Crosplatformnessness

[Bloodknight]

So as to not hijack http://forums.torque3d.org/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=677&start=20 thread anymore than already has done, i figured best a separate discussion.

While some platforms are a special case *android* in particular, many others are simply variations of the PC world, the problem as i see it is the fact there are only tiny pools of interest in non windows PC gaming platforms, and even tinier still the pools of expertise within those groups to be able to get the engine running well.

Part of the difficulty i believe lies in the fact that 'fringe builds' are not tested well enough, so that the few who are developing platform specific fixes are not getting enough feedback.

I'm not sure the best approaches for addressing this, while some will argue that linux is linux, the fact is theres a whole plethora of variances in linux distros which potentially cause issues, to such an extent that even some linux distros are being blacklisted by linux software developers. Perhaps what we need is a list of most used desktop linux flavours so that we could at least target those (and yes irritated purists this is going to involve ubuntu).

As far as macs... not sure how the hell that works, in Europe at least only rich pretentious hipsters own macs because of the prohibitive price tags, US base devs might be able to access the stuff more readily, but even in the US the mac crowd is much smaller than the linux crowd.

I know at least there are several devs that use windows as well as linux, but not all of us use torque specifically on linux. A properly formed list of things to test across different platforms might be useful because honestly i dont even know where i would start without switching platforms to work the majority of the time.

[JeffR]

I had started a wiki page for stuff to test soas to be consistent and cover most all bases here: http://wiki.torque3d.org/testing:pre-release-checklist

This would be a good starting point. Obviously it's not complete yet, but it gives a good list of stuff to check-over, and is applicable to all platforms.

[Azaezel]

http://wiki.torque3d.org/testing:pre-release-checklist there's this... should prolly be more prominent on the wiki...