3 ms·

If compatibility isn't an issue (I have yet to have any compatibility problems with my Steam Deck), I don't see why they shouldn't move to SteamOS. However, I f

If compatibility isn't an issue (I have yet to have any compatibility problems with my Steam Deck), I don't see why they shouldn't move to SteamOS. However, I fear a future in which people develop games on Linux targeted directly at SteamOS: I find C++ development to be far better with First party Microsoft tools (Visual Studio, MSVC, DirectX, DirectXTK) than on Linux. I vastly prefer Microsoft style APIs to Linux style APIs (DirectX over OpenGL especially, though Vulkan is ok), and I have yet to find a C++ development environment that I like as much as Visual Studio. With solution files, vcpkg, and project files native to Visual Studio, managing projects and dependencies has become a breeze in Windows. Comparably, few IDEs on Linux provide comparable debugging tools or good UI (CLion being the only one I can think of, though I personally hate most of Jetbrains' UI) and cmake is such a poorly designed tool and syntax to me, I would hate to have to deal with it directly than just having vcpkg manage the builds and dependencies for me (though I think vcpkg is compatible with Linux). I don't mind targeting Linux as a platform via Proton, but I would really hate to have to write Linux specific bindings for a game

WhereIsTheTruth 3y ago
Unity started as a game engine on macOS with monodevelop as the official IDE I think you overestimate the number of game developers who depend on Microsoft's tools, game engine devs who target Xbox/PS5/Switch, sure, vendor tools require windows, but for 1 engine dev, you find 100 game devs Besides, cross compilation is a solved issue nowadays, all it takes to target Linux, Windows, mobiles or console is a checkbox in Unity/Unreal/Godot https://steamdb.info/tech/ https://steamdb.info/tech/ This data speaks for itself DirectX 12 wasn't a huge success, except for Xbox; wich sells 3x less than both PS5 / Switch [1], you don't see it anywhere else Vulkan gets on on both Windows/Linux, but also Switch and Android, so if you are a small indie studio who work on your own engine, Vulkan makes a lot more sense .. and even cloud gaming ;) https://www.phoronix.com/news/Amazon-Linux-Graphics-Jobs https://www.phoronix.com/news/Amazon-Linux-Graphics-Jobs .. even for Ubisoft, even for their Windows release https://www.ubisoft.com/en-gb/game/rainbow-six/siege/news-updates/6VFn74oMO2nVQGZxvFhBb5 https://www.ubisoft.com/en-gb/game/rainbow-six/siege/news-up... [1] - https://www.vgchartz.com/ https://www.vgchartz.com/
- novagameco 3y ago
  I'm not talking about the industry in general, I'm talking about my personal preferences. I like to use C++ with Visual Studio and DirectX. I would hate to find myself in a position where I had to develop everything in Linux for compatibility reasons. I hate the fact that some web dev tools only run on Linux or Mac right now and I have to use WSL2 (bun), I would really hate to see game dev go the same direction. Personally, I like Windows as a platform and I don't go out of my way to target Linux or Mac
- pjmlp 3y ago
  > Unity started as a game engine on macOS with monodevelop as the official IDE It certainly did not. Unity only added Mono to their stack when they went cross platform, during their Mac OS X days, they only supported Boo and JavaScript for scripting.
  - ffgjgf1 3y ago
    Boo ran on Mono though. Their flavor of JavaScript, UnityScript wasn’t even remotely similar to standard JS besides syntax, it also ran on Mono. I vaguely remember them trying Python initially but IIRC Boo and “JavaScript” were always based on Mono.
    - pjmlp 3y ago
      So I went into some archelogy, turns out we were both kind of right. Me less so. Unity 1.0 did not have .NET in the picture in 2005, however they went cross-platform already in Unity 2.0 around 2008, so Mono was anyway part of the story early on.
ShamelessC 3y ago
> but I would really hate to have to write Linux specific bindings for a game What are you upset about? You’re worried people will target windows to target steam? Or worried people will…target Linux?
- novagameco 3y ago
  I'm worried that SteamOS would make Linux to default target and game development platform and that a lot of tooling would shift in the direction of Unix-likes and the Windows + DirectX ecosystem would wither as a result. I want windows to continue to be a good platform for game development and not have to move over to an ecosystem I find really grating
  - ShamelessC 3y ago
    That’s a bold strategy. We’ll see if it works out for you.
  - rfl890 3y ago
    It's not like everyone's going to switch to Linux immediately. I think Windows will stay on desktop for a while. On a side note, what about Windows APIs do you like? I always thought they were a disorganized mess.
    - novagameco 3y ago
      Within DirectX I like the usage of types compared to OpenGL, where everything is GLuint. I like the explicit management of state and the use of views on resources to bind the same memory to different contexts. I vastly prefer HLSL to GLSL also. I know there's vulkan, but my experience was going to DirectX 11 from OpenGL 3+ Within Win32, it's similar though there's an overuse of HANDLEs. I like initializing things as structs and I like that ComPtrs provide built in memory management. A lot of posix APIs feel underpowered (semantically designed around reading files from tapes), and Microsoft often provides a safe _s version of most of them (Yes, some of which are part of the C standard library and some of which are not). There are various Win32 APIs I like (IOCP, for example), and it's all tied together with MSVC and the static analyzers available to the compiler (SAL). I don't think GCC has anything even close to SAL. I also haven't found a C++ IDE I like nearly as much as Visual Studio. I used to hate jetbrains UI but I actually tried IntelliJ recently and they redesigned the entire thing to be quite nice now, so maybe clion is nice (but I'm not willing to pay for it). I also VASTLY prefer powershell to bash

