changing face of gaming, OSes

[thewholecake]

Hello all!

It no secret cake been away from the server for quite some time. About a year and a bit. Last time cake was here things were way different in industry.

Cake wonder what everyone thinks of the state of linux gaming now and if any of u lot have tried out the new linux steam. What everybody think of windows 8, and the ARM cpu's growing presence?

Couple of interesting facts that are different from just 18 months ago:

• Desktop windows finally running on the ARM cpu (last time full desktop Windows ran on non-x86 was windows CE and then Windows NT).
• Windows RT (the new Windows 8 for mobile devices) will be locked down in the windows kernel itself will not run programs not approved by Microsoft.
• some people say the new nokia windows phones dont suck.
• Android now everywhere and leeching into mobile gaming. (cake even develop apps. do a search for the whole cake)
• Tablets now everybloodywhere
• Steam for Linux being released, Valve making new console with Linux and Blizzard/Valve announcing AAA titles for linux.
• Doom 3 BFG edition source code released
• intensity of patent warfare, esp between microsoft, samsung, apple.

Who reckons this be the year of linux gaming? Or will it pass as a fad? Does anybody run windows XP or Windows 8 on their desktops?

Some trivia: There used to be ARM-cpu netbooks (full keyboard, screen, like small laptop) running Windows CE and featured a desktop/start menu etc etc with the Windows 95 GUI way back in the late 1990s. Then there was the Intel+MS monopoly which led everyone to use the i386x or x86 CPU and intel actually sold off ARM.

Cake has one of these relecs. The HP Jornada. 10 hour battery life, and instant suspend/resume. Applications loaded so quick u could piano roll down the keyboard and the apps would load up instantly. solid state storage too. sounds really modern doesnt it? cake bet it more responsive than ur laptops.

thoughts?

 

[matilda]

Is this you, cake? They're certainly your kind of app!
https://play.google.com/store/apps/developer?id=the+whole+cake+industries&start=0&num

 

[i0nwr1t3r]

As a Linux illiterate I have noticed the smart phone / tablet market that run on risk architecture (ARM cpu's) that gain from a non bloated o/s & the proposed Steam gaming console are the big winners here.
Apple has launched a legal counter strategy (Patent Disputes) over the last couple of years to fend off it's more prolific rivals & keep it's highest profit margin divisions in the green while trying to restrict it's market competitor's product launches in the all important lead up to the Christmas period limiting the thrashing they'd cop if there was no market interference.

Windows 8 is said to be fast but with it's removal of Aero theme's it's butt ugly.
The year for Linux gaming?
I think nVidia's response to Linus Torvalds's one finger salute pretty much assures this won't happen , nVidia likes established markets not taking risk creating new ones , though they are pushing phone technologies because the writing is on the wall if they miss that boat.

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/nvidia-linux-driver-linus-torvalds-f-bomb,16070.html

So until major hardware vendors come to the Linux party , inexperienced users & non programmer's won't bother to learn how to write their own drivers & that lack of basic functionality is what stops the uptake of Linux as a serious contender in gaming platforms at this point in time.

I'd recommend you watch the youtube series on "why linux sucks" which is a tongue in check series by linux developer's.
It address's many of the issues I've posted above , if you have 45 minutes'ish per vid you can spare it's well worth the watch.

[video=youtube;Sh-cnaJoGCw]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sh-cnaJoGCw[/video]

Linux is a great o/s but it's beyond the use of simple folk until it's more driver friendly.

Windows XP is perhaps the greatest o/s microsoft ever released , it's simple , reliable & everything just works , people get it & MS probably never intended to offer a 13 year life span on any o/s which goes end of life in April 2014.
So a salute to perhaps the most user friendly o/s in history for helping me wait out the Vista years. <3

 

[Trigger Happy]

Quite a lot has changed over the year or so and personally I am not a huge fan of how things have progressed / the way the industry went in terms of ARM and also iOS / Android / RT.
A few things that annoy me about these OSes is the fact that we basically got to a point where we had a clear break from desktop and mobile and due to this, the desktop side was slowly converging towards the tablet arena, with quite a few laptops being touch enabled and pen enabled (like the HP ones that have the swivel screen, I had one of those!). Unfortunately for us, the iPhone broke that trend and we started to see all of these smartphone OSes start to be the convergence outwards towards PCs...they are the ones that grabbed the tablet market and even the tablet / computer (if you look at the way ASUS did the transformer for example.

