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Tribes 2 For Linux Reviewed
lotion writes: "Tribes 2 is finally here, and not only do we have a fantastic Windows version, but folks, the Linux version is here and waiting for our official review.
So we enlisted the help of Woody Hughes, the former Senior Editor of Maximum Linux Magazine, to do the official review. Will he wax poetic on the injustice that is Tribes, or will we actually get to see the gentler and more cuddly side of the Woodman? Read the full review at Maximumlinux.org."
How does any game that involves recompiling the kernel get a 10/10 for installation?
- A.P.
--
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that's quite a late review, don't you think? I've been playing T2 on my Linux box for weeks now. and yes, it absolutely rocks. if you have been waiting for an excuse to send some $$$ to loki, this is it.
as the site seems to be slashdotted - those interested in T2, go to any review you want. the installer and auto-updater are Loki gtk+ apps, but once you are inside the game, the windos and Linux versions look, feel and play 100% identical. unfortunately, down to the occasional crash ("unhandled exception" on windos, segfault on Linux).
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
all video card tuning is done in-game, exactly as in the windos version. one thing you should know is that if you want to play in 32bit (instead of 16bit), you have to start your X with 32 or 24 bit depths (startx---depth24).
32bit is heavily recommended, because you get ugly z-buffer effects ("jaggy" shorelines, for example) in 16bit.
other than that, refer to the appropriate docs for installing the drivers for your card (e.g. there are readme's inside the nvidia packages.
network play is good and performance on the same machine is about equal (some say slightly better) to the windos version. I have both installed and there is no noticeable difference.
one difference between windos and Linux is that whereas in the windos version you put scripts and other add-ons into the main game directory, in Linux you have a ~/.loki/tribes2, so different people can actually use the same machine and have different scripts, soundpacks, etc. installed. also, when it hangs (which it sometimes does, on both Linux and windos), you can ssh in an killall -9 tribes2 and almost always you get your machine back without a reboot. so in some OS specific ways, the Linux version is clearly superior to the windos one.
there should be little difference between distros, at least all loki games I've bought so far worked equally good on suse and debian and I would be surprised if T2 is any different.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Because in game browsers blow?
:)
Okay, I haven't used the Tribes2 one, but the browsers in, say, Descent3 and Quake3 suck. Especially for q3, where the literally thousands of servers is impossible to sort through without the nice xqf interface.
Plus, if you use an out-of-game browser, then you can go check email while the servers refresh
The enemies of Democracy are
If all they're going to support is Nvidia, that's fine, but they should SAY SO on the system requirements page. The only thing it says is OpenGL card with 4 Meg video memory. Even though I meet these requirements easily, I don't consider the game playable.
On my hardware configuration described above, the framerate sometimes drops inexplicably from (subjective guess) 15 down to 2 fps for several seconds at a time at random moments during the game. That's no fun when you're in the middle of a battle.
On the default quality settings, the graphics themselves are nothing to rave about either. Chunky polygons reminiscent of pre-3d accelerated flight simulators. Abrupt and unnatural changes in shading. It reminds me of old DOS VGA games from the 386 era. (Sometimes even the immediately surrounding terrain flickers when I turn my head around. Not cool.) The graphics are that bad, yet it STILL can't hit even a fraction of the framerate of Quake3? Pathetic.
Based on what I've heard, it does run great if you have an Nvidia. Maybe one of these days, I'll go out and buy one for myself. (Based on what little I _have_ been able to do, the Tribes 2 gameplay does seem very cool.) Until then, it's just taking up space on my hard drive though.
So, to summarize, a Warning to non-Nvidia users: Unless you plan to switch video cards, don't bother with this one. Try Heavy Gear 2, or any of Loki's other cool titles instead.
Tribes2 may have the looks and gameplay, but it has the worst video card support, and highest hardware requirements.
The "just show FPS" command is
show("$fps::real");
So time to load wine for mirc. (-;
Warning: MySQL Connection Failed: Too many connections in /home/httpd/html/common.php on line 79
/., at least get a server that can stand the pain! :)
If you're going to spam your articles onto the front page of
deus does not exist but if he does
Trust me, the in game browser for Tribes 2 is light years ahead of CStrike and Quake 3(which doesnt even work half the time for lan games). It's easy to use, you can set up your own filters and such, and other fun things. I just wish double click = connect to server instead of refresh. I had no problem getting on the same server as a friend of mine who was sitting right next to me.
As for CStrike's browsing, it blows. Of course, there's nothing to be done for servers that insist on reserving unused slots.
Yes, I actually *read* the review. Remove the fact that this guy is running RedHat 7.x and it blends in indistinguishably from the other eight gazillion GamePro quality Yes-Man gushing outpourings of stickiness that need only the tiny little words "advertisement" at the bottom to complete the atmosphere.