WhereIsTheTruth 3y ago

Unity started as a game engine on macOS with monodevelop as the official IDE I think you overestimate the number of game developers who depend on Microsoft's tools, game engine devs who target Xbox/PS5/Switch, sure, vendor tools require windows, but for 1 engine dev, you find 100 game devs Besides, cross compilation is a solved issue nowadays, all it takes to target Linux, Windows, mobiles or console is a checkbox in Unity/Unreal/Godot https://steamdb.info/tech/ https://steamdb.info/tech/ This data speaks for itself DirectX 12 wasn't a huge success, except for Xbox; wich sells 3x less than both PS5 / Switch [1], you don't see it anywhere else Vulkan gets on on both Windows/Linux, but also Switch and Android, so if you are a small indie studio who work on your own engine, Vulkan makes a lot more sense .. and even cloud gaming ;) https://www.phoronix.com/news/Amazon-Linux-Graphics-Jobs https://www.phoronix.com/news/Amazon-Linux-Graphics-Jobs .. even for Ubisoft, even for their Windows release https://www.ubisoft.com/en-gb/game/rainbow-six/siege/news-updates/6VFn74oMO2nVQGZxvFhBb5 https://www.ubisoft.com/en-gb/game/rainbow-six/siege/news-up... [1] - https://www.vgchartz.com/ https://www.vgchartz.com/

novagameco 3y ago
I'm not talking about the industry in general, I'm talking about my personal preferences. I like to use C++ with Visual Studio and DirectX. I would hate to find myself in a position where I had to develop everything in Linux for compatibility reasons. I hate the fact that some web dev tools only run on Linux or Mac right now and I have to use WSL2 (bun), I would really hate to see game dev go the same direction. Personally, I like Windows as a platform and I don't go out of my way to target Linux or Mac
pjmlp 3y ago
> Unity started as a game engine on macOS with monodevelop as the official IDE It certainly did not. Unity only added Mono to their stack when they went cross platform, during their Mac OS X days, they only supported Boo and JavaScript for scripting.
- ffgjgf1 3y ago
  Boo ran on Mono though. Their flavor of JavaScript, UnityScript wasn’t even remotely similar to standard JS besides syntax, it also ran on Mono. I vaguely remember them trying Python initially but IIRC Boo and “JavaScript” were always based on Mono.
  - pjmlp 3y ago
    So I went into some archelogy, turns out we were both kind of right. Me less so. Unity 1.0 did not have .NET in the picture in 2005, however they went cross-platform already in Unity 2.0 around 2008, so Mono was anyway part of the story early on.

ShamelessC 3y ago

> but I would really hate to have to write Linux specific bindings for a game What are you upset about? You’re worried people will target windows to target steam? Or worried people will…target Linux?

novagameco 3y ago
I'm worried that SteamOS would make Linux to default target and game development platform and that a lot of tooling would shift in the direction of Unix-likes and the Windows + DirectX ecosystem would wither as a result. I want windows to continue to be a good platform for game development and not have to move over to an ecosystem I find really grating
- ShamelessC 3y ago
  That’s a bold strategy. We’ll see if it works out for you.
- rfl890 3y ago
  It's not like everyone's going to switch to Linux immediately. I think Windows will stay on desktop for a while. On a side note, what about Windows APIs do you like? I always thought they were a disorganized mess.
  - novagameco 3y ago
    Within DirectX I like the usage of types compared to OpenGL, where everything is GLuint. I like the explicit management of state and the use of views on resources to bind the same memory to different contexts. I vastly prefer HLSL to GLSL also. I know there's vulkan, but my experience was going to DirectX 11 from OpenGL 3+ Within Win32, it's similar though there's an overuse of HANDLEs. I like initializing things as structs and I like that ComPtrs provide built in memory management. A lot of posix APIs feel underpowered (semantically designed around reading files from tapes), and Microsoft often provides a safe _s version of most of them (Yes, some of which are part of the C standard library and some of which are not). There are various Win32 APIs I like (IOCP, for example), and it's all tied together with MSVC and the static analyzers available to the compiler (SAL). I don't think GCC has anything even close to SAL. I also haven't found a C++ IDE I like nearly as much as Visual Studio. I used to hate jetbrains UI but I actually tried IntelliJ recently and they redesigned the entire thing to be quite nice now, so maybe clion is nice (but I'm not willing to pay for it). I also VASTLY prefer powershell to bash