SDL Benchmark | MegaStorm Systems

SDL Benchmark

Video benchmark for SDL, SDL2, SDL3, HGE and SFML render backends.

SDL Benchmark measures 2D sprite rendering performance across software, Direct3D, OpenGL and Vulkan backends, then exports HTML results and optional Gnuplot charts.

SDL 1.2/2/3
HGE/SFML
Direct3D/OpenGL/Vulkan
HTML results
zlib license

Overview

SDL Benchmark tests the video performance of SDL 1.2, SDL 2.0, SDL 3, HGE and SFML using different render backends: software, Direct3D 9-12, OpenGL and Vulkan.

Results are stored in an HTML report with system details, a table of all measured results and, when Gnuplot is available, a generated graph.

Screenshots

SDL-Benchmark Core i7 2600K and NVIDIA GTX 970

SDL-Benchmark Ryzen 9 5900X and NVIDIA RTX 2070

SDL-Benchmark Ryzen 9 5900X and NVIDIA RTX 2080 Ti

Details

Benchmark Controls

Command-line tool configurable through parameters.
Configurable screen resolution, test duration and sprite count.
Can use an external BMP sprite.
Supports dedicated textures per sprite or a shared texture for fill-rate testing.
Runs 100 and 1000 64×64 sprites by default at 800×600.

Libraries and Backends

SDL 1.2: WinDIB, DirectX software and glSDL in 32-bit mode.
SDL 2.0.4: software, Direct3D 9, Direct3D 11 and OpenGL in 64-bit mode.
SDL 2.26.4: Direct3D 9, Direct3D 11, Direct3D 12 and OpenGL with sprite batching.
SDL 3.1.1: Direct3D 9, Direct3D 11, Direct3D 12, OpenGL and Vulkan with sprite batching.
HGE 1.8.1 with Direct3D 9 and SFML 2.3.2 with OpenGL.