Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by shmerl 3017 days ago
I'm looking at publishers who do release Linux games using internal engines. Most of them use binary or source wrapping. Only a minority are implementing proper native rendering in those engines. And I bet it's based on cost considerations like I said above. How would you explain it otherwise?

And I'm sure that cost plays a role when small market is evaluated. The higher is the cost, the less likely such publisher is to care, because prospects of profits are also reduced. So it goes back to my point. Lock-in proponents like MS and Co. benefit from lock-in in slowing down competition growth.
1 comments
DoveBrown 3017 days ago
I agree that cost is a consideration of doing the port. From my experience what renderering API is used at the bottom is a very small factor in that cost calculation.

I think where we disagree is that I don't think of the lower level API as being much of a lock in. The better graphic programmers I know have pretty extensive experience of the various flavors of DirectX and OpenGL. The general principles are the same and good programmers move between them easily.

link
shmerl 3017 days ago
> I think where we disagree is that I don't think of the lower level API as being much of a lock in.

Lock-in here doesn't mean they have no technical means of implementing other graphics backends, it means that implementation is hard.

A lot of common middleware supports Linux just fine. It's graphics that's usually the biggest hurdle. People have expertise to address it, but it's still a tax to pay. And different distros support is a very minor thing in comparison.

If graphics is not the biggest issue, what is then in your opinion?

link
DoveBrown 3017 days ago
> If graphics is not the biggest issue, what is then in your opinion?

Graphics is the biggest issue, but the issue isn't at the API level. It's in the driver and hardware differences below that layer.

The "tax" as you call it, comes mostly from the hardware drivers leaking through the abstraction. Part of this is AAA game developers fault since they are attempting to use all the GPU with edge-case tricks to eke out more performance.

link