Leadwerks 3 Features

[macklebee]

Oh, I know that, I just don't think it would be as much of a waste of time as people may be inclined to think. Obviously, I've never actually written a program for a mac, but I'd be very surprised if it involved a large scale re-write between Linux and Mac...

 

well it would be interesting to see if there is... and who knows, maybe there would be a demand for it? hopefully it would be more than a 1 linux sale to 100 windows sales... going by rough estimates on the number of developer's here on the forum, that means Josh would have sold only 4 or 5 linux versions if he had it already...

[Rick]

If you want to make money only, but no innovation, ideology and technology, then you should go to the wallstreet. Game development is not about money only, indeed money plays a role of maybe 10% in it. And at some point people have enough money, that it's not worth anything anymore. You have a house, smart car, job, internet connection. You don't need anything else, so you spend your money and live on arts, innovation, ideologies.

 

1. You are insane.

 

 

I think the Linux community flock to good software once they find it. They aren't here (for the most part) because they know LE doesn't support it, but once word gets out they will all come running. Once they do, the other issue is will they want to pay for it, since a good portion of Linux software is free I don't think they would all jump at the idea of spending $250+.

[Davaris]

I haven't seen anyone selling Linux games on the portals and in the old days, they used to say Linux users expect everything to be free. I don't know if this attitude has changed though.

 

What I do know from when I used to visit Indie dev sites a few years ago, is Apple users buy stuff far more than Windows users do. They used to say that Apple users accounted for 50% of their income.

 

So if you want to know if Linux is worth making games for, ask the people at IndieGamer.

www.indiegamer.com

 

 

Personally I like the idea of Linux. I hope it becomes to Windows, what Blender is to 3D Max.

[Pancakes]

If Linux users are so smart, why haven't they made their own Leadwerks Engine yet

 

Maybe they should strive to make a game engine that Windows users have to beg to get a port of.

 

Pull yourselves up by your bootstrap!

 

This is America

 

/devil's advocate

[Pixel Perfect]

If Linux users are so smart, why haven't they made their own Leadwerks Engine yet

 

Maybe they should strive to make a game engine that Windows users have to beg to get a port of.

 

Pull yourselves up by your bootstrap!

Don't think I've laughed so hard in a long time

 

With regard to the economics of the Linux market place a friend of mine commonly refers to Linux users as freetards, somewhat unfair I know but there is some truth in this as others have already pointed out.

 

Maybe the Linux users should dig deep into all this money they have saved by not having to pay for software and fund the extra development and then the Linux release licence could state that games cannot be sold for profit preserving the 'artistic and altruistic integrity' of the Linux platform developers The developers could then take great delight in the knowledge that they have maximised their potential player uptake, made the world 'a better place' and Josh gets to buy food ... it's a win-win situation

[Mumbles]

Whilst the free software thing means there's practically a utility for everything (useful when Windows stuffs up your partition tables), there are some things you have to charge for. I know that personally I've never been against actually paying for something that sits on my system although a one in a million case isn't too good for business. That and look at it from Josh's perspective, there's one user who is prepared to pay for a Linux port, and have it closed source - but this same user hasn't yet paid for 2.3, so how can he be sure that his efforts to port to Linux will actually yield any income at all?

 

The only way to keep this engine going is to charge for it. But then again, the price doesn't just include the software, it also includes free access to one of the most valuable help resources I've come across - this place. I wouldn't mind betting that quite a few Linux users who insist that everything should be free, will be secretly paying the subscription to experts-exchange. (yes, we all know about the old url...)

 

The main reason Linux stuff is free is because it's also largely open source. How can you charge for something when the source code is already in the public domain. There's no reason to be concerned with supporting the developer because if you really want to, you just edit the code yourself. This however, I feel would be a software product that, when left down to the users would probably end up going wrong. It's one that needs the intital genius of the project to work through it from start to finish.

 

But like I've said in the past, I switched to Linux because I wanted a reliable system, and was having real trouble getting XP to stay up and running, which given XP reputation for reliability, even I was surprised at the time. It is now running quite smoothly but so is Linux. So I use both systems, and I do know that Debian gets much better usage out of my quad core than XP does (Only supports two cores), and probably gets better CPU utilisation than Vista. Because most people will know that if Windows hits about 55 - 60 processes you get the feeling its trying to run on a zimmer frame. Debian meanwhile, certainly on my system has about 180 - 195 processes running at any one time. Granted, usually all but about 5 are sleeping at any one time, but on Windows as soon as I have about 3 processes not sleeping at the same time. It starts to die. Unix itself has always been better at multitasking, so of course any system built on top of it seems to multitask quite well. That's still an area that lets Windows down.

 

I've digressed a bit there, but I'll end it by saying it would be nice if some more Linux users weren't totally free and open source crazy. It's a nice idea but its akin to communism, and whenever that's been tried in history, it's never worked...

