Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Microsoft forks Unreal Engine 4 and ports it to Universal Windows Platform

forums.unrealengine.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 118 posts

Re: Microsoft forks Unreal Engine 4 and ports it to Universal Windows Platform

#31

Post by shmerl »

kayoone wrote: post #30
shmerl wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To date, Microsoft has done... nothing I'm aware of... to lock down PC gaming. DX12 is a form of lock-in.

Unless you are writing your own, all the major game engines support multiple graphics apis anyway.

It doesn't contradict what I said above. Supporting multiple APIs is a burden, whether it falls on those who write their own engines, or those who write those engines for others to use. You can view it as a tax which increases costs and reduces efficiency. The point of lock-in is exactly such tax, which will deter some from using anything else, or at the very least make it more expensive for those who will use something else. This tax is passed to the end user either way, in the form of slower progress, higher prices, unavailability on other platforms and so on.

Re: Microsoft forks Unreal Engine 4 and ports it to Universal Windows Platform

#32

Post by ocdtrekkie »

shmerl wrote: post #25
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Newell's comments are from 2012. Sweeney's comments have been pretty much directly invalidated by Microsoft's actions. Note that this year Microsoft made a point to address Sweeney's comments by demonstrating Steamworks in a UWP app, and the Windows 10 update releasing today makes it easier to install UWP apps without the Windows Store. They've repetitively reiterated that UWP apps can be sold through third party sto…

> To date, Microsoft has done... nothing I'm aware of... to lock down PC gaming. DX12 is a form of lock-in.

To Windows? Sure. But not remotely in the way Newell and Sweeney are suggesting it'll lock you into the Windows Store. They're primarily concerned with Steam being viable on Windows.

And DirectX 12 is not any more a lock-in than any other version of DirectX since the beginning of DirectX, as far as I'm aware. (And games can and are offered with both DirectX and OpenGL support.)

Responses going forward heavily delayed because I'm rate-limited. If you want to talk elsewhere at any point, I am @ocdtrekkie

Re: Microsoft forks Unreal Engine 4 and ports it to Universal Windows Platform

#33

Post by adventured »

whatshisface wrote: post #20

It is true that Microsoft has been behaving well lately (GWX aside,) but it is also the case that their getting-away-with-it power is at an all time low. Microsoft would benefit if they could do all of these anti-consumer things, but that recent stampede towards Linux proved that the tennantry can be easily spooked and dangerous when on the move. Developers are leaving windows to work on Linux and Mac, to the extent…

Their 'getting-away-with-it' power hit an all-time low 10 to 15 years ago. They have drastically more room to abuse their position now than they did back when they were universally feared and relentlessly pursued by the US Government. Smart people actually thought Bill Gates was going to seize control of the Internet and put up toll roads, and that Microsoft would own all commerce. The scare-mongering and media insanity was non-stop for years in that regard. If I started listing sensational scare quotes about Microsoft from that time by other industry leaders, journalists, media publications, government leaders and other billionaires, we'd be here all day.

By comparison to what Microsoft went through in the late 1990s, today is a cakewalk, they have drastically more freedom and less of a spotlight on their behavior. Nobody really cares about Windows now, nobody fears Microsoft like they did in 1998, nobody thinks Bill Gates is Satan incarnate, nobody is calling for Microsoft to be broken into pieces.

Re: Microsoft forks Unreal Engine 4 and ports it to Universal Windows Platform

#34

Post by sailingparrot »

erikb wrote: post #29

Sadly it doesn't say anything about motivation. First instinct with Microsoft is that it is probably a d k move. So some explanation would be great. Oh well, let's see how it develops.

Microsoft wants more (good) apps on W10's store, so they port as much tool as possible to ease W10 apps development. Seems pretty straightforward?

Re: Microsoft forks Unreal Engine 4 and ports it to Universal Windows Platform

#35

Post by shmerl »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #32
shmerl wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To date, Microsoft has done... nothing I'm aware of... to lock down PC gaming. DX12 is a form of lock-in.

To Windows? Sure. But not remotely in the way Newell and Sweeney are suggesting it'll lock you into the Windows Store. They're primarily concerned with Steam being viable on Windows. And DirectX 12 is not any more a lock-in than any other version of DirectX since the beginning of DirectX, as far as I'm aware. (And games can and are offered with both DirectX and OpenGL support.) Responses going forward heavily delayed…

> To Windows? Sure. But not remotely in the way Newell and Sweeney are suggesting it'll lock you into the Windows Store.

