OpenGL and OpenAL?

Hi all

I wanted to know something regarding game programming. I'm planning to write a 2d game . i have good proficiency in c++ and It's the same language I am going to use for development and I'll be writing the most of the code in it.

I've researched into it . I've come across OpenGL but many of the resources on Internet say that it doesn't have sound support in it . I've also read about OpenAL.

Here are few questions for which I want a straight answer .

1. Can I use open AL with openGl for sound effects?

2 What kind of tools I'll be needing ?

3 Is there any other alternative which is better than OpenGL ?

Currently I'll be developing for Xp but later on I want to use it on other desktop and wireless platforms. is this possible?

Hey,

I may be completely wrong but from my understanding of it all:

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1. Can I use open AL with openGl for sound effects?

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OpenGL is a graphics library, OpenAL is a sound library. As they both do different stuff you should be able to use them both together. www.gamedev.net may be worth checking out for examples of how to use both, i remember nehe.gamedev.net also had LOTS of tutorials for OGL.

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2 What kind of tools I'll be needing ?

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You dont need any tools, depends on what you are wanting to do, to get OpenGL rendering stuff and OpenAL outputting sounds you dont need anything but the libraries supplied with them.

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3 Is there any other alternative which is better than OpenGL ?

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Im sure this answer varies per person, i personally think that OpenGL 1.2 was the point where DirectX took the upper hand. Most people these days use either DirectX (contains graphics, sound, networking... well used to), although with DX you are limited to windows development.
There are lots of other cross platform rendering libraries out there, im not sure if OGRE is still going (although im not sure if that was just a layer on top of OGL). There is also XNA which lets you develop in C# for Windows/Xbox/Zune devices, although its basically a wrapper/layer ontop of DX.

Hope that helps a bit...