ArenaNet talk:Guild Wars 2 suggestions/Support other platforms

Linux

Converting from DirectX to OpenGL would be very time consuming and costly but it would open doors to other operating systems. Perhaps even Mac? Thats a scarry thought... Anyway, while I would like to see Guild Wars in Linux I am not sure they (ArenaNet) would be able to justify the cost. KJZ 17:09, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

DO WANT --Jette 08:55, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm voting +1 for Linux/Mac support, but Linux would be a problem. There are lots of different distributions and i think people would complain too much about "unable to install GW2", "cant launch it under Trinux", "how to patch KDE2 under FreeBSD :)))" TEHEK 04:22, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Let me begin by saying "I would love GW2 on Linux". That being said, in all practicality, it's a bad idea. My understanding is that GW2 would be designed with DirectX 10, and have DirectX 9 support for Windows XP users. DirectX 10 is currently impossible to convert to OpenGL. As a component of Windows Vista, DirectX 10 is the only system above kernel level that can interface directly with the hardware, sans intermediary software levels. This is why it's so hard to find decent drivers for old hardware in Vista. Even though it can interface directly with the hardware, it does it through a polling system that is dependent on Vista's memory management scheme. Because XP uses a different method of memory management, DirectX 10 will never be ported to XP. Due to DirectX's tight integration with proprietary memory management within Vista, There is no conversion that would work to port it to OpenGL. Emulation is possible in Linux, but currently stable windows emulation is based on x86 architecture, which for games is becoming restrictive. Many gaming machines are now 64bit, as that allows the system to use more than 3GB of RAM. While I'm sure they will scale back the minimum system requirements from that, Emulated machines would be limited to that amount of memory. In addition, many of the motion blur effects and higher quality anti-aliasing will only be supported by directX 10, and will be incompatible with DirectX9 ports to openGL.

Where does that leave us? They would have to create 2 clients, one for Windows PCs, and another for Linux based machines. That basically doubles the work for supporting and patching the game, delays bug fixes, and makes client end bugs and exploits harder to trace, and thus take longer to resolve. It would more than double their work in maintaining the code and increase expenses as DirectX devs are often not well versed in OpenGL, and vice-versa. That kind of staff increase costs too much, having two teams working on the same thing at the same time. This is why there are very few Mac games that even approach the level of a PC game in quality. The machines are capable, the user base is there, but the technical difficulties slows development in a fast-paced industry where everything must be cutting edge.

Most Linux users who play newer commercial games have a windows partition set up just for that, if not another PC all togeather. OpenGL can't currently take full advantage of the newer nVidia or ATI cards, so windows is a defacto standard, even in the Linux world. This may change someday, but probably not within the scope of their current development cycle in this game. - Countess Dramethia

Disagree with suggestion, Agree with Countess Dramethia. To top it all off, the market share of Linux is not even that big. We already have Wine, and it works, so use that instead. --148.87.1.171 03:55, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

As sad as it is I suppose this is truth. Although I'm not sure I believe that DX10 is Vista only. There are hacks for Crisis at least that enable the DX10 options under DX9 and they do make a difference in the visual effects. It probably would require 2 different clients as mentioned above. I don't see why they couldn't use the same .dat file for all the data and such things go. That is what actually updates isn't it? Or am I wrong there? UslavDershin

Wii

The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:130.156.76.103 (talk).

I doubt it. The Wii only has 88 megs of RAM and 512 megs of flash memory. -- Gordon Ecker 03:03, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

The Wii's graphics chip is also not nearly powerful. Its processor fails also. Also Arena Net/NC Soft has no plans to bring games to machines other then computers. Plus even to bring it to that would be a complete code rewrite. Dominator Matrix 03:06, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

I love the example "For example, my friend is only allowed to play games on his wii and he really loves guild wars " seriously... really... k..... --Lemming 02:25, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Should we remove it? -- Gordon Ecker 00:42, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Mac

I think it would make many people happy if you released the game for mac as well as PC. I also think there should be mountable beasts in this game. 86.220.85.192 18:43, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

If I could install GW2 on a Linux box with full graphics options, I'd never need windows again.

Wii

NO!!! NO!!!! Oh, and NO!!! Do not let Nintendo get their hands on GW. Seriously, the console does not have the graphics for GW1 much less GW2. And using the 'Wii' mote for an MMORPG just wouldn't work at all. Please think before you write stuff like this. Sheesh.--Will Greyhawk 17:01, 27 July 2008 (UTC)