Ryan C. Gordon Ports ioquake3 From SDL2 to SDL3 in 90 Minutes!

One of the foundational parts of ioquake3 is the Simple Directmedia Layer (SDL). This open-source library makes developing any game easier, but it is especially useful for cross-platform games that want to escape the effects of getting locked in by other libraries like DirectX which are only available on Microsoft’s platforms. SDL is so useful, it’s in many of your favorite games, Steam, and millions of hardware devices.

ioquake3 has been using SDL 2, and porting ioquake3 to a major new version of SDL might seem like a huge task. SDL 3 adds dozens of new features and improvements and more are on the way. But in this video Gordon ported ioquake3 from SDL 2 to 3 in just 90 minutes!

Thanks to Ryan and the entire SDL community of developers. Please check out the video that he put together demonstrating how fast it can be to port a game from SDL 2 to 3, and then consider becoming a patron for Ryan through Patreon or through GitHub.

You can see the final patch from the video here, and check out the ioquake3 source code here. SDL’s source code is available at this link.