I don't see your logic there? The more platforms it supports the more end users can purchase and enjoy the game. This would intern generate more revenue in the end, that's how id see it from a business manager's point of view.
There are far more people who are trying to run the game on 32 bit than on crossfire. So it makes sense to offer a 32 bit version. People with crossfire still can play, they just have to disable that stuff. Basically Uber decided that it is worth it to offer 32 bit support because more people will buy it, hoping it will run on 32 bit (lol, they hope wrong, it uses 2G+ memory all the time ) Also sure more graphics performance is always good, but as I said I am kinda surprised by that 30%. I would be pretty interested in benchmarks of a comparable application. Fact is that PA starts to run okay on midrange hardware already. Also neutrino said that there is no big loss in fps anymore. He isnt exactly a novice on this kind of topic, so I'd trust in what he says. But sure, real benchmarks would be nice to see. Anyway, even if a native fullscreen would give 30%+ fps in PA, which I doubt, I would not use it. A native fullscreen just sucks when you're trying to play on one screen and chat/browse on another.
? One of the reasons I backed it during the kickstarter campaign is that it supported multiple operating systems. If there's one person there is many who back for similar reasons.
I hope we will see numbers that support your theory at some point. There is a reason that only few games support multiple platforms and its definately not the laziness of developers or publishers
Your jumping from "native fullscreen" to "multiple platforms" now? I never spoke of multi platform. Only of the fullscreen thing. I agree that supporting linux/mac has a high probability of not being profitable. On the other hand I like the idea that I might be able to play PA on Linux when I one day decide that Linux finally can replace Windows even on my games/multimedia system.
Linux was indeed added after people asked for it. And considering Valves recent decisions it seems it might have been a good idea.
Exactly, it's essentially a form of future proofing, we don't know what the dominate OS will be for Gaming will be in 5 years time, Heck right now I like Win7, but don't like the look of where Win8 is leading, and Win9 might not be any good when it comes out either. We just don't know. Mike
Boom!! you just hit the nail on the head colin your reply answers both of op's statements about needing traditional fullscreen and why have multiplatform support. This is why uber isn't implementing traditional full screen, because using Coherant UI tech, the Operating system's window manager, and webscript for modding, makes overhead cost's for multiplatform development much lower. It also decreases development time as Uber don't need to develop their own UI renderer API and Window Manager to suit each platform.
Would it be that hard to implement a native fullscreen? I dunno about multiplatform, but I know it's only a few lines to get a fullscreen opengl application on windows.
yes easier on windows, not sure how it work's with unix derived/based OS's like Mac OSX and Linux. (im probably get slap from SXX later for saying Unix derived/based car -- carpet.) and then one of the dev's need's to specifically learn how to code on this os to make it compatible maybe, making things more costly.
Well they need linux/mac people anyway, the games runs on those platforms. That's not possible without knowing those platforms at least a bit.
Mac OSX since v10.5 is in compliance with the single UNIX specification (SUS) making it a UNIX system. Where Linux is a Unix like system due to not meeting the SUS and is roughly 45% in compliance with POSIX which is the application programming interface for Unix systems. now no operating system can be called UNIX without being in compliance with SUS due to trademark infringement.
Trust me, if Uber want to use fullscreen they can do it easily. Actually it's simpler to handle fullscreen application on OS X/Linux than handle windowed one. I'm still don't understand why Uber not use SDL for handling things like cursors or window management. Biggest investment in cross platform development done on start of project. When game is already OpenGL-only and only use cross-platform middleware it's not that hard to support compatibility.
People with CrossFireX don't need to disable anything because it's just not work with windowed games, so it's not affect anything. While people who using Nvidia SLI need to disable it because it's doesn't work correctly and decrease PA performance a lot.
Well 30% might have been a little bit conservative. Iam getting almost double the fps in fullscreen with minecraft. Not that it matters to me since its always way above 60 fps. But would this also affect a game like planetary annihilation? Fps windowed minecraft: https://www.dropbox.com/s/r75qokch1fto98q/Windowed minecraft fps.jpg Fps fullscreen minecraft: https://www.dropbox.com/s/qbhv1p4gz1svu7k/Fullscreen minecraft fps.jpg
Just a single game -a rather special one at that- doesnt really mean that much. I wonder if there are benchmarks with multiple games somewhere.
FPS above 60 doesn't really reflects anything for many reasons. Better download Unigine Valley benchmark: http://unigine.com/products/valley/download/ Run it with OpenGL API (it's important because PA use OpenGL) and compare performance between windowed and fullscreen mode. It's will be even better if you can post result screenshots here.
