Cross Platform Support?

[Stoshu]

Are you looking at continued support for both Windows and OSX for your next project?

(Oh please say yes, I'd hate to have to concentrate on my career full time until I retire)

[LeddZeppelin]

most major MMO's do, even though macs make up a whopping 5% (give or take) of the world market there is some value to having OSX supported (like letting Greenleaf play <3)

[Xanther]

Who's Greenleaf?

[LeddZeppelin]

Who's Greenleaf?

Avarix in disguise

[Stoshu]

most major MMO's do, even though macs make up a whopping 5% (give or take) of the world market there is some value to having OSX supported (like letting Greenleaf play <3)


Major as in Shadowbane and WoW?

[OMGWTH]

Linux?

[LeddZeppelin]

Major as in Shadowbane and WoW?

well, wow is THE major MMO, and it suppports macs...

[Ramsie]

There have been others, however they dropped their support rather shortly either after launch or implementing support.

[LeddZeppelin]

There have been others, however they dropped their support rather shortly either after launch or implementing support.

well im not supprised as again macs have somewhere around 5% marketshare so its not like they are loosing tons of buisness

[Avarix]

Cross over Mac - run windows apps right in OSX without emulation.

Parallels - Run an instance of windows in OSX.

Boot Camp - Boot right into windows.

Not to mention its a bit easier to maintain a cross platform game now a days. By the time this game comes out things could be much different. I wouldn't even think about this until atleast a year from now which i why i didn't make the first thread about it :)

[LeddZeppelin]

Cross over Mac - run windows apps right in OSX without emulation.

Parallels - Run an instance of windows in OSX.

Boot Camp - Boot right into windows.

Not to mention its a bit easier to maintain a cross platform game now a days. By the time this game comes out things could be much different. I wouldn't even think about this until atleast a year from now which i why i didn't make the first thread about it :)

why not just buy a PC if your going to run windows on a mac?

[Avarix]

Because i prefer using OSX, its just a side benefit i can run every other OS as well.

[BratsCankill]

From my understanding, you can (if you want to) buy a Mac, wipe out every trace of OSX, and install Windows straight onto it.

But then why bother buying a Mac? lol

[LeddZeppelin]

my biggest gripe about apple (besides Itunes) is the commercials, them boasting about how they are completely virus free because of their godlike programmers... its BS, no virus maker wants to program for 5% of the world, they want to make it so that as many people as possible will get the virus, and frankly its like saying hey i beet that parapalegic in a footrace look how awsome i am...

[coder1024]

Since you can probably run FFM on a Mac using a Windows emulator, going through the effort to natively support Mac doesn't seem like it would be worth the effort. But of course, a lot depends on the engine they're using. Maybe it already provides multi-platform support. If not, just let Mac users emulate to run FFM.

[Assassin]

Some of the SBG devs could correct me here, but I believe part of the issue of cross-platform support is the extent to which the game engine middleware supports the Mac. Some middleware packages (most?) don't and since not much gets coded from scratch these days, devs end up with limitations forced on them by their physics packages, etc.

[iScout]

Ledd, I understand what you're saying, but that doesn't change the fact that Windows is inherently less secure than OS X. It is much much harder for a malicious program to do harm on OS X. Of course if you social engineer an end user to use their administrator password on a rootkit you still get to own the machine.

[iScout]

So I'm curious as to wether OS X support is going to be there. AS someone who's done porting and cross-platform development it's always easier to start off with a multi-platform approach than to try and port it and expect compatibility. Any thought on this guys?

[coder1024]

Ledd, I understand what you're saying, but that doesn't change the fact that Windows is inherently less secure than OS X. It is much much harder for a malicious program to do harm on OS X. Of course if you social engineer an end user to use their administrator password on a rootkit you still get to own the machine.
I'm not so sure about that. I think Windows is a bigger target as it's used by far more people and attracts those trying to hack it. Due to its popularity its a lot more attractive to hackers.

[iScout]

I'm not so sure about that. I think Windows is a bigger target as it's used by far more people and attracts those trying to hack it. Due to its popularity its a lot more attractive to hackers.

