quote:Original post by Ziphnor
Secondly with those tools, there arent really any cost involved with developing multiplatform.

Compile your code on sun solaris on a sparc and say that again. There is a cost you look at a broader perspective of platform-indepentance. You need to consider byte-order just about everywhere from networking to file IO, for instance. Suddenly, your processor is 64-bit rather than 32-bit, as well.

If you want your code to compile on other compilers than gcc, you have a bit more work to do as well. Like the fact that the 64-bit integers don't have the same name on gcc as on MSVC++, and that you don't write 64-bit constants the same way.

That doesn't mean I think you shouldn't do it, I obviously am since I know the problems. Our engine currently compiles on windows, linux and even solaris if you want to. But you should be aware that the graphics/sound/input/etc libraries are not the only things that differ between platforms.

Also, developing multi-platform creates a need to test-compile and test-run multiplatform as well.

quote:So my point is that if you target multiple platforms(which i claim can be done easily) then you are sure that you have more potential customers. I also claim that you have a bigger chance of making an impression in the linux gaming world, because it is much less competitive. I cant really see why an indie developer wouldnt want to do this, unless its a matter of personal preference for the windows platform(which is of course a valid reason).

There are two very simple reasons for not doing it:

1. You don't want to use SDL for one reason or other. We don't and it creates some design issues around the fact that you need to write windowing code for OpenGL for each platform and so on, which makes it a bit worse.

2. You want DirectX.

In the end, I still think it's worth it (especially if you can use SDL). With a bit of thought, all these issues can be designed around to not be much of a problem at all. However, you should be aware that it does incur a slight development overhead.

(Edit: fixed quotes)

[edited by - Stary on March 23, 2003 3:16:07 AM]

People are funny.

" 100 % of all pc games are made for windows
0-0.5 % of those are ported to linux
1-1.5 % of those are ported to Mac."
Hey guess what, WE are the ones who control those statistics...

"And the fact that 64-bit integers don''t have the same name on gcc as on MSVC++, "
Who gives a damn about MSVC? It should not even come up in this thread since we are talking about MULTI platform development, which MSVC cannot and will not ever be capable of.

"If you want your code to compile on other compilers than gcc,"
There are other compilers than GCC?( joking.)
Whats your beef with GCC? (seriously.) Is it because it was not made by microsoft? BTW if you can compile something in GCC, chances are it will work on windows and linux with few modifications.

"There are two very simple reasons for not doing it:
1. You don''t want to use SDL for one reason or other.
We don''t and it creates some design issues around the fact that you need to write windowing code for OpenGL for each platform and so on, which makes it a bit worse."

you don''t give a reasonable argument as to WHY you chose not to use SDL. But you sure can whine about not being able to write multi-platform windowing code.

"2. You want DirectX."
Well then,
3) you are ignorent (in more ways than one) and
4)You didn''t bother to read the SDL documentation and realize that it WRAPS DirectX. Do you know what this means? It''s taken care of for you! IT USES DIRECT X ON WINDOWS.. you act like it''s entirely seperate. You nd your team really did your homework I can tell.

I will laugh when users are driven away from windows by microsoft''s bad business practices. Last time I checked this was a free country and we were free NOT to be forced into things. Micro$oft has tried to prove U.S. wrong.

How is your DirectX9 working? Bugs?Problems? Have you found out how to uninstall yet? OH YEAH you aren''t "allowed" to uninstall your own software. HAHAHAAAAAAAA! I hope it works perfectly for you, or its another reinstallation and back to DX8.1 for you!

The AP above is such obvious flamebait ... I''ll try to ignore most of it ... BUT I just want to say, this is a CONSTRUCTIVE discussion of various issues related to multiplatform support, so take your platform prejudices and attitude and go somewhere where people actually like to hear you rant (if just to reinforce their own prejudices) ... people on all sides of the fence do this, MS bashers, MS lovers, but it is NOT RELEVANT ... your post only had ONE line which added anything to this topic "Hey guess what, WE are the ones who control those statistics..." and to that, I salute you, but the rest ...

I personally use GCC on platforms that require it, and I can give you reasons not to prefer it to other compilers ... for example on BeOS using GCC 2.95.3, HOW THE HELL DO YOU RESOLVE CIRCULAR LIBRARY DEPENDENCIES? The linker is busted, and cannot link a library when it''s dependencies aren''t allready build ... EVEN FOR DYNAMIC LIBRARIES ... completely stupid and broken. Also, it runs very slowly, and when given code it doesn''t understand dies with horrible internal error messages.
Also, can it make ActiveX controls (I really don''t know the answer)?

As to why people care, well as developer''s we care about given our user''s a product which provides them with the best possible user experience ... and if they are running windows, that means playing nice with all other windows apps, and taking advantage of the hardware and SDKs that windows provides.

Show me a method of supporting all the features of a brand new joystick, using GCC and no Windows SDKs, which works as well as DirectInput, EVEN ON WINDOWS, and I will consider never writing windows specific code again.