OpenGL! OpenGL! Woooooooo
I'm waiting to withhold judgement on Windows 8 until Microsoft ships an actual product (since the previews are not the final, polished deal, although they seem to be close), but... I don't think it's going to go over well on the desktop with gamers, so either you have to sit on Windows 7 and wait for Microsoft to reverse course (or at least accomodate "traditional" desktop use and be able to ignore the Metro interface) with Windows 9... or hop OSes.
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Soothsayers are predicting that every odd (was it odd?) realese of Microsoft tends to fail big time. Take vista for example.
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Vista was actually usable after a service pack or two. Windows 8 looks like a gorgeous tablet OS, but... they're making it the whole OS. Mind you, Microsoft has 2 billion plus customers to think of, not just, say, gamers. And Vista was a failure because Bill Gates wasted about a year and a half demanding that it all be written in .NET, even though that's a completely inappropriate thing to do and the programmers knew it. It took that long to convince upper management on the Longhorn project to drop .NET and build Vista in a more conventional way.
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Win8 being Tablet-y is what makes me wary of it. And company IS moving towards tablet direction more and more. From what we can believe from public declarations that tablets are the future and so on.
Thanks for pointing out that from Vista. I kind of missed the whole Vista; I didn't have rig when that happened. Apart from usual disgust what I heard of Vista's general failures: jams, glitches and bluescreens. Fail must have been a wrong choice of word on my earlier post. I meant fail in that sense, that Vista didn't live up to it's expectations during the launch and after that.
Any microsoft product can't be fail because, like you pointed out, they have solid customer base. To exaggerate: people would buy new windows even if it would be nothing more than mud-brick with two buttons on it.
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If someone handed me a Windows 8 tablet (assuming it wasn't a total hunk of junk, of course), I'd probably be quite capable of enjoying using it on a regular basis (I don't have a tablet and kind of want one, but it's hardly a priority, it's a toy). But I've no intentions of migrating from Windows 7 on my desktop, unless it's to full-bore Linux (instead of the dualboot I've got now).
Vista also had other problems, like manufacturers making computers that could only run Vista in the technical sense of "it can boot to the login screen if you give it long enough" and Microsoft either neglectfully or intentionally labeling them as "Made for Windows Vista". But what did not help one bit was the Windows team having to basically throw a year and a half of work out and start all over. Another huge problem was, Vista's driver model was totally different from XP's, and there was a sometimes very long lag time between Vista's launch and manufacturers releasing updated drivers...if they did at all. Some hardware was never updated past XP because, for whatever reason, the OEM decided to not bother.
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On the driver bit... and that assumes the drivers they released for it weren't buggy as hell. A bunch of the video drivers were, and that naturally both killed game performance (thus leading to "Vista is bad for gaming") and made the whole OS that much crashier until they got their act together. :/
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I'd count that as "not bothering to release updated drivers", because clearly those were coded up by three interns and a box of ostrich shit. But, yeah, you're exactly right.
There was also a very weird bug early in Vista's release where playing sound would severely limit the data throughput of your Ethernet card(!). Working in an office where you routinely throw 30GB or so across the network on gigabit lines? I hope you're not enjoying any music, trololololololol.
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The EU has been up Microsofts ass for years over the most stupid shit. They've gone after Microsoft for ONLY including Internet Explorer, THEIR browser, in Windows, THEIR product... yet not one peep about Apple ONLY including THEIR Safari on THEIR operating system.
Not to mention the joke of the German courts blocking the sale of the Samsung Galaxy Tab based on modified images provided by Apple. Thankfully the injunction has been lifted... everywhere but Germany that is.
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If more games had native Linux support and there was Steam for Linux, I would be using Linux now.
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Yeah, well about Steam for Linux... ← Note that that's Valve's Linux Team and their official company blog. Steam for Linux is officially happening.
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I'm aware of that. I'll probably switch to Linux when it's released. Hopefully it also encourages more devs to natively support Linux.
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I'm sorry, I have trouble taking anyone who writes Microsoft with a $ serious.
I'm all for open sourced software, but this whole HURR COMPANIES ARE EVIL BECAUSE THEY MAKE MONEY thing is extremely juvenile.
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More like the monopolised situation where Microsoft is.
"HURR COMPANIES ARE EVIL BECAUSE THEY MAKE MONEY" Good that this isn't juvenile, right?