Yes, if you're going to create a bot net you'd put together a windows root kit. What I'm trying to point out is that, on windows, it had been and might still be possible to deploy things like a root kit through a malicious web site without any interaction or knowledge from the user. On OS X it would at least require an administrator password to be entered for it to get installed. You can trick a user into doing it, but it's a warning that something is up.

[Stoshu]

Cross over Mac - run windows apps right in OSX without emulation.

Parallels - Run an instance of windows in OSX.

Boot Camp - Boot right into windows.

Not to mention its a bit easier to maintain a cross platform game now a days. By the time this game comes out things could be much different. I wouldn't even think about this until atleast a year from now which i why i didn't make the first thread about it :)

The reason I ask is I have a very nice high end Apple desktop and laptop that are pre-Intel processor and I can't justify the coast to "upgrade" to an Intel Mac at this time (and my wife would kill me). What would I do with $6000 of extra hardware anyway?

[Avarix]

iScout is right. Under OSX you can't touch any system related files unless you authorize the computer to do so. Sure you can trick people into things but those are trojans not viruses, Trojans require pebkac in most cases. A virus installs itself or does its damage without user participation.

OSX is also sectioned off into unique users with unique system folders so even if you find a way to hose your user you can just create a new one, copy over all your documents and settings and never miss a beat. And it can be done in under an hour easily With 10.5 we will have time machine so if you do screw something up you can just use time machine to to go back and restore your system or any other unique file to a prior date without effecting anything else on the computer.

Every major engine that is being used today is multi platform, not just windows and mac but consoles as well. There are numerous techs for sound physics and everything else that are cross platform as well. Even if there not porting them is almost easy now that its OS changes and not processor calls.

All they need to do is choose technology's that keep there options open and they could hire a mac specific person later in development to do the OS specific changes. If the Mac platform wasn't profitable the largest MMO maker would not have a mac client right now.

With all that said i doubt we will get an answer to the original topic anytime soon. I was told back when they where developing the MMO for Ubi under WP that they where keeping it open for possible multiple platforms for the future because you never know. I don't see why that would change and with the way apple is going nowadays and the ever growing market share this may not even be a factor when the game is finally released.

[OMGWTH]

Greenleaf, don't forget to talk about how easy it is to turn off macs too:

http://www.macbookrandomshutdown.com/

Get a real operating system: BSD or Linux

[XaeroT]

I hope there is Linux support. I refuse to buy Vista, and XP is close to becoming a deleted partition.

I fully understand why Linux may not be supported, there are 234252341235 different distros out in the wild. At least most of them have the same thing in common, they usually use the same base kernel. If anything, get Cedega to support the program on Linux. Native support (on nptl threading muhaha) would blow a Windows version away, but at least with Cedega it would be alot less programming time.

[LeddZeppelin]

I hope there is Linux support. I refuse to buy Vista, and XP is close to becoming a deleted partition.

I fully understand why Linux may not be supported, there are 234252341235 different distros out in the wild. At least most of them have the same thing in common, they usually use the same base kernel. If anything, get Cedega to support the program on Linux. Native support (on nptl threading muhaha) would blow a Windows version away, but at least with Cedega it would be alot less programming time.

see now all im reading there is, "im to cool to use windows, waaah, im to cool to use mac, waaaah, program for an OS that noone uses as their serious operating system, waaaah"

[peerless]

Greenleaf, don't forget to talk about how easy it is to turn off macs too:

http://www.macbookrandomshutdown.com/

Get a real operating system: BSD or Linux


hmmm, thats strange... my mac seems to think it has one of these requisite OS's... Oh right, cause its built on top of freeBSD:rolleyes:

BSDKernel:

Version: 8.8.2
Last Modified: 9/28/06 11:47 PM
Get Info String: BSD Kernel Pseudoextension, Apple Computer Inc, 8.8.2
Location: /System/Library/Extensions/System.kext/PlugIns/BSDKernel.kext
kext Version: 8.8.2
Load Address: 0x0
Valid: Yes
Authentic: Yes
Dependencies: Satisfied
Integrity: Correct

I am currently left to run SB in windows since there is no UB. I do not consider the experience to be that great. I'd much rather buy a game that runs natively in OS X and as of yet I have yet to purchase a game that doesn't even if I can just run it in windows. I choose to run OS X for a reason and one of those reasons is to not have a windows like experience. Sure in windows I can run 6 to 8 toons at once... but I was happy when I ran just one character on my 15 fps OS X install. Please support OS X for your game SBG. Plan to from the beginning so that it doesn't incur unnecessary costs later on.

