvements have not stopped for this library that is critical to most Linux games and other multi-platform software.

The latest addition to the SDL2 render code is the OpenGL renderer now caching some state to help improve the performance if operating in the non-batching mode. This OpenGL state caching should help with performance as we've seen from the other GL caching efforts. This state caching was also extended to the OpenGL ES renderer code too. As part of this state cache work, some bugs in the render code were also addressed.

It looks like the SDL 2.0.9 release may be coming together soon especially with it being a half-year since SDL 2.0.8 and that roughly being around their release cadence these days for the Simple DirectMedia Library.

Besides the SDL2 render improvements, the SDL 2.0.9 release is bringing a new sensors API, a function to obtain display orientation, improved controller support as well as some new controllers being supported, support for adjusting thread priority and a new time-critical level for the highest priority, various Android updates, and countless other alterations and additions.