Domain: linuxgames.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to linuxgames.com.
Comments · 317
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Crystal Space
Crystal Space is a Free and portable 3D environment, with lots of really cool and advanced features.
From the website:
Crystal Space is a free (LGPL) and portable 3D Game Development Kit written in C++. It supports: true six degree's of freedom, colored lighting, mipmapping, portals, mirrors, alpha transparency, reflective surfaces, 3D sprites (frame based or with skeletal animation), procedural textures, radiosity, particle systems, halos, volumetric fog, scripting (using Python or other languages), 8-bit, 16-bit, and 32-bit display support, Direct3D, OpenGL, Glide, and software renderer, font support, hierarchical transformations, ... See the extensive list of features for more details.
Crystal Space currently runs on GNU/Linux, general Unix, Windows, Windows NT, OS/2, BeOS, NextStep, OpenStep, MacOS/X Server, DOS, and Macintosh. It can optionally use OpenGL (Windows, GNU/Linux, Mac, OS/2, BeOS), Direct3D (Windows), Glide (GNU/Linux), GGI (GNU/Linux), Allegro (GNU/Linux, DOS), X11 (Unix or GNU/Linux) and SVGALIB (GNU/Linux). It can also optionally use assembler routines using NASM and MMX.
Although this page is called 'crystal.linuxgames.com' don't let this name confuse you. Crystal Space also runs on other platforms like Windows. In fact, Windows is considered to be a very important platform since it is currently widely used for games. Personally I use GNU/Linux so Crystal Space will always work good under GNU/Linux as well.
Crystal Space is a large open source project. There are about 600 people subscribed to the developers mailing list and this list is very active (2718 messages in the first eight months meaning about 11 messages a day on average, Note that in the last three months there have been about 50 messages a day!).
There are working hard to get 1.0 out, but the API is already quite stable. In the CS guide there are two good tutorials, and compiling from cvs source is easy. Have a 3D look for yourself.
"Tell the world that we're going to be the grim reaper of innocent orphaned children." - linux/init/main.c -
Re:Getting closer, but not quite yet...
half-life should install, and run perfectly without a windows installation. go to lhl.linuxgames.com for a howto and information. all it needs is the latest CVS compiled, and all should work. works for me, just as fast as windows
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Time to pay your duesThis means you can get Tribes2 for less than the Windows version. For once, Linux users have a leg up on the Win32 guys.
Note that I'm not taking into account the limited time special prices you can get from local stores from week to week. The price for Tribes 2 on ebgames.com is currently $45. The price for Tribes2 Linux is $50, so you can get it for $25 or less with this LUG deal.
Ok, Linux supporters...time to put up or shut up. If you truly want to help, lay out the money now.
FWIW, I put down over $100 in games from TuxGames to get my Tribes2, SMAC, and other Linux games earlier this week. Reviews forthcoming here.
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Capitalism was -Re:/.ed
Actually... if you notice... they popped up a "Buy Here" button now that they have been slashdotted..... WHen I looked over this stuff a few days ago (after Kendrick's awesome work was announced on Linux Games) I actually had a really hard time finding out where I could purchase one of these babies
;-)
Funny what tons of hits to your site makes you do ;-) -
Is it running X? (Was Re:Themes)
Is it running X?
Yes, it's running X. About a week and a half ago I began writing a simple game for the Agenda from scratch (you may have seen it mentioned on LinuxGames.com and the Linux Game Tome.
I'm practically done. It was incredibly easy. Developing it on the PC end wasn't hard (I obviously had some experience coding X apps), and making what I wrote run on the Agenda was a matter of using a cross-compiler.
Porting Atari800 has proven quite easy, as well. I had it cross compiled and up and running (albeit slowly) on the Agenda in less than a half an hour.
Of course, if you want to stick to the "standard look and feel" of applications already written for the Agenda, the tool to use is FLTK (Fast/Light Toolkit).
It's a C++ lib, though. :^/ -
Crystal Space
Interesting, and I'll have to check it out.
Lately I've been looking at CrystalSpace for a cross platform game environment.
Its a cross-platform GPL 3D Engine that rocks.
