Back to the X-Box
I've been tinkering with the X-Box port of The Wastes again, it'd be really
nice if one day we could all be playing FreeCS on it too.
I think extending FTE's list of "supported" platforms is somewhat important.
The main challenge right now is the RAM usage. We got games running on as little
as 128 megabyte RAM machines, but 64 is really, really stretching it since
everything is shared, too.
While the X-Box has SDL ported to it (unofficially) it only creates DirectX
contexts where you can dump your buffer into. It's not 3D or anything so while
you can easily port software-rendered games anything else is out of the question
with it. While you can technically get the XDK (not quite legal) and get it
running with our D3D8 renderer, we couldn't obviously release it that way.
It's frustrating and one of those examples were licensing restricts freedom
and innovation. Modern consoles have similar restrictions which do not allow
games to run that are based on GPL code - which is why me and Vera Visions are
not interested in doing console games unless that changes.
If console manufacturers didn't insist on using their proprietary API headers this would not be a problem - but no. Don't blame the GPL, blame the manufacturers
for not allowing this freedom.
-- Marco