A plea for cross-platform development

[louisg]

Hey there! I noticed a lot of you guys are doing projects in DirectX and such, and was thinking it would be very cool if libraries such as OpenGL and SDL were used instead. I realize some people here are programming at a higher level and so their games will not be portable, and that is cool. But, for people who have the means, SDL and OpenGL are both a snap to learn, and here are some additional reasons:

- SDL ports to a bunch of systems-- including some consoles!
- If nothing else, Mac users will buy your game =)
- Mmmm, nice clean APIs
- My Windows machine is unplugged

Lou

[kidneythief]

I agree about all that, but some people just don't want to go and learn 2 completely different API's (and then of course theres one of the GLUT's that most openGL users would likely prefer to use) and it's really going out of ones way to learn practically a different language. Theres also things you can do in DX that you can't do in openGL, or things that are simplified. Not to say that openGL doesn't also have some exclusive features as well, but if one is accustomed to developing games with DX, and lets say has NO experience with openGL, the jump might be too much of a bother. I'm just saying.
but yeah, I agree 100%, I'd prefer more people used the simpler and more portable APIs and libraries.

[mrMagenta]

I'm currently learning SDL and OpenGL and having a blast. It's a great combination.. really quick to get started. recently discovered that Kenta Cho also uses this combo.. though he is programming in the D-programing language.

[louisg]

I'm currently learning SDL and OpenGL and having a blast. It's a great combination.. really quick to get started. recently discovered that Kenta Cho also uses this combo.. though he is programming in the D-programing language.

Huh, I didn't know he used D. Is that language free? Somehow I thought the only implementation wasn't.

I have the Mac versions of his games-- very cool stuff =)

Lou

[EIHoppe]

I...what is it, fourth? this idea. Having my personal comp run Linux often means that a lot of developers sort of skip over the void. It would be great to see more games on all three platforms.

Once I get a little more proficient at programming, I'll likely follow these principles myself; after all, why should people be left out of a potentially good game?

By the by, I believe the D compiler isn't free, which is why Kenta Cho's games are only available on X86 architectures, at least as far as I know. At least someone was kind enough to port them to Linux.

~EI

[landshark]

It's been a while since I've used D3D, but OpenGL always seemed magnitudes easier to use.

[louisg]

I...what is it, fourth? this idea. Having my personal comp run Linux often means that a lot of developers sort of skip over the void. It would be great to see more games on all three platforms.

Once I get a little more proficient at programming, I'll likely follow these principles myself; after all, why should people be left out of a potentially good game?

By the by, I believe the D compiler isn't free, which is why Kenta Cho's games are only available on X86 architectures, at least as far as I know. At least someone was kind enough to port them to Linux.

~EI

I actually have most of them here on my OS X machine too. I did not know about the Linux ports.

[Thunder Force]

On the subject of SDL and OpenGL, for what it's worth someone posted an introductory tutorial on the web a while ago, of how to start porting a shmup to the PSP (the example code used is from rRootage):

http://www.dcemu.co.uk/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=15083

[Aggrav8d]

When I hear people want to write games in DirectX my eyebrows always rise a little, right in the middle. DX api changes too much, isn't x-platform, and really: who needs fancy shaders? I've never seen them make a game more fun. Now OpenGL, on the other hand, really makes life easy. With SDL getting a window open and going is a snap and, unlike Dx, you don't have to jump through hoops to visualize data. just a few glVertex and you're good to go.

One thing that was left out of the list was FMOD. SDL Sound is pretty lame, and FMODex is damn easy to use. Plus it's free as long as your game is free, so what could be better than that?

[oNyx]

>who needs fancy shaders?

You can use fancy shaders with opengl, too.

For most (current) shoot'em ups opengl 1.2 is enough (for GL_CLAMP_TO_EDGE otherwise 1.1 would be fine already). With a version that low the failure rate on windows is pretty low. It basically just means that the user needs to install drivers from the vendor instead of using windows default drivers. And the failure rate over in mac land is basically zero (yay for mac).

[princec]

35% failure for Windows (spread over all flavours from 98 on) and 4% for Mac (spread over all flavours from 10.2 onwards) to be exact

Cas

[bpe]

why should people be left out of a potentially good game?

Uh, because in the time it takes to port over to the new platform, you could already be making good progress in developing the next title ? And since the new title will again have the potential to reach 500.000.000 players instead of 15, the math is easy...

... oh yeah and I do have a mac, and PCs running linux.

[princec]

Mysteriously my games are available simultaneously on Windows and Mac without me lifting a finger

Cas

[magnum opus]

By the by, I believe the D compiler isn't free, which is why Kenta Cho's games are only available on X86 architectures, at least as far as I know. At least someone was kind enough to port them to Linux.

~EI

D is both gratis and libre, it's dual licensed with one of the licenses being the gpl
there is also now a gcc frontend for D so it should be usable on mac too.