Help me choose (libGDX or LWJGL)

Newbie & Debugging Questions
#1

I used to develop flash games in as3, I really liked all the documentation and libraries available, but due to money problems real world called and I had to get a job, currently I’m programming java enterprise applications (boring stuff).

I want to start making some java games (browser stuff most likely) in my free time and I’m torn apart between LWJGL or libGDX, which one do you recommend. LibGDX seems higher level and has android deployment and on the other hand LWJGL is a lot more mature and getting to know how to program games on that library seems more valuable in the long term.

What are your thoughts?

#2

You can’t compare libGDX and LWJGL because they are two different things. LWJGL just provides a simple binding to OpenGL in Java. libGDX is a framework developed around LWJGL for the desktop and also has an Android backend. :wink:

libGDX lets you use OpenGL without worrying about how OpenGL works. If you want to get something done quickly, use libGDX. To learn OpenGL, use LWJGL :slight_smile:

#3

Is there another cool framework or library that I missed similar to libGDX?

#4

In my experience people who do/did Flash usually like to focus on creating content and not delve too deep in technical stuff. If that’s how you see it then pick libGDX since it is a higher level framework than LWJGL which is just a binding to OpenGL.

#5

@Kreender
No libGDX IMHO is the best Java OpenGL framework :slight_smile:

#6

You can learn OpenGL (ES) with libgdx as well. Exposes full GL ES 1.x and 2.0 bindings. With the added benefit that you can use the rest of libgdx to do things like debug output and so on :slight_smile:

#7

Slick2d is pretty popular.

#8

Libgdx just got webGl backend too http://www.badlogicgames.com/wordpress/?p=2308

Libgdx is just best thing after sliced bread.