Warning: The whole structure is a major state of flux right now, as the codebase is in the process of moving into a much more modular and extensible state, and its probably 6-12 months to the 1.0 release (although the 0.18 release is very nice to play with).
The DirectX Redering library is undergoing a complete revision (from supporting DX6.0 to DX8.0, and cleaning up/speeding up the code).
It also includes a cross platform GUI/Widget set which was really neat to me since it means that an application can look the same no matter where it runs, since everything is within the app. Don't let the fact that its billed as a 3D engine fool you, its alot more then just that :)
(and it has a rather active/friendly/helpfull mailing list that you can join at SourceForge) -
Game Developer Conference 2001 tutorial 104
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Re:JeezQ3 needed the same easy install/upgrade stuff that didnt exist yet or it would be a support nightmare as most people prolly wouldnt have the latest drivers and the game wouldnt work right. I think that is a good example of going out of your way for a principal.
Sure. It just shows what a killer app can do. I think it also shows how much pain you'll endure in order not to be forced to use Direct3D
:)So again, if you think DX8 is an issue you havent appreciated how hard it was.
I remember the early days of GL only too well, and yes it was very hard to get working (Mesa 2.4 on Windows anyone?). But the signs at the time were that it was The Right Thing: not controlled by one vendor, clean API, open specs, easily extended, portable and easy to write for. Direct 3D was none of these. It may have improved but I can't afford the price of Microsoft's compiler or OS to see for myself.
And what makes you think this is an issue now? OpenGL has a wonderful extention mechanism. And my point is that the article, at least on this front, is FUD. So, hopefully you see my point now.
I do. DX 8 just worries me from a competitive point of view because by all accounts, it's damn good for Windows developers. And if it presents enough of a compelling developement platform, then there will be little reason to port to Linux - or worse, it will be harder because of feature set lockin. I suppose it's whether you want best of breed in each case, or a complete solution. There's a good presentation on Game Development in Linux linked from Linux Games which outlines these issues.
Oh well, back to work on my killer no-it-won't-be-ported-to-Windows-so-stop-asking simulator
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Tetris clones for Linux
There are at least 41 versions of Tetris for Linux.
Not accurate. TETRIS® is a registered trademark of The Tetris Company LLC, which has not yet licensed any official conversions for the LINUX® system. But that didn't stop cloners from converting the game and calling it something other than TETRIS.
CXHextrisThese are hextris clones, with a hexagonal grid instead of a square grid.
Columns XJewel
These are Columns clones.
Gno3dtet IFRAc VRtris
These are apparently 3D Block clones. Xpuyopuyo Vitamins 2
These are Puyo clones.
ksame same-gnome Xinsane FPA Insane
These are SameGame clones.
XTrojka
A bad Klax knockoff.
What? That's not a puzzle game; that's a 3D engine.
Here are some tetris clones that don't have the annoying "floating blocks after clearing a line" bug: Quadra | TOD | FPA Tetanus
Oh, by the way, next time use an HTML list (<ul> <li>foo</li> <li>bar</li> </ul>) to separate games in a long list.
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A premature idea, anyway...
I mean, wouldn't it have been smarter to wait until the Linux-based PC had taken off as a gaming platform? There's a ton of promise, on the development side with the SDL and the DirectX work that Wine's doing, as well as considering the games that have already been or are being ported (see linuxgames), but at this point, Linux as a gaming OS really is empty hype. Especially considering how video game consoles are usually sold with less of a profit margin than the games, how can they expect to do this without the games already there, ready to go?
Or am I missing something obvious here? Were there a whole slew of titles that they were ready to port?
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Re:Better Radeon Support?
But there are no modules/dri files in this update...
check the file list here
no radeon_dri.o
my file list was the Xdrivers.tgz subsection of that list...
posts on linuxgames confirm it... HeUnique is smoking crack
they haven't merged the DRI CVS with the main X distribution -
Re:Counter strike?
Half-Life runs under Wine. See http://goatse.cx/ for more info, including a HOWTO.
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One More Sierra Game Playable On Linux
You forgot this one.
:)
No one should be deprived the simple joy of using the mp5 for mass murder. -
Check out DGA in 4.0.2
Download 4.0.2, a major bug was fixed and the mouse is now smooth.
