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- latrosicarius, on 01/07/2009, -5/+67openGL ftw
- wigren, on 01/07/2009, -10/+65I came here expecting a nice discussion on Linux/Max OS X gaming, but what do I get? A could of whiners complaining about MrBabyMan. Bury it if you hate him so. But please, STFU.
- InorganicMatter, on 01/07/2009, -3/+37If developers would just write their games in pure C/C++, OpenGL, OpenAL, and OpenCL, they would work perfectly on all three platforms. Instead, they continue to use DirectX, and platform-exclusive audio/physics engines. Why?!?!
- Krissam, on 01/07/2009, -1/+28He actually does make a good point, even if your game aren't the best in it's genre, you might get a lot more sales just because your app runs on a platform where the competitor's doesn't.
I mean, if i game A, the best game ever is only released for windows, it will attract mostly only windows users.
But game B is released across all 3 platforms, and some linux guy (like myself) might show it to my windows using friends, and they might think it's cool and get it, so even if they were able to run game A they may never have heard of it. - radu79, on 01/07/2009, -0/+25I am an indie developer, having a small MMO (but still have about 5K players that play every day). Our client is open source, and it runs on Windows, Linux, and OSX (also runs on FreeBSD and it can run on pretty much anything that has OpenGL support).
We are doing pretty well, and a lot of the players come from Linux and OSX. But there are some issues too, for example we are due for a client update, but we have some issues with the Linux 32b binary (it's a PITA to release a binary that works on all the Linux distros). - radu79, on 01/07/2009, -1/+18One reason is that OpenGL is not always updated as fast as DX. ARB should move their ass and assure a better compatibility across vendors.
- inactive, on 01/07/2009, -0/+16yeah and maybe when ATi can release a decent Catalyst without missing and broken OpenGL extensions for once in 10 years I agree. Seriously ATi figures if they can run Doom 3 with minimal conflict their OpenGL is top notch!
- radu79, on 01/07/2009, -0/+12No, that's more of a MMO engine sort of thing.
Our MMO is Eternal Lands http://www.eternal-lands.com - snowballrx7, on 01/07/2009, -6/+17If i could get the same frame rate in games like crysis, TF2, unreal and so on in OSX or Linux I would make the change in a heartbeat
- Ellipsys, on 01/07/2009, -0/+11I commend you for taking the road less traveled. I'll be checking out your game, certainly.
- FredFredrickson, on 01/07/2009, -1/+11The bottom line is that in Windows, it's easy and cheap to develop games, and you'll have the broadest audience. That's not to say that you won't have success on other platforms, or that the other platforms are bad, but it only makes sense for someone with a small budget to want to maximize returns by playing to the largest audience on the smallest amount of coin.
- latrosicarius, on 01/07/2009, -2/+11thats what MS is afraid of. that's why they will never release the Direct3D API source.
if it ever got leaked, the Wine team would snatch that up so fast, windows would pretty much be obsolete. - roxgod666, on 01/07/2009, -0/+8Wouldn't you have to buy a Mac Pro or MBP to game on a mac since their other computers are too weak to handle top games? And the Mac Pro currently attracts video editors, graphic and web designers. And if you were to buy a Mac Pro for gaming, you would be making a HUGE mistake already because you could get the same specs for more than 3x cheaper and the starting graphics card on the Mac Pro is pretty ***** too.
- vtnerd, on 01/07/2009, -2/+10I'd happily switch to Linux if I could get the same performance as I do on Windows. But unless I can install OS X on custom-built hardware in a legal, supported by Apple, way then it doesn't matter how many games OS X runs because I will never buy it.
- PB3K, on 01/07/2009, -3/+11When ID started using DX I knew it was the end of the road for OpenGL. DX works for PC's and the 360, so it only makes sense to code a game that works for that platform since most of the money to be made would be on the console side. PC game devs are already bleeding enough, and trying to deal with at least 2 different code bases for the same game would be horrible. Also, Apple offering last gen graphics cards as the latest and greatest for their platform isn't helping their cause.
- inc595, on 01/08/2009, -0/+7Ahh, looks good. I'll let my friend know about yours. Maybe he can contribute to your project as well.
- vuke69, on 01/08/2009, -0/+7"if it ever got leaked, the Wine team would snatch that up so fast..."
The wine team wouldn't even touch that source with a 10 foot cattle prod.
It would essentially make them legally tainted for life as far as any projects even remotely having to do with 3D graphics. - TrancePhreak, on 01/07/2009, -0/+7Just because the same libraries are similar on different OS's doesn't mean they will all behave the same. You still need to test and debug on all those systems and that takes time. Expecially when the competing tools are much easier on developers.
