On 5/29/21 2:58 AM, jr wrote:
>> POV-Ray wants SDL for display.
> only because of a brain-dead (imo) decision to make 3.7 onwards dependent on it.
 >
>   brain-dead, but reversible[*].
> 
>> SDL, as the full name "Simple Direct Media Layer" implies, does more
>> than just display.
 >
> _exactly_   however, all it is used for is the preview window.  so what's the
> point of joystick control and audio output, etc? 
> 
>> SDL wants stuff, too.
> again, for what (POV-Ray) gain?

As Thorsten has reminded me of on a few occasions - very often, at the 
time the coding was done there were reasons for why it was done as it 
was (ie DBL,SNGL). I'm fairly sure this was the case with the use of 
Simple DirectMedia over x11 for v3.7.

Time makes fools of us all. Except with fashion, where if you keep that 
ugly jacket long enough...

> 
> [*] as, eg, the 'povr' branch does.

True, povr has again made x11 the default preview display, but!

---
First, to be certain credit is apportioned properly - nearly all the 

He'd added it to hgpovray38 and I've used his code in the povr branch.

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Why am I still interested in SDL2.0? Well, SDL2.0 is the version of 
library actively developed and there are a few obscure bugs with 1.2. 
However, my main interest IS that SDL2.0 has many capabilities we are 
not today using - but perhaps could.

There is, for example, the potential to push some work onto available 
GPUs via its library interface - something where that library handles 
the complications of GPU support over time. Likely nothing near ray 
tracing on GPUs, but perhaps off loading sub tasks to the GPU. Image 
buffering, scaling, rtr snapshots to files, image file creation? I don't 
know what might fly.

At the time of my initial interest in SDL2.0, it was also that it - like 
SDL1.2 - ran on Windows(1). My thinking was we could perhaps get to a 
command line only unix/linux like compiled release for Windows with at 
least a preview display.

(1) - Practically, given I know so little about windows programming, 
this will probably never happen for my povr branch, but, who knows.

It's true with Simple DirectMedia Layer, you get a huge set of 
dependencies(2) - and many won't statically link, but that's becoming 
more true of image libraries too over time.

(2) - There are reduced set versions like that used on the Raspberry Pis.

Anyhow...

Bill P.

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