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Gamespy on Linux Gaming
Grond writes "Gamespy has an editorial about the future of Linux gaming. A few interesting solutions to the sales problem are discussed." This is a topic that seems to come up about every month or two. I think there are a lot of people that would leave Windows behind entirely if a few more games were released in non-Windows versions. But as long as you have Windows, the game manufacturers know that they need not put the extra effort into releasing a non-Windows version. See "Chicken and Egg".
If the Linux community could get over themselves and write a version of Direct3D for Linux this problem could be solved quite easily. The docs can be found on this website.
The problem is that most game manufacturers choose to program in the platform dependent DirectX instead of the platform independent OpenGL. DirectX is a classic example of Microsoft's "embrace and extend" philosophy in that it is less flexible than OpenGL but integrates well, and is easier to code, for the Windows platform.
Game developers wonder why they should deal with a more difficult API (even though there are some nifty effects that can be obtained--see Quake), when there is only a limited market for games on the Linux platform. Since most people who run Linux are already demonstrating your willingness to dual-boot w/Windows for games, porting games to Linux will not sell many more copies. There is simply no compelling economic reason to port.
Lenny
ByteMyCode.com: A Web 2.0 code sharing community.
is that it's designed with a very specific purpose in mind. To provide a framework to do 'proper' polygonal rendering.
Direct3D on the other hand, is a thin layer over 3D hardware. Microsoft, as usual, is very pragmatic. If some video-card company comes out with a crazy feature like an 8 Dimentional Voxel based chip(or more realisitically a ParticleEngine(tm) chip), it'll get incorporated into D3D, and Microsoft will write a software version for cards that don't. It doesn't matter that the technology will be dead in six months.
OpenGL, on the other hand, has been criticized because they're slow to add extentions. But the OpenGL additude is that it does basically everything it's supposed to anyway. Some crazy 8D Voxels or particle engines have nothing to do with Polygon rendering. True or not, it prevents you from using all the cool new tricks on those $400 dollar videocards.
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Jonathan Swift
all the linux guys i know don't spend a dime on linux software, but they spend 200-300 a year on windoz games.
... 1989 or so. i will never use MS products for the rest of my life, so i guess some rabid MS supporter will mod me down, but whatever...i hate to see people i love suffer.
.. i also bought some cds from cheapbytes, so i hit my target. i bought no OS last year, cuz i was horribly disappointed in the RH7.0 iso.
as you say, it's chicken and egg. they want the platform to be more viable for gaming (3d audio, better sound/video support out of the box) before they will even download a game demo.
myself, i've spent no money whatsover on MS products since they fucked my brother's company back in
i try to spend $100 a year on linux or linux products. last year i bought q3, which is great, but i had to surf the web, do upgrades, etc. to get it to work. i also bought mythII which is okay
i just had a look at lokigames.com, and they have FOURTEEN titles available for linux...the equation is really simple, folks...if you don't buy linux products, linux will die. take that one to heart.
if linux dies, you will be playing rent-a-app from MS in just a few years...for the rest of your lives. you might want to take action to prevent that scenario.
no, i don't work for loki and am not in the gaming industry.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
this is simple stop using windows. Games are not that important.
Well as for promoting Linux, we're trying.
I'm a member of the Linux Users of Victoria (here in Australia) and our Games Sig does all it can to help people run games on their Linux platform. From helping people simply install Linux, helping with driver issues and configuration, general information about games and hardware, and of course, fragging each other silly in LANs.
As it is, we're running a LAN soon called Blast Radius 3 that is catering specifically to gaming under Linux. We're allowing Windows and Mac users as well, but the idea is to showcase Linux as a Gamers Platform, and give them a taste of all the things we can do under Linux.
So do your part, Linux gamers. Organise a special interest group specifically for Games at your User Group. Start organising Tech Nights to help people get their systems up and running, informal and then formal LANs, and help other people catch the fever that is Linux Gaming.
Basically, those games that are written to use OpenGL have rather easy development paths to operating systems other than Windows.
By binding Direct3D so tightly to the Win32 API, they make porting the appliation to a non-Windows API much more difficult.
And the same goes with Macintosh computers - Apple doesn't have its own proprietary graphics API; they use OpenGL. And, just about any game you see in OpenGL appears on a Mac in no time at all. Loki can port the same app to Linux without much trouble either.
For cross-platform game development, we have to start seeing more use of OpenGL, rather than D3D.
-- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
I dont see Linux becoming a threat to Windows on the desktop at all. With DirectX 8.0 coming out and Nvidia's new Geforce3 about to hit the market, it would only get all the more better with the new Vertex Shading capabilities and such. I am not downplaying the fact that OpenGL would very well pick up, and with ID touting OpenGL as the only API they would ever code against (although I would only take this with a pinch of salt), its sure to get interesting.
Linux could however be used for multiplayer games for them to run on a rock solid, stable and scalable server. I just dont see it making a niche for itself on the desktop market.
Rapid Nirvana
I mean, how many people didn't think twice about getting a PlayStation or N64 just to play games? Did you think that getting one was betraying Linux in some way?
I'm no MS supporter, but XBox is going to change almost everything in less than a year. The game market for the Mac and Linux is going to dry up, because you can target Win32 and get XBox as well. That's going to be hard to resist, esp. if the XBox is as cheap as everyone expects.
-jon
Remember Amalek.
Games for Linux would certainly give that added push, but I don't see it happenning very fast. First, the companies that write, sell and profit from computer games need an incentive to write for them.... from their perspective, Linux is about "free" and "open." The reality is, that I'd be willing to pay for software (games or applications for an operating system that was free, easy to install, very secure, and extremely user-friendly.
The above ain't Linux. Yet.
With the development of user-friendly software like Eazel and increased focus on the installation interfaces of Linux, more and more Windows users will be willing to make the switch. Especially if Microsoft makes the drastic changes it's rumoured to be planning, such as yearly subscription, elimination of DOS commands/command prompts, etc.
I've installed Linux several times over the last few years, and with each new install, it just gets easier and less painful. There was a time when I really liked wading through how-tos and doing trial and error steps to get my video card set just right, but these days I'm too busy for that crap. I want to install it and occasionally update it. I'm starting to understand something I always criticized newbies for... most folks want to have a tool they can use like a car. My wife's as good a driver as I am (don't let her know I concede that point, though), but she can't change the oil. It drives her nuts that I'd want to rather than pay $40 at Jiffy Lube.
Microsoft won't always be king of the hill, and I can't wait to see them put on a level playing field with an equal or superior operating system. But I have to acknowledge that they got there because they had some insight as to what folks wanted on their computers... I was one of the few geeks that was happy with a dos prompt... like all of the other geeks, I dropped to dos for YEARS (and still) to perform quick operations... Most people don't want to even see that black screen... it scares them!
I don't play a lot of games, but I would love to have Tie-vs-Xwing and Jedi on Linux! If so, Linux would be booted much more than Win... In fact, beyond my need to use Office 2k, I wouldn't need Win for anything!
Cheers
cfeagans
I mean, if even Quake3 doesn't sell for crap on linux, how can you blame companies for not making the plunge?
Tribes 2 is the next major title coming up, it's one of the biggest games coming down the pike, and they are going to have a near simultaneous Linux release.
Personally, I'd love to see it do extremely well, but I have a feeling, as others probably share, that Linux users don't buy games for linux, and Tribes2 is going to fail on Linux, and leave future developers with little chance of making that jump.
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