--- title: Why Every C++ Game Developer Should Learn SDL 3 Now -... description: A CppCon 2025 talk by Mike Shah introducing SDL3 (Simple DirectMedia Layer) for C++ game developers. Covers SDL3's cross-platform value proposition, basic... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/why-every-c-game-developer-should-learn-sdl-3-now---mike-shah---cppcon-2025-f5wlhci1b twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Why Every C++ Game Developer Should Learn SDL 3 Now - Mike Shah - CppCon 2025 | daily.dev og:description: A CppCon 2025 talk by Mike Shah introducing SDL3 (Simple DirectMedia Layer) for C++ game developers. Covers SDL3's cross-platform value proposition, basic... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/why-every-c-game-developer-should-learn-sdl-3-now---mike-shah---cppcon-2025-f5wlhci1b og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/F5wLhCi1B.png og:image:alt: Why Every C++ Game Developer Should Learn SDL 3 Now - Mike Shah - CppCon 2025 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Why Every C++ Game Developer Should Learn SDL 3 Now - Mike Shah - CppCon 2025 **[C\+\+](https://daily.dev/sources/isocpp)** · 65 min read · 3 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A CppCon 2025 talk by Mike Shah introducing SDL3 (Simple DirectMedia Layer) for C++ game developers. Covers SDL3's cross-platform value proposition, basic window creation and event handling, 2D rendering with surfaces and textures, hardware-accelerated rendering via the SDL renderer, and the new SDL GPU API that provides a higher-level abstraction over Vulkan, Metal, and Direct3D 12. Includes live demos showing window creation, sprite animation, and GPU-rendered quads. Also touches on shader basics (vertex, fragment, compute), SPIR-V compilation, and the broader question of whether C++ should have a standard graphics library. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Master Low-Level Graphics in C: Build a Software Renderer from Scratch](https://daily.dev/posts/master-low-level-graphics-in-c-build-a-software-renderer-from-scratch-ssvj3mayp) · freeCodeCamp · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 450 - August 9th, 2026](https://daily.dev/posts/graphics-programming-weekly---issue-450---august-9th-2026-ltmd0ytbr) · Jendrik Illner · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#game-development](https://daily.dev/tags/game-development), [#c++](https://daily.dev/tags/c++), [#graphics-programming](https://daily.dev/tags/graphics-programming) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/why-every-c-game-developer-should-learn-sdl-3-now---mike-shah---cppcon-2025-f5wlhci1b) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Why Every C++ Game Developer Should Learn SDL 3 Now - Mike Shah - CppCon 2025","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/why-every-c-game-developer-should-learn-sdl-3-now---mike-shah---cppcon-2025-f5wlhci1b","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/why-every-c-game-developer-should-learn-sdl-3-now---mike-shah---cppcon-2025-f5wlhci1b"},"datePublished":"2026-04-16T09:20:53.767Z","dateModified":"2026-04-16T09:21:16.048Z","description":"A CppCon 2025 talk by Mike Shah introducing SDL3 (Simple DirectMedia Layer) for C++ game developers. 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