See http://www.linuxgames.com/news/index.php3/3072 -
A semi solution....
Using a mouse driver set called 'JAM' and IMWheel, you can bind your 4th and 5th (6/7 if you count the wheel) normal buttons to the Thumb button, which IMWheel can then use to emulate a keypress...
Basically.. over with my howto of LHL I was able to play CS with: Mouse 1, 2, 3. Mousewheel up/down and the two thumb buttons - only constraints: the thumb buttons pressently act as one button, because of IMwheel, the guy that wrote IMWheel and JAM is also going to write XWheel which will support much more buttons. Also, its kinda hard to get working, still some bugs.. but if people start using it, then maybe he can get some help from other developers! -
Here's a couple I like
Twilight 3D claims to have an SDK which will save you 7570 man-hours of coding time, which is a multi-plaform multimedia framework and 3D engine.
Crystal Space is a free 3D engine which is supported on multiple platforms, or
Flight Gear is around for those who'd like to code a Flight Sim of some sort.
All of the above are noted for their portable API and I've been following their progress for some time now. I hope this helps. -
Re:Lokigames
I'd love to see more of my fave games released for Linux, esp. Half Life.
The Linux Half-Life HOWTO will show you how to play Half-Life flawlessly using WINE. Now, if only I could get my graphics libraries in order under Debian, perhaps I could actually get their WINE package to work and actually play Half-Life, which I bought on Saturday! -
Re:Is wine good for linux?I'd love to play halflife: counterstrike under linux
I haven't tried it, but it seems that with OpenGL and Wine you can play Half-Life already!
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The voting page is a little strange...
This is not the fault of TransGaming Technologies, but their voting page has some strange games on it. Since you can suggest games, and then vote on suggested games the community as a whole gets to choose what they like. Still, I find myself wondering just who is voting?
Half-Life and its derivatives are high on the list. I agree 100%. But so are:
Unreal Tournament (ported by Loki, free download)
Quake 3 Arena Quake 3 Team Arena (The team addon will upgrade the Linux version)
Starcraft (has run under wine for some time)
I just can't see why Linux users would vote for these (I guess that they do not know that they work under Linux?)
If you like Linux and you like gaming, you should check out Linuxgames now and again. You will be surprised at what you find.
(Now someone is going to argue a point on those games, but I see it as a waste of time to fix something that is not broken. Unreal Tournament for Linux will run faster on Linux than Unreal Tournament for Windows through Wine on Linux any day.) -
Re:Is wine good for linux?
You mean like Linux Half-Life? I have to give this a try myself. If I can get Counter-strike working under Linux I may as well just wipe off Win2k from my system and boot into Linux fulltime again.
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Re:Great!
well, I only play Half-Life which isn't available for Linux
Half-life has been running under wine for quite some time now... http://lhl.linuxgames.com/ -
Re:The Gaming Market?
Perhaps the linux community can bridge this gap and push towards a standardized 3-d engine and even reinvigorate the gaming potential of linux.
It's called CrystalSpace -
Yer, good idea.. but Emulated Half Life is..
Software mode only.
If you want a REAL way to play Counter-Strike under linux, you are best to do it with OpenGL. Look at my post furthur down, for the link to THE linux Half-Life site: http://lhl.linuxgames.com. HOWTO is made for OpenGL users, and theres also a forum there to avoid my inbox filling with questoins
:-).
"Who is General Failure and why is he reading my hard disk ?"
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what about games under WINE?
There are plenty out there that work well.. Take for example my favourate, Half-Life - my howto here.
I hear that Tribes 1 also runs well under wine, but im yet to try it out. More available "wine success stories for games" are available here. Although its slightly outdated.
Have fun with your games under linux! I know that I do!
"Who is General Failure and why is he reading my hard disk ?"
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what about games under WINE?
There are plenty out there that work well.. Take for example my favourate, Half-Life - my howto here.
I hear that Tribes 1 also runs well under wine, but im yet to try it out. More available "wine success stories for games" are available here. Although its slightly outdated.
Have fun with your games under linux! I know that I do!
"Who is General Failure and why is he reading my hard disk ?"
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open source v. freeshouldn't it be GNU Hurd and not Debian Hurd?
