I've been wondering about this for a long time.
Why do SDL and ClanLIB games look so much better visually then Allegro games?

Is there like some sort of built-in Anti-aliasing and Alpha blending engine?

PROOF (SDL):
[url http://www.podvlivem.net/glx/?lang=eng]
[url http://www.2dgame-tutorial.com/sdl/asteroids/asteroids.htm]
[url http://www.pompom.org.uk/mutantstorm.htm]
[url http://onsight.sourceforge.net/screenshots.html]

PROOF (ClanLIB):
[url http://clanlib.org/~sphair/gfx/doctorc++.jpg]
[url http://clanlib.org/~sphair/gfx/feuerkraft.jpg]
[url http://clanlib.org/~sphair/gfx/overload.jpg]

Seriously, these screenies look better then most of the games on our depot.

How can I get results like (or better than) this with Allegro?

EDIT: And please dont let this generate into a flame war. I REALLY WANT TO KNOW.

The answer is: You can. You just need good artists. Good graphics is not a feature of a particular library; with AllegroGL and some skilled artists, you can have this and much better.

The way I figure it is:

There are more people using SDL. Therefor, there is a higher chance of someone putting real work into a game. There are quite a few (read: tons) of crappy SDL games. It's just that there are more, so it seems like it's better.

Just like the playstation 2. It has more developers, so it has a higher chance of actually producing a few good games every year than the xbox/gamecube.

[edit]

Also, anyone remember the Head Over Heels game done with Allegro? That was of professional quality (since it was done by professionals). Which proves that Allegro can be used to make high-quality games.

The gfx quality of a game does not depend on the game library used, but on the skills of the gfx artists who worked on the game, period.
As for Allegro games having great gfx, have a look also at the following depot entries:

AllegroGL is your friend.

I'd say the main reason is that those people actually code, instead of picking their noses and posting in off-topic ordeals.
Another reason might be that they are trying to code for todays hardware

Hey wait a minute. ClanLIB has a much smaller user base than Allegro. Yet, many of the games made with the library still look much better.

Could it just be just much EASIER to implement these flashy graphics in ClanLIB?

Has anyone here actually used ClanLIB? If so, what did you think of it? Is it easier to implement more modern/complex graphical items?

And no for something completely different: Ellelator go up, ellelator go down. My ellelator! I push teh button!

Looks like a POV-Ray job, or some other form of pre-render technology.

Note that it is not offered for free. Clearly, someone(s) with skill who thinks that their skill is worth something made it.

Crap. Pure and simple.

Oh look, someone clearly knows how to use POV-Ray. You, too, can create such wonderful graphics if you knew how to use POV-Ray.

This is a steaming pile of crap. It may have some "spify" (read: more than some indy-games try, but crappy by any real standards) effects going on, but nothing can erase the total craptasticness of the texture work. Programmer art + "effects".

Persistence-of-Vision, once again in action. Only this time they used a matte painting they lifted from somewhere for the ground.

Some of those games require them. Or a modestly fast CPU with good memory bandwidth.

As for the Allegro community's games... come on. We have debates regularly about whether or not to stray above 320x240, let alone into modern resolutions like 800x600. We have serious debates on whether or not an 8-bit palatte is a good idea. Both of these are an ananthema to modern graphics. Most of the Allegro community is only interested in replicating something SNES-level in terms of visuals. Also, the Allegro community is not very tied into artists. As such, most Allegro games use programmer art. Some of it is good programmer art, but most isn't.

Of course, SDL (and probably ClanLib) is highly integrated with OpenGL, which opens all kinds of doors in terms of high-performance features. And since Allegro 5 development is quite dead these days, AllegroGL is all we're likely to have in terms of OpenGL. While it is nice, it provides an additional barrier (an additional download and API) between the user and what he/she wants that doesn't need to be there.

Pwucky go down the hooole!

At lest I gawt teh wobber!

Ok, the collection of responses are now satisfactory.

What is a trolling?

Too many people may think that Allegro is a newbie library, and can't even be used to make "real" games... That's a shame. Also, Allegro's alpha blender should be optimized enough to be even slightly useful - now, it's plainly too slow to be used.

That's for Allegro 5.0, IIRC.