[Pixel Perfect]

I've digressed a bit there, but I'll end it by saying it would be nice if some more Linux users weren't totally free and open source crazy. It's a nice idea but its akin to communism, and whenever that's been tried in history, it's never worked...

I tend to agree with your closing statement. Don't get me wrong, there is some great open source software out there and I think it’s wonderful that developers provide this and I have nothing but the utmost respect for those who do. But honestly, how many users of Linux do so because it's open source and they intend updating, amending or extending their operating system as opposed to it simply being a free operating system which isn't going to cost them anything. Yet we are constantly bombarded with this almost 'religious attitude' of we are somehow better people for using it and contributing to some superior social system and almost despise people who develop and sell software for a living. In actuality the net contribution of the majority of Linux users to this system is precisely zero and they only exist through the generosity of a talented and altruistic few.

 

Certainly Unix based systems are better at multitasking as Unix was pretty much specifically designed to provide just such low level services without any of the higher level GUI based services that Windows provided from the start; making it very suitable for servers. Windows was specifically designed for desktop systems. Watching them converge over the years has been quite entertaining to say the least!

[Josh]

I will consider it because a Linux port is pretty trivial compared to an Android or iPhone port. If another company only sold 100 licenses of a Linux version, it would be a disaster. If I only sold 100 licenses of the Linux version, it would be okay.

[Mumbles]

When you say, selling 100 licenses of the Linux versions would be okay, do you mean that a Linux license separate from a Windows license? Or do you mean 100 unique licenses, where a linux application has been built (maybe on its own, maybe with versions for other platforms released concurrently)...

 

I would have guessed that one initial price paid for Windows, Linux and Mac simultaneously. Because after all, you don't have to pay anyone else for a license to build self-executable applications on those platforms. Consoles need licenses from the company who builds the console, so I would understand, not including those versions as part of a sort of "base price"

[fallingbrickwork]

I've been away from LE for a good while now, but do swing by every few days for a gander, and am interested in how LE is moving towards these new platforms.

 

Regarding Macs...

I haven't used LE since the early 2.x version so I can't comment on how it now performs but I remember it having very high system specs. For Josh to say that iMac now ship with adequate GPU isn't strictly true. I have the latest iMac with the ATI HD 5670 512MB (for iPhone Dev), and whilst it does run most things (to a fashion), it's hardly cutting edge. After all it isn't the same 5670 that a desktop would have but a cut down mobile version of a lower spec'd GPU. I don't think it performs as well as my 8800GT PC. I'm not sure how LE would run on it. Also there are driver issues with Macs that Apple do seem to have a strangle hold over too. Recently, i believe, they did release gpu driver upgrades but these were for individual titles, not necessarily generic updates.

 

Regarding mobile devices...

How do you see ports to iPhone and Android working and what market do you see for a LE port? I develop for iPhone and it's hard to get framerates exceptable. Yes, I realise iPhone gen 4 has a far better spec, but a very very high percentage of users still run iPod Touch Gen 2 type devices. Anything over 17k polys onscreen, 3 of 4 different materials and 20 draw calls and it grinds to a halt. I can't comment on Android but I know a lot of people who solely develop for mobile devices and wont touch it (yet). So if you are planning a heavily 'cut down' LE which will run on that hardware, then Shiva, Unity and others may have that covered.

 

Are you thinking of going down the route of creation within an editor like Unity, Shiva and Unreal3 (that is coming on iPhone v.soon)? Are you thinking of targetting iPhone development with users using Mac's only to aid the XCode stuff?

 

Anyway, like I said, I'm just curious as I've been away a while and have missed quite a bit and am always keeping my options open.

 

Regards,

Matt.

[Josh]

The new iMac GPUs range from the equivalent of a GEForce 8600 to a bit better than a GEForce 9800, based on the number of stream processors (divided by 5 for the NVidia equivalent). I think that is very good.

 

Mobile devices are probably not the highest priority, because the advantages of Leadwerks graphics don't exist on those platforms. Leadwerks on iPhone won't look any better than Shiva, Unity, etc., because it will be bound by the same hardware constraints. I also don't like competing on those platforms as much because all my advanced engineering doesn't matter much on those. Ideally I just want to hire a mobile device specialist and let them produce the OpenGL ES renderer for those platforms, and handle any other specific issues they have, while I focus on the core engine and tools.

 

Since LE3 is written in C++ it can be made to run on anything, and eventually it will. I'm not too worried at this point about the exact order of implementations.

[Rick]

I want to run LE on my microwave! It probably has a Linux core.

[fallingbrickwork]

Thanks Josh for the feedback.

 

@Rick - It probably will with Josh at the helm... although I hope the microwave implementation comes after making it work on my studio minibar! (he says reaching for a cold one)