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Did you know, being a monopoly is not illegal in the US? Its true! The only thing that can get you in trouble is if you use your monopoly to try to keep other competitors from entering the market space. Rather a catch-22 though, as by the time you are a monopoly you have probably acquired/bankrupted all of your competitors anyways.
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Oh, I see.
Situation is somewhat different in europe. Only goverments can run monopolies. Heh!
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Anyone older than a teenage remember the "delicious" issues you had at DOS age due to lack of unified drivers and hardware wars.
So, no, no, no. Just no.
Linux is fine on servers, Linux "gaming" should just die and the effort should just be spent on polishing games on real platforms, TYVM.
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I agree with your first statement, disagree with your last.
As a 100% Windows user who has become disenfranchised over my many attempts at using Linux, I am hopeful for and support gaming on Linux. I think that gaming could be the 'great uniter' that helps bring consistency to Linux -- at least in the "how applications work/run" department -- and could help to make Linux usable for the average person.
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I've only just recently come back to Windows (friend got me Win7 as a wedding present to entice me back) for more gaming than I could do through Wine. The first thing I noticed was the bullshit I had to go through with drivers. In 8 years of running just GNU/Linux on my desktop, of having everything pretty much Just Work out of the box I came back to the maelstrom of driver related crap that I remember when I was running 98/Early XP. What? I have to download drivers for my soundcard? And my printer? And my LAN card? Fuck. That. Shit. Oh and I'm pretty sure the only reason I haven't killed anyone is that Steam seems to take care of Direct X for me.
I've played a number of great games natively on GNU/Linux, ET:QW, Quake 4, original Serious Sam, Q3: Team Arena, And Yet It Moves. If more games were supported I'd go back in a flash.
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I've only just recently come back to Windows (friend got me Win7 as a wedding present to entice me back) for more gaming than I could do through Wine. The first thing I noticed was the bullshit I had to go through with drivers
WTF kind of obscure as shit hardware are you using?
In 8 years of running just GNU/Linux on my desktop, of having everything pretty much Just Work out of the box
BULL. SHIT.
In my experience, linux is garbage when it comes to drivers and frequently you have to track down drivers for similar hardware and force the OS to use them and hope they work well enough.
Most linux distros won't detect my KEYBOARD AND MOUSE (Logitech MX5000 bluetooth), and when it does, it counts them AS ONE UNIT so I can either use the keyboard OR mouse.
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Ubuntu works just out of the box, no extra drivers after getting the restricted-extras needed.
Ubuntu works just out of the box, once you manually add the extra repository to get all the extra stuff that you need.
Fixed it for you.
Also, you still need drivers... it's just that Linux includes SOME of them in what they call a "repository". I can run everything on my computer without manually downloading/installing drivers by letting Windows Update run. Same thing, different name.
The difference is, while Windows Update can find and install the proper drivers to get my bluetooth keyboard/mouse working, every distro I've tried (Fedora, K/Ubuntu, Mint, OpenSUSE, and Debian) as late as Dec 2011 has failed to get my keyboard/mouse functioning properly -- for the most part they see the dongle as one physical device and I can choose to use the mouse -OR- keyboard, but not both (or the bluetooth headphones I had).
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Well, I would like to see more movement from exclusive based softwares (direct3D11) towards open - OpenGL, like elix pointed out on first post.
And IT IS monopoly. If you use the term like it is generally used: (A monopoly (from Greek monos μόνος (alone or single) + polein πωλεῖν (to sell)) exists when a specific person or enterprise is the only supplier of a particular commodity (this contrasts with a monopsony which relates to a single entity's control of a market to purchase a good or service, and with oligopoly which consists of a few entities dominating an industry))[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly]
Wouldn't it be better, by all means, to sell 100% of users instead of 90%? Truth is that Microsoft showers some money whenever windows exclusive softwares are used and that tends to take market out from opensource based. Atleast when I look into this situation from my limited point of view?
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Firstly, Microsoft were found by a court of law to be a monopoly, and one that was abusing its monopoly status illegally.
Secondly, that's asking the wrong question, so I'd have to say that you don't understand business. Would you rather sell your game to 90% of users or 100% of users? That is the question. You don't decide to release a game just for Windows or just for Mac or just for Linux; you have to decide whether you can recoup investment X (cost to add Linux/Mac) support by selling to the 10% of computer users out there who don't use Windows.
While it's fun to throw around tiny percentages it's pretty meaningless if you don't think about what those percentages represent. I.e. if 75% of Americans own a computer that's around 236 million; if, say, 1.5% of those are Linux users, that's 3.5 million. As a market with a very limited choice of native games, that's not to be sniffed at, hell, even if it's only 1.5 million (and this is just the US remember).
