What libraries (native or libs with headers) do you use for game development and why?

[arthurprs]

The ones i used most were Vampyre imaging and Opengl

[azrael11]

For windows i use Delphi7 personal so old but so good...
For linux and Mac i use the last snapshot of the Lazarus and Freepascal Compiler....
The libs i use are for windows OpenGL for graphics in my current project and BASS for audio and audio effects but for some projects i develop paraller with the main project i use the Asphyre extreme is so easy and good.
For linux OpenGL and OpenAL.
For Mac OpenGL and OpenAL.

The OpenGL header is the dglOpenGL from the http://www.delphigl.com/

That's it

[phibermon]

(I think I smell a PGD GL Base code...)

[WILL]

(I think I smell a PGD GL Base code...)

Maybe, OpenGL is the best for cross-platform development, however DirectX and Windows development is still popular. Many games are made with Asphyre for example.

[chronozphere]

(I think I smell a PGD GL Base code...)

Interesting. If people feel like building such a base, count me in!

It would also be great if one or more people could write an OpenGL tutorial series covering the basics from rendering cubes to advanced things like shading and post-effects.

[Carver413]

(I think I smell a PGD GL Base code...)

what did you have in mind. sdl makes it pretty easy to get a basic system up and running. perhaps a new wrapper more geared for opengl that would inialize dglOpenGL in the process.

[WILL]

I would seriously love something that makes game development on the Mac easier. So if it worked well on a Mac and had helper tools on Mac, I'd play with it as well. Right now I believe the only true cross-platform solution (not just for graphics) is JEDI-SDL with or without OpenGL and/or OpenAL.

[dazappa]

For pascal game development, I generally stick with Lazarus with SDL and Andorra. SDL is extremely useful for smaller games where there's not as much shiny graphics, and I use Andorra when I want some real power with hardware acceleration and all of the fun stuff that comes with it.

I want to play around with 3d in pascal, but it's really not an option at this point. My main OS is linux these days, and the only 3d pascal engine I know (that works with linux) of is glscene, which is in a pathetic state of disrepair, currently. The only thing I can really get to run is simple model viewing (w/ animation) & particle fx. Any dreams of dynamic shadows or physics can immediately be shot down because they're delphi only.

[chronozphere]

Interesting. Seems like almost everyone here is using OpenGL with SDL.

There are still a number of game libraries for pascal: Asphyre, Andorra, GLScene, DelphiX, HGE, Irrlicht port etc.. But most of us don't use any of those. Instead we write our own frameworks/wrappers or just write native OpenGL/SDL.

Why is it that we don't use the existing libraries alot?

For me, it's simple. During the past few years I learned how to properly use a graphics API. I really want to use that knowledge by making my own engine.

Also, it seems to me like there is a lot of overlap between the libraries, functionality wise. Most of them are aimed at windows and 2D games (DelphiX, Andorra, HGE, Correct me if I'm wrong). So my question is:

Is there still a big unfilled gap? Is it worth it to develop another library that just does things a little different and supports different platforms?

I'm working on a simple engine based on OpenGL+SDL. If it turns out that it could fill the gap, We might aswell get together and merge our codebases to make a fresh engine that does the things we want it to do.

Just a thought.

[User137]

(I think I smell a PGD GL Base code...)

I would do my best to integrate most of my tools and units to work with it. Such as the UI Editor and nx drawing and math classes.

So... I have actually no experience on SDL at all. I ended up to OpenGL with dglOpenGL header. Self-made wrapper called Next3D to simplify it great deal. Other than that, i have some basics in use from Synapse network lib.

Using Lazarus IDE fully. All programs are built on the form, so that i don't have to care about underlying operating system messages. It is much faster to make programs with form events and it doesn't come with efficiency loss.