It wasn't a review, it was a damned advertisement, disguised as a review- with a brag about hacking Nvidia drivers thrown in. Great- not even links for possible newbies to figure out how to enable the various video card functions for themselves. "Of course, installation was flawless", he says. Loads of detail there. I'm underwhelmed. No comments about network play, no details on how the game performs against players using the Windows version..... no MEAT to the article at all.
It's fluff, pure and simple- if you're hungry for serious information about how this game handles under linux, or under different distros, etceteras, well..... this article simply is NOT going to deliver what you're looking for in any capacity. Unless you're looking for self-rightous babble and a few screen shots, in which case you'll get plenty of both.
But hey, he answers the important question- it runs, and it runs well. And anyone who frequents gaming sites or who's played the windows version knows the game is a blast. So from that standpoint, kudos.
While having a standard interface would most likely draw in base users and give programmers something to work with in terms of GUI-based apps such as word processors and web browsers, it really has nothing to do with games. Yeah, some graphics libraries may be necessary and you'll certainly need video card driver support, but beyond that, when was the last time you saw a game actually running *on* the desktop?
Games like Tribes don't need Gnome, or Motif, or OpenStep, or KDE or whatever as a prerequisite to run- they need the system kernel and system resources, and access to the hardware. And a way for the user to run the game. That's pretty much it. Remember all of those old DOS games you could still run on NT (without sound) or 9x with full features? Or the games that "required" Win9x but actually ran in DOS? Case in point that the UI is irrelevant- you could boot into DOS and still run Starcraft or Quake.
Digressing offtopic (to the review), I personally think that the general userbase isn't going to dick with linux until they can do the following:
1. Make it go. Easily. Linux sure as hell can't do this (Mac OS X, on the other hand, does)
2. Games, Internet, Word processing. In that order- linux has the internet thing down. Games are coming, and office suites are getting there.
3. Look at it and use it without grimacing. Face it- Mac OS took pretty to the next level with MacOS X, and Windows is tagging behind with XP and 2000. The existing window managers for linux, as fine as they may run and as pretty as you *may* be able to make them, look like complete ass in their base configuration. Apple dropped the ball on X by shifting to a new- and nasty- useability interface that put Pretty as a much higher priority than being useable, and Windows isn't going to go away for awhile. So if Linux wants users, the coders and OSS companies should start by being painless and pretty: who would you invite to the party- the 800 lb Gorilla or Liv Tyler?
With some effort, a Linux distro could arise that contains all of the power and presence of the 800 lb gorilla with the yumminess of Liv Tyler. But right now, it's big, and it's ugly.
For 3D work, Matrox cards are just rubbish, plain and simple.
They might display your desktop across multiple monitors without a problem, but thats all they are good for.
Matrox 3D drivers are buggy, released excruciatingly late and perform badly.
After owning a 2MB Matrox Millenium (great little card, still going strong today),I was burnt with a G200, and will never buy another Matrox card again.
I gots ta ding a ding dang my dang a long ling long
Its probably more to do with the problems finding people to actually do the port and then support it.
OpenGL on MacOS previous to X was limited to third-party support, i think (correct me if i'm wrong), and MacOS X is pretty new, meaning nobody is really well established in this currently small market.
Linux is much more attractive to most programmers than the MacOS is - since it runs on their formerly Windows machines.
While Macs are on more desktops, you have much more developer mindshare in the gaming industry with Linux than with MacOS.
MacOS X has much more potential than MacOS =9, since porting games from an existing Linux version to a PPC MacOS X version should be a lot less work than going direct from Windows to MacOS X.
As PPC-based Linux gets more support (e.g. TiVO), this porting process will be even easier.
However it's pretty clear that the games industry is looking much more seriously at Linux than it is at OS X.
Apple can choose to take advantage of this fact, and look at how they can ease the transition between Linux and their BSD flavour, or they can do what they usually do, and ignore the games market entirely, leaving customers like you wondering 'Where are the games for my Mac?'
I gots ta ding a ding dang my dang a long ling long
I just think you're reading into this too much. The Midiland S4s are a pretty high-end set of speakers, and if you've never heard of them, you're obviously not an audiophile. Since he was mentioning that the audio effects in the game were awesome, I think it is quite appropriate to mention his speaker setup. After all, everything sounds awesome through my 400watt Klipsch 4.1's ;)
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Well, if you have unlimited money to throw at a problem, anyone can be an audiophile. In reality, if you can get the most performance out of what resources you have, then you are a true audiophile. Also, in the context of *computer* audio, the 4.1's are audiophile speakers. Given that my main use for audio is listening to music while coding, I don't get much enjoyment out of a home theater set, now do I?
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
in Linux you have a ~/.loki/tribes2
>>>>>>>>>>>>
I really which the UNIX weenies would come up with some better way to keep per-user configs then stuffing crap into my home directory!