RMS is going to be pissed, but not because of the title of the article. The author actually gets it right in the text. RMS will be pissed because the author attributes open source to the Free Software Foundation:
The GNU project and others had already duplicated, using an open-source development model, much of the functionality of UNIX
Remember RMS's reply to Jorrit, regarding an LGPLed "open source" 3D engine: "I don't support the Open Source Movement, so I can't have a discussion with you in the name of open source." .... The goal was to produce a complete open-source UNIX-like OS ...Because of its pioneering of the open-source philosophy,
... the FSF has the respect of many. -
Re:Linux gaming: voodoo value
Why would you trust XFree86 to write a better driver for NVidia's cards than NVidia themselves? Sure, it's open source (and yeah, open source is usually good), but if you look at the state of current 3D drivers, the "open source" Voodoo 5 driver is crap. The drivers for all NVidia cards, on the other hand, have consistently shown themselves to be of extremely high quality. I use them myself (GeForce 2), and obviously I'm a happy customer.
:)
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Why were all the games on this page ommitted?
These bite major ass.
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Silly poster
That was a link a frame. The actual article is here.
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Re:Great post..can you add more..This is a very important point, I think, and I'd love to see more (can you e-mail me, user? I'd love to hear more about this from you).
Actually, this is the sort of thing that bears more open discussion, so I'm replying here.
The tactics I mentioned (interior illustration, extra story) are elements which I plan to use in a current project of my own, which is a novel set in the world of the upcoming open source RPG, Adonthell. The novel is intended, with the cover art, to be freely available on the Adonthell site and freely distrubuted. But the purchasers of the physical publication would also receive interior illustrations, a bonus short story not available on the site, and the satisfaction of having something you can put on your bookshelf.
However, I don't claim to be an authority, and I'm sure that there's more I can learn between now and the time the novel is ready for publication (I judge roughly a year, by which time the first demo and a good part of the actual Adonthell game will be completed). So I invite anyone with good ideas or experience at this sort of thing add their opinions to this discussion. I, for one, would be eager to learn as much as possible.
I also have learned a great deal from this site, and I would recommend anyone involved in the discussion look here as well.
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Just as I expected from Slashdot
This message is addressed to the Slashdot collective. That is, the large group of vocal Slashdotters who all think alike and act alike, and all carry the same extreme and often incorrect biases and predjudices. If the reader is not one of these people, then please do not take this personally.
Yep, yep, yep. There they go again. The Slashdot collective. You guys are just too damned focused on politics. Why? Politics are stupid and futile, as I have discovered. (Case and point, the coming US election...)
Look, my point is, you all see "NVidia sues 3dfx" and instantly most of the people on Slashdot assume NVidia is evil. Most of you have considered NVidia to be evil for quite some time (since they decided not to give their extremely-high-quality drivers to their competitors for free (GL drivers have a lot of hardware-independent code it them!)) and more evidence is just what you want. Woohoo, rally behind 3dfx, they're saints!
Well, what if I told you that two years ago 3dfx sued NVidia over a patent the held on multitexturing? That's right: The act of applying more than one texture to a surface. 3dfx patented it. Then they sued NVidia. I would have a link to a news article about it, but my internet connection is on the fritz. Please see Linuxgames for a link to such an article.
So, now who is the evil one? Answer: They BOTH are! Almost every large corporation on this planet has done something evil. Those that don't go out of business.
If you try to judge a corporation on any sort of principles, you are likely to judge incorrectly. Personally, I have given up on judging such things. It is futile. All that matters to me now is who makes the best hardware. And for me, a 3D game engine writer, that is NVidia. If you want to buy 3dfx, fine. I don't care anymore. But buy for the hardware, or buy for the software. Don't buy on principle. It doesn't work.
Obviously, I expect this to be moderated down as flaimbait. Do your worst. My karma has been maxed out for quite some time.
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Re:Does the choice compiler really matter...
I have to just throw in an agreement on what you've said about STL.
Although it SHOULD be entirely portable, it isn't. I develop for CrystalSpace, and we can't use STL due to some of the ports not working at all with it. Kinda sucky having to reinvent the wheel, but unfortunately it has to be done. -
Re:Looks like opportunity to meThat's a stupid idea. How would you ever get a cohesive story with scads of people working on it? No, you can't just plug 'Open Source' onto the beginning of any word or phrase and make it instantly good.
