"Attention Trainz Fans" (Sept Newsletter)

PerRock said:
My guess would be Mac as they have dabbled in it before (and if I recall actually got Trainz working on a Mac (and not boot camp). So 'updating' it would probably be much less work then re-writing it for a different platform.

If a good hacker wanted to (and assuming it is for the mac) it is possible to get Mac OSX programs working on linux. Or at least it is much easier.

peter
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I'm a Mac head but I don't see it going that way. The two OSs have been growing closer than further apart. I didn't get into Macs because I hated Windows, I hated the idiots in their Mom's basement handing out viruses as a way getting even for other lackings. At least the crooks I could understand, it wasn't personal. Once any OS gets popular, the hackers will follow. Every time someone knocks Macs I think "YES", keep the hackers away, not the users.

All these OSs have become bloated. I loathe Mac 10.5 but liked 10.4. No bloat ware. All the needed security problems have made them that way. Tired of all the needed patches and resources needed to counter all of that.

I have been running 2009 on a MacBook Pro with an Intel core duo 2.16 processor, 2 GB RAM and 256MB ATI x1600 video card. Even with that in windowed, compatibility mode I get 30 to 60 FPS. The secret, no anti virus safety programs since that partition never goes on line. It's all that is running.

With all the hackers and thieves I don't think any program, especially a game, will ever be able to perform. To many resources lost keeping them out. A console would be the way to go but even those are starting to become reliant on the WEB. Reliance on the WEB for DRM and even DLS access will keep pushing system requirements up to keep the hackers out.

To much personal info and business transactions are online to keep anything safe.

Dave......
 
All this talk of consoles got me wondering if it's really such a good idea. If you see Trainz as a pure play entity where drive a prepackaged route and the most you can do is add canned routes and perhaps new rolling stock, then perhaps it could work.

But Trainz is more than that, much more. Designing and building routes is a big thing for many people as is the creating of new custom made objects. Can any of that be done on a console? I don't have much experience with them so perhaps someone can let us know.
 
We may be able to eliminate the Mac rather quickly if the contents of the DLS wouldn't work in a Mac environment. It's something I don't know, but would the DLS be cross platform on anything other than Linux?

My guess is Linux because it's starting to flood the market, especially on cheaper Notepads, plus Google's Chrome (Linux based) OS is about to be released.

Ya, my guess - Linux. Much less work for the programmers.
 
Johnk said:
We may be able to eliminate the Mac rather quickly if the contents of the DLS wouldn't work in a Mac environment. It's something I don't know, but would the DLS be cross platform on anything other than Linux?

My guess is Linux because it's starting to flood the market, especially on cheaper Notepads, plus Google's Chrome (Linux based) OS is about to be released.

Ya, my guess - Linux. Much less work for the programmers.
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Shouldn't be that much of a problem with Mac as at base level as is Linux, it is derived from Unix, BSD etc.

Porting to Linux isn't as complicated as it sounds, probably all that needs doing is re-compiling the code for the Windows executable files as Linux binaries, that has worked for quite a few OpenGL based games that have found there way onto the Linux Platform such as Doom3, Quake4, Unreal, all of which work as well if not better on Linux. Libraries, scripts, plugins and suchlike all stay as they are.
 
clam1952 said:
Shouldn't be that much of a problem with Mac as at base level as is Linux, it is derived from Unix, BSD etc.

Porting to Linux isn't as complicated as it sounds, probably all that needs doing is re-compiling the code for the Windows executable files as Linux binaries, that has worked for quite a few OpenGL based games that have found there way onto the Linux Platform such as Doom3, Quake4, Unreal, all of which work as well if not better on Linux. Libraries, scripts, plugins and suchlike all stay as they are.
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This is much more true the other way (porting from unix -> windows[1]). However, projects that start as win32 projects generally don't start with cross-platform portability as a goal, and the native win32 and unix interfaces for threading, file access (assuming you need more than the stdio.h style FILE handles), and memory management are very very very different. The graphics code is generally a fairly minor part of the code.

The titles you listed, Doom3, Quake4 (btw, these are essentially the same thing, as Quake4 uses the Doom3 engine) and Unreal are 'engine titles', made to show off a 3d engine that was intended as cross platform (Win, Mac, Unix, 360, PS3) to start with, they are NOT fair comparisions for the majority of games and their designs.

[1] For example, there are win32 implementations of pthreads, which allows you to 'just recompile' most unix apps to run on win32, but there is no unix implementation of MS's threading API. Cygwin and MinGW provide compatibility for some other parts of the standard posix APIs.