[LeddZeppelin]

noones ever gonna make a game that runs strictly on OSX, that would be financial suicide. having a game that can run on maybe 5% of the world market is just plain economicly stupid

[peerless]

who said anything about exclusive mac software? Especially with an mmo, that would not be a smart choice.

[Avarix]

Thats enough of the arguing/bashing. If your not going to contribute to the conversation and just flame then don't bother. If you want to get into a level headed discussion take it to Off topic or just leave the subject alone.

[KayleeM]

Greenleaf, don't forget to talk about how easy it is to turn off macs too:

http://www.macbookrandomshutdown.com/

Get a real operating system: BSD or Linux

The truth is this: There is NO secure OS. Period. Yall can squabble about who's OS is better, but it comes down to utility. Each flavor of hardware and software has its place in the world. Since one probably uses <10% of the styles of computers out there that means that one must have exposure to <10% of these machines.

At the core, a *nix is a *nix is a *nix is a *nix.....

Whether or not their new game could be coded to run on *BSD AND Win32 has everything to do with time and money. Its possible to support both platforms, but the 'proof is in the puddin' and how difficult that will prove to be can really only be determined once the code starts going into the computer. IF, and IF they have the time/money and the code architecture allows it, I ferverently suggest supporting the *nix community. If you can get it to run on Win32 AND *BSD then support for all the *nix flavors are minor code changes away. (providing the coding is done right)


noones ever gonna make a game that runs strictly on OSX, that would be financial suicide. having a game that can run on maybe 5% of the world market is just plain economicly stupid

These guys have been making games for mac for a very long time... still in business:

http://www.ambrosiasw.com/news/


As mentioned above: Strictly on Mac is a misnomer now. Pre OSx, yes Mac OS was 100% propriatary, but now its a major part of the *nix world. I just hired on to Army Research Labs and they are a heavy IRIX/RHLE group but they have a TON of big iron macs. I believe they just got a shipment in of 25 or 30 quad Macs. A friend told me that the inital benchmarks for the number crunching they do is saying that the 4xIntel core macs are beating the 8xOpteron core servers, computationally, by about 125%.

I digress.

The Linux world is much much larger that most people believe. The statistics you see are from server and pc sales. Thats where you get the 5% of the world is apple, 90% is WinTel/WinAMD, etc. Most home linux users build their own machines and then download the OS. Its nearly impossible to get statistics on that.
Just make no mistake, OSX is just a really really fancy GNOME sitting atop a disturbingly powerful bsd core. Macs have become the unsung flagships for the *nix world :)

Coding to support the MAC users is a really really GOOD idea.

[XaeroT]

The truth is this: There is NO secure OS. Period.

QFT

Linux and OSX do need to be on equal footing to Microsoft products. It only helps consumers in the end. Program a game that can run on Microsoft's competition (you cant even call it that, OSX and Linux CANT compete against MS) and your helping create a better world.

[LeddZeppelin]

QFT

Linux and OSX do need to be on equal footing to Microsoft products. It only helps consumers in the end. Program a game that can run on Microsoft's competition (you cant even call it that, OSX and Linux CANT compete against MS) and your helping create a better world.

wait so your saying for people to program for things that have 0 chance of succeeding... your post was very contradictory

[Avarix]

Market share also only accounts for the amount of PCs being sold from retail yearly and its calculated differently from each source that releases it. Like mentioned before it doesn't account for what OS people are actually running on there hardware. If you want to run linux those cheap OEM computers from dell, gateway, abs, and etc are good choices.

Market share really doesn't tell anyone anything past who is buying what yearly. They also don't take into account people running Windows buy new computers up to 3 times more often then other OSes because of the accumulated slow down that windows occurs thru "normal" use. People just assume the computer is getting old. This does not happen on any other OS party because people who choose not to use windows usually know more about computers then the average Joe Smoe.

Btw Mac Marketshare is now 8% to 9% depending on the source and growing quickly.

And to those people telling me i'm just a Mac zealot you are wrong. I personally will use anything that makes my life easier and makes me more productive. OSX is currently the leader for me in what i do with Ubuntu in a distant second. I use Windows for nothing but gaming and when i have to on my side job.

