OpenGL Successor

Discussion in 'Planetary Annihilation General Discussion' started by blightedmythos, February 6, 2015.

  1. cdrkf

    cdrkf Post Master General

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    It is quite a low as a total % of gamers I think, however I'd guess a much higher % of very active community people are on it (e.g. @SXX, @wondible, @tatsujb...) and these kinds of people tend to be into things like kickstarter. A lot of Kickstarter campaigns wind up adding Mac and Linux support as it's such a requested feature.
  2. blightedmythos

    blightedmythos Active Member

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    I can't imagine being a gamer on a Mac, sounds like crazy talk but power to them.
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  3. termathor

    termathor New Member

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    Hi there,

    This nextGL initiative is actually part of Valve's effort to entirely get rid of Microsoft from the PC gaming landscape, after the UI atrocity that W8 was. This is in line with SteamOS and steam boxes, that attempt to pack the best priced hardware (PC, whatever format) into steam as a gaming platform.

    So, really interresting, it will take time to take off, but if Valve gains momentum with vendors (Nvidia, AMD, ...) this may succeed.

    To those who think MS as a monopoly for gaming (or anything for that matters) is OK, think twice. MS is in trouble as the cash cow (Windows) has dried out with the 8 debacle, so they'll be REALLY desperate with getting any money by any mean you won't appreciate, even more as they've been more or less forced to give away 10 to anyone on 7 or 8 for one year.
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  4. cdrkf

    cdrkf Post Master General

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    Out of interest, from what I read it wasn't the UI of Windows 8 that prompted Valve to pursue their own OS, but rather than integrated market place. Microsoft are desperately trying to follow Apple and take a % cut of all software sold like in iOS. The problem with this is Windows is built around the free use of 3rd part software on the platform (which includes the Steam client). With Windows 8, applications that run in the new 'metro' interface were only allowed to be sold via the store, which entails cutting MS in on the deal. Steam was still allowed, but it was confined to the desktop environment which was almost like demoting it to a 2nd class citizen. The worry was that if Microsoft continued on this path, 3rd party software would eventually be prohibited from Windows altogether, with everything being sold through their new store- which would kill off Steam completely.

    It now looks like MS are being forced to do a major U turn on that policy as it's had backlash from both consumers and 3rd party software developers over this. Still, having used Linux (on a dual boot, can't totally avoid Windows unfortunately), I'm all for Steam OS. I think Valve's main issue atm is how few games are built on OpenGL... this has also always been the issue for Apple to get any serious hold in the desktop gaming market.
  5. blightedmythos

    blightedmythos Active Member

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    I am still pretty pissed at Microsoft for the Games For Windows Live ****.
  6. SXX

    SXX Post Master General

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    It's hugely depend on what games you're like and what is your meaning of "being a gamer". Anyway it's not much different with being a gamer on usual low-end Windows laptop that have limited number of games it's can run properly.

    Also I suppose quite big part of this forum community was active gamers in TA days and it's was released like 18 years ago (and even SupCom is 8 years old game). So I suppose many of them just have some consoles in home where all AAA games are playable and on PC there not that much games that only run on Windows.

    Personally I work on Linux constantly and only rarely use Windows. As result I'm probably would play PA one day, but clearly won't spend any time on testing of Windows-only game because there is more games on Linux than time I have to play them. :D
  7. SXX

    SXX Post Master General

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    Apple never spend any effort to get any real progress of gaming market.
    Otherwise their graphics drivers stack wouldn't be that crappy.

    Main issue with Linux graphics drivers is lack of money while Apple have tons of money and their GL drivers performance is even worse than Linux open drivers in many cases. And this is why:
    John Carmack: Steve Jobs hates games
  8. Dementiurge

    Dementiurge Post Master General

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    Their cash cow is actually Microsoft Office. Xbox isn't doing so bad for them either.

    Problem is, if they can't get their OS (and file/application system) into something appealing and elegant (to say nothing of that hog, .NET), they may well end up selling Office on OSX and Android instead. Even better, imagine if Microsoft Office were sold on Steam as a Linux-compatible program.
  9. SXX

    SXX Post Master General

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    There is one problem with that. Microsoft Office is that popular mainly because vendor lock-in. They have own OS, technologies and standards like mail server, databases, data exchange, authentication and many many more things. Basically when business owners decide what office package to use they choose all integrated package from Microsoft because it's works better with other their products used.

    When all components except one (office) is from different independent vendors it's a lot harders to compete on such market. Especially if that one component can be easily replaced with another like it's tend to be in open source world.
  10. tatsujb

    tatsujb Post Master General

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    it's the system of the future.

    this is what gabe newell thinks and he's not alone.

    have you taken a look at the library of linux games under steam lately?

    no longer missing that many essentials I'd say. and more and more games now come out proposing linux support. have you seen that Star Citizen will support linux as well?
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  11. cdrkf

    cdrkf Post Master General

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    I'll believe it when it happens :) I'd argue that PA is one of the *biggest* new releases available on Linux atm.

    It's getting better, but still many many games tied into Windows and DX. Until the big companies selling the 'Call of Battlefield Recon Ghost Duty' games on Linux it's not going to take off in a big way. If anything I'd say it's a long term play, and I think OpenGL Next is a big part of enabling that to happen (as current OpenGL does limit a game engine more than it's windows based counterpart).
  12. tatsujb

    tatsujb Post Master General

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    witcher 3 is triple A so it takes the cake.
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  13. cdrkf

    cdrkf Post Master General

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    That's good to hear actually... not the type of game I play, still more the better.
  14. theseeker2

    theseeker2 Well-Known Member

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    My ISP has perfectly fine service at a perfectly reasonable price. I actually get just a tad bit more download speed than I pay for and about 5% more upload speed, so. It's TWC, formerly Insight Communications.
    And that's besides the fact that windows 10 is going to be a free upgrade, not $200, so the price is going down as microsoft gets more market share.
  15. theseeker2

    theseeker2 Well-Known Member

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    DX12 is still going to have superior performance, I'll bet on that.
  16. jomiz

    jomiz Active Member

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    @cdrkf


    I think dying light is bigger.
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  17. tatsujb

    tatsujb Post Master General

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    @jomiz damn! that thing is available on everything but mac !
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  18. squishypon3

    squishypon3 Post Master General

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    Mwahahaha >:3
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  19. cdrkf

    cdrkf Post Master General

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    Well if DX11 vs OpenGl is anything to go by it won't be as clear cut as that.... I mean PA client side performance is pretty good (provided you don't use SLI or Crossfire), and other native games such as the latest Wolfenstien by ID aren't bad either. PA was more limited by Open GL than other games on the basis they were supporting Linux and Mac (which have somewhat less solid implementations).

    I think based on what I've read OpenGL a trickier beast to work with than DX, rather than fundamentally worse. I think a big part of the plan with the new version is to strip out loads of the old legacy stuff and make it more streamlined.
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  20. tatsujb

    tatsujb Post Master General

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    that's the highligh.

    but not only that.

    that sentence explains the whole of windows/linux as well :p
    cdrkf likes this.

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