Step 1: Get the SDL3 Library to your system
- Go to the official release site of SDL3: https://github.com/libsdl-org/SDL/releases
- Find the latest SDL3 release (e. g. 3.2.4) and get the files from the “Assets” block.
- Linux: SDL3-3.2.4.zip
- Windows 32 Bit: SDL3-3.2.4-win32-x86.zip
- Windows 64 Bit: SDL3-3.2.4-win32-x64.zip
- Extract the file.
Step 2: Install SDL3
Windows
For Windows it is as easy as copying the SDL3.dll to your system or system32 folder (try it out). Alternatively you can also just copy the SDL3.dll in the same folder as your SDL3 application resides.
Linux
As SDL3 is very new, it has not been entered the package managers of the Linux distributions yet. This means, you need to compile and install it manually.
For a detailed description on how to compile or build and install SDL3 under Linux, please check this out: How to Compile and Install SDL3 in Linux.
Step 3: Get the SDL3 unit for Pascal
- Go to: https://github.com/PascalGameDevelopment/SDL3-for-Pascal
- Find the green button “< > Code” and click on it.
- Click on “Download ZIP” to download the SDL3 unit.
- Extract the files and now they are ready to use.
Step 4: Setup Lazarus Project
If you use the Lazarus IDE for development, do not forget to set the following paths:
In the “Paths” sub-options menu of the “Compiler Options”, you need to set the path in “Other unit files (-Fu)” to the SDL3 units. The setting (“units”) as displayed in the screenshot means that the SDL3 unit files are in a “units” subfolder of your application folder.
For other editors you need to set them accordingly. If you compile from command line, use the compiler flags.
If your SDL3 shared library files are not recognized system wide you may have copied the DLL files to the wrong system folder on Windows. In Linux the way to achieve this is described in the mentioned article.
That’s it, you should be able to run SDL3 applications done in Pascal now. 🙂