what platform is this game actually programmed for, and then ported to? Since its a tri-platform game does everyone come up with their own method of coding a new feature?, or do you build the code in linux and port it to mac and Windows, or start on any other environment.

I only ask because I have noticed that the framebuffer code seems to be smoother around ships than the windows code.. maybe its all the resources windows takes up.. but .. I was just curious.

Different parts are written on different platforms at different times. The bulk of the game was probably written in Windows. Andy spends a lot of time programming on both Linux and Windows. The server was probably mostly written on Linux and FreeBSD.

Most everything that's platform-specific is abstracted, with a generic interface to the optional code for different APIs or platforms or whatever. Thus, most of the "porting" was done a long time ago, back when the platform-specific code was written. Updates and changes still take place whenever new hardware-specific features have to be added (like new shader support, which then has to be made to work on OpenGL for Linux and Mac). But, for the most part, not a lot of "porting" takes place anymore.

So.. the game just basically builds multiplatform, and Andy and Ray mostly work on whatever. 2000/XP/Linux. Some FreeBSD. A little on the Mac.

Any differences you see in performance between say.. OSes on the same hardware (Linux vs Windows) probably has more to do with differences in graphics API and driver implementations than anything in our game.

That's just amazing. I don't know how you guys pull it off but keep those updates rolling. You hardly find any games that get updated across all platforms simultaneously. In fact I think Vendetta is the only one I've seen in a long time. It just goes to show you that even though Vendetta's engine was first developed years ago, it's still a pretty damn flexible engine that still continues to improve drastically.

how about quake1,2,3 that were simultanously released for all major platoforms? how about enemy territory?

flexible framework is the key.

I'd add that NWN(1) manages updates quite well (The release was another matter, and one best left alone!)

/G

1: http://nwn.bioware.com

Randomize, none of those games had UPDATES that were released across all platforms simultaneously. The AltiVec version of Quake 3 is still stuck in beta status. Quake 1 and 2 weren't released initially for all platforms. I don't even think Quake 3 was. It was developed simultaneously, but the Mac version may have been released weeks or months later. Not by long though.