Anyone else a betatester here?
I´ll give a description on how it feels to work with Unity for windows.
So far I´m very impressed, but I don´t have the time / leisure yet to
dive fully into it.

I'm excited, and I'm a dyed-in-the-wool 3DGS fan.

Me too. And I am fully planning on getting an indie license for this when it is released for Windows. According to the forum, I believe they said before March, if possible.

It seems to be very stable atm, so I think we can expect a
release soon.

Conitec: Take care.

Seriously: It depends on the project. You can not really compare GS and Unity.
They offer a completely different approach imho.

FULL ACK

Unity looks nice for FPS and other first person stuff but I suppose for games like puzzle games or unconventional approaches (like Heelx's a7titude for example) 3DGS is the right choice

Just because the approach is different (and, I admit, I am not sure what you mean by this) does not mean that you cannot compare the two engines (Unity and 3DGS). For example, if both engines can be used to create similar games (FPS, strategy, etc) then they can be compared and contrasted. They are both tools.

Yes, you can compare them.
But you can compare apples and pears as well.

GS: Bsp / ABT based, Mesh / Model mixture
Unity: Model based without any Scene Management

GS: CAD like editors
Unity: Realtime Editors

Two absolutely different basics. Both not bad. It depends on the project if
you really want to compare them.

Further: You would have to do the same project with both engines, if you want to compare. But that would be no fair comparison, because it depends on the project. For some projects Unity is the way to go, for some projects
you would choose GS, and for another one Unreal.

I am sorry. I have to disagree to some degree. This is not an apples and pears or apples and oranges comparison at all. Comparing 3DGS to something like Wintermute would be, but not Unity and 3DGS.

What you just did was compare the TOOLS (editors) and the methods the engines use to manage a scene. But both engines are real-time 3D engines. Both can be used to create FPS games (for example) and, as a result, both can be compared on an "apples to apples" basis. In the comparison, the exact things you brought up would factor in: the tools that come with it (editors, etc), the programming languages used and scripting language (if any), the type of scene management, if it includes things like a physics engine, etc.

If comparing Unity to 3DGS is an apples to pears comparison, then 3DGS cannot really be compared to DarkBASIC, Torque or any of the others out there either and, as a result, 3DGS will end up being the only "apple" in the cart.

And, no, you don't have to create the same project in the same engine to compare them. Not at all. The engines can be compared BEFORE HAND to determine if any engine can be a candidate for the project at hand. Else a development team would have to purchase several engines and recreate their project over and over again in each one in order to meet your criteria for comparison.

You see, you can compare them against the background of projects, but not in general.
You can´t say Unreal is better than Torque, because Unreal would suffer when it comes to casual games.
On the other hand, GS sucks when it comes to multiplayer.

You can drive with a Mercedes from Paris to Vienna.
You can do that with a Smart, too, but it won´t be that fun.
Is the Smart now worse than the Mercedes?

If you arrived in Vienna, you would be glad about a small car
that fits into every parking space.
Is the Mercedes now worse than the Smart?

I believe we are inline, but we are talking past each other.

Btw, no need to excuse.
I think this is a really interesting discussion.
We should even make a new thread, because it doesn´t really fit in here.

Edit:
"The engines can be compared BEFORE HAND to determine if any engine can be a candidate for the project at hand."

A lot of developers here in the forums are trying to do that, but they have no success.
Insteat of that, they are hopping between the engines, just to determine (after a year of hard work)
that they´ve choosen the wrong engine.

You would have to do at least one project to know all the bells and whistles of an engine.

without any scene management? unity for sure uses something like an octree or abt too (octree and abt are very similar approaches). i don't know any 3d engine which doesn't. it's needed for front to back sorting and so on. actually i wouldn't call something without scene management a 3d engine.