PCI SgtRock Posted February 27, 2004 Share Posted February 27, 2004 Hi, all; A search of the forums shows that this question has occasionally come up in the past 3+ years. Generally speaking, the answer has been that due to choices made early on, a port to Linux would be very difficult. Also, the marketplace 4 years ago for a Linux game was tiny, far less than 1% of the available desktops. IMO, at that time the decision not to bother with a Linux port was the correct choice. The marketplace today is a very different place. IDC estimates that Linux will overtake the Mac for number of deployed desktops some time early this year. Their estimate last year was that various flavors of Mac OS held 2.8% of the desktop market, while Linux held 2.7%. However, last year MacOS's position was fairly static, while Linux's installed base had grown by about 45%. This is growth that has been sustained for the last 3 years (2001, 2002, and 2003). The MacOS market used to be fragmented into MacOS 9 and 10.X. The move to a BSD core for MacOS 10 drastically changed how programs had to be written. I think at this point in time, most OS 9 installations that will be upgraded have already been taken care of. The rest will probably run until their HDs seize up. This means that we essentially have a combined Unix like market share for Linux and MacOS that is currently hovering somewhere between 5% and 6% today, with the potential for double digits in a few years (yay). Again, today the growth is pretty much all Linux. Linux game development is no longer considered a risky thing to do. Many influential games have come out with Linux servers. Some of the more foward thinking have also released Linux clients. In some cases, these clients came out on the same media as the Windows clients. For others, a download of the Linux executable was necessary after purchasing a Windows copy of the game. Examples include: Doom Doom ][ Quake Quake2 Doom III (forthcoming) Call of Duty Unreal Tournament 2003 Unreal Tournament 2004 (forthcoming) America's Army Neverwinter Nights Sim City 2000 At this point in time, I would like to suggest that the Combat Mission development team should seriously consider following these pioneers and create a Linux client in addition to the MacOS 10 and Windows clients for their next game. Cross platform games have shown themselves to be a successful alternative. The reasons for this are due at least in part to the influence the early adopters have. There's another reason, I think. Starting from the premise that they want to create a cross platform app forces a development team to spend time thinking about what can be abstracted, and what must be platform specific. The good news is that a MacOS 10 to Linux port is a lot less painful than that from Windows to either one. The heavy lifting to get a Linux port of the next game may already be done. Thank you for your attention, =JpS=SgtRock (formerly =PCI= and [EoF] SgtRock) 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
farmerch Posted February 28, 2004 Share Posted February 28, 2004 Yeah, beeing a Linux user myself I would be happy to have a Linux version of the next Combat Mission. However, I am not that optimistic. And therefore I won't give up my Windows version. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
farmerch Posted February 28, 2004 Share Posted February 28, 2004 Oh, there is a shot video you HAVE to check out: http://www.redvsblue.com/appleswitch.shtml 10 MB size Exchange Mac with Linux and you know how likely it is to get CM2 as a Linux version. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Redwolf Posted March 4, 2004 Share Posted March 4, 2004 Not that I disagree with the above analysis but I fid it funny that you say "Combat Mission client" like it applies for the Quake-style games. There aint no seperate server for CM (maybe we get one with the next version but I guess not and if so it will probably have the GUI in it like with TacOps). [ March 14, 2004, 12:30 AM: Message edited by: redwolf ] 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WWB Posted March 4, 2004 Share Posted March 4, 2004 Other thing is you are really talking about 4, maybe 5 games above once you start breaking things down by engines. So the list is a bit more impressive than it seems. The other thing to remember is that all the above are coded by dozens, whereas CM is just Charles. I dont think he has the time to make a 3rd platform work. Then again, given OS X's BSD basis, and OpenGL's cross platform nature, I would not put it past the realm of possiblity. WWB 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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