I tried to get info from the video system with the SDL_GetVideoInfo , and the only field that gives an acceptable value is the one concerning the windows manager (it finds one).But every other field in the SDL_ViedoInfo is zero. This is the code I use:

#include <iostream.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <SDL/SDL.h>

int main()
{
const SDL_VideoInfo *informacion;

if (SDL_Init(SDL_INIT_VIDEO) != 0) {
printf("Unable to initialize SDL: %s\n", SDL_GetError());
return 1;
}
atexit(SDL_Quit);

informacion = SDL_GetVideoInfo();

cout << "hw_available : " << informacion->hw_available << endl;
cout << "wm_available : " << informacion->wm_available << endl;
cout << "blit_hw : " << informacion->blit_hw << endl;
cout << "blit_hw_CC : " << informacion->blit_hw_CC << endl;
cout << "blit_hw_A : " << informacion->blit_hw_A << endl;
cout << "blit_sw : " << informacion->blit_sw << endl;
cout << "blit_sw_CC : " << informacion->blit_sw_CC << endl;
cout << "blit_sw_A : " << informacion->blit_sw_A << endl;
cout << "blit_fill : " << informacion->blit_fill << endl;
cout << "video_mem : " << informacion->video_mem << endl;

return 0;
}

I have an NVidia card, using KDE 3.2 in Slackware 10.0

If Hardware is not available, then the rest of the hw, sw checks are a waste. ( how do you measure the video mem when theirs no hardware support? ).

I would of through that the software value would of returned something though. Hmm. how about

const SDL_VideoInfo *infomacion = SDL_GetVideoInfo();

Instead of declaring it at the beginning, declare where you initialize ( which is normal C++ practice anyway ).

Also try

cout << "Bits per pixel : " informacion->vfmt->BitsPerPixel << endl;

at the end of the list.

thanks leonscape. I know I should initialize the SDL_Video pointer at the beginning. The code I posted is one of the many trials I wrote.

So it seems that there is no need to initialize the SDL video subsystem before asking the video information with SDL_GetVideoInfo.

Which driver are you using? SVGA, VESA, the NVidia driver? There is
certainly no hw acceleration with SVGA and probably not with the
VESA driver, so 0 in these fields would be a reasonable value.

I'm using the NVidia driver. All the applications that use graphics run fine, also opengl is working perfectly.

So I asume that the hardware is capable of accelerating graphic operation, but I'm not able to check this.
The Video Card is GeForce2 with 32mb (Teppro)
I think maybe the NVidia driver is not giving the right information.

SDL will always report No hardware accelaration except for certain drivers it's tuned for ( DGA ).

OpenGL will be accelerated ( with the NVidia drivers ) despite what SDL reports, as what SDL is reporting on is its ability to accelarate 2D graphics ( blitting and stuff ). The HW Acceleration for 3D is handled by OpenGL and has very littile to do with SDL directly.

I think thats accurate, its what I've been lead to believe when using SDL.