Actually it is very crucial for interactive tasks. Cooperatively multitasking programs tend to hang up GUI for annoyingly long periods of time. It really depends on quality of coding but potential is always there.
The one time I was forced to work with Mac ( it was relatively new Mac with 3D GUI look) Netscape crashed twice during 30 minutes sesion. F** that. Windows 95 crashes but not that much.. and NT is almost completely stable. Software for Mac is mostly the same as for Windows or at least done by the same companies. I hardly doubt Mac programmers are much better than their Windows counterparts. Anyway, Mac is not stable at all and definately less fun to work with then NT.
I was not talking about 3D. Just plain old 2d games ( Age of Kings type ) where full screen blit actually counts. Having to blit does not necesarly mean your graphics won't be fast enough but it takes away tons of CPU cycles that could be used for other stuff ( AI etc...)
"The only problem with Linux gaming is getting the games and apps themselves ported. "
No , not really. There are tons of other issues like proper support for various controlers, unified and fully hardware based sound support. Linux is not great gaming machine by any means. Actually, what you said fits better BeOS than Linux since BeOS has really great standarized support for these features but lacks anybody who would be willing to use it.
Yeah, they seem to take particular pleasure in slamming XFree but at least 90 % of that is actually true. Their stuff is faster and better at least was for me ( on 4 different cards so far) XFree is actually good enough if you settle for that. The biggest problem I have with their stuff is crappy mouse support. It is very annoying having cursor freeze during any larger screen update.
Yep. Xfree can't even get basic mouse support right let alone something fast enough to compete with DirectX ( which is btw not only graphics, excellent sound support is a big part of it.) The problem is that X is basically inferior to direct rendering subsytems (like GDI on Windows.) It is good enough for most desktop apps where flicker doesn't matter that much but for gameres every bit of additional power counts. Even for 2d games like AOK there is support in DirectX for page flipping which saves one huge screen blit. Where is that support in XFree (3 or 4.)?
Yeah, it is available if one is willing to spend couple hours chasing correct version of drivers for his card (assuming there is one.) All I am saying is that xig drivers are painless alternative which works very well and "out of the box" And no I have no links to xig beside using their products. Cleary, as of now, xig solution is much better than anything else for Linux. Prove to me that xig solution is not superior to alternative before flaming away ! It costs money but so do almost all good things in life.
For anybody out there tired of open source "almost working" GL implementation, there is great solution for this problem available from xig. AcceleratedX people sell complete , hardware accelerated implementation of OpenGL for Linux. In same cases the price is only $29 ! Worth checking out.
I think this is exactly what we need. Customer gets to see and customize source code and original company still gets to keep copyright ( and profit from it.)
In real world ( which is BTW the only one out there) this is much better solution than that GPL nonsense.
Are you seriously suggesting that Oracle, Sybase or MS SQL are so badly written that the only reason public at large is not allowed to look at the source code is because "customers would probably start losing sleep if they saw the quality/state of the software that runs inside of their products."
Where is open source DB that can rival Oracle or even MS SQL ? Wake up. Open source is about reimplementing (never ending chase syndrome) solutions that were created by commercial developers. Not much more.
"Yes, in the ideal world we can all use open source software and contribute to it. "
You can do it now. There are plenty of open source projects for you to choose. Or did you mean, in ideal world everybody would be forced to work and use open source sofware ?
And Sun's stuff is designed to satisfy their customers for 10 years and absolutely make sure that they will not have to buy anything from Sun for that time period ? How's Sun making money then ?
Have you considered the fact that this new language might actually be good and this virtue alone might atract tons of developers ? Is this impossible ?
Linux + X11 is just as big, if not bigger, resource hog as is Windows. To get something lean and mean they would have to go for things like new embedded Qt which is possible but very new and not ready for prime time yet.
Sure MFC is "better" in a sense that requires much less code to write and has quite a bit usefull new features. The class library itself is not the best out there ( Qt is much better ) but still, better than writing dozens upon dozens of macros from WindowsX ( or even worse, huge switch() statements) GTK is quite good desing for C trying to be C++ but it suffers from the common problem. Ugly and unsafe code with tons of casts ( everything is possible, casting GTKText to GTKWidget etc...)
Slashdot Mirror
Actually it is very crucial for interactive tasks.
Cooperatively multitasking programs tend to hang up GUI for annoyingly long periods of time. It really depends on quality of coding but potential is always there.
The one time I was forced to work with Mac ( it was relatively new Mac with 3D GUI look) Netscape crashed twice during 30 minutes sesion. .. and NT is almost completely stable.
F** that. Windows 95 crashes but not that much
Software for Mac is mostly the same as for Windows or at least done by the same companies.