Oh and if you look at the Pay What You Want bundles that break-down money paid vs. Operating System, you see that Linux users are prepared to pay more. The same thing happened with World of Goo when it was pay what you want. So you can't say there's no market for Linux gaming.
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How do you figure they decide how well it will sell on various OS? Pick numbers out of a hat or perhaps they look at the usage numbers for said OS which is pretty damn close to what I said. 6 months of development for Windows for 90% of the user base vs 6 months of development for the other 10%. I never said there was no market, it's just not realistic to spend the same amount of time and money on such a smaller user base.
You can't just magically make it work on any OS, the concept and layout is there, but you're still a long way from a release. Even companies that offer more simple iOS to Android or vice versa ports are laughable and full of memory leaks.
If you want to debate that Linux users pay more, let's consider a few things. Linux is typically free and an opensource OS. Most opensource developers/users embrace the user of donations as it's hard to charge for something when you're giving the source out too. It's also possible that quite a few Linux users also embraced their mobile offspring Android and are used to micropayments for any application or game. It could even be the fact that they're just so grateful they finally got included that they were willing to spend the extra to show their gratitude.
Truth be told, if you're complaining about lack of games on Mac or Linux, you haven't learned about dual booting yet.
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It's awesome that this thread, created with my broken english, seems to be bearing somekind of fruit.
Truth be told, if you're complaining about lack of games on Mac or Linux, you haven't learned about dual booting yet.
What dual booting has to do with Linux? In a sense, that you're still running most of games through windows rather than Linux/Mac.
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I would assume most people that have used Linux/iOS for a while, should have accepted the fact that the selection of games isn't comparable and explored other options in order to play. The best option isn't whine and complain on a forum, it's dual booting.
The point I was trying to make was, if you're just realizing there are no games, you're preaching to the choir. We've known this for years and to blame it on Microsoft is laughable.
There are other cases where you're forced to use a certain OS. You want to sign an iOS application to send it AppStore? Guess what, you have to use Mac.
OMG MONOPOLY!
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DirectX is a proprietary, closed-source Microsoft API set. Short of cleanly reimplementing the entire DirectX (9+, maybe) library collection, nobody can use it except under Microsoft's terms.
OpenGL, by comparison, is an open standard, and you can port it to whatever you want (I bet Microsoft would sue if someone tried to get DirectX working on Android to emulate Windows games a la DOSBox/ScummVM).
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Elix, thank you for this clarification. For me, it's difficult, not impossible, to express myself when this kind of techinacal jargon is in question.
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Don't you see the negative impact of multiplatform development everywhere around? (almost ancient PS3/Xbox hardware causes new titles look like sh*t even on up-to-date PCs)
The development for multiple OS has similar impact (for one OS you can optimize better than for many OS). And I better don't even mention the quality of tools for multiplatform development.
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Yes, most definitely. That's why it would be even more important to emphasize open source. I know, that is not going to happen. Sony and fellows will keep throwing money for companies to make xbox360/ps3 exclusive games, and people fall for that. Well, some people, but not pc master gaming race. Hah!
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"The development for multiple OS has similar impact (for one OS you can optimize better than for many OS). And I better don't even mention the quality of tools for multiplatform development."
Then riddle me this, why is it that?:
Doom 3 looks exactly the same on Linux as it does on Windows.
ET:QW looks exactly the same on Linux as it does on Windows.
World of Goo looks exactly the same on Linux as it does on Windows.
Limbo looks exactly the same on Linux as it does on Windows.
And Yet It Moves looks exactly the same on Linux as it does on Windows.
Quake 4 looks exactly the same on Linux as it does on Windows.
Unreal Tournament 3 looks exactly the same on Linux as it does on Windows.
Serious Sam looks exactly the same on Linux as it does on Windows.
Q3:Arena looks exactly the same on Linux as it does on Windows.
America's Army looked exactly the same on Linux as it does on Windows.
Those are just the native Linux games I've played, off the top of my head, I'm sure there are heaps of other indies and possibly some biggies I'm forgetting.
We're not talking about developing for different chips/architectures, as has to happen in PS/MS/Nintendo ports. It's the same fucking hardware. Sure there is extra work that has to go into adding support/optimising for Linux/Mac WRT libraries etc, but it's a) not as hard, b) not as expensive, c) can be done without dragging everyone down to the same shitty level.
