Games. Windows / Mac / Linux

[Drenriza]

When you play a game such as Starcraft II on Windows. And Blizzard (who is behind the game) ports this to Mac Os X. How do they do this?

I mean, if you create a game for Windows, and port it to Os X. How much trouble would it be to port it to the Linux core as well?

What is the difference between a Os X game and a Linux game? Do they use the same engine??

Just curious.

[DangerOnTheRanger]

I mean, if you create a game for Windows, and port it to Os X. How much trouble would it be to port it to the Linux core as well?


Well, that depends upon the game. The technologies that OSX and Linux use are very similar, but there are a few low-level differences here and there that might make it difficult to port said game to Linux. DRM might be another roadblock in the porting process - there aren't any (AFAIK) DRM solutions on Linux.

I think the biggest problem that keeps companies from porting their games to Linux is not the act of porting in and of itself, but the low marketshare Linux has - you're not going to get that much in return from porting your game to Linux. So I think it's marketshare, not porting trouble, that keeps companies from porting their games to Linux.

[3Miro]

When games run well under wine, then they really run well under wine. If a company wants to port their game for Linux, then their best bet would be to join the wine project and make sure wine runs well with their game (or even fork wine).

Porting games to be native to Linux is no harder than porting them to OSX. There are differences, but small ones.