I personally hope MS stays just the way it is because my side job is fixing everything that goes wrong with windows. If MS changes there ways i would loose a substantial amount of secondary income which would make me a sad panda. But MS doesn't disappoint, vista is going to make me a very happy panda.

[KayleeM]

wait so your saying for people to program for things that have 0 chance of succeeding... your post was very contradictory

I don't *think* that is what he ment. I think he was merely exagerating the *nix vs Micro$oft thing. I took from his statement that by coding for non Win32/64 platforms then you are 'helping the fight' against Micro$oft and helping to create a better world.

Not really sure I agree with that totaly, but I do think that *nix is the underdog, highly underrated, and more widely distributed that anyone realizes.


And to those people telling me i'm just a Mac zealot you are wrong. I personally will use anything that makes my life easier and makes me more productive. OSX is currently the leader for me in what i do with Ubuntu in a distant second. I use Windows for nothing but gaming and when i have to on my side job.

I grew up on Macs and made the switch to PC when the bank account just couldn't support Apple products anymore, but I do have experience with the Mac User label people tag on. The general (ignorant) perception is that if you use a Mac, you use it because you are hardheaded, stubborn and in love with your Mac..... rarely does it cross their mind that it might actually be a damn fine product.

Old arguments: (while vaild a few years back, not so much nowadays)

"Its too expensive." Well, compair a 2x2 Intel Xeon mac with the equivilent quality hardware COTS PC and, amazingly enough, the Mac runs about $2k cheaper.

"Software availability is lacking" Apple made the best move an OS shop ever has, they ported Mac OS to be the GUI for a *nix core. In addition, they are pushing this 'boot camp' software and there has been SoftPC software for a while now that can run windows apps quite well. So lets count that up: Mac Apps, Linux Apps, and Window Apps all on the same box at the same time.... Hrm... i don't see lacking availability anymore.



Pound for pound, blow for blow, Mac is light years ahead of the PC world... again. I think the issue is the standard human fear of change. There is a powerful misconception surrounding anything other than Windows, and its keeping lots of people at bay.

So what DO you do that requires BSD Avarix? I just hired on to Army Research Labs to do software development and have a 2x Xeon PC and a 2x2 Xeon Mac on my desk and I love em both!

[LeddZeppelin]

Market share also only accounts for the amount of PCs being sold from retail yearly and its calculated differently from each source that releases it. Like mentioned before it doesn't account for what OS people are actually running on there hardware. If you want to run linux those cheap OEM computers from dell, gateway, abs, and etc are good choices.

Market share really doesn't tell anyone anything past who is buying what yearly. They also don't take into account people running Windows buy new computers up to 3 times more often then other OSes because of the accumulated slow down that windows occurs thru "normal" use. People just assume the computer is getting old. This does not happen on any other OS party because people who choose not to use windows usually know more about computers then the average Joe Smoe.

Btw Mac Marketshare is now 8% to 9% depending on the source and growing quickly.

And to those people telling me i'm just a Mac zealot you are wrong. I personally will use anything that makes my life easier and makes me more productive. OSX is currently the leader for me in what i do with Ubuntu in a distant second. I use Windows for nothing but gaming and when i have to on my side job.

I personally hope MS stays just the way it is because my side job is fixing everything that goes wrong with windows. If MS changes there ways i would loose a substantial amount of secondary income which would make me a sad panda. But MS doesn't disappoint, vista is going to make me a very happy panda.

im not sure where you got your market share info, but the nearest i can find is around june of 2k6 and the highest i can find is 3% worldwide, and 5-6% in north america. and every experience ive EVER had with mac, makes me never ever want to buy macs ever. i use Itunes on my computer and it is the biggest peice of **** ive ever used...

[KayleeM]

I have found sources stating anywhere from 3% to 16%. Its pretty objective.

