DirectPlay Discussion On DirectXDev
February 11th, 2003 by michaelThere’s an interesting little bit of discussion on the DirectXDev mailing list about the usefulness of DirectPlay to developers given a world in which many servers run Linux. Especially worth noting is this post from Tim Johnson, on why they won’t be using DirectPlay in production. Tony Cox of Microsoft Sports (and former DirectX fame, if my memory serves me) responds here, and then a follow-up by Andrew Grant of Climax appears here.
February 11th, 2003 at 1:49 pm
I just ended up smiling to that last post….*lol*
Finding a true joy of seeing MS fall short in any subject.
February 11th, 2003 at 1:49 pm
If they release a Linux support library, a license that lets OSS use it would be nice – BSD license, or LGPL, or something.
I’d be leary of any such library released by MS, they’d likely make it work like shit, and say, “Well, it works fine in Windows, switch!”
February 11th, 2003 at 2:17 pm
I loved the retorts made on Micro$hit for not being cross-platform as M$ wants to own every aspect of everything computing.
February 11th, 2003 at 2:31 pm
This is the moment to start a new crossplatform networkplay toolkit or to make an existing one the standard. (like OpenGL is for 3D ..)
February 11th, 2003 at 2:34 pm
“…given a world in which many servers run Linux.”
But Microsoft said they had the majority of the servers I thought. It seems the first area Linux combated MS was the servers, if Linux has finally won, or will win without a doubt, perhaps the Desktop war will be won afterall. I wonder how long till MS is asking if DX is worth updating, or porting since people don’t use it other than on the XBox3 that only MS makes games for.
On a hardly related subject:
What is happening with those parts of OGL MS ownes? Was it ever discovered if MS could kill OGL on other platforms if they wanted?
February 11th, 2003 at 3:05 pm
Btw I admit I know jack about DPlay … so what’s so good about DPlay that developers want it ported to other systems? Why not just get over it and dump it?
What about SDL_net ?
February 11th, 2003 at 5:22 pm
The conversation follows on with a few more posts -
http://discuss.microsoft.com/SCRIPTS/WA-MSD.EXE?A2=ind0302b&L=directxdev&D=1&P=8760 – tony cox responds
http://discuss.microsoft.com/SCRIPTS/WA-MSD.EXE?A2=ind0302b&L=directxdev&D=1&P=9494 – remark by tom johnson
http://discuss.microsoft.com/SCRIPTS/WA-MSD.EXE?A2=ind0302b&L=directxdev&D=1&P=10096 – another response by tony cox.
in the end tony suggests sending an email to directx@microsoft.com with ‘DirectPlay’ some where in the subject, and say that any suggestion will get sent to the “right people”.
February 11th, 2003 at 11:19 pm
He says the protocol is available on MSDN. So, uh, where’s it at?
February 12th, 2003 at 1:41 pm
It’s what the doctor ordered…
SDL is a library/protocol that removes the relevance of DirectX by being 1)portable, 2)efficient, and 3)open. SDL_NET is the module that should be used to replace the relevance of DirectPlay. DirectPlay is just a network_protocol_layer-independant application interclient communications protocol/API. For those of you that just want a small answer, DirectPlay is YET ANOTHER COMMUNICATIONS LIBRARY that works on any Computer Networking Protocol (IPX/SPX, IP, etc) yet is tied specifically to Microsoft software and SDL_NET is the logical replacment that so-happens to be independant of all vendors of operating systems. *deep-breath*
By the way, SDL is functional on the Alpha Platform!
Sincerily,
The Alpha Troll
February 14th, 2003 at 7:36 am
malik tyara