If you want to continue to argue this point, I suggest looking at this page first.
"And I better don't even mention the quality of tools for multiplatform development."
I honestly don't know what you're talking about here. Do you mean IDEs? Compilers?
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Never said differently, however, adamofgreyskull said it looks as good on Linux.
How it looks isn't a matter of performance (though one could argue looks better = higher settings = higher performance), it's a matter of rendering what the game tells it to render and how to render it.
I've played World of Warcraft, which ran quite a bit better on Linux than it did on Windows (about 1520fps better), but that's not to say it ran poorly on Windows. On my old hardware, I was getting a steady rate of around 5055FPS on Windows in Shattrath when Burning Crusade came out. With Linux I'd get around 75. The improvement was there, and I could kind of tell it was there (I'd notice less jittering at times), but it had no impact on my gaming what-so-ever.
On the other hand though, I've had more games that run far WORSE, or not at all, on Linux. And that's just the gaming aspect.
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Bad argument considering how long it took a couple of those games to be ported, some of the newer ones are built upon older engines which have been long since ported to Linux and a couple games use simple graphics which can easily ported anywhere. But it takes time and money to port the games, that causes delays, increases in cost and abondonig certain platforms altogether. Come on, Doom3 & Quake4 &3:Arena.
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Devs could use OpenGL, which is already cross-platform, instead of DirectX. They're pretty similar in terms of what you can do with them.
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It's not the developers choice unless they're creating the engine themselves.
Half the examples given above run on id Tech or Unreal which is an OpenGL engine which works under all OS.
Little fun fact though, Limbo runs on Linux within a packaged Windows emulation, not even truly running on Linux.
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I want to pass go and collect $200, but that's not what this thread is about. Why u trick me with thread title?!
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I rolled doubles and landed on Adobe Reader update required. I want to buy it.
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You do realize microsoft receives NOTHING when a game sells for PC, whereas say, playstation 3/xbox take 10$ out of EVERY game sold on their platform right?
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This is true,don't know why the dude is complaining not like windows cost 900$ and most machines you buy pre-built come with windows unless you build it form scratch without geting a retail copy of win 7 and if you had xp or vista you could get a big discount to upgrade to 7 and you get a life time license.Plus Ubuntu takes more tweaking,even to install stuff you always have to use the terminal,imagine having to open cmd prompt in windows to install something every time instead of just clicking next then install. Anyways only thing I ever use linux for cleaning out windows machines and most machines that run severs use linux due to it not being affected by windows viruses but takes a lot of time compared to windows to set it up correctly and you kind of have to be a geek to use it correctly.Anyways don't hate on me,I use linux to but for games just use windows,don't even cost to much to get home premium if you do a upgrade from xp or vista. Would be fine with games be designed to run on any system,would be great but highly doubt full.. Only reason xbox games cost 60$ is because 10$ go to Microsoft for royalties and the other 50 go to part to the store you got it and the rest to the developer of the game. Also it's not a monopoly,it's got Apple to compete against which makes more money then them.If anything is a monopoly its Apple and Google.
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I keep Linux for programming, and Windows for common usage.
For an open source OS, free, which can (and has) be sent straight from another part of the world to your home, i won't complain if i can't seem to be able to run a game on it.
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Microsoft Monopoly?
Hmm...
Windows $400
Office $350
Halo $220
Age of Empires $220
XBox Live Arcade $240
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Then there's ps3 against xbox
Free alternatives like libre office
and since when does halo cost 220.Don't know were you live. You guys seem to miss interpret what a monopoly is,a monopoly is when on company or business has no competition in that one specific area they are selling or have made agreements with other small time sellers and the only things that sell are what they make or what those they are partnered with sell.Sort of like John D. Rockefeller had a monopoly with the oil industry using the methods I mentioned above.
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I know what a monopoly is.
I was cracking a joke on the Monopoly board game's board.
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I currently use Linux for gaming. It runs most games without any problem, using wine. I have ran into the occasional problem with Games for Windows Live. Drivers were not hard to get setup in any respect. Although, I have installed Linux on older obscure hardware and ran into difficulties, but they were shortly worked out.
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I'm glad to see there's more development towards this direction from devs. Only reason I changed back from Ubuntu to Windows was oh, so delicious addiction towards games and monopolised usage of latest directx drivers. I know, I'm graphics whore and change from 9 to 11 if I have the change. Despite if it means selling my arse to microsoft.
What do you guys think? Should there be more development from game industry towards opensource OS?
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