When you tried iTunes, was it on a PC? And what model Mac was the last one you used?
(this is a curiosity thing, not an evangalistic venture)

[coder1024]

I just hired on to Army Research Labs and they are a heavy IRIX/RHLE group but they have a TON of big iron macs. I believe they just got a shipment in of 25 or 30 quad Macs. A friend told me that the inital benchmarks for the number crunching they do is saying that the 4xIntel core macs are beating the 8xOpteron core servers, computationally, by about 125%.
congrads on the new job! We've seen interesting number-crunching results as well recently at my work. We've found that, for example, a 2.8GHz (or something like that) Intel core duo machine performed much better than a dual processor (dual 3GHz) machine. The core duo was much cheaper and the performance was, not only better, it was extremely better. The core duo blew the dual processor machine out of the water. Both running Windows XP. Its a hardware thing, not an operating system thing.
The Linux world is much much larger that most people believe. The statistics you see are from server and pc sales. Thats where you get the 5% of the world is apple, 90% is WinTel/WinAMD, etc. Most home linux users build their own machines and then download the OS. Its nearly impossible to get statistics on that.
true, but probably not for gaming.
Just make no mistake, OSX is just a really really fancy GNOME sitting atop a disturbingly powerful bsd core. Macs have become the unsung flagships for the *nix world :)
right. I find it hard to actually call OSX itself an operating system. I did a bunch of MacOS development in the pre-X days and learned about OSX as it was progressing. When I look at it now, although this is an oversimplification, its basically FreeBSD with Apple's GUI slapped on top. Apple's basically making a BSD front-end these days as opposed to making an operating system. And Mac users are really, as you say, running *nix with an Apple front-end. I know the Mac users might flame this and point out that there's more to it than that. But I don't think there a lot more.

[peerless]

right. I find it hard to actually call OSX itself an operating system. I did a bunch of MacOS development in the pre-X days and learned about OSX as it was progressing. When I look at it now, although this is an oversimplification, its basically FreeBSD with Apple's GUI slapped on top. Apple's basically making a BSD front-end these days as opposed to making an operating system. And Mac users are really, as you say, running *nix with an Apple front-end. I know the Mac users might flame this and point out that there's more to it than that. But I don't think there a lot more.


You've basically got it imo. OS X as an operating system still employs some "different" ways of doing things (mach microkernel I'm looking at you). But basically, you've got FreeBSD, darwin and a lot of other little things underneath with a lot of apple-made(and otherwise) frameworks on top. I think it counts more as a sequel to nextstep than a true BSD package because of the inherited design philosophies.

Additionally, kayleeM, that sounds like an interesting job you have. Congrats.

[PKedUtoo]

And to those people telling me i'm just a Mac zealot you are wrong. I personally will use anything that makes my life easier and makes me more productive. OSX is currently the leader for me in what i do with Ubuntu in a distant second. I use Windows for nothing but gaming and when i have to on my side job.

I own a media design company and we do use the Mac... i'll have to admit that back in the day there was a lot of software you could only get on the mac and it made it the industry leader for Media production.

BUT now windows has all the same software or better...

Will i still use the mac for media design? sure i will.. only becuase its what we have been using for years and not becuase it does any better job

with mac using intel chips and with it even being able to be shiped out with windows on it has just made it another PC clone.

[LeddZeppelin]

I have found sources stating anywhere from 3% to 16%. Its pretty objective.

When you tried iTunes, was it on a PC? And what model Mac was the last one you used?
(this is a curiosity thing, not an evangalistic venture)

yeah i have itunes on my PC, i dont use macs. the last mac i used was about 3 years ago. but every itunes in my house (all for PC, all with corrisponding Ipods) have all got something wrong with them. my brothers uploads all of his music onto his ipod twice. mine decides periodically to erase all track numbers from my database every once and a while... its just not coded very well imo. WMP has worked flawlessly for me for a very long while. im not one of those people who hate windows because their windows, or because they decide they want to be cool so they go along with everyone else (not saying you or anyone on these forums are that kind of person but i know alot of them).

[Avarix]

Ledd, I have to say your a minority in having issues with iTunes. If you want i'll pop in vent sometime and try to solve the issues for you.



KayleeM, i actually don't have a huge use for the BSD portion of OSX. Other then running synergy to share the keyboard and mouse on my desktops and running cron scripts, i can't remember the last time i had to drop into the command line. I use my Mac for everyday things mostly.

[LeddZeppelin]

Ledd, I have to say your a minority in having issues with iTunes. If you want i'll pop in vent sometime and try to solve the issues for you.



