SDL = Simple DirectMedia Layer is a free cross-platform multi-media development API. Its used for
- games
- game SDKs
- emulators
- demos
- multimedia applications
What can it do?
Video
- Set a video mode at any depth (8-bpp or greater) with optional conversion, if the video mode is not supported by the hardware.
- Write directly to a linear graphics framebuffer.
- Create surfaces with colorkey or alpha blending attributes.
- Surface blits are automatically converted to the target format using optimized blitters and are hardware accelerated, when possible. MMX optimized blits are available for the x86.
- Hardware accelerated blit and fill operations are used if supported by the hardware.