Back إس دي ال Arabic Simple DirectMedia Layer Catalan Simple DirectMedia Layer Czech Simple DirectMedia Layer German Simple DirectMedia Layer Spanish اسدیال Persian Simple DirectMedia Layer Finnish Simple DirectMedia Layer French Simple DirectMedia Layer Hungarian SDL ID
 | |
| Original author(s) | Sam Lantinga |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | SDL Community |
| Initial release | 1998 |
| Stable release | 3.2.0[1] 
/ 21 January 2025 |
| Repository | |
| Written in | C |
| Operating system | Linux (e.g. SteamOS), Windows, macOS 10.4+, iOS 3.1.3+, tvOS,[2] Android 2.3.3+, FreeBSD 8.4+, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 2, Haiku, RISC OS 3.5+,[3] MorphOS 0.4+[4][5] Additionally before v2.0.0: e.g. AmigaOS and MorphOS, and consoles (PlayStation, XBox, Wii, etc), Nintendo DS |
| Platform | 'IA-32' (i386), 'x86-64', 'PowerPC', AArch64 |
| Type | API |
| License | zlib License Before 2.0.0: GNU LGPL[6] |
| Website | www |
Simple DirectMedia Layer (SDL) is a cross-platform software development library designed to provide a hardware abstraction layer for computer multimedia hardware components. Software developers can use it to write high-performance computer games and other multimedia applications that can run on many operating systems such as Android, iOS, Linux, macOS, and Windows.[7]
SDL manages video, audio, input devices, threads, shared object loading, networking and timers.[8] For 3D graphics, it can handle an OpenGL, Vulkan,[9] Metal, or Direct3D11 (older Direct3D version 9 is also supported) context. A common misconception is that SDL is a game engine. However, the library is suited to building games directly, or is usable indirectly by engines built on top of it.
The library is internally written in C and possibly, depending on the target platform, C++ or Objective-C, and provides the application programming interface in C, with bindings to other languages available.[10] It is free and open-source software subject to the requirements of the zlib License since version 2.0, and with prior versions subject to the GNU Lesser General Public License.[6] Under the zlib License, SDL 2.0 is freely available for static linking in closed-source projects, unlike SDL 1.2,[11] although it is possible for the user to override the statically linked library with one provided by them.[12] SDL 2.0, released in 2013, was a major departure from previous versions, offering more opportunity for 3D hardware acceleration, but breaking backwards-compatibility, a wrapper library made to translate 1.2 calls to 2.0 was later made available.[13]
SDL is extensively used in the industry in both large and small projects. By 2010, over 700 games, 180 applications, and 120 demos had been posted on the library website.[14]
- ^ "Release 3.2.0". 21 February 2025. Retrieved 22 January 2025.
- ^ "Oh look, we'll have official tvOS support in SDL 2.0.5, for people that want their SDL-based games on Apple TV!". 15 September 2016.
- ^ "SDL/docs/README-riscos.md at 9d83c0a65d969a902c91f4f94fd5a904c0828a33 · libsdl-org/SDL". GitHub. Retrieved 17 March 2024.
- ^ "Great galaga style true color game for MorphOS (uses SDL)".
- ^ "SDL 2.30.7 Libraries". Retrieved 6 November 2024.
- ^ a b "SDL license". Retrieved 3 March 2014.
- ^ "a list of the platforms SDL supports". Libsdl.org. Archived from the original on 1 April 2016. Retrieved 9 April 2016.
- ^ "SDL official website". Libsdl.org. Retrieved 19 March 2010.
- ^ "CategoryVulkan - SDL Wiki'". wiki.libsdl.org. Retrieved 5 May 2019.
- ^ "SDL Language Bindings". libsdl.org. Simple DirectMedia Layer. Retrieved 13 August 2014.
- ^ "Licensing the Simple DirectMedia Layer library". Retrieved 30 January 2012.
- ^ "SDL/docs/README-dynapi.md at main · libsdl-org/SDL". GitHub. Retrieved 25 June 2024.
- ^ libsdl-org/sdl12-compat, Simple Directmedia Layer, 1 June 2024, retrieved 25 June 2024
- ^ "Simple DirectMedia Layer". 29 June 2010. Archived from the original on 29 June 2010. Retrieved 7 August 2021.