This is one very good reason, imo, to consider using Pandora: The possibility of stand-alone Linux games that don't require you to be running X.
http://www.rocklyte.com/faq-development.html#Q4
"It is worth mentioning that unlike other operating systems, Pandora does not use a separate interface for game development (such as a DirectX style API). Because the graphics system has already been designed for speed, all developers can use the same interface and seamlessly migrate between both applications and games programming. You can also run games stand-alone - i.e. you don't need to boot Athene if you want to launch a full screen game or application."
And because Pandora is also available under Windows, you can presumably easily just recompile your game to work on this other platform to have a ready market.
Performance of your games under Windows, though, is most likely dictated by how well Pandora encapsulates DirectDraw/DirectX. Plus you don't get all the neat features of 3d hardware acceleration at this point (even for 2D games, you need to use the 3D API for really kewl effects like hardware-assisted alpha blending) although they seem to understand its importance and are promising to include it eventually.
It is competition with libSDL in this respect, although SDL under Linux is currently compromised by having to work on top of X. On Windoze, SDL encapsulates the DirectX 5 interfaces which also don't provide the 3d hardware acceleration features that, like I mentioned, are useful even for 2d games.
-- reply-to: a n d y @ n e t f x p h . c o m -- Philippine Linux Users' Group (PLUG) Mailing List [EMAIL PROTECTED] (#PLUG @ irc.free.net.ph) Official Website: http://plug.linux.org.ph Searchable Archives: http://marc.free.net.ph . To leave, go to http://lists.q-linux.com/mailman/listinfo/plug . Are you a Linux newbie? To join the newbie list, go to http://lists.q-linux.com/mailman/listinfo/ph-linux-newbie