- PB3K, on 01/07/2009, -1/+8Last time I tried an OpenGL game on Linux was right after UT2K4 came out. It was blazing fast on my machine in Windows with all settings cranked. Installed in Linux, got the latest sound and vid drivers, tried it, and not only was it slow but it also looked far worse. Shadows were missing, textures looked like there was no AF applied, really just horrible in general. Rebooted back into Windows, haven't gone back since, and still see no reason to based on what I've heard from people about OpenGL performance in current games. I will not use an emulator to play a game in Linux.
- FredFredrickson, on 01/07/2009, -1/+8Because it's easier that way.
- caudron, on 01/07/2009, -0/+7"they continue to use DirectX, and platform-exclusive audio/physics engines. Why?!?!"
Is that a trick question? They do it because it's faster (and therefore substantially cheaper) and it targets the platform that 90% of their customers are on.
I've been on Linux solely since 2000, and even I can't blame them for making that sort of decision. I do, however, "punish" them by withhold my patronage and telling them why, but until others do the same it won't matter. - tsfn46290, on 01/08/2009, -0/+6Just about everything you said in this statement is completely untrue. I work for a professional game company doing work for the 360, PS3, Wii and the DS. All three of these platforms REQUIRE you to use C++ for professional development.
Our game code will work across the three major platforms with separate source files for the platform specific engine stuff. No one out there doing real 360 development outside of the xna community is using C#. - ModernTenshi, on 01/07/2009, -0/+6Does this article take into account copies of Laguru that were given away as a part of the Mac Giving Tree? If not, then the Mac sales numbers could be slightly misleading.
- crypticcipher, on 01/07/2009, -1/+7You can. The problem lies not with the APIs, but with market share. There was a significant attempt to create Linux ports of major titles between 02 and 04, but there were no consumers. It may be a different story today, but the developers doing the Linux work just got tired and quit because there was no demand.
I have been writing rendering pipelines on Linux, Ubuntu, and there is absolutely no problem with framerate. HW acceleration is accessible on Linux and so the end product should have virtually indistinguishable performance. There just hasn't been a market for Linux games until distros like Ubuntu became popular. The underlying question to developers has been, why invest years of development on a platform that no one will ever use? - sirbeta, on 01/07/2009, -0/+6Bootcamp? That's not a valid solution. You're running windows at that point, what would targeting Mac have anything to do with that?
- stoanhart, on 01/08/2009, -0/+6@Mudrats
But, many game developers are developing for consoles first, and PC second. If they are developing for consoles, they will need to support PlayStation. That means they will need to use OpenGL. So, they could use the open platform and write the code once and sell it on every gaming device that exists.
I think in the end they would save a lot of time, with a brief learning curve at the beginning. - Murdats, on 01/07/2009, -10/+15Why? because it makes their job a LOT easier.
games cost a LOT of time and money so tools like c# and directx save them lots of time and money, your way games would go from 1-5 years in dev to 2-10 years for the sake of a small fraction more of potential users. users who don't yet care about gaming as they are on a platform that doesn't support it. - rishubhav, on 01/07/2009, -3/+8"A nice discussion"? You must be new here.
- kokuei, on 01/07/2009, -0/+5Because he makes more money than you do?
- zosoleary, on 01/07/2009, -2/+7that is very very true. just the word of mouth from the avid linux/mac users will increase sales exponentially
- wigren, on 01/07/2009, -4/+9I'll promise to never mention MrBabyMan ever again if you will.
- LocalDocal, on 01/07/2009, -2/+7FTA: "As for arrogance, Jeff brings up a familiar story that Mac gamers might recall. "There is the famous case of Half-Life 2. Valve wanted a $1 million dollar advance on the Mac OS X version. No Mac developer has this kind of cash to front, and Apple decided not to foot the bill either, perhaps on principle of the unusual request. There is no technical reason that Mac users can't have Half-Life 2—it's simply messed up business development." "
I hate to break it to Jeff, but Valve wanting one million upgront for HL2 is hardly arrogance. As I recall it, HL2 was one of the most anticipated PC titles of all time, possibly even moreso than Doom 3 (and there was a frenzy over that game). There was a lot riding on that title and it was pretty much guaranteed to sell well and to generate an immense amount of press/hype off of its name alone. When your game has the ability to bring in that kind of attention, I would say asking for one million dollar in advance may be more of taking advantage of brand name rather than arrogance.
Anyway, concerning the rest of the article, I do agree with him to an extent. Now that the OS X market has reached roughly 8-10%, it is now very viable to create games for OS X. Even if a mere 5-10% of OS X users purchases games, that should be enough to cover the expense of porting and still make decent profit. As for Linux, eh, I'm not sure. I know by now that Linux's marketshare is only 1% and, worse, I have no idea how much of that is gamers as opposed to Linux being used for servers/non-gaming work. It would be nice if developers port their games to the Linux platform, but I suppose I can understand if they won't. - fiddler616, on 01/08/2009, -1/+5The thing about Linux, market share and games is that there are a LOT of gamers who would like to use Linux because they're technically informed enough to know its superiority, but they need to play their games, which aren't available on Linux. Further reading:
http://blog.andrewmin.com/2008/12/28/why-games-are ... - kokuei, on 01/08/2009, -0/+4Yeah that and 1.3 of SDL is supposedly going dual licensing for commercially released games. It's weird just how much you have to pay attention to these licenses when you're actually building the software and not just clicking OK, eh?