Apparently I need to clarify for the hard of thinking.
I don't support Open Sourcing the story, I support Open Sourcing the game. There is a large and obvious difference between the two.
To take my current project, Adonthell, as a practical example, we are designing a story driven RPG very much in the tradition of some of the better console games (say, Final Fantasy III or Ultima VII). The story is being treated as a unified whole. We have set aside people to work specifically on story, scripting and general plot issues, just as we have people to work on the various engines needed to run the game. We don't have enormous hordes of Open Source community members coming in and changing the story on us. However, when we have enough of the code of the engine done, then others will be able to take that code and make similar games.
This is what I think would be wonderful for Adventure games. Making an Open Source engine which could be modified for whatever the needs of the individual games are, while each retains its unique storyline. After all, one of the things that attract me most to adventure games is the story and puzzles, which are often independent of the code.
Open Source doesn't necessarily make a game good. But it doesn't necessarily make it bad, either.
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Looks like opportunity to meI don't know about the other genres, but I would say that adventure games would really work in the Open Source world. They're interesting sorts of games which work well on almost any machine and benefit by the free (either kind) distribution that Open Source could give.
It's actually a pity that I'm already involved in a good Open Source project or I'd be very tempted to see out just such a project. Perhaps when this one's done...
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Speaking of QuakeCon2K....
You can hear Carmack say all the same things, sometimes nearly verbatim, in the recordings of his QC workshop (especially in recording #1). Beware the murky sound quality, though it's a vast improvement over the first attempt to release these
.mp3s. -
Re:Id are hypocrites
I think what you want is CrystalSpace. It's a 3d rendering engine that supports dynamic lighting, terrain, particles, sprites, everything. So go ahead and write your Quake clone for it.
What?
Oh, I see. You want a game where you can go out and frag people, not some dinky little walktest. Well, you have the source. Go out and write one.
Well? Go and write one already!
Still here?
Ah ha, too difficult for you? You just wanna frag? Well go play with your little closed source Quake3.
Rant, Flame = Off, Off (tuple packing and unpacking! Gotta love python! :-) )
Seriously though, the open-source business model is not suffieciently developed for Id to make any sort of money off of Quake3 if they open-source it. After all, they couldn't exactly sell very much support. But people are already working on open versions. Not just fraggers, but also RPGs and more. Check out the Crystal Space projects page for more info. And instead of complaining about commercial companies doing what comes naturally to them, go and write something better.
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Re:Id are hypocrites
I think what you want is CrystalSpace. It's a 3d rendering engine that supports dynamic lighting, terrain, particles, sprites, everything. So go ahead and write your Quake clone for it.
What?
Oh, I see. You want a game where you can go out and frag people, not some dinky little walktest. Well, you have the source. Go out and write one.
Well? Go and write one already!
Still here?
Ah ha, too difficult for you? You just wanna frag? Well go play with your little closed source Quake3.
Rant, Flame = Off, Off (tuple packing and unpacking! Gotta love python! :-) )
Seriously though, the open-source business model is not suffieciently developed for Id to make any sort of money off of Quake3 if they open-source it. After all, they couldn't exactly sell very much support. But people are already working on open versions. Not just fraggers, but also RPGs and more. Check out the Crystal Space projects page for more info. And instead of complaining about commercial companies doing what comes naturally to them, go and write something better.
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Valid concerns...
but the market has to start somewhere.
There have been several simultaneous ports [Unreal Tournament, Quake III: Arena, Terminus, Theocracy, the next Doom game, Anarchy Online (a non-fantasy-based MMORPG), Neverwinter Nights (the multiplayer AD&D RPG), Tribes 2 (well, nigh-simultaneous), and probably some I'm not thinking of off-hand] shipped or announced in the last 12 months, and the only way to maintain momentum is if you, the community, vote with your dollars.
Moreover, one of Loki's more recent ports, Soldier of Fortune, shipped only 4 months after the original Windows version, so the lag time on porting should hopefully be decreasing as well.
