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I don't know which compiler DAZ uses, but I use the Embarcadero C++ Builder. With that compiler and when using the Firemonkey libraries it is possible to have a common source code for Win64, Apple and Android with only the target OS being selected immediately prior to compilation. There do have to be conditional compiler statements to get around problems like Android not having standard dialogue boxes, but all that code can be be part of the single code base. If that is a feature of one compiler, I can't imagine that it is not a feature of most.
An online version would also be running on whatever browsers people are using, and they just are not up to the task... I have been trying to explain to the younger, web-addicted IT persons that the browsers just are not up to the task for any serious use and have been several times proven to be right, but who listenes to almost 60 year old geezer that cannot have any knowledge and/or understanding of any things related to computers... Sigh...
I will be happy to test on Windows 10 the new DAZ Studio 5 Alpha-Beta, which by the way is the names of a grocery store chain when I used to live in Texas.
Generally, at least in the UNIX world, the major version number is bumped when binary compatibility is broken. That's what has happened this time. I'm not saying that UE5 had nothing to do with the numbering, who can fathom the mind of a marketer, but if Daz were a UNIX app, what we are soon to get would be Daz Studio 5.
no ronknightS didn't mean the Reality software!
No, that's not what people are saying at all.
There has not been "a stream of promises for 5-6 years", but they told use years ago that major version number of Daz Studio would change only when they make a major SDK change which causes it to become incompatible with the previous version of the DSK, until then it's just a minor version of the same major version. That's the way they've numbered DS versions for the last 15 years, that's why they changed from DS2 to DS3 and then from DS3 to DS4, and that's why they're changing now from DS4 to DS5.
And they have to make that change now because the framework change is required to make DS work on newer versions of MacOS.
True, Ron meant "Ron's" reality, which is different from, say, "Walt's" reality. In my reality, I don't need iRay nor GPUs, so for me (and I will assume at least one or two others whose main goal isn't photorealism) Macs are great for DAZ Studio.
We all have different realities, and I would never assume my wants and needs are the only reality.
-- Walt Sterdan
Walt, you are funny! I hope you enjoy yourself in your own reality.
But, seriously, I came to this thread with mixed feelings. My Macintosh computers died last year, and I was faced with a choice. I chose to get a new PC that had the necessary hardware to handle DAZ Studio easily.
At the same time, Apple was coming out with "Apple Silicon," with the M1 chips. This is a major change for Apple, and a chance for a whole new adventure. I'd love to have a new Macintosh computer. But it would never be my main DAZ Studio computer.
For what you want to do, I believe you made the absolute correct choice, no question I would have done the same, honest! It just isn't what I want to do. For what I want to do, and DAZ Studio isn't the only thing I do, a Mac is a better machine, even for the things I want DAZ Studio to do. We each need to make the best choices we can for what we want to do.
For what it's worth, I think you made the correct choice, regardless of the m1 Macs.
-- Walt Sterdan
wsterdan, thank you so much for your support. I have decided to leave this thread. It's too hard sifting through the "side conversations."
At this point there is no real news for DAZ to share. They're busy working on the DAZ Studio 5. I will wait a few weeks or months to see if there is any more news.
Off-topic: Are pre-owned systems just not a thing for Windows? I'm going to upgrade my MacBookPro the day the M-series version of the 16" MBP is released because I'm in a position to do that, but all my previous Macs have been used machines I got at a reduced price. I'd think you could get a 2-year old system that runs Win 11, has an OK card, etc., for fairly modest money. Of course, I've also been in a position where I had to wait until the bitter end to do an upgrade, too.
I build my computers from ground up, selecting each and every component by my own requirements for those components - Prebuilt and/or preowned can be built out of whatever that was cheap at the time they were built, so I would never buy one of those for my own use, but could consider one for someone using them just for doing basic stuff.
...can't speak for a full system but I am running with both a pre-owned Titan-X as well as Xeon X5660 6 core CPU and everything's been fine and stable. The MSRP at release for the Xeon was over 1,200$ which was only a couple hundred shy of what it cost me to build my system back then.
...also the name of the Moonbase In Airplane II.
...and the current framework is obsolete or in a way to obsolete for Windows. No company that is smart and wants their employees to eat tomorrow is going to stay in such a situation.
