Hi Philip, That is very good to know. As I mentioned in my earlier message to the list I'm currently looking at replacing one of my computers with a Mac. Recently my old desktop, we used as a family computer, gave up the ghost over the Christmas holidays. Now, my wife and I are in the process of discussing replacing it. If we do decide to replace it with a Mac I'll be interested in porting my current projects, including the Genesis 3D Engine, to Mac OS. If you happen to release a copy of BGT for Mac before I get there I'd probably consider buying a license for the port.
However, that said the APIs for Linux and the APIs for Mac OS are not that different. For example, I have a rough idea of how I'm going to create the Mac OS and Linux version of the Genesis Engine. I'll begin with writing a middleware library similar to Streemway that wraps OpenAL and loads wav, ogg, and other open source file types and mixes them with OpenAL. For things like threading, serialization, etc I'll use the cross-platform boost library. Finally, input, networking, and the window manager will be handled by SDL 1.2. I believe that this would provide an excellent basis for any game engine targeting the Mac or Linux operating systems. Although, there is an alternative way of handling this. SFML already has a decent networking API, supports OpenAL via sfml-audio, input handling is fine, threading works pretty good on Linux, and the only complaint I have is the window manager. It works fine on Linux, I hear it works fine on Mac, but crashes the OS on Windows. So SFML sounds like the best solution for a Mac specific engine, but I wouldn't consider SFML for a Windows engine based on its buggy window manager. Still I agree with you that at this point Mac is a developers second choice in terms of operating system to support. While Linux is fine as an operating system most of the Linux users I know left Linux in favor of the Mac. Plus because Mac OS is a commercial operating system the majority of the people using it are willing to pay money for commercial software. All too many Linux users I know are hung up on the free and open source view and absolutely refuse to pay for commercial software in any way, shape, or form. They expect software for Linux to remain free, open source, and without commercial licensing. That is unrealistic considering the fact I have to license music, sounds, and so on that costs me hundreds of dollars per game. The Marxist view that all software should be free, shared, community property is fine to a certain point, but doesn't work if we are dealing with capitalist companies out to make a buck for everything. Therefore since we live in a capitalist society I have to run my software company that way to make a buck myself to continue producing said products. In short, I agree with you. Mac is probably my next choice as well. It has nothing to do with weather I like Linux or not. I've just concluded the money isn't really in it. Between the fact there are less users their and the fact too many are hung up on Marxist idiology it will be very hard to market a commercial product there. If I can produce Linux versions inexpensively and make a few extra on it fine, but Mac and Windows seam to me to be the most financially viable markets long term. HTH On 1/22/11, Philip Bennefall <phi...@blastbay.com> wrote: > Hi Thomas, > > Just to enter in this discussion a little. I am actually considering buying > a Mac when I have enough money saved up. I'm not very interested in Linux, > so I believe that when I do eventually begin the work of porting BGT to > another platform it'll be on Mac to start with. > > Kind regards, > > Philip Bennefall --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