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Umm, Linux is actually more bogged down by backwards compatibility than Windows. Windows just has 15 years of DOS baggage. Linux has 30 years of *NIX baggage. The difference is that Linux (and most *NIXs) tend to handle it better, but everyone still IS using creat to creatE files, just because K & R couldn't spell ;)
PS> creat just sounds stupid, not efficient. Once, when asked what he would do differently with UNIX, Ritchie (I think) replied that he would spell creat properly this time.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Let's see, this is a game. Thus its being run on a desktop machine. I don't know about you, but I make all my directories readable to myself. The /home method works okay for a multiuser system, but really isn't appropriate for a single-user desktop system. What I was thinking was more of a registry type thing. Instead of dozens of directories stuffed into /home, there would be one registry (an XML text based one of course!) for each user and one for the system. Not only does this unify configs, but makes everything nice and neat. It could even be protected so apps could only use it through OS calls, and thus be even safer than using the /home method.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
I love running over people with the grav cycle.
The only problem that I've noticed is that it really seems to get slow after playing for a while... must have memory leaks...
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I asked about this on Matrox's and MURC's forums if Tribes 2 (T2) would run nicely even at the lowest details, etc. The answer is no, even on my Pentium III 600 Mhz with 256 MB and Windows 98.
I have friends who had Voodoo3 cards, and the game was too choppy for them. They all got GeForce 2 cards, and no problems.
So you will need to upgrade the video card (bottle neck) in order to play T2. I will eventually upgrade my video card soon.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Eventually, I think MS might be bogged down by all the backwards compatibility. They might have to switch to an entirely new system.
Possibilities for your "entirely new system":This would mean that users would have to pick between the MS stuff without software
Microsoft would actually make some effort to have launch titles. That's what happened with NT; virtualization let all the old Win3.1 stuff and some of the DOS stuff still run.
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It's great to see games for linux being released. I think that more games would be released for linux if we could have a unified standard desktop. I'm not saying that we should do away with other desktops, but it is my firm belief that if the major desktop developers would get together and work towards a linux standard desktop and set of tools you would see many more games as well as applications released for linux. If linux is to truly stand out to the masses there must be more commerical applications released, which would certainly happen with a unified desktop. Just my two cents.
Linux.com took a glance at the Tribes 2 Linux beta a while ago. It is available here.
Banu
I was one of the lucky few to get the Linux port in the first batch shipped by Tux Games, so I've been playing it for a while. Here are my thoughts:
;)
- Good: The graphics in T2, while not stunning, are very nice, and in fact very impressive in some areas. The game sounds are excellent, and the sound track is just incredible. Not to mention the new game modes totally rock (gotta love Bounty), and the few new items in the game add some flavor without upsetting the balance.
- Bad: Performance is a joke at times, with mysterious slow-downs on some maps. The "community" services are a nice idea, but feel like they're held together by duct tape and could break any moment (and they usually do).
I waited a year and a half for Tribes 2, and as a hard core Tribes player, I can say it was definitely worth the wait. It's not perfect, but it is a nice update to Tribes, and I love it. I do have a couple of tips for people, though:
- To see your FPS rate, bring up the console (this is bound to the ` key, in the upper left of your keyboard, by default) and type: showaudio();
- Do _not_ even consider Tribes 2 if you have anything less than a Pentium II 500mHz or equivelant. If you've got a Voodoo 3 card, I hear they work great, but V5 is supposedly total garbage with the game. Your best bet is any sort of recent Nvidia card (it works great with my GeForce 2). Make sure you have at least 128MB of RAM too.
- If you're suffering from framerate problems, here's how you can get another 10fps or so without making things ugly: go to your graphics settings and turn Terrain Detail down most of the way, and maybe lower the rendering distance a bit. Then go to the texture settings and turn the Terrain Textures to the max. This way you'll have some warping in terrain as you move, but it'll still look good, and get you some speed.
- If you suck, go through the training missions. Once you've finished those, play some LAN games against bots to get a feel for the different modes. The bots do a good job of giving you some practice for the real thing, and you don't have to parade your (lack of) skill in public.
ya, you thought Tribes2 wass a game , but little did you know it has an internal email client, irc client, voice chat client, user directory system and more.
Oh ya that game part is hella fun!
Could someone please explain to me why they are wasting their time on a Linux port? There are 25 million Macintosh users who have a _consumer_ OS... maybe the only thing that will come out of this is a MacOS X version? Let the flames begin.
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... Tribes 2 is only fantastic on 700mhz+ with a GeForce 2 graphics card.
And don't come back and tell me that I should upgrade my hardware to be able to play a game where I'm on their (higher up) supported list. And they claim my configuration "should work fine with Tribes 2."
Sorry, it doesn't. And I would hate to see how that game runs on Linux (though it does look fun if you have a fast enough machine.)
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If it hangs in Windows (2000) you just hit ctrl-alt-delete and then have the task manager kill it's process, and get your box back. For those that don't know Windows 2000 does a very good job of keeping errant apps from messing with the system. If an app freezes, you can call up the task manager and kill it off. About the only time it truly goes down so hard as to be unrecoverable is when a buggy driver is installed (since they