# C++ & sdl?



## olithereal (Dec 23, 2010)

I've just finished my college semester, and as I have nearly a month of break, I thought I should do something half productive during this time. As I've been thinking about learning C++ for a little while now, why not do it while I have the time? 

I've also been wanting to give a go to basic game development, just to understand how it works, etc. as I have next to no idea how it works. I've fucked around with .NET's Graphics class, but that's about it really.

So yeah, a couple person told me that when I get comfortable with C++, I should try out SDL for that. I guess my question is, do you guys think this is a good place to start? If not, what do you think I should try?

Current language I'm comfortable with:
C#
VB.NET (not the biggest fan really )
I'm alright with Java.

Thanks!


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## Kreij (Dec 23, 2010)

Why not download XNA Studio (C#) and play around with that?


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## olithereal (Dec 23, 2010)

Kreij said:


> Why not download XNA Studio (C#) and play around with that?



Yeah, I've been thinking about that, but really I think it could help me with learning C++ as well...and I've only really worked with .NET yet, and I want to try something else for now.

But yeah, chances are I'll probably end up playing around with it, that's pretty certain.


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## streetfighter 2 (Dec 23, 2010)

SDL only supports DirectX 7 (or something indubitably old).  If I were you I'd try XNA (as Kreij said) or CUDA.  CUDA has more uses than just gaming and it's quite popular in industry.  Also CUDA is based in C++ (with lots of other bindings) .


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## Kreij (Dec 23, 2010)

olithereal said:


> I've also been wanting to give a go to basic game development, just to understand how it works, etc.



2D or 3D ?


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## olithereal (Dec 24, 2010)

Thanks to both of you!

So yeah, I'm looking at making a fairly basic 2D game, a sidescroller of some sort...kind of like this, to give you an idea:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkd6u8jIWVQ

So yeah, that's why I don't really mind the fact that it doesn't support any higher than DX7. I'll probably look into CUDA, see how that goes.


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## Kreij (Dec 24, 2010)

IMO, Olith, you should grab something that has a lot of the functionality built into classes and methods in the APIs already. That way you can concentrate on the basics of what need to be done and won't get bogged down trying to reinvent the wheel right from the start. You can then dig into the guts of it when you have a good grasp of the higher level concepts.

That's why I suggested XNA. It has a ton of pre made classes and methods for working in 2D (and 3D).

_Disclaimer : No, I don't work for MS, but if they offer me a work at home job I'll take it._


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## olithereal (Dec 28, 2010)

Kreij said:


> IMO, Olith, you should grab something that has a lot of the functionality built into classes and methods in the APIs already. That way you can concentrate on the basics of what need to be done and won't get bogged down trying to reinvent the wheel right from the start. You can then dig into the guts of it when you have a good grasp of the higher level concepts.
> 
> That's why I suggested XNA. It has a ton of pre made classes and methods for working in 2D (and 3D).
> 
> _Disclaimer : No, I don't work for MS, but if they offer me a work at home job I'll take it._



Sorry for the late reply! I was in Quebec city visiting family...didn't really have access to the internets 

But yeah...I'll go with XNA I think....after all. Thanks!

I know I'm a bit hard headed


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## Kreij (Dec 29, 2010)

No need to apologize. It's the holiday season and we are all busy.

You weren't being hard headed, you just had a goal and did not know where to start.
Coming to TPU for ideas and opinions is the best place to start, so you had an ace in the hole. 

No matter what you choose to start with, you are going to have a million questions.
Start an overall thread ... something like "Olitherals Game Programming questions" and post them all in one place. You will then have a single thread resource to refer to and not have to jump to a lot of TPU threads that you start. Just a little "best practice" info from my experience trying to find shit I've posted before.


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