Subject: Re: Thoughts on the Gabe Newell 's Mac comments. 2007-10-05 - By John Stiles
Back
On Oct 5, 2007, at 4:49 AM, Jerahmy Pocott wrote:
>>> Apple knowingly makes our lives miserable here. A "game API"
>>> should be versioned independently of the OS, like Quicktime. So
>>> if Apple adds rectangular texture support, that needs to be back-
>>> ported at least as far as 10.3.9, but maybe even 10.2, so we can
>>> tell users to "just run software update" to play our games. Or
>>> say Apple adds 8 bit back buffer/triple buffering/page flipping
>>> to windows. That needs to be back-ported so that devs can
>>> actually use it, or else we still have to maintain multiple code
>>> paths, with the end result being that improvements don't get
>>> adopted. Existing policy just sends a big FU to the community,
>>> in the name of making money on new OS releases.
>>
>> This is utter bullshit. I give up...
>
> I think he DOES have a point here..
>
> API improvements should be patched into previous OS versions where
> possible,
> I mean you can probably still patch win98 to use the latest version
> of DX..
>
> Though I'm not completely sure what isn't available in previous
> versions besides
> some Carbon and Cocoa stuff that a game isn't going to use anyway..
> I guess
> there are some hardware features lacking in OpenGL or something?
>
> Anyway you should be able to code for an API version rather than an
> entire
> OS version.. And distribute those versions of the API with your
> program or
> have them in apple update..
From my perspective (just personally, not-representing-my-employer,
etc.), I can see huge dividends for OpenGL patches separate from OS
updates. When we find an OpenGL bug, even if the fix is a simple one-
liner for Apple to implement, it has to wait for the next OS update.
If the OS has end-of-lifed, then there's no vehicle for the fix at
all. Just as one concrete example, there was a problem introduced
with the 10.3.9 update affecting Warcraft III on GF2MX, and that was
never fixed because there were no future 10.3 updates. We had to tell
users to downgrade to 10.3.8 or upgrade to Tiger to solve it (it was
fixed early on in 10.4's lifespan, shortly after 10.4.0). Of course
there is no official way to downgrade to 10.3.8 other than a
reinstall, which is difficult for everyone involved. If OpenGL wasn't
tied to OS updates, we could have just told the 10.3 users to run
Software Update and the next driver release would have fixed it.
__ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____
Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored.
Mac-games-dev mailing list (Mac-games-dev@(protected))
Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription:
http://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/mac-games-dev/junlu%405341.com
This email sent to junlu@(protected)
|
|