KayleeM, i actually don't have a huge use for the BSD portion of OSX. Other then running synergy to share the keyboard and mouse on my desktops and running cron scripts, i can't remember the last time i had to drop into the command line. I use my Mac for everyday things mostly.

it works fine every time i update it for anywhere between a week and a couple of months. but now i just dont use it, i got a new computer for christmas which includes a new hard drive so i didn't save any of my music, mostly because some of it had skips thanks to Itunes of course (it took so much of my CPU which was a athlon 3200+ that while doing nothing more then playing internet games it would cause the games to lag and the recordings of the songs to have permanent skips). so now i just us WMP 11, which looks really nice because it has the new Vista skin. and btw i dont have your vent info anymore so i couldn't visit you if i wanted to :(

[Avarix]

That is quite odd. I have the same processor and i can run SB and iTunes at the same time. Permanent skipping isn't something that should be possible from just playing songs, unless error correct while importing isn't turned on. Because its a lot slower apple turns it off by default. I'm actually curious to find out exactly what was going on with you, just for my own personal knowledge. As many know i fix computers on the side so anything weird like this i like to get info on. Shoot me a PM if you would, lets not spiff up this thread anymore.

[KayleeM]

For a total of 3 times in the last 2 years now, I have seen several friends computers have mysterious 'CPU' issues when it came to anything sound related. Skippy music, crappy Ventrilo quality, etc. Turns out to be the sound card drivers fighting with DirectInput(aka the joystick port on the sound card)

Might wanna check all your media drivers (sound, video, DX) for the most current revisions and any known incompatabilities.

Micro$oft says Dx is all fixed up install wise, but I still notice better stability if you install in this order: DX, sound, video and DX again. It seems retarded to install DX twice, but it seems to have eliminated problems on several machine builds I have done.

Just another angle incase the expert advice above.


Avarix: So you use your mac to do things that a WinDose machine could do? AKA, 'joe computing' Now the lack of use of the command line is by choice or by necessity as you aren't *nix savvy? (this is a curiosity question, not a slam of any sorts)


On topic: In my opinion, BSG would be best setup for the future if they coded their client/server in heavily wrapped C++ for platform transportability. They already stated they would be using quite a bit of middleware, which is good, game on shelves faster, so this is a step in the right direction for supporting lots of platforms. Develop initally on Linux using OGL, then develop the Win32 encapsulation. Depending on how much custom stuff they have to make, this approach should lead to easily being able to port to just about any OS.

Oh yeah, build the server software with MPI or the like from the ground up. Multithreading is fine, but think outside a single integral SMP architecture! Near linear performance vs clusternode scaling is desireable and would allow SBG to throw more CPUs at a lag problem while they sort through the code to find the inefficiency. MySQL is a must also, no more file based IO damnit ;)

[Avarix]

For a total of 3 times in the last 2 years now, I have seen several friends computers have mysterious 'CPU' issues when it came to anything sound related. Skippy music, crappy Ventrilo quality, etc. Turns out to be the sound card drivers fighting with DirectInput(aka the joystick port on the sound card)

Might wanna check all your media drivers (sound, video, DX) for the most current revisions and any known incompatibilities.

Micro$oft says Dx is all fixed up install wise, but I still notice better stability if you install in this order: DX, sound, video and DX again. It seems retarded to install DX twice, but it seems to have eliminated problems on several machine builds I have done.

Just another angle incase the expert advice above.


Thats basically what i was going to suggest. The only thing i would add is the necessity to uninstall the old driver versions and reboot first before upgrading to the new drivers. Only install the Drivers, don't install all the extra crap they come with, all they do is add extra processes that tend to cause the above issues.


Avarix: So you use your mac to do things that a WinDose machine could do? AKA, 'joe computing' Now the lack of use of the command line is by choice or by necessity as you aren't *nix savvy? (this is a curiosity question, not a slam of any sorts)

Yes i use my mac for doing every day things because it will most likely never fail me. I also don't have to deal with the above issues, everything just works. And one thing i will share, i do not currently use any Mac made hardware to run OSX. If anyone needs a further explanation for my last sentence, you can PM me.

I'm semi unix savy, i just don't need to use it, and in some cases i would rather not mess with things because i don't know 100% about them.

Did you see the apples sales growth for the last quarter? it was stellar.