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Developing Games On and For Linux/SteamOS
An anonymous reader writes "With the release of SteamOS, developing video game engines for Linux is a subject with increasing interest. This article is an initiation guide on the tools used to develop games, and it discusses the pros and cons of Linux as a platform for developing game engines. It goes over OpenGL and drivers, CPU and GPU profiling, compilers, build systems, IDEs, debuggers, platform abstraction layers and other tools."
Richard Stallman endorsed Gamemaker.
"There's nothing that Gamemaker cannot do. Gamemaker can simply do anything. Anything made in Gamemaker is fantastic. I love Gamemaker. I can't get enough of Gamemaker. Return to Gamemakerdom, you insolent insects! You're nothing without Gamemaker! Why not use Gamemaker? Linux is garbage; it wasn't made in Gamemaker. Why do you cower? Because you're not using Gamemaker. Use Gamemaker already! Return, return, return, return, return to Gamemakerdooooooooooooooom!" -Richard M. Stallman, on Gamemaker.
There's really not any information specific to SteamOS or even games in particular, just general info. Not a bad article, but a misleading title.
With typing like that I'd be surprised if their code ran.
I do appreciate this recent influx of interest in game development for Linux, brought on by Steam for Linux. I just hope that at least some developers show an interest in developing games that doesn't REQUIRE Steam as well, or have Steam as an option as well as maybe a DRM-free version as well. I play a lot of older commercial games on Linux like Doom 3/Quake 4/UT2004/Neverwinter Nights, and they all work fine but don't use Steam. Now, we might see more commercial games on Linux but they'll probably all use Steam, and that seems quite disappointing if you don't want to tie yourself to the platform (which I don't, for various reasons).
Netbeans - although their focus is Java, C/C++ support is great.
Actually we peaked with NetHack. It's been a while, admittedly, but then again, you guys never had a peak anywhere near that high
CLI paste? paste.pr0.tips!
. . .but only if you're going to run them within a BeOS VM on Linux.
Sorry, I don't make these rules; I just enforce them.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
Bring on the Linux version of GTA, Battlefield, and other major titles, PLEASE!
Try Serious Sam 3: BFE for this holiday.
Qt Creator is hands down the best C/C++ IDE for Linux.
Yet somehow companies like Oracle manage it.
It's just like all of Adobe's whining about audio libraries.
Some people just take care of business while others do nothing but make excuses.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
The gaming market is already moving away from Windows and thus DirectX. There was a time when trying to emulate Windows was the most relevant approach but that time has passed already.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Better would be better! Why emulate when you can improve?
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
You could create a great cross platform game by coding with the big OS in mind from the start.
As the OS developers updates, dropped support for hardware or changed code *should* be able to be fixed with good game code planning.
You could find a good 'free' 2D/3D engine that has wide OS support and the fine print for you to make a profit.
Or find a good 'free' 2D/3D engine that can allow you to make a profit and work long and hard to recode it for more OS options.
The main issues are great artists, good level design, developers insight into updated cross platform support.
Other issues are the 'wait' for sound, graphics or control code to be 'fixed' after huge OS changes from open or closed developers.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Right now Unity3d can target Linux, which is leaps and bounds in the right direction, but it really needs a native Linux development environment to be really useful.
The forum feedback page for a native Linux Unity3d editor has been around for over 3 years, received almost double the number of votes of the next highest issue in the feedback pages, and we're still waiting on it.
The impression I'm left with is that even those who produce a sophisticated enough gaming engine or system that can be genuinely competitive in that industry, and who might actually have some support for Linux aren't generally taking Linux seriously as a game development platform. Until that happens, I don't see Linux gaming going anywhere...even with what Valve is doing with it these days.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
I have to say that GDB under Eclipse is actually my preferred tool for debugging. Hell, half the time you can't even see that it's actually using GDB yet it does everything I would want in a debugger.
It's all horses-for-courses but in terms of GDB *itself* (i.e. not a frontend to it), I don't think there's much to improve except keeping up with new binary formats, instructions, etc.
Sure, it's great that there may be better support for developing games on Linux in the future, but I am not sure it makes all that much difference. It certainly won't to me, if all it means is that we are going to have the existing games ported Linux. I stopped taking an interest in games long ago, because there is no true innovation - it is always just about more 'relistic' graphics, more 'stunning' effects etc; but the actual games underneath haven't really developed since the very beginning.
What I'd really like to see is a type of social game that is strongly focused on learning and experimentation, something that will stretch and develop your academic skills. Examples:
- You are part of a team of researchers working together, trying to learn the secrets of some advanced, scientific subject - something above high-school level.
- You are creating a new universe, designing physical laws etc. Can you create life - and what is the definition of life in your universe?
- You are a hero, you are on a quest to find a treasure and probably kill a number of monsters. But your world is not quite what you are used to. Space is not Euclidean, it may not even be a smooth manifold - the topology may not be Hausdorff, and you are influenced by force fields that are ... different. You only know that the laws of logic are valid. Probably.
> is it possible to develop Linux apps in OSX?
Depends on the complexity. I use SDL2 for my indie game. Development on Linux, port to Windows and OSX. Really can't much simpler then to use a 3rd party library that Valve helps contribute to and use on Linux L4D2.