M$ is competing with Linux

[nanonyme]

The MAIN reason that Linux doesn't have the studios making games for it is a fear of the unknown- they don't know how difficult/easy it is to do and they haven't the foggiest the market picture is. It's NOTHING to do with "advanced" APIs- and DirectX really isn't all that advanced or easy to code for.

Then again, the guys who design the DirectX games might only be fluent with DirectX and might need serious extra education to learn the API's you listed. Then again, the companies could hire completely new people who are fluent with those API's and have made succesful and innovative games before using those platforms. They probably would feel more comfortable if the they had different alternatives to having rookies or re-educating veterans (and possibly wasting resources doing so) when venturing into a new market.

[yotambien]

When the last OpenGL specification was out there was quite a bit of outrage from some developers saying it wouldn't fulfill their needs, that D3D is so much better and that basically they were forgotten and left with a suboptimal tool. If I remember correctly the CAD industry was named a few times as holding some responsibility in the way the especification was engendered. And the CAD industry is suposedly one of the reasons why AMD develops fglrx. What are the visible names behind this CAD business? And why does its way of doing things collide with that of game developers? I seem to remember something about backwards compatibility in the spec...or something.

Regarding the specification being a failure, I don't know whether the people complaining were a tiny and loud minority or what, but I wonder what is the true value behind it all...Surely targeting Linux and Mac exclusively doesn't sound like the best idea for a new game, but if you can get the three of them (plus other platforms?) for a little extra effort I don't see why it isn't being done. Or is it not just "a little extra effort"?

[L33F3R]

X-Box would be the only item that applies there. For OpenGL, it's even a Windows target...

what i was trying to say is, pc game dev's dont use opengl anymore regardless of how wonderful it is (for reasons i dont know). i want to see another AAA game that uses opengl on windows. I really do. But they are becoming far and few between.

[BhaKi]

X11 still sucks.

It doesn't. Divert your blame towards undocumented hardware and buggy closed-source drivers.

[L33F3R]

It doesn't. Divert your blame towards undocumented hardware and buggy closed-source drivers.

you sound like an ati OSS user. Once in a while some of us need more then a fast bare minimum. For others, basic 2D is perfectly adequate.

X11 still sucks.

[Svartalf]

what i was trying to say is, pc game dev's dont use opengl anymore regardless of how wonderful it is (for reasons i dont know). i want to see another AAA game that uses opengl on windows. I really do. But they are becoming far and few between.

Uh... You'd be wrong in that regard.

If they use an engine, the odds are good that they can make an OpenGL game.

If not, your generalization is fairly false- I offer: Caster 3D as at least ONE example of that statement being wrong (Before you say anything about it not being AAA, Haze, a AAA title, was pretty much OpenGL as well...it just never saw the light of day on a PC for some reason. And I should know about it being OpenGL- I had to figure out why their E3 demo wouldn't work on AMD's drivers as a sustaining engineering task ages ago...). Moreover, if you're doing handheld 3D games, you're using OpenGL, like it or not as ES has been decided upon as the API of choice there.

[L33F3R]

hmm true. I have seen alot of people interested in the pandora for example.