Microsoft's New Open-Source Project Is "Shader Conductor" For Cross-Compiling HLSL

[Britoid]

Microsoft is preparing for the Windows L world, the linux-based Windows distro of the future... For that, they need to ensure portability of HLSL to OpenGL/Vulkan...

Maybe in 20 years. Microsoft cares about backwards compatibility too much.

[kpedersen]

On the other hand, it could be a big win for Linux gaming if gaming in the cloud ever takes off in a big way.

That would be a big loss for both Linux *and* Windows. No longer would we have useful machines but instead weak consumption devices allowing us to "borrow" from our corporate IT overlords.

Maybe in 20 years. Microsoft cares about backwards compatibility too much.

Agreed. Its strange, in theory UNIX-like backwards compatibility should be better but it just isn't since Solaris 2.x to 10.x. That's why we need sloppy stuff like Docker and flatpack.
Microsoft has great compatibility for a proprietary solution. Compare this to Apple where a 2009 MacBook is almost unusable now due to lack of updates to run even the most boring of software such as LibreOffice or Java.

[starshipeleven]

On the other hand, it could be a big win for Linux gaming if gaming in the cloud ever takes off in a big way.
- You could easily stream games to any device. No need to port games between platforms.
- The datacenters powering these streaming services will probably prefer to run Linux, which might convince game developers to target Linux.
- Valve, Intel, AMD and others have already done the heavy lifting in making Linux a viable games platform. Other big players like EA and Ubisoft might now swoop in and start using Linux for running games in the cloud even though their userbase is largely Windows or console.

I think you are really missing what game streaming at a scale actually is.

It's the ultimate DRM, where the game itself is sold only in B2B transactions to companies that can put it on servers and stream it, with contracts negotiated on a "potential revenue" basis, or worse, it never leaves the "publisher"'s streaming servers.

While gamers will be stuck on a Steam/Amazon-like system where the provider of the game can and will revoke their right to play things depending on what they see fit (like Amazon removing ebooks after it lost copyright or licensing or whatever other legal thing they had to be able to distribute it to their ebook reader public).

Mods are dead, private servers are dead, LAN games are dead, consoles become little more than thinclients (basically Steam Link affairs) with 0 storage capability.

No, that's not a good thing. Maybe hacks become more a thing of the past, as the only thing left to do is screen-scraping (aka image recognition).

Now sure, nothing will stop companies from selling games to end users (especially RPG or mostly single-player games), but we all know the usual suspects will shift all their titles to streaming (and probably do so from their own servers only), and that has going to shift the market a bit.

[Brisse]

That would be a big loss for both Linux *and* Windows. No longer would we have useful machines but instead weak consumption devices allowing us to "borrow" from our corporate IT overlords.

While I certainly agree with that, I don't think streaming will ever replace games run locally. Both variants will coexist and perhaps the cloud efforts can be of benefit to those who prefer the traditional way. I am a bit worried about games being released exclusively in the cloud though. Corporations probably are attracted to that idea because it would effectively kill piracy.

[bearoso]

Couldn't this be refactored so that SPIR-V Cross produces DXIL?

It can already produce HLSL, which is just as good. Themaister’s little project has come a long way.

[uid313]

It can already produce HLSL, which is just as good. Themaister’s little project has come a long way.

Yeah, but now HLSL is the primary one, the format that serves as input. The format for people to work on then use as a source to convert to other format, instead of SPIR-V being the reference format.

[smitty3268]

Yeah, but now HLSL is the primary one, the format that serves as input. The format for people to work on then use as a source to convert to other format, instead of SPIR-V being the reference format.

Now? It's been that way from the start, unfortunately.