pouët.net

k.. this is not bait, i see good/bad things in all systems/os. But...

We had this small debate at work over why there is more games for Windows than there is for MacOS and Linux. I made me wonder why in the demoscene there is a big difference in the number of Win/Linux/Mac productions. Seams to me the Mac has always been branded as the creative platform, and I would like to think democoding is creative.

Is it because the Mac hardware don't apeal to coders?
Is it because there is a better development enviroment on Win, or just more options (DX)?
Is it all because there is just more viewers with a Win system to watch the demos?
Maybe its because of the hardware compos are run on at parties?

Or a bit of mix between it all?

Not that I would complain, since I have a win box. It was just one of those bored at work debates.

oh no, not again...

Get out of my internets and go back to Denmark!

if there were more linux demos, that would make the demoscene closer to being part of the linux scene. if we were part of the linux scene, we wouldnt be able to feel superior to linux geeks anymore.

feel free to ignore my post. :) I just thought this would be the best place to get a good idea why.

Scary isn't it.

@smash
Hehehe

I don't code for mac because I don't own a mac and the last time I checked, I got faster hardware for less by chosing pc. But the real reason is that I don't know anybody else who's doing it. It also feels like you have to invest more time by going off the mainstream, dunno.

besides, what Smash said. Nobody likes those bearded hippies.

For the same reason there are not much demos for Linux. I don't want that only 10% of the geeks watch my demo.

most demos are on c64 anyway

I'll attempt a serious reply..



It's 100% the same hardware, except with less choices and customization possibilities.



This is certainly one of the biggest reasons why I haven't made a Mac demo yet.. I got all my stuff on the PC, and I really, really, really dislike XCode and I can't be arsed to actually write makefiles and whatever to make my demos on Mac, while I can just boot up the PC and work on that. I'm not especially fond of Microsoft products but Visual Studio is the one thing they got absolutely right.

Not to mention DirectX. OpenGL on Mac is better than it's on PC (a lot less hardware and drivers to worry about), but it's still OpenGL..



Or more likely, more coders with only Windows machines. Everyone watches demos on youtube nowadays anyway :)



I'm quite sure that most parties would allow you to compete with a Mac demo, if you showed up with one (and possibly the hardware, in case they don't have a Mac available).

But hey, if you're interested in making demos for Mac, go for it! I'll certainly be watching them..

Count me in as well. :)

Also; fewer people use Macs = fewer demosceners use Macs = fewer demos are made on a Mac. Pretty simple.

Make a demo for whatever platform you want, and expect me to thumb it down for whatever reason I want.

Im a mac and I don't write my code in xcode, though I use xcode for compiling. As editor I use textmate which is a damn good editor. Agree that visual studio's editor beats the one in xcode.

As for why there are so few demos. I don't know. Hopefully I can contribute with a demo at some point.

Textmate is awesome indeed, I've used it for Java stuff, but I'd really, really like something that compiles, links and runs my stuff with a single keystroke, not to mention with a proper debugger...

What everyone else said, plus from experience of making mac demos:

Some parties support mac as a platform, some don't. For breakpoint I was told a mac demo would have to go in the wild compo :/

The hardware is either what you want or not.. macs are actually not usually more expensive, but the choice is very limited. If there is a model that fits what you need, you get excellent hardware for a good price. As an example, I bought an imac last year. I compared it against the closest HP and dell systems I could find, and the price was almost the same (actually I think the mac was slightly cheaper even). I could have built it for a bit less, but I can't be arsed these days, the money saved is small. My room is now much more tidy and nearly silent, but on the downside I can't upgrade much. Fine.. I don't plan to anyway :)

xcode: well, I've not used visual studio much, and I'm a bad coder anyway, but I've been pretty impressed with it. Besides that, there's a LOT of goodness in the mac sdk that isn't available on windows. Core image gives you GPU accelerated 2d image processing (basically pixel shaders, with a few limitations and a few very nice bonuses. There's quartz composer, which is basically a demo tool (I did the 'numbers' demo in that for sundown). There's audio units (not tried them, but they sound good for demo making) and other stuff.

btw. here is an advertisement for #macscene on irc.ircnet.com

todo: insert ad here.

And they all require totally relearning programming since they're running on Objective-C. Which is a good thing, in a way, but learning a new language just to program demos..? That said, I like Objective-C and it might be interesting to take a look at Core Image..

then again, is it so hard to just draw a quad in opengl with a texture and a shader on it? :)

smash,that depends on your codering ability :''''(

psonice: did you code the engine which your demo was running on? well it doesnt deserve to be in the demo compo anyway.. imho ofcourse!

Commodore
Amiga
Atari

and then the scene died.

I will be making some Mac demos as soon as i get the engine fixed. Don't expect it to happen anytime soon though :)



That's fine, you have proven yourself worthy to thumb down ;)

my plan is to make a mac demo

Are positive comments from "unproven" people welcome?

smash: true, it's just as easy. But they CI and pixel shaders have some big differences that let you do good stuff with either.

With CI, you can package the shader as an image unit.. basically, it gives you very convenient access to it and ways to control it. Plus, core image will handle all the render sizes.. you can make shaders to generate textures, process + combine them etc, and build up a texture generator, but there are no texture sizes at all. You then specify a target size at the end, and the dimensions get passed back up the chain.. pretty clean and fast, and there's a software fallback if shader hardware isn't present.

Then there's the javascript shader scripting.. you can create a list of functions in the shader, and script them with javascript, applying a chain of filters or different filters to different parts of the image.

Basically, it's all running GLSL in the end, but pixel shaders and CI give you different tools for different jobs. Adobe has cloned CI for their new tech too, but made it cross-platform - that should be in the next photoshop, and flash etc. at some point.