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Open Source And Legal Xbox SDK Compiles Doom

Posted by Zonk on from the penguins-and-xboxen-get-back-together dept.

BlueMoon writes "After almost 2 years of silence a new version of OpenXDK (the open source, free and legal development kit for the Microsoft Xbox) has been released. It has now a complete libc replacement, multimedia support (video, joysticks and event handling) using the Simple DirectMedia Layer (SDL) and it migrated to a GCC-based toolchain. To demonstrate the capabilities of the framework, the SDL port of Doom is able to be compiled and executed."

3 of 13 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Wait.... by HoneyBunchesOfGoats · · Score: 4, Informative

    Well, they've just completed an SDK for a gaming platform... it makes sense that they would want to test it by using it with a game already known to compile and run properly. That way, if anything goes wrong they can narrow down the variables that could have caused problems.

  2. capabilities by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Quit trolling, they're demonstrating the abilities of thier tool-chain, not the capabilities of the platform. A complete GCC toolchain, a full libc replacement and completed SDL port is not anything to scoff at.

    I guess they're still working out sound and network support, but thats not a fault of the toolchain or libc. Possibly it could be lacking support in the SDL port, but it may be something not understood about the hardware, or maybe the SDL port of doom wasn't using SDL for sound or networking.

  3. Re:Wait.... by nathanh · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Do you mean THE Doom? The original one from the mid-90's? How is that proving the capabilities of anything?

    It's bloody awesome news. If Doom works then that means OpenXDK can read the gamepad inputs plus generate 2D output. There are a number of otherwise free Xbox utilities that need nothing more than that but because of the Microsoft Xbox SDK licensing, the authors are unable to distribute those Xbox utilities. So even though the source code is GPL, by linking with Microsoft's Xbox SDK you forego your publishing rights. That sucks, don't you agree? These people are forced to "warez trade" their own utilities that they wrote!

    For example, go to xs.com and count how many utilities cannot be distributed due to XDK licensing. The very worst example is Xbox Media Center; an absolutely outstanding piece of Xbox software (built around Python and Mplayer) that is encumbered by the Microsoft XDK.

    Now with OpenXDK at least some of these free and open-source utilities can be published on websites. It is great news for the Xbox developer scene.