I think you've misunderstood SDL a bit. It's just a very low-level framework to get access to the canvas, events, inputs, sound etc., on multiple platforms. The

I think you've misunderstood SDL a bit. It's just a very low-level framework to get access to the canvas, events, inputs, sound etc., on multiple platforms. The hardware acceleration is for simple blits and texture painting which is fine for most 2d games. If you want anything more than the very basics, there's always Godot or Unity.