Originally posted by przemoli
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Linux Gamers Make Up ~2% Of Valve's Steam Users
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Actually it seems these are still stats for Febuary 2013 and not for March. At least it says "Febuary 2013" on the HW-survey page
see: http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey
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Originally posted by Pawlerson View PostExactly. It's just a matter of being smart and use cross platform tools or being dumb and use windoeze tools.
I programmed in assembly because single core low IPC/frequency processors needed applications to be as speedy as possible back then, GUI programming sucked because you relied on slow API's that could destroy any benefit from LLP. Now you can program in whatever filthy abstract scripting lang and still have a decent performing app/game because GPU's (and processors) are insane now. Abstracting layers like SDL maybe too slow 10 years ago but now, there is absolutely no excuse to not abstract game/program layers to be cross platform except because M$ paid them to do so... or they're lazy... or they don't care about cross platform... or they think Linux is commie crap... oh well, maybe there is an excuse or two,but that's about what they are is excuses.
Originally posted by przemoli View Post???
Used them?
They are good. Very good. Nothing to beat them. DX/Win-specific API's wont go away shortly nor tooling around them. Its not about NOT using window's specific libs/tools but about how much you can earn by also using libs/tooling supporting other platforms.
Just so you know.. A hyper visor with running on a processor that launches apps that have full control of the workhorse processor and the workhorse video card is by far the best way to approach gaming and critical applications. In case you think I'm defending X or quartz or whatever I think they are all pretty bad.Last edited by nightmarex; 03 March 2013, 03:00 PM.
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Originally posted by Pawlerson View PostExactly. It's just a matter of being smart and use cross platform tools or being dumb and use windoeze tools.
Used them?
They are good. Very good. Nothing to beat them. DX/Win-specific API's wont go away shortly nor tooling around them. Its not about NOT using window's specific libs/tools but about how much you can earn by also using libs/tooling supporting other platforms.
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Guest repliedOriginally posted by przemoli View PostAll in all. Costs of supporting new platform are IRRELEVANT.
PROFITABILITY RULEZ.
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Guest repliedOriginally posted by przemoli View PostProbably because Nvidia did good job at optimizing those OpenGL paths, and because Valve DX9 engine could do something wrong way, or because Nvidia focused on optimizing DX11 paths, while introducing some DX9 performance regressions along the way.
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Originally posted by elanthis View PostIt's not even remotely a lie, especially when (a) you have to spend time and money training devs about other platforms they don't know, and most game devs only know Windows and consoles (b) you have to write things over yet again since POSIX is not portable to most consoles/mobile and POSIX wrappers are not efficient enough on Windows for many things, but Linux requires its use, (c) platform-specific APIs offer many features and efficiency that no cross-platform standard API does (Linux does this, too; see the Linux-specific APIs that systemd or Mesa make use of, and why the BSDs are a bit upset about them; a game will use epoll, not POSIX, for instance, since the POSIX-endorsed BSD sockets API leaves some things to be desired), (d) you need to test your Linux version which costs more time and money from the QA dept., since you can't use open testing since you need to _sell_ those assets and the story and nobody wants to pay to endlessly replay the same small sections of pre-pre-Alpha content (most people don't even want to _be paid_ to do that; it's a shitty job), and (e) so-called "open" APIs like OpenGL and OpenAL are a massive time and money-sink due to their ancient error-prone design and severely lacking debugging and development tools, unlike the modern incarnations of Direct3D or the third-party FMod/Wwyse (which are portable, at least, as they deal with platform-specific audio APIs or OpenAL for the developers, and add a ton of important features that FOSS developers can't be bothered to implement in a library themselves).
My job as a game developer is to make a product that millions of people can enjoy and make my company enough money to make another great game, not to make some idealist's definition of good software architecture. The practical goals of development generally have very little to do with ancient UNIX wisdom or first-year CS student idealism. Which is why the vast majority of games and end-user software on desktops, iOS, Android, etc. generally don't follow your supposed good advice. Nobody gives a shit about what the Internet thinks makes "good software." We only care about shipping our product on time, within budget, and to a wide audience. Everything else is intellectual wanking about what good software is supposed to be.
In most cases, that means only spending money to port to platforms that can both pull in enough revenue to pay for the port and make enough profit to make the CEO actually notice the platform on an earnings chart. Everything else is a waste of time and money, especially for throw-away software like games, written once, released, supported with DLC for a few months, and then forgotten as work on a new project begins and all personnel are pulled off the old project. It would be nice if games were Open Source; I'd love that for a number of reasons, allowing the community to maintain it long after commercial viability has ended being an obvious one, but that is not likely to happen for major games/engines anytime soon, unfortunately.
