SDL1 version too old

[glebm]

We'd like to try out a game (DevilutionX) with SDL1 instead of SDL2 to see how it affects performance but the SDL1 version here is too old (1.2.8). Would it possible to update SDL1 to at least 1.2.10, or, ideally, the current upstream https://github.com/libsdl-org/SDL-1.2?

[uyjulian]

The plan is to replace with sdl12-compat

[glebm]

We've seen actual SDL-1.2 perform much better than SDL2 for software-rendered games on other platforms.
sdl12-compat is just a wrapper around SDL2, so it wouldn't affect performance.

[uyjulian]

I would prefer to fix the performance issue rather than attempt to do stuff that may not be relevant to issue.

The performance will depend on the system interface exposed by SDL, not the SDL library version.

At least try to use sdl12-compat to ensure the issue is not with the API usage difference.

[glebm]

On these other platforms, I think the main difference is that SDL-1.2 allows drawing directly to the framebuffer, whereas SDL2 always requires GPU support, so there is an additional copy on every frame.

So for old school software-rendered games, SDL2 is always slower than SDL1.

[uyjulian]

You can avoid using the GPU pipeline in SDL2 by using SDL_GetWindowSurface. In fact, this is what I do in one of my projects to avoid requiring WebGL support. https://github.com/krkrsdl2/krkrsdl2/blob/abe7762cef00240c323e38cc37e159052d60e013/src/core/sdl2/SDLApplication.cpp#L719

[fjtrujy]

We've seen actual SDL-1.2 perform much better than SDL2 for software-rendered games on other platforms.
sdl12-compat is just a wrapper around SDL2, so it wouldn't affect performance.

Is that something specifically of PS2? Or is it a general assumption?
Honestly knowing how poor was done the PS2 SDL1.2 port, I don’t expect to have better performance that current SDL2 port.
Anyway if you want to upgrade it to the latest 1.X version, please do it and create the PR, it is going to be really welcomed

[7dog123]

I've managed to port the latest version of SDL-1.2 (Unofficial SDL-1.2.16) If you want to check it out and see it's in my repositories. https://github.com/7dog123/SDL-1.2 (In my second commit I apologized for using AI and knowing that it's very taboo to use for coding) It's still a WIP.

To configure it use: CFLAGS_FOR_TARGET="-G0 -O2 -gdwarf-2 -gz" ./configure --host=mips64r5900el-ps2-elf --prefix=${PS2SDK}/ports --disable-shared --enable-ps2sdk --disable-loadso --disable-pthreads --enable-ps2-hw-surface --disable-ps2-input-devices --enable-ps2-mtap --enable-ps2-freesd --enable-ps2-freesio2

I've used the original Makefile from sdl/src as a reference and made it create the irx binary into c code by using the configure script.

Here's the script I used to generate the c code:

dnl ---------------------------
dnl Generate IRX C files during configure
dnl ---------------------------
if test "x$enable_ps2sdk" = "xyes"; then

  AC_ARG_VAR([PS2SDK], [Path to PS2SDK root (used to find iop/irx/*.irx and bin2c)])

  if test -z "$PS2SDK"; then
    PS2SDK="/usr/local/ps2dev/ps2sdk"
  fi
  AC_MSG_NOTICE([Using PS2SDK=$PS2SDK])

  if test -x "$PS2SDK/bin/bin2c"; then
    BIN2C="$PS2SDK/bin/bin2c"
  else
    AC_MSG_ERROR([bin2c not found at $PS2SDK/bin/bin2c])
  fi
  AC_MSG_NOTICE([Using BIN2C=$BIN2C])

  dnl Ensure directories exist
  mkdir -p "$srcdir/src/audio/ps2sdk"
  mkdir -p "$srcdir/src/joystick/ps2sdk"
  mkdir -p "$srcdir/src/video/ps2sdk"

  dnl Audio
  "$BIN2C" "$PS2SDK/iop/irx/audsrv.irx" \
         "$srcdir/src/audio/ps2sdk/audsrv_irx.c" \
         "audsrv_irx"
  "$BIN2C" "$PS2SDK/iop/irx/ps2kbd.irx" \
         "$srcdir/src/video/ps2sdk/ps2kbd_irx.c" \
         "ps2kbd_irx"
  "$BIN2C" "$PS2SDK/iop/irx/ps2mouse.irx" \
         "$srcdir/src/video/ps2sdk/ps2mouse_irx.c" \
         "ps2mouse_irx"
  "$BIN2C" "$PS2SDK/iop/irx/usbd.irx" \
         "$srcdir/src/video/ps2sdk/ps2usbd_irx.c" \
         "ps2usbd_irx"

  if test "x$enable_freesd" = "xyes"; then
    "$BIN2C" "$PS2SDK/iop/irx/freesd.irx" \
             "$srcdir/src/audio/ps2sdk/freesd_irx.c" \
             "freesd_irx"
  fi

  dnl Joystick / freesio2
  if test "x$enable_freesio2" = "xyes"; then
    "$BIN2C" "$PS2SDK/iop/irx/freesio2.irx" \
             "$srcdir/src/joystick/ps2sdk/sio2man_irx.c" \
             "sio2man_irx"
    "$BIN2C" "$PS2SDK/iop/irx/freepad.irx" \
             "$srcdir/src/joystick/ps2sdk/padman_irx.c" \
             "padman_irx"
    "$BIN2C" "$PS2SDK/iop/irx/freemtap.irx" \
             "$srcdir/src/joystick/ps2sdk/mtapman_irx.c" \
             "mtapman_irx"
  fi
fi

Instead of adding it to the Makefile.in file It's all done from the configure script. Now people can either use the mips64r5900el-ps2-elf-pkg-config file or use sdl-config to all the libraries like -ldvd -lpatches, -lkbd, -lmouse, -laudsrv, -ldmakit, -lgskit, -lpadx, -lmtap instead of embedding it into SDL library file.

I'll provide the sdl.pc and sdl-config files so you can have a look see.

sdl-config-files.zip