I hardly doubt Mac programmers are much better than their Windows counterparts.
Anyway, Mac is not stable at all and definately less fun to work with then NT.
Just one question. How can Microsoft hurt your typical graphics card manufacturer ( say Matrox or 3dfx) ?
I was not talking about 3D. Just plain old 2d games ( Age of Kings type ) where full screen blit actually counts. Having to blit does not necesarly mean your graphics won't be fast enough but it takes away tons of CPU cycles that could be used for other stuff ( AI etc...)
"The only problem with Linux gaming is getting the games and apps themselves ported. "
No , not really. There are tons of other issues like proper support for various controlers, unified and fully hardware based sound support.
Linux is not great gaming machine by any means.
Actually, what you said fits better BeOS than Linux since BeOS has really great standarized support for these features but lacks anybody who would be willing to use it.
Yeah, they seem to take particular pleasure in slamming XFree but at least 90 % of that is actually true. Their stuff is faster and better at least was for me ( on 4 different cards so far)
XFree is actually good enough if you settle for that. The biggest problem I have with their stuff is crappy mouse support. It is very annoying having cursor freeze during any larger screen update.
Yep. Xfree can't even get basic mouse support right let alone something fast enough to compete with DirectX ( which is btw not only graphics, excellent sound support is a big part of it.)
The problem is that X is basically inferior to direct rendering subsytems (like GDI on Windows.)
It is good enough for most desktop apps where flicker doesn't matter that much but for gameres every bit of additional power counts.
Even for 2d games like AOK there is support in DirectX for page flipping which saves one huge screen blit. Where is that support in XFree (3 or 4.)?
Chicago would be better location if one insists on having Linux events in the midwest.
Yeah, it is available if one is willing to spend couple hours chasing correct version of drivers for his card (assuming there is one.)
All I am saying is that xig drivers are painless alternative which works very well and "out of the box"
And no I have no links to xig beside using their products.
Cleary, as of now, xig solution is much better than anything else for Linux.
Prove to me that xig solution is not superior to alternative before flaming away !
It costs money but so do almost all good things in life.
For anybody out there tired of open source "almost working" GL implementation, there is great solution for this problem available from xig. AcceleratedX people sell complete , hardware accelerated implementation of OpenGL for Linux.
In same cases the price is only $29 !
Worth checking out.
I think this is exactly what we need. Customer gets to see and customize source code and original company still gets to keep copyright ( and profit from it.)
In real world ( which is BTW the only one out there) this is much better solution than that GPL nonsense.
Are you seriously suggesting that Oracle, Sybase or MS SQL are so badly written that the only reason public at large is not allowed to look at the source code is because "customers would probably start losing sleep if they saw the quality/state of the software that runs inside of their products."
Where is open source DB that can rival Oracle or even MS SQL ?
Wake up. Open source is about reimplementing (never ending chase syndrome) solutions that were created by commercial developers. Not much more.
"Yes, in the ideal world we can all use open source software and contribute to it. "
You can do it now. There are plenty of open source projects for you to choose.
Or did you mean, in ideal world everybody would be forced to work and use open source sofware ?
Gee, one can't even trust Thomson these days ...
You saying that companies like RH _can't_ afford to pay for testing and eventual certification with formal security standards?
And Sun's stuff is designed to satisfy their customers for 10 years and absolutely make sure that they will not have to buy anything from Sun for that time period ?
How's Sun making money then ?
Have you considered the fact that this new language might actually be good and this virtue alone might atract tons of developers ?
Is this impossible ?
OpenSource seem to be bend on rewritting everything under the sun.
And you people keep laughing at MS for not being innovative ?
Java clearly better than C++.
For you perhaps, but not for many others.
That's silly. The point of this whole thing is to save power and provide resonable power.
You wanna SMP get yourself screaming desktop.
Linux + X11 is just as big, if not bigger, resource hog as is Windows.
To get something lean and mean they would have to go for things like new embedded Qt which is possible but very new and not ready for prime time yet.
Big deal. So is Linux. Why run it ?!
And what's wrong with that ? It's their money they putting at risk. Are you angry at them from that ?
WTF ?
Sure MFC is "better" in a sense that requires much less code to write and has quite a bit usefull new features. The class library itself is not the best out there ( Qt is much better ) ...)
but still, better than writing dozens upon dozens of macros from WindowsX ( or even worse, huge switch() statements)
GTK is quite good desing for C trying to be C++ but it suffers from the common problem. Ugly and unsafe code with tons of casts ( everything is possible, casting GTKText to GTKWidget etc
I am refering to J++ IDE which allows you to plug in latest and greatest JVM from IBM etc ..
It is right there ...