FAQs
If you see a question being asked and answered yet again on the mailing list, please post the question and the answer here.
General
FAQ_What_is_SDL - What is Simple DirectMedia Layer?
FAQ_What_Platforms_are_Supported - What platforms are supported?
FAQ_What_is_The_Latest_Version - What is the latest version?
FAQ_Where_to_Download - Where can I get it?
FAQ_Where_to_Ask - Where do I send questions / bug reports / feedback?
FAQ_Mailing_List - Is there a mailing list?
FAQ_Newsgroup - Is there a newsgroup?
FAQ_IRC - Is there an IRC channel?
FAQ_Official_Logo - Is there an official logo?
FAQ_Adding_Projects - I have a project that uses SDL, how do I add it to the SDL website?
FAQ_SDL_Version_2 - What's up with SDL 2.0? Can I help?
General Development
FAQ_Is_SDL_Multi-Threaded - Is SDL multi-threaded?
FAQ_Function_calls_from_multiple_threads - Can I call SDL video functions from multiple threads?
FAQ_3D_Acceleration - Does SDL support 3D acceleration?
FAQ_Networking - Does SDL support networking?
FAQ_Image - Does SDL support PCX, JPG, PNG, etc...
FAQ_Sound - Does SDL support MP3, Ogg Vorbis, etc...
FAQ_Text - Does SDL have text drawing support?
FAQ_GUI - What kind of GUI's are there for SDL?
FAQ_Including_SDL_Headers - Do I #include <SDL.h> or <SDL/SDL.h>?
FAQ_SDL_DUMMY_ENUM - I get the SDL_DUMMY_ENUM assertion in SDL_types.h
FAQ_No_Hardware_Acceleration - I have an accelerated video card, but SDL tells me that that I have zero video memory and no acceleration!
FAQ_Hardware_Surfaces_are_too_slow - I'm using hardware surfaces, and performance is very bad!
FAQ_Hardware_Surfaces_Flickering - I'm using hardware surfaces and I get very bad flicker!
FAQ_Double_Buffering_is_Tearing - I'm using SDL_DOUBLEBUF and I still get tearing.
FAQ_Mouse_Cursor_Disappears_in_Fullscreen - My mouse cursor disappears when in fullscreen mode!
FAQ_Low_FPS - Why is my FPS so low?
FAQ_Vertical_Sync - How do I disable Vertical Sync?
FAQ_Unicode - How do I get keyboard input with capitals and symbols?
FAQ_Console - How can i get console output instead of stdout.txt and stderr.txt?
Linux
FAQ_Linux_Support - What is supported?
FAQ_Compiling_on_Linux - Setting up SDL on Linux, build or run SDL applications
FAQ_Linux_RPM - I installed the SDL RPM, but can't compile SDL applications
FAQ_nasm_Crash - I'm using nasm 0.98 and getting a crash when linking SDL
FAQ_No_SDL_with_Mandrake_or_Slackware - I'm running Mandrake or Slackware and applications can't find SDL!
FAQ_Linux_Setting_Environment_Variables - How do I set an environment variable?
FAQ_Linux_No_Video_Devices_Available - I get the error: "no video devices available"
FAQ_Linux_Audio_timeout - I get the error: "SDL: Audio timeout - buggy audio driver? (disabled)"
FAQ_Linux_Disabling_Framebuffer_Acceleration - How do I disable framebuffer console acceleration?
FAQ_Linux_with_non-standard_framebuffer_device - How to setup SDL with non-standard framebuffer device?
FAQ_Linux_Enabling_DMA_audio - How do I enable DMA audio support?
FAQ_Linux_Disabling_DGA_mouse - How do I turn off DGA mouse support?
FAQ_Linux_Enabling_X11_mouse_acceleration - How do I enable X11 mouse acceleration?
FAQ_Linux_Disabling_XFree86_XVideo_acceleration - How do I disable XFree86 XVideo acceleration?
FAQ_Linux_Defaulting_to_AALib - How do I tell SDL to default to AALib?
FAQ_Linux_Forcing_DGA_2.0_video_driver - How do I tell SDL to use the DGA 2.0 video driver?
FAQ_Linux_Black_Screen_in_Fullscreen_under_X11 - When I specify SDL_FULLSCREEN in X11, the screen goes black and my window is centered in the middle, instead of covering the whole screen!
FAQ_Getting_a_backtrace - How to get a backtrace from a crashing program ?
FAQ_Compiling_on_Eclipse_in_Linux - Using Eclipse to compile SDL Applications
FAQ Linux Sound Device - How do I choose which sound card to output to?
FAQ_Using_an_SDL_Program_as_a_Screensaver - How do I use an SDL program as a screensaver for an xserver?