Most costs come out of QA which must be expanded for each and every new supported set up. (For Linux it also mean multiplying those setups by number of distros supported..)
As for tools/libs. We both know that they improve when there is demand for them. No demand no improvement. Tools/libs for Win/DX did not reached its good state overnight.
So its not permanent blocker. And for that matter if game devs will start to avoid platform specific libs/tools it will pressure their creators to expand those to new platforms too. (OH SORRY I forgot that MS have NO interrest in serving best devs interest what-so-ever. Hey but game devs know what they choose here. )
All in all. Costs of supporting new platform are IRRELEVANT.
PROFITABILITY RULEZ.
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Originally posted by liam View PostDid you ever figure out why Left4Dead ran faster under OpenGL
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you want me to stop trolling, very well...
here's the real reason I hate steam:
back in the day when we were kids, there were a bunch of 'cyber coffee' type of shops (internet and computers weren't really affordable for most people so they would go there)
it was amazingly fun to play action quake 2, starcraft, etc etc in these cybercoffee lans...
cstrike was also one of the few games we had amazing hours and hours of fun playing.
steam killed all that ... even when you made your own lan with friends, you no longer needed 1 copy now you ahd to have 6 or 7
that was pure corporate greed, capitalism fascism, " everyone who even wants to touch our game (wasn't even theirs btw it was a fucking MOD) has to pay full price SIEG HEIL"
maybe it was a huge coincidence, a question of strange timing, but when steam was released all the lans/cybercoffees dissapeared.
that is why I hate steam with a passion and will never use it...
for someone who has loving memories of being real young and having a blast playing virtua cop2 and street fighter alpha in the arcades and starcraft and quake etc in cybercoffees to me steam killed social gaming in the name of pure profit.
I will never use steam or any drm shit.
I do wish someone would package jagged alliance 2 and the infiltration unreal mod, hell even unreal tournament so you would be able to use them in modern distros
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Originally posted by elanthis View PostIt's not even remotely a lie, especially when (a) you have to spend time and money training devs about other platforms they don't know, and most game devs only know Windows and consoles (b) you have to write things over yet again since POSIX is not portable to most consoles/mobile and POSIX wrappers are not efficient enough on Windows for many things, but Linux requires its use, (c) platform-specific APIs offer many features and efficiency that no cross-platform standard API does (Linux does this, too; see the Linux-specific APIs that systemd or Mesa make use of, and why the BSDs are a bit upset about them; a game will use epoll, not POSIX, for instance, since the POSIX-endorsed BSD sockets API leaves some things to be desired), (d) you need to test your Linux version which costs more time and money from the QA dept., since you can't use open testing since you need to _sell_ those assets and the story and nobody wants to pay to endlessly replay the same small sections of pre-pre-Alpha content (most people don't even want to _be paid_ to do that; it's a shitty job), and (e) so-called "open" APIs like OpenGL and OpenAL are a massive time and money-sink due to their ancient error-prone design and severely lacking debugging and development tools, unlike the modern incarnations of Direct3D or the third-party FMod/Wwyse (which are portable, at least, as they deal with platform-specific audio APIs or OpenAL for the developers, and add a ton of important features that FOSS developers can't be bothered to implement in a library themselves).
My job as a game developer is to make a product that millions of people can enjoy and make my company enough money to make another great game, not to make some idealist's definition of good software architecture. The practical goals of development generally have very little to do with ancient UNIX wisdom or first-year CS student idealism. Which is why the vast majority of games and end-user software on desktops, iOS, Android, etc. generally don't follow your supposed good advice. Nobody gives a shit about what the Internet thinks makes "good software." We only care about shipping our product on time, within budget, and to a wide audience. Everything else is intellectual wanking about what good software is supposed to be.
In most cases, that means only spending money to port to platforms that can both pull in enough revenue to pay for the port and make enough profit to make the CEO actually notice the platform on an earnings chart. Everything else is a waste of time and money, especially for throw-away software like games, written once, released, supported with DLC for a few months, and then forgotten as work on a new project begins and all personnel are pulled off the old project. It would be nice if games were Open Source; I'd love that for a number of reasons, allowing the community to maintain it long after commercial viability has ended being an obvious one, but that is not likely to happen for major games/engines anytime soon, unfortunately.
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