I'd like to attempt to dispel the myth that game development wouldn't benefit from a stable cross platform API.
The application software stack is more complex than a single monolithic chunk of code. Supporting any application or game title is a myriad of internal proprietary core libraries, many of which are consistent from one product release to the next, which in turn rely on support from other external libraries and APIs. This internal proprietary code base needs to port forward to new platforms and new releases of their supporting APIs. When a game company puts out a new title, of course it contains a lot of new software and rendering effects, but a significant percentage of the code that's running was probably present in past product generations. Porting this internal code forward takes a non-zero amount of effort. Many games run on more that just Windows/Xbox and clearly the code for that game title needs to be ported to other consoles. I have several associates in the game industry who've assured me that code does get ported forward and across platform. They've also relayed to me that pay is often low and hours are long because there are so many who want to work in this industry. I imagine that access to cheap programmer labor helps alleviate the financial pain associated with porting code forward. One might speculate that support for D3D is tantamount to advocating lower pay and longer hours for software developers. Paul Martz Skew Matrix Software LLC http://www.skew-matrix.com +1 303 859 9466 _______________________________________________ osg-users mailing list [email protected] http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org
