zmatt
The Bulldog
- Messages
- 4,660
- Location
- In an empty Ramen packet
I never said linux and Macos were bad gaming platforms. i simply stated that is not their intended purpose, so few games exsist for them. A freind of mine helped code the alpha cleint for the MMO "second life" for linux. he is currently using it on his machine. It runs Arch linux.
yes OpenGL and DX are APIs. an API is way for software to talk to the hardware. a general set of guidlines that the industry uses to keep things consistent. OpenGL is an industry standard for 3D graphics, but no high profile games have been made implementing it using since Doom3 came out.
using OpenGL as a go between for DX and a video card? Where did you get this? Modern video cards from AMD-ATI, and Nvidia have hardware level DX support. And what models/textures you use have a big impact on how the game looks, but you miss the point that the game's engine is a deciding factor on lighting, shaders, AA, and other things. And the main reason why the engines can do what they do is because the API supports it.
A simple way to see how a new 3D technology comes around is:
1.A programmer or designer wants a certain effect in his game, or tech demo. or whatever. so he writes a software based way to implement it.
A good example is HL2. valve wanted to have more realistic physics than any other game. so they wrote the code to do it.
2.if the technology catches on. then a major hardware manufacturer will implement hardware support for it in the next generation cards.
A good example of this is hardware texturing and lighting, that cards started using back in 2001-2002. A new way to let the card handle lighting was developed, and it caught on.
3. The programmers for the APIs like OpenGL, DX, or SGL etc etc. will update their respective API to take advantage of the new hardware out there.
i am not surprised that you haven't heard of Haiku. Not to generalize, but we have gotten fire from Linux users in the past because they think the only open source platform is Linux and should only be Linux. haiku is a very advanced OS. It is currently in its alpha stage and we are working to finish the OS for version R1 by 2008. It uses a modular kernel, in fact the whole OS is modular. On a level that i have yet to see in linux. It is an open source continuation of the now defunct BeOS. The philosophy is based on simplicity. You should not need to spend hours configuring and downloading new packages like in linux. and i shouldn't need a degree in C++ to be able to use it effectively.
You can flame anything but Linux and Mac as much as you want. but i wont stand for it. Windows is THE gaming platform. Not to say that Linux and MacOS cant do it. But if you look at simple demographics Mac and Linux users are not on the whole gamers. and if they are they tend to own a console.
The vast majority of Mac users i know are older couples who want a easy t use simple little OS. and MacOS does that well. The other part of Mac users are professionals who are editing a commercial or are working on mixing and editing a song.
Linux users tend to be server admins. i have a Ubuntu box in my basement that carries many day to day tasks you would expect a server to do. And it does a great job of it. As for my Arch user friend, he owns a Playstation2 and is pretty good at DDR.
yes OpenGL and DX are APIs. an API is way for software to talk to the hardware. a general set of guidlines that the industry uses to keep things consistent. OpenGL is an industry standard for 3D graphics, but no high profile games have been made implementing it using since Doom3 came out.
using OpenGL as a go between for DX and a video card? Where did you get this? Modern video cards from AMD-ATI, and Nvidia have hardware level DX support. And what models/textures you use have a big impact on how the game looks, but you miss the point that the game's engine is a deciding factor on lighting, shaders, AA, and other things. And the main reason why the engines can do what they do is because the API supports it.
A simple way to see how a new 3D technology comes around is:
1.A programmer or designer wants a certain effect in his game, or tech demo. or whatever. so he writes a software based way to implement it.
A good example is HL2. valve wanted to have more realistic physics than any other game. so they wrote the code to do it.
2.if the technology catches on. then a major hardware manufacturer will implement hardware support for it in the next generation cards.
A good example of this is hardware texturing and lighting, that cards started using back in 2001-2002. A new way to let the card handle lighting was developed, and it caught on.
3. The programmers for the APIs like OpenGL, DX, or SGL etc etc. will update their respective API to take advantage of the new hardware out there.
i am not surprised that you haven't heard of Haiku. Not to generalize, but we have gotten fire from Linux users in the past because they think the only open source platform is Linux and should only be Linux. haiku is a very advanced OS. It is currently in its alpha stage and we are working to finish the OS for version R1 by 2008. It uses a modular kernel, in fact the whole OS is modular. On a level that i have yet to see in linux. It is an open source continuation of the now defunct BeOS. The philosophy is based on simplicity. You should not need to spend hours configuring and downloading new packages like in linux. and i shouldn't need a degree in C++ to be able to use it effectively.
You can flame anything but Linux and Mac as much as you want. but i wont stand for it. Windows is THE gaming platform. Not to say that Linux and MacOS cant do it. But if you look at simple demographics Mac and Linux users are not on the whole gamers. and if they are they tend to own a console.
The vast majority of Mac users i know are older couples who want a easy t use simple little OS. and MacOS does that well. The other part of Mac users are professionals who are editing a commercial or are working on mixing and editing a song.
Linux users tend to be server admins. i have a Ubuntu box in my basement that carries many day to day tasks you would expect a server to do. And it does a great job of it. As for my Arch user friend, he owns a Playstation2 and is pretty good at DDR.