Re: Loki...

["Frederic A . Martinelli" <aerios@free.fr>]

Le 2002.01.24 16:47, "Green, Aaron" a écrit :
> 
> 
> > Steve Baker wrote:
> >
> > > Josef Spillner wrote:
> > > It's very depressing - but we *NEED* commercial games for Linux.
> > >
> >
> > Why is that exactly? I for one would not mind a free operating system
> (linux)
> > with nothing else but free software on it. I'm certainly doing my best
> for
> > that goal (Crystal Space). I see no reason for any commercial software
> on linux.
> >
> Well, if you had the possibility of actually making money from Linux, you
> would probably see a lot of corporations contributing to the development
> process and making it much better, which they do now, just because of the
> potential for profit.  As soon as that hope is lost, these contributions
> will probably stop.  Without these contributions from companies such as
> IBM, Sun, Red Hat, and many oversees companies, Linux might not be what
> it has become today.
> 

I would like to add to that thread that, by now, there is another problem 
for a game company who would be interested in making games for Linux: 3D.
We all know in this mailing list that without proper 3D support there is 
not, at (short?/)medium/long term, a market for the gaming industry under 
Linux.
With the `curious' thing SGI have done 6 months ago, i'm not sure anyone 
knows by now, for sure, if OpenGL will last, let say, up to the end of 
this year. I hope to be wrong here, but we are talking about a M$ move 
here, not about a Santa Claus' one and it's 62.5M$US, not a couple of 
hundreds.

I do believe this rises a big problem that we need to fix as fast as 
possible: will software rendering be able to be seen as an alternative to 
hardware rendering ? In any way: final look, speed, etc...
If the reply is no for the end user, then hope is small.
What is interesting here is `end user'... Those who buy games.
(By speed i don't expect 150fps, but the 30 required for smooth playing. 
Yes i know one can play at 6, but i was talking about real playing not 
`with cup of tea' playing.)

Really are there any people out there still able to code asm the way we 
were doing it on the Amiga up to 486s ? Personnally i don't even remember 
how to do affine texture mapping by hand or mipmapping... Really someone 
knows of a `3D 30fps when under load library' under Linux ?
Just in case...


Fred.