pouët.net

GLFW is <3.
I know the author and even submitted several code fixes :D

Not really. Drivers are always released on Windows first and are usually more reliable and efficient there for obvious marketing reasons.

Try NVidia's GeForce 9 series for example.


As for ATI... or OpenGL...

I've had absolutely no problems with nvidia drivers on linux so far.

I agree with thec, and I also use:
- glfw (props to elmindreda/hypercube)
- fmod (to record sound and analyze it)
- eclipse for development/debugging

VSXu was very easy to port to linux. All that needed cleaning up was some crappy code that was scheduled for re-write anyway....
And: Nvidia drivers work well on linux for me too.
I've completely abandoned windows, it's boring and a hassle..
Working on a demo now, It'll most likely be primarily a Linux release.

Trying to debug a prod by sending it to a Windows-using friend (who mostly uses OSX these days anyway) for compiling and running proved to be so clumsy that I gave mingw a try and surprisingly I was able to compile a working Windows binary under Linux using SDL/GL/fmod and even test run it under Wine. There seem to be six cross-compiler environments on my compy now already :)

And our prods have been open source too since '02 or so if you need messy Linux/crossplatform code for something: http://www.kameli.net/fit/

when it comes to making a demo "cross platform", i'd personally pick "ati and nvidia" over "windows and linux". :)

I'm using the same method as Marq for cross platform development when it comes to scene related stuff. OS X port is done separately over an ssh connection tho in most cases.

I don't really get why "for marketing reasons" the drivers on windows shall be more reliable. My experience has been the exact contrary.

thec: NVidia drivers are lacking some more specific functionality, for example no SLI support to this date yet, but otherwise I agree that the drivers are almost as good.

From a business point of view it's to be expected: more users, more priority. Companies probably allocate more resour... PEOPLE, I meant to say PEOPLE, to get their Windows drivers done. And then there's more testing.

But then again, a software developer should know that simply throwing more programmers into the ring does not gaurantee analogous increase in quantiy and/or quality.

I meant to say quantity.

waffle, what do you mean? the nvidia drivers I'm using claim to support SLI.

I have not done performance tests (I can't really say whether there is a noticeable improvement) however I am certain SLI is activated because I see some typical artefacts that I also see in windows when SLI is activated w/ my DVI monitor.

Cheers to Niels for the "res.. people" thing =)

i didn't get it. why call resources people all of a sudden? it's not like they get to say what they're going to be doing, or how.

It's true that Nvidia improved and tries to have up to date drivers on linux now.

The problem used to be more obvious with ATI. No idea if they recently improved though :)

Amd/ati released some hw specs of their gfxcard in the wild, i think novell are working on some drivers or something but last time i tried them they made the linux distrib i was using to crash lamentably with my gfxcard, i posted an entry in their bug reports feedback list and checked the drivers one year later the bug was still there.

Linux and co. are based on an antediluvian concept from the 60's which predates the ascension the personal computers and their ease of use, that alone is the bane of linux.

The intrinsic structure it's based on wasn't thought for casual users but for scientists & computer students, even if the knowledge requirement has been lowered these days by the hack of having layers upon layers which simplify it's use (i mean console>xorg>windows manager most users don't need that) there's still some severe problems of design and after more than 15 years that this os is running around i think it's hopeless.

But it's a really cool os for cross platform development, tho (if you can get the cross compiler running as planed, that is).



pffft. :]

hmmm if linux gpu drivers sucks, why q3 run more fast in linux that in windows?
(tested with my old nv mx400 and now with my 8600gt)

try it ^_^

Nobody around here said that that the nvidia linux drivers sucked.

I didn't mean to hint that you should code linux demos _only_, and I don't think that most people do, but they believe in cross platform and what's wrong with that? I don't run linux because I like to release linux prods noone can watch (that's why we cross compile + release a video), it's because two reasons for me

1) And this is why I switched: I was being fed up with cracking everything and the choice came down to either pay up or try something else, and if I would have run with the first option, I would've bought a mac. Plus the normal stuff with windows that just makes you go insane (crashes, reinstall etc).

2) Which became obvious to me after some experience with linux: For me, linux (gnome or kde etc) is actually better. Faster on same hardware, works stable enough to practicly never reboot etc. Whenever I run a windows machine now and then at family or friends I get aggrevated about something. Sure there is some config to get aggrevated about in linux too, it has a very steep learning curve, but when you're past that, it's disco baby!

That said, it should be said that the 64bit version lacks a few things now, but mostly that's because of proprietary software like flash (which doesn't even has a windows 64 bit version, you have to emulate etc). But I could always install the 32-bit version of ubuntu or something if it gets to me.

Eclipse was mentioned by j, I use kdevelop for practicly everything but will try eclipse soon again.

I have never met any problems with the drivers btw, sounds like FUD. And I can't afford a SLI config anyway :-)

Most people that diss linux either haven't tried it, tried it for a day or just wasn't for them. But in the latter, windows aint for them either, it's more of bsd or mac :-)

$ apt-cache search sdl-dev
libsdl1.2-dev - Simple DirectMedia Layer development files

apt-get is so fucking nice. For you who don't know what it is, think of it as a windows update but with pretty much every program you ever want to run as a standard user. It's like if winamp, nero, photoshop etc were accessible by windows update :)

you arent trying hard enough! :)

Indeed :)

this body (ok, he didnt say "sucks"):

smash: hehe, ok there were some driver a few years back that caused the computer to freeze but I resorted to the "old" driver and it worked again, and waited for an update.. there were more hazzle back then, now I rarely have any problems at all.

(to thec mainly): does kdevelop have a proper debug <--> code interface like eclipse / msvs?
I'm talking about breaking on lines of code etc...

I used kdevelop for PHP dev, and I found the builtin file browser panel very annoying compared to eclipse's, only being able to view one dir at a time.
Only bad things I heard about eclipse (which has no relation to which OS it runs on) is that it consumes a fair bit of ram. But I guess that's mainly for caching stuff and keeping history files in RAM.. Now I use eclipse for everything, including PHP...