Yes, they were focused more on distributor lock-in, but lock-in has different forms. Since you were talking about PC gaming in general, saying that MS did nothing to lock it, I pointed out that it's not so. System lock-in is still a lock-in, which MS uses to put competition at a disadvantage.

I singled out DX12 more specifically, because some argued that OpenGL was too much behind / not really moving forward, and so on. Vulkan isn't any of that, and MS not backing the effort instead of making NIH DX12 can't use any of the above excuses. They clearly made DX12 for lock-in purposes.

> And games can and are offered with both DirectX and OpenGL support.

On Xbox developers have no choice, but to use DX.

Re: Microsoft forks Unreal Engine 4 and ports it to Universal Windows Platform

#36

Post by United857 »

bitmapbrother wrote: post #28
erdevs wrote: post #19

Is this only a fork rather than being accepted into mainline because of Epic's thoughts regarding UWP? http://www.pcgamer.com/tim-sweeney-thinks-microsoft-will-mak...

Why would a multi-platform game engine mainline changes that are only applicable to Windows 10 devices?

Why not? Since it's a multiplatform engine already, any platform specific code would have already been modularized from the very beginning.

Re: Microsoft forks Unreal Engine 4 and ports it to Universal Windows Platform

#37

Post by milcron »

cocotino wrote: post #16
mike1o1 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As mentioned in the post, you need to register for the repository. Steps are below: "If you see a 404 page, you need to complete the enrollment process: Create a GitHub account. Sign up for the Epic program Follow the instructions to associate your Epic Program account with your GitHub account. Join the Epic GitHub Org (from the email invitation you receive after Step 3)"

I hope somebody mirrors this elsewhere. This is just perverse.

FYI these restrictions are due to Epic, not Microsoft.

Re: Microsoft forks Unreal Engine 4 and ports it to Universal Windows Platform

#38

Post by oldmanjay »

ungzd wrote: post #10
shmerl wrote: post #2

I hope it's not an EEE move[1]? MS aren't new to such things. I.e. make Unreal Engine work with certain things only on UWP platforms, putting everything else at a disadvantage. I don't have much trust in good intentions of MS when gaming and 3D graphics are concerned, given how they are dead bent on lock-in with DX12, while the industry is collaborating on Vulkan. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend_an…

It would be EEE if they, for example, ported DirectX to Linux. But here they're just ported other product to run on their "a-la Android for desktop" system. Possibly evil but not exactly EEE.

What is the possible evil?

Re: Microsoft forks Unreal Engine 4 and ports it to Universal Windows Platform

#39

Post by drzaiusapelord »

whatshisface wrote: post #20

It is true that Microsoft has been behaving well lately (GWX aside,) but it is also the case that their getting-away-with-it power is at an all time low. Microsoft would benefit if they could do all of these anti-consumer things, but that recent stampede towards Linux proved that the tennantry can be easily spooked and dangerous when on the move. Developers are leaving windows to work on Linux and Mac, to the extent…

>but it is also the case that their getting-away-with-it power is at an all time low.

Actually, most, if not all of the provisions, of the DOJ settlement have expired. This is why they can ship an AV with their OS and tell OEM's to cut it out with the crapware and offer special installers to remove this stuff.

I think they're just too weak to be the MS of the 90s. They just have to play ball to be competitive like everyone else. This is a good thing. Yet somehow the hysterical anti-MS attitudes are still here. Look at this thread. Its 90% conspiracy theories and axe grinding from things a decade out.

Re: Microsoft forks Unreal Engine 4 and ports it to Universal Windows Platform

#40

Post by apalmer »

adventured wrote: post #33
whatshisface wrote: post #20

It is true that Microsoft has been behaving well lately (GWX aside,) but it is also the case that their getting-away-with-it power is at an all time low. Microsoft would benefit if they could do all of these anti-consumer things, but that recent stampede towards Linux proved that the tennantry can be easily spooked and dangerous when on the move. Developers are leaving windows to work on Linux and Mac, to the extent…

Their 'getting-away-with-it' power hit an all-time low 10 to 15 years ago. They have drastically more room to abuse their position now than they did back when they were universally feared and relentlessly pursued by the US Government. Smart people actually thought Bill Gates was going to seize control of the Internet and put up toll roads, and that Microsoft would own all commerce. The scare-mongering and media insan…

I think you are misunderstanding... there are multiple dimensions to 'getting-away-with-it' power. While you are correct that Microsoft is under way less legal and public image scrutiny, they also have lost the lock in that gave them the power to do what they want and have everyone else in tech follow.

point blank most families these days have 3 or 4 iOS or Android computing devices for every 1 windows computing device.

Post reply on HN