Win/Mac/Linux

ScopeDynamo · Post by **ScopeDynamo** » Sun Oct 23, 2005 8:34 am

How long before irrlicht is compatible with all three os'es? I heard the mac port was in the works. does it already run on linux?

Armen138 · Post by **Armen138** » Sun Oct 23, 2005 11:49 am

it has always run on linux.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sun Oct 23, 2005 12:25 pm

i wonder if people are even reading the irrlicht-feature list before posting crap here

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sun Oct 23, 2005 6:16 pm

Even though it does run on linux - this is far less important than MAC support, with EVERY graphics engine out there now supporting MAC (and mac in general being more desirable for game makers to target) irrlicht needs MAC support asap. I know it is hard and I personally wouldn't know where to start but I think it would be great if after the next release Niko could concentrate on stabilising the code he has (NO NEW FEATURES!) fixing bugs and adding MAC support as a matter of priority. I wish him well with the mac port which will launch Irrlicht into a completely different arena. People who wont touch it now due to lack of mac support will come and try and be blown away by it's small footprint and ease of use compared to "engine X" for instance.

Yeah I'm being selfish for my needs but seriously:

1.Stable and fully featured FIXED FUNCTION PIPELINE code
2.Optimisations and bug fixes
3.Mac Port (with above).

Anything else after that is in the realm of tech demos and will remain somewhat unstable for the best part of a year, so best to at least clean up for the above target users imo and make a name for being a solid low requirement X platform 3D graphics engine that will kick butt!

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sun Oct 23, 2005 7:19 pm

no, never!!! why should niko stop to implement new features just because of 1 or 2 mac users who want to use irrlicht? only 2% of the world use mac, and most of them are professionals, not home users, so i dont see the need for a mac port (for now...as irrlicht is more advanced, niko can integrate better mac support i think)

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sun Oct 23, 2005 8:14 pm

The Irrlicht engine source code is available. If someone wants to port and extend the engine for the Mac, more power to them I say.

afecelis · Post by **afecelis** » Wed Oct 26, 2005 1:39 am

I totally agree with GFX and Intmain; and besides; won't new Macs be using Intel based processors? Won't that make it easier architecture-wise speaking?

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Wed Oct 26, 2005 8:41 am

The new Mac's will have an Intel architecture, but there are a very huge ammount of mac users that are using the old one.

We have made some researches and have found that mac users at most buying small indipendent games. The games that you all making here or the most ones do.

We have here also a mac for development and waiting for a mac release of irrlicht, as we havent the time to do it our own.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Wed Oct 26, 2005 2:09 pm

since i dont sell my game, i dont care

i already care about linux (which is already a small game community) but if i would also care for that few mac users ... oh no

ps: irrlicht-nx (now lightfeather) has mac support (i guess)

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Wed Oct 26, 2005 3:13 pm

GFXstyLER wrote:since i dont sell my game, i dont care i already care about linux (which is already a small game community) but if i would also care for that few mac users ... oh no

ps: irrlicht-nx (now lightfeather) has mac support (i guess)

I can see your point - but for your information and to agree with the post before yours:

Most people who are using irrlicht seriously (though not all, of course yourself included) will want to use it for shareware - otherwise they have plenty of time to write their own engine. This is not to say all people will and probably most of the current users of it DONT but they are not a stable base - they will move on to engine X with new feature X if they are mainly writing games for friends or for tech demos. Some people ARe taking irrlicht seriously as a great tool for small games development. Just so you know.

THe other point is, you THINK that nothing sells on the mac - I was the same - in RETAIL this is somewhat true (comparitively) however in shareware, there is a MASSIVE boost in sales for Mac versions as it is an underserved market and trust me - there are people who use macs and people who want fun small games ON macs and are prepared to pay. So it should not be dismissed on the premise that hardcore gamers wouldn't play indie games or use macs - that is not in debate.

Mac support would boost Irrlichts profile immensly it is as simple as that.

hybrid · Post by **hybrid** » Wed Oct 26, 2005 3:30 pm

Mac support is already on the official TODO list for the next Irrlicht release. Furthermore, Irrlicht already compiles fine on Macs, it just has some problems with 3D objects stored in binary formats. This is a rather important feature missing, but the fix is simple. Unfortunately it is also boring and just tedious work to be done.
But, there had been some posting one or two month ago that some Mac user already prepared a patch and sent in to Niko, so if you're really desperate about using Irrlicht on Macs you might want to contact this guy and compile MacIrrlicht on your own. I think there was even some interface to native Mac drawing done, because a simple fix would only offer graphics based on X11.
I don't have a Mac so I don't care for this extension very much. But my guess is that in less than four weeks you will have it.

Stu L Tissimus(Lazy) · Wed Oct 26, 2005 5:30 pm

As far as I know, the problem with the OS X port of Irrlicht is suomething having to do with little endian/big endian. It would be a major pain to fix it up to compile on a Mac. (Again, it should be solved when they switch to Intel.)

hybrid · Post by **hybrid** » Wed Oct 26, 2005 8:22 pm

The problem is indeed little/big endian, but it's not major pain. It's just boring to fix and is only related to the situations where bitstrings are interpreted as integers (or whatever). That's usually the case if you read or write numbers as binary data. Here you have to know the endianess of the format and that of the computer, and call some routine or a simple bitshift pattern on your own. It's just to make a define and use it everywhere data is read or written. And his is borin and tedious, but not a really interesting programming task.