The gaming industry is ruled to a large degree by inertia, so it'll take time and effort to ensure a viable and diverse Linux gaming library, but I intend to do what's necessary to ensure that for all of us :). -
Valid concerns...
but the market has to start somewhere.
There have been several simultaneous ports [Unreal Tournament, Quake III: Arena, Terminus, Theocracy, the next Doom game, Anarchy Online (a non-fantasy-based MMORPG), Neverwinter Nights (the multiplayer AD&D RPG), Tribes 2 (well, nigh-simultaneous), and probably some I'm not thinking of off-hand] shipped or announced in the last 12 months, and the only way to maintain momentum is if you, the community, vote with your dollars.
Moreover, one of Loki's more recent ports, Soldier of Fortune, shipped only 4 months after the original Windows version, so the lag time on porting should hopefully be decreasing as well.
The gaming industry is ruled to a large degree by inertia, so it'll take time and effort to ensure a viable and diverse Linux gaming library, but I intend to do what's necessary to ensure that for all of us :). -
Valid concerns...
but the market has to start somewhere.
There have been several simultaneous ports [Unreal Tournament, Quake III: Arena, Terminus, Theocracy, the next Doom game, Anarchy Online (a non-fantasy-based MMORPG), Neverwinter Nights (the multiplayer AD&D RPG), Tribes 2 (well, nigh-simultaneous), and probably some I'm not thinking of off-hand] shipped or announced in the last 12 months, and the only way to maintain momentum is if you, the community, vote with your dollars.
Moreover, one of Loki's more recent ports, Soldier of Fortune, shipped only 4 months after the original Windows version, so the lag time on porting should hopefully be decreasing as well.
The gaming industry is ruled to a large degree by inertia, so it'll take time and effort to ensure a viable and diverse Linux gaming library, but I intend to do what's necessary to ensure that for all of us :). -
Re:There...there....That's exactly the "militant linux" attitude that the article is warning against.
Hold the phone there, pal. I was saying that Windows was better than Linux at gaming, not that it couldn't, shouldn't or wouldn't be used. Hell, I check out linuxgames.com every day, and I can't wait for Parsec to come out. But face facts: Windows is better at gaming than Linux. How that sentiment is "militant Linux attitude", I don't know. Seems more "militant Win32", if anything.
I was mainly just saying that the article was pointless. When I'm booted into Linux (on the one machine I have that is actually fast enough to even play games, and the only one with a Win32 partition), I don't think of Gamespy as being a particularly helpful resource. Their client won't work in Linux and they have little to say that can help me, this article included.
I'm well aware of issues like driver support, standards, etc. It didn't stop me from getting X 4.01 and V3 drivers running, and I didn't need Gamepsy to tell me anything about them. I was already in a position to be aware of the issues. Again, that isn't being militant about Linux. All I'm saying is that anyone bent on getting their Linux box into gaming shape doesn't need Gamespy articles which point out the obvious for them. Gamespy and Linux have about as much to do with each other as shellfish and pr0n.
And anything I post should never be construed as YOU MUST do this and you MUST do that. I'm too much of an idiot to bear that burden...
:-) And anything I post doesn't change the fact that Windows makes for better gaming that Linux. At least for now.
-B
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Remote Display can be put into something New!
So we should just keep working with it because it does remote display? No! Write a new standard that does remote display, better font support (like the article mentioned) and gets rid of tons of unneeded code.
There are a lot of things I'd love to see in a GUI system: You mentioned remote display, I'd love to see something that cuts down on the overhead (ever tried to do remote display over a modem?). Maybe some kind of two way communication where the remote system looks for the graphics binaries on the client and just sends data to update rather than data for the whole binary. (If the client has them). BTW: Windows can do remote display but it does suck, its even slower than X.
I'd also like to see some kind of standard widget set built into the server itself. (GTK would be fine with me). Its soooo incrediably annoying when I find programs that look really cool but don't run correctly (or not at all in my window manager).
I'd still like to see mulitple window managers to have different looks though. Some people need a Windows/Mac look. Personally I love BlackBox. Which as far as GUI's go I feel is pretty innovative.(and its really small. If anyone wanted to take the chalange in the article to put the GUI and kernel on a floppy, try BlackBox!)
Q3A isn't very slow using XF86 && glX either, now is it?)