I really am annoyed at this for a few reasons, the most pertinent being that with all the computing power we have in phones, they are more than capable of running a proper OS, such as linux, kind of like the Nokia N900 (which was the most baus phone I have had). Imagine if they continued along those lines of a solid linux core that was truly open and where ports of programs were a simple compile on arm with probably only a few changes to be made, but even then most things were ported very easily. This is where things should have gone so we can do more with less, rather than the current tablet market with pseudo word applications and needing to buy an app to do basic desktop activities....

To bring in a contender to this table, Ubuntu have been doing their part at least to get the convergence back in the way of desktop with their new Ubuntu Touch idea...I wait eagerly to see how this goes and to see it in action. Ubuntu had earlier last year shown what I assume to be the pre-work to this idea where they sideloaded Ubuntu on android (a feature of which the Touch OS has).

You might be thinking, hey they are on ARM so why be hating? The reason I am not fond of the ARMness of it all, at least in the case of Windows RT is the complete break they have of current applications. In the linux world there are enough people dedicated to porting key applications, whereas in the windows world a lot of software guys are crap and barely keep up to date with compatibility across the windows lines.... Sure ARM is great for battery life etc, but if we could at least break less in the transition or at least force people from now to dev for both I might be more inclined to enjoy this embrace.....but keep a real OS and not the iOS / Android / RT stuff!

As a side note on the RT, it isn't a huge issue given that the linux foundation will get an approved key and will run their bootloader inbetween..but I do agree it was a pretty crappy thing that MS did there...

New Nokia phones are pretty cool, but they took too long to come out that they will get overshadowed very quickly. I currently use WP7 and enjoy it as a phone OS. I was looking forward to the new lumia 920 but the fact it was shown sooooo far before the release they kind of got screwed over by HTC who went, here is our phone, have it now! Bad strategy Nokia.

Steam on linux I haven't tried but it is good to see them start going down that way, I think it will be a good few years before it becomes mainstream enough to entice more people over to linux as the everyday PC and not having Windows as a dualboot backup.

All the patent stuff has really hurt innovation in the past 2-3 years. Imagine how much better the phones and tablets etc would be right now if there wasn't so much litigation going on. Too many companies are responding with lawyers instead of better products to try and keep ahead, which is a real huge shame for us in the long run. There are signs of things slowly easing up in that space with a few judges now starting to force companies to settle out of court or to at least reduce all the claims they are bringing up (and even a few companies dropping cases such as the recent google v ms I think it was) but I still think the key players (Google, MS, Apple, Samsung) are going to war over things that will inevitably screw over the consumer who will end up paying all the licensing stuff. Take the patent Apple got semi-recently about a sim card holder....if that becomes the standard in Europe then everyone has to license it...that kind of stuff is just ridiculous and how this system isn't already abolished / overhauled is beyond my understanding.

Thanks for reading my wall of text!

Cheers

 

[Liam:)]

Imo the Nokia Lumia 920 is quite amazing, apart from the fact that the os on the phone doesn't run c++ apps which doesn't give a lot to a majority of the developers out there, apps like teamspeak aren't going ahead for the windows marketplace because they aren't compatible and free call apps like viber, don't work with other phone os. Apart from the fact that the windows app store is under developed, I fond the phone really quite amazing, although its stupid how they advertise all these cool camera functions, but they end up being in seperate apps, why couldn't they just put it into one application like and actual camera

 

[JoKeR]

I like pie.

 

[Evilassasin]

Ever heard of UBUNTU? Its pretty much as easy, If not easier to use than Windows (Also probably the most well known Distro aswell). The only problem for most people is installing it..

 

[i0nwr1t3r]

Ever heard of UBUNTU? Its pretty much as easy, If not easier to use than Windows (Also probably the most well known Distro aswell). The only problem for most people is installing it..

Steam has apparently aligned itself with Ubuntu , Ars Technica did a little article on it.

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/02/valve-officially-launches-steam-for-linux-with-massive-sale/

As soon as they support Counter Strike Source & Enemy Territory without driver / configuration issues , I may have to get an education about Ubuntu.

 

[noobItUp]

Steam has apparently aligned itself with Ubuntu , Ars Technica did a little article on it.

The biggest problem for Linux gaining momentum has been the fractured nature of the community and the plethora of different distros available. Its good to see someone like Valve pony up and put their support behind a distro like this.

Who knows, given the frosty nature of the reception that windows 8 has received, perhaps this could be the year of linux? (jokes).

 

[nelots]

Year of the Baldy Kent OS where the GUI is blindingly bright!