First off, this will be my last post for a while, I promise!
What I've been thinking of a lot lately is how put down I feel when I spend money on games that have zero compatability with my computer, and won't even tell me the reason why all I get is a black screen or no screen at all. I have a machine with an onboard intel graphics card and I use ubuntu linux as my primary OS. What I thought could possibly be a viable solution to this problem that hurts all but the console and mobile industry is an extremely modular game engine via dynamic linking.
Basically, the user would be able to swap out nonfunctional components for components that they've tried and work optimally on their system. If, for example, the game starts, quits immediately, then tells the user it was the graphics module that didn't function, the user (probably via a simple GUI) could swap out the graphical library for one that is more likely to work (at the cost of less optimal graphical output). The interfaces of the dynamic library would stay the same, but the implementation would be different. This also leaves the developer the ability to make custom implementations which might not work optimally on all user systems. I guess the gist of it would be more power to the user to get the game running without depriving the developer of too much of their power.
Of course, this model wouldn't be restricted to just the graphics library, but include as many components as possible, such as sound, input, and even mathematical components. If the game happens to be open source, this model greatly eases the making of modifications by the user (which in no way hurts the game as a whole).
What are your thoughts on this concept?
What I've been thinking of a lot lately is how put down I feel when I spend money on games that have zero compatability with my computer, and won't even tell me the reason why all I get is a black screen or no screen at all. I have a machine with an onboard intel graphics card and I use ubuntu linux as my primary OS. What I thought could possibly be a viable solution to this problem that hurts all but the console and mobile industry is an extremely modular game engine via dynamic linking.
Basically, the user would be able to swap out nonfunctional components for components that they've tried and work optimally on their system. If, for example, the game starts, quits immediately, then tells the user it was the graphics module that didn't function, the user (probably via a simple GUI) could swap out the graphical library for one that is more likely to work (at the cost of less optimal graphical output). The interfaces of the dynamic library would stay the same, but the implementation would be different. This also leaves the developer the ability to make custom implementations which might not work optimally on all user systems. I guess the gist of it would be more power to the user to get the game running without depriving the developer of too much of their power.
Of course, this model wouldn't be restricted to just the graphics library, but include as many components as possible, such as sound, input, and even mathematical components. If the game happens to be open source, this model greatly eases the making of modifications by the user (which in no way hurts the game as a whole).
What are your thoughts on this concept?
Macoy Madson-http://www.augames.f11.us/