Perl
FAQ_Windows_Support - Unknown library 'mesagl' for 'OpenGL' (from build.pl)
(Does module-build .025 work with SDL 1.2 ? ) (mstramba@rogers.com)
Windows
FAQ_Windows_Support - What is supported?
FAQ Windows DLL - Where should I put the DLL file?
FAQ_Compiling_on_Microsoft_Visual_C++ - Setting up SDL on Microsoft Visual C++
FAQ_Compiling_on_Microsoft_Visual_C++_2005_Express - Setting up SDL on Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 Express
FAQ_Compiling_on_Microsoft_Visual_C++_Toolkit_2003 - Building SDL Apps with Microsoft Visual C++ Toolkit 2003
FAQ Compiling on Ultimate++ - Setting up SDL on Ultimate++
FAQ_Compiling_on_Windows_CE - Can I build SDL for Windows CE?
FAQ_Compiling_on_Borland_C++ - How do I use SDL with Borland C++?
FAQ_Compiling_on_GCC_in_Windows - How do I use SDL with gcc on Windows?
FAQ_Compiling_on_Dev-C++ - How do I use SDL with Dev-C++?
FAQ_Compiling_on_CodeWarrior - How do I use SDL with CodeWarrior for Windows?
FAQ_Compiling_on_lcc-win32 - How do I use SDL with lcc-win32?
FAQ_Windows_Why_stdout_/_stderr - Why are standard output and errors messages written to stdout.txt and stderr.txt?
FAQ_Windows_Where_stdout_/_stderr - Why are stdout.txt and stderr.txt created all over the place and how can I change that?
FAQ_Windows_Can't_copy_SDL.dll - I'm running Windows 2000 and I can't copy SDL.dll!
FAQ_Windows_Link_Errors_MSVCRT.LIB_or_LIBC - When using Visual C++ I get link errors relating to MSVCRT.LIB or LIBC
FAQ_Windows_Link_Errors_Invalid_File_or_Disk_Full - When using Visual C++ 5, I get the following error message: SDL.lib : fatal error LNK1106: invalid file or disk full
FAQ_Windows_Using_Visual_C++_Debugger - Why can't I use Visual C++ debugger with SDL applications?
FAQ_Visual_C++_Debugger_Freezes_at_Breakpoints - Why does the Visual C++ debugger freeze at every breakpoint when debugging SDL apps?
FAQ_Undefined_Reference_to_SDL_main - I get "Undefined reference to SDL_main"
FAQ_Undefined_Reference_to_WinMain - I get "Undefined reference to WinMain@16"
FAQ_SDL_WM_ToggleFullScreen - Why doesn't SDL_WM_ToggleFullScreen work on Windows?
FAQ Unresolved External Symbol - I get "Unresolved External Symbol symbol _SDL_main referenced in function _main"
FAQ_Windows_Exe_for_Windows98 - How can I compile an .EXE that will still run on Windows 98, even if I am developing with Windows Vista or XP?
MacOS Classic
FAQ_MacOS_Classic_Support - What is supported?
FAQ_MacOS_Classic_audio_lock_up - I'm using SDL audio and my application locks up immediately.
FAQ_MacOS_Classic_Double_Buffer_is_Flickering - Why do I see bad flickering on my double-buffered surfaces?
FAQ_MacOS_Classic_Multi-Threading - Why don't threads, mutexes, and semaphores work?
MacOS X
FAQ_MacOS_X_Support - What is supported?
FAQ_MacOS_X_Porting - What do I need to do to make an existing SDL project work on MacOS X?
FAQ_MacOS_X_ProjectBuilder_XCode_and_UNIX_style_build_system_differences - What is the difference between the ProjectBuilder/XCode and the UNIX style build system?
FAQ_MacOS_X_Installing_UNIX_Style - How do I install SDL UNIX style?
FAQ_MacOS_X__main_undefined - What is SDLMain.m? Do I need it? Why is _main undefined?
FAQ_MacOS_X_SDLMain.m - Is there a way to avoid SDLMain.m and Objective-C in my program? I want a pure C/C++ program.
FAQ_MacOS_X_OpenGL - I can't get OpenGL to work.
FAQ_MacOS_X_Windowed_Mode_is_slow - What's the deal with windowed mode? Why is it so much slower than fullscreen? Can I make it faster?
FAQ_MacOS_X_Page_Flipping - Why doesn't page flipping work?
FAQ_MacOS_X_Project_Builder_Debugger - I can't get debugging to work in Project Builder.
FAQ MacOS X Bundling - How do I include SDL in my application bundle?
Solaris
FAQ_Solaris_64_bit - How to build SDL 64 bit with Solaris
FAQ_Solaris_build_failed - Make is OK but running an SDL program complains about libucb.so.1
Game Specific
FAQ_Existing_SDL_Games - What commercial games use SDL? Where can I see source examples of SDL games?