Edit to add:

One other problem with linux (and to a much lesser degree OSX[2]) is that the standard unix and linux filesystems are case-senstive, and would need special behaviour to account for the fact that much of the items on the DLS would fail to work without help.

[2] OSX defaults to HFS+ which is case-insensitive, just like windows. While OSX allows ufs and other case-sensitive filesystems, many games and apps require a HFS+ filesystem underneath, and so most Mac users will already be either unaware of the other FS's, or already aware of the issues of running such a non-default filesystem.
 
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NikkiA said:
This is much more true the other way (porting from unix -> windows[1]). However, projects that start as win32 projects generally don't start with cross-platform portability as a goal, and the native win32 and unix interfaces for threading, file access (assuming you need more than the stdio.h style FILE handles), and memory management are very very very different. The graphics code is generally a fairly minor part of the code.

The titles you listed, Doom3, Quake4 (btw, these are essentially the same thing, as Quake4 uses the Doom3 engine) and Unreal are 'engine titles', made to show off a 3d engine that was intended as cross platform (Win, Mac, Unix, 360, PS3) to start with, they are NOT fair comparisions for the majority of games and their designs.

[1] For example, there are win32 implementations of pthreads, which allows you to 'just recompile' most unix apps to run on win32, but there is no unix implementation of MS's threading API. Cygwin and MinGW provide compatibility for some other parts of the standard posix APIs.

Edit to add:

One other problem with linux (and to a much lesser degree OSX[2]) is that the standard unix and linux filesystems are case-senstive, and would need special behaviour to account for the fact that much of the items on the DLS would fail to work without help.

[2] OSX defaults to HFS+ which is case-insensitive, just like windows. While OSX allows ufs and other case-sensitive filesystems, many games and apps require a HFS+ filesystem underneath, and so most Mac users will already be either unaware of the other FS's, or already aware of the issues of running such a non-default filesystem.
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I hadn't thought of the case problem, I think all Linux file systems are case sensitive anyway due to the fact that in the Unix world "A" is not the same as "a"

A few years back the beta code for the original Auran jet engine was actually available for download, no longer have it unfortunately but that would have probably given a few clues as to what was or was not possible? Oddly enough I had no idea what it was destined to become!
I was at the time looking for a decent game engine for use on Linux......... I have a 5 year unfinished project that seems to have sidelined by Trainz........... hmmm. :hehe:

However I have just found this............. http://cggmwww.csie.nctu.edu.tw/courses/cgu/2002/course/auran_1209.ppt see slide 13 where it says:

The Jet Kernel is the hub of all other Jet systems and provides support for some of Jet’s key features such as:
OS abstraction
Win32 (Linux) <<<<<<<<<<<<<
Low-level services
Language extensions
Memory management
Multi-threading support
Debugging facilities

Curiously it seems I can read Powerpoint presentatons in edit mode on Linux in Firefox, new one on me!
 
Why would anyone want to play Trainz on an iPhone, iPod, or other small screen device? Isn't Trainz all about "bigness" and detail?
I can see on an iPad, or one of the game boxes, but not an iPhone or iPod.

As for the game boxes, I cannot see Trainz on one of them either.
I would vote for Mac, but then, I've never owned or used one :(

Maybe if there is a Mac version, and it plays a lot better than the PC version, I would buy a Mac:)

FW
 
NikkiA said:
Actually, it likely IS for the Wii...

http://www.turbotrainz.com/

N3V announced that last year, I thought that it'd already been released, which is why I discounted it as being 'the new platform', but while I was about to post telling you 'Well, N3V already did that, so it won't be that', I realised that it still hasn't been released, and the release date is 'Q3 2010', so this is almost certainly what it is, either on the iPhone or Wii, whichever is nearer being finished first :)
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Okay that is way to cute. :hehe: I just want it because how cute it is. If anything I'll put my money on this. Now were off to the races.
 
fwassner said:
Why would anyone want to play Trainz on an iPhone, iPod, or other small screen device? Isn't Trainz all about "bigness" and detail?
I can see on an iPad, or one of the game boxes, but not an iPhone or iPod.

As for the game boxes, I cannot see Trainz on one of them either.
I would vote for Mac, but then, I've never owned or used one :(

Maybe if there is a Mac version, and it plays a lot better than the PC version, I would buy a Mac:)

FW
Click to expand...

If it is a Mac version it should be easier to port into Linux.
 
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