- thePTS, on 01/07/2009, -1/+5Agreed^2
- cenarta, on 01/08/2009, -1/+5My wildest dream and hope is that the entire executive team at Blizzard reads this article and decides to release Starcraft 2 with a native Linux build.
<crosses fingers>
<says a few hail mary's>
<rubs everything shiny within reach> - roxgod666, on 01/07/2009, -3/+7Can you block me too? I would block you but i'm afraid of going into your channel to find out what other incredibly retarded comments you made.
- crypticcipher, on 01/08/2009, -0/+4I use SDL too. Kudos.
Be careful on distribution as there may be some deeply hidden licensing issue there as indicated in an earlier article today dealing with SGI and open licensing. - SniperZero, on 01/08/2009, -0/+4Cry more buddy?
Well basically its this way... If i was only using windows I would have pirated it anyway. But if it was on linux I would buy it. I have bought games before that work on linux natively.
Its fine move onto the next windows project I'll just pirate that too :) - inc595, on 01/07/2009, -1/+5That wouldn't happen to be worldforge.org would it? A buddy at work is into that.
- TrancePhreak, on 01/08/2009, -1/+5latrosicarius: So you're saying that instead of using a library that's already been well developed, supported, and tested, devs should redo all the work? This is part of the reason most PC gamedevs stick with DX.
- MacParrot, on 01/08/2009, -0/+4How would you suggest gaming improve on either OS X or Linux if the major players don't release native titles? It isn't a question of the hardware as Linux runs on anything that Windows runs on and Mac hardware is certainly up to the task for most games as well (though certainly not for the change your graphics card every 6 months crowd).
You can't improve a software situation unless the software is released natively - kokuei, on 01/07/2009, -0/+4Is DirectX easier to code for? That could be a major reason. I haven't used it though, I'm developing stuff using SDL so it already handles all the crap for each platform, I just have to recompile on that platform and link one or two extra llibs, not changing my actual game code and it works.
- mrBitch, on 01/08/2009, -0/+4And the end result is the same.
When you can play the games you want to play NATIVELY running under OSX and Linux, that is the day you will see a huge exodus away from Windows (at least from the gamer market). - vuke69, on 01/08/2009, -0/+3@radu79
http://www.eternal-lands.com/page/screenshots.php
From looking at the screen shots, graphics have an EQ1-ish feel, but quite a bit improved (more complex models, reflections/lighting effects, textures not quite so nauseatingly repetitive, etc.)
I'll have to check it out. - Murdats, on 01/08/2009, -1/+4are you trying to see if you can break the record for the most number of wrong things said in the least amount of space?
1.they follow the market, why go after a platform that has a 2% share especially when that platform is full of people who are willing to go without games.
2.it is higher level, it means you can get more done in the same amount of time, I am assuming your time is worthless because you can't see the advantage of this
-false
-so your telling me GoW, PoP, CoD4, HL2 and world of goo all look the same? it might be an idea to get your vision checked, and last time I checked reality generally looks the same everywhere so those going for lifelike are of course going to look similar no matter the API used
-false
-not many besides EA are guilty of dropping support in a year, maybe 5 years but thats because once again some peoples time is valuable and why dedicate people towards maintaining and improving something with a dwindling user base.
you are fooling yourself, why spend a lot of money on developing something that already exists? why not use the one that not only exists but has been dedicatedly improved for 10 years and not whipped up by your guys in say a year max with not as much real world testing or industry suggested improvements? - evilgourmet, on 01/08/2009, -0/+3You see, if these games were able to play nativelt, you would have higher fps. According to other games that were crossplatform, like quake3.
- FlairSomewhere, on 01/08/2009, -0/+3Long Live Lugaru!
- CorpseJuicer, on 01/08/2009, -0/+3"As for Linux, eh, I'm not sure. I know by now that Linux's marketshare is only 1% and, worse, I have no idea how much of that is gamers as opposed to Linux being used for servers/non-gaming work. It would be nice if developers port their games to the Linux platform, but I suppose I can understand if they won't."
Well I am a gamer, and I do use Linux pretty much full time now. Although I don't get to play the "latest and greatest" the games I actually do care for work on Linux and work on it quite well. These games being primarily, Starcraft, D2 and other ancient games that I still find fun.
Wine is an excellent app but it's not perfect. Yes some of the newer games do have issues with some graphics and may look crappier.
Luckily though, I play games to have fun and can live with the defects I may encounter. I am not really impressed with games too much anymore anyway since they strive to look extremely realistic and fail on other parts like game play or storyline. -
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