I really hate to point this out but there was a benchmark at Linux Games that shows Windows beating Linux in 3d accelaration with several different cards. Personally I think this has a lot to do with X.
Never knock on Death's door:
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Re:Data Lifespan...Hello miracles. Here's some more information:
disks, tape, cds... they all have a relatively short lifespan. picture storing data in mice, just feed them and keep them warm. ev en if th e parents die the children will have the artificial chromosomes... (that is unless they recombine, in which case all of your documents or whatever are worthless....)
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Re:Data Lifespan...Hello miracles. Here's some more information:
disks, tape, cds... they all have a relatively short lifespan. picture storing data in mice, just feed them and keep them warm. ev en if th e parents die the children will have the artificial chromosomes... (that is unless they recombine, in which case all of your documents or whatever are worthless....)
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Re:Data Lifespan...Hello miracles. Here's some more information:
disks, tape, cds... they all have a relatively short lifespan. picture storing data in mice, just feed them and keep them warm. ev en if th e parents die the children will have the artificial chromosomes... (that is unless they recombine, in which case all of your documents or whatever are worthless....)
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Re:GAMES!Well we do certainly care about games.
We have implemented: DirectDraw, DirectSound, DirectInput and small portions of Direct3D already.
Games that are running include:
- Half Life
- Wing Commander Prophecy
- Monkey Island 3
- StarCraft
- Diablo 1 (Diablo 2 not yet, I did not get a copy yet)
- much more I haven't personally tested.
Ciao, Marcus (one of the WINE DirectX implementors)
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Re:Varying degrees of functionality
No luck on Diablo 2 yet (or Tribes apparently), but Tribes 2 will be ported to Linux (mentioned here)... hopefully at some point the majority of PC gaming titles will be available with native Linux clients. However, the only way to bring that about is to support what's there already, so be sure to put your $ where your convictions lie
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Re:Unfortunately trueHow many of them had good (or even ANY) artwork? Of those that did have good artwork, for how many of them did the artwork contribute to the playability?
You seem to be confusing "art" with "artwork". That "art" of a game goes considerably beyond the pretty (or not so pretty) pictures that populate your screen. To define it as such means you're devaluing the writing and general design of the script as well.
Personally, I consider all creative aspects of a game to be the "art" component. A game need not have incredibly flashy visuals to be artistic. Look at GnomeHack, for instance. Very simple game, minimal graphics. But there has been undeniable creativity in the design of the game. The same applies for games such as Baldur's Gate, where I am not terribly fond of the visuals, but like the writing a great deal.
I know this from experience, as co-writer on an Open Source game, Adonthell. No one is going to confuse us with Final Fantasy VIII. But no one is going to accuse us of not being artistic wither. The fact is, Adonthell is the result of many creative people working together in an Open Source setting, and we are getting good results.
Of course, I do agree with Draeker and Tyberghein. The artistic portions of a game are difficult to Open Source, and there's no point fooling ourselves that they are of the same nature as the programming. Open Source allows for the script, for instance, to be changed every bit as much as it does the code. But would it be improved thereby? Possibly. But I'm willing to bet it wouldn't.
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Re:Games?
IMO Games are one area where the GNU/Open Source Model is unlikely to work.
Wrong.
Game engines
http://www.devolution.com/~slouken/SDL/
3D graphics
http://crystal.linuxgames.com/
http://www.mesa3d.org
etc are now a mature software area, and
with today's hardware we're almost at the point where brute forcing it will be a "good enough" programming strategy.
Wrong. Copying graphics to the screen one pixel at a time will _always_ suck.
And artists are, for the most part, a greedy and opportunistic breed....
... suddenly, i feel as though i'm being trolled.
well, reading it again, he wasn't saying that OSS can't produce the code to do the low level stuff, but, since i bothered to paste those links, i'm leaving them in. :P
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blue -
all we need is intergration
I downloaded Crystal Space about an hour ago, and have been playing with allegro for some years.
Though both of these are fairly good GFX engines I have yet to see good integration with games engines, and porting between the to would be a nightmare.
If interfaces between GFX engines (Crystal Space does support plugins), AI,rules and scripting languages were standardised, open source game development could be onto a real winner.