I purchase several online apps or webapps, most of them are lifetime versions and the funny thing is I use almost none of them due to feature limitations, instead I use installed software. However online versions are platform independent, example Linux etc. users will experience similar features.
Yes, but the browser(s) are not up to the task when you start doing heavy lifting...
Emacs is a fine OS, just needs a good text editor.
The unix/linux fans here will get the refence :)-
:) Emacs and Lisp are the two things in UNIX land that I feel every self-respecting geek should know, but I never got around to mastering either one.
I hear it's a fine newsreader, too. Personally, I used rn (no, not xrn).
I only was forced to learn vi, lisp, and smalltalk and of course if I wasn't forced to I wasn't going to spend hours learning emacs
Any users out there who use a Mac version and a Windows version (either as single-user or as part of collaboration) who would be testing the Early-Access 5?
Fortran, Cobol , Algol are programming languages, too.
Who use them nowadays with Daz Studio?
On this issue of making a Linux version fo DAZ Studio:
In the end they would need to write new code for a different operating system. Initially it might be considered to re-use a lot of code but they would spend so much time re-writing parts to optimize for the new O/S that it would probably be less expensive to use the existing knowledge to create a new design document and code from scratch with reference to the existing code to see how certain problems were solved. In addition, DAZ 3D would then have to maintain 3 code bases for DAZ studio. Consider their history with maintaining Windows and Mac versions. Avoiding these problems by using a higher level solutions such runtime code, versus the current pre-compiled code, or a web based terminal server model would require higher system/network performance. These solutions would not be able to acheive the performance of pre-compiled code.
According to a STEAM survey (December 2020) Microsoft Windows 96.41%, Mac OS 2.82%, Linux 0.78% is the of their surveyed customer base.
source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems
I mention this to pose this question for your consideration. How much additional sales of content/assets will DAZ 3D generate if they invest in making a Linux version of DAZ Studio. DAZ Studio is their current primary mechanism for selling content/assets but they have now added bridges which means Linux Blender users should be able to use their content. They also seem to be searching for other mechanisms to sell their content that are not related to DAZ Studio.
Does anyone know, by O/S, the per user software spend rates? For example, how much does the median Mac OS desktop/laptop user spend on software purchases per month/year? Windows user? Linux user?
With this kind of information and DAZ 3D's collected data on how much each Windows and each Mac customer spends on their content they might be able to extrapolate the market potential of adding Linux DAZ Studio. Ofcourse they would still need to do other market research and also do a cost analysis of what it would take to create a Linux version of DAZ Studio.
Until any of that is completed I doubt any serious discuss of Linux would take place with managment or its investors.
@IceCrMn comment concerning complete standardization of product classification system
I agree.
I think there needs to be a better way to alert those who prefer manual installs to product updates. The only reason I really use DIM and not manually install (I'd rather install manually so that I can rid myself of certain folders, make corrections, etc) is because DIM alerts me to updates. They need to do this with those who don't use DIM or Connect. Maybe by email, maybe by a forum...there needs to be some way to alert people. Especially now that so many flubs manage to make their way thru QC. The other place sends me an email when there's an update to a product I've bought.
Even if they showed the datestamp of the current downloadable file on the product page, we could check if it was newer than the one we have.
I looked at the STEAM survey, but it doesn't indicate (unless I missed it) how many Mac OS users are using DAZ Studio, nor how many Windows users are doing the same.
The biggest problem with porting DAZ Studio over to Linux is the nature of Linux itself. Linux is not a complete operating system, it's just an O/S kernal. All the various Linux distributions add a file system and a GUI to this in order to create a viable operating system for the end user. The last time I looked, there were several different file systems and several different GUIs for the Linux kernal. The practical upshot of this is that there are currently at least twenty five (!) different versions of the Linux "standard".
Does any version of Linux support the QT engine used by DAZ Studio?
Cheers,
Alex.
...some are running Daz through a Windows emulator like Wine but it is not without pitfalls (some serious, like no OpenCL for dForce). I woudl say they could look at what the most often used distro is and go with that. The two most popular ones are Ubuntu and Mint. .
Discussion about DS folder improvments and such has been split out and made into its own thread Daz Studio File and Folder Structure