SDL_CreateGPURenderer(3)

💖 SDL_CreateGPURenderer 💖

okay bestie, welcome to the SDL3 FUNCTIONS corner of the manual — this one's SDL_CreateGPURenderer(3) and it's literally the glow-up moment where your 2D rendering gets a whole GPU era. 👑

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✨ NAME ✨

SDL_CreateGPURenderer — spin up a 2D GPU rendering context, no cap. 🎀

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

#include <SDL3/SDL_render.h>

SDL_Renderer * SDL_CreateGPURenderer(SDL_GPUDevice *device, SDL_Window *window);

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

so here's the tea, fr fr: the GPU device you wanna use gets passed in as a parameter. If that's NULL, then a device just gets created normally for you, and you can go grab it later with SDL_GetGPURendererDevice(). cute, right? 💅

the window you wanna use also gets passed in as a parameter. If that one's NULL, then this becomes an offscreen renderer ✨. in that case you should call SDL_SetRenderTarget() to set up rendering to a texture, and then call SDL_RenderPresent() like normal to wrap up drawing a frame. that's the whole ritual, periodt. 🫶

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🎀 FUNCTION PARAMETERS 🎀

• device — the GPU device you wanna use with the renderer, or NULL if you want a device created for you. 💜
• window — the window where the rendering shows up, or NULL if you want an offscreen renderer instead. 🪟

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💀 RETURN VALUE 💀

you get back a valid rendering context — slay — or NULL if something went wrong 😭. in that case, call SDL_GetError() for the deets on what actually happened.

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🧚 THREAD SAFETY 🧚

listen, this part matters so don't skip it:

• If you call this with a valid GPU device, it should be called on the thread that created the device.
• If you call this with a valid window, it should be called on the thread that created the window.

do not be out here calling it from a random thread, bestie, it's giving chaos energy and we don't want that. 🙈

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⭐ AVAILABILITY ⭐

this function has been available since SDL 3.4.0. lowkey a newer icon. 👑

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🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

• SDL_CreateRendererWithProperties(3)
• SDL_GetGPURendererDevice(3)
• SDL_CreateGPUShader(3)
• SDL_CreateGPURenderState(3)
• SDL_SetGPURenderState(3)

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okay that's the whole page, go make something iconic with it. 💖

Simple Directmedia Layer 🦋 SDL 3.4.18 🎀 SDL_CreateGPURenderer(3) — mwah, tysm for reading, ily, go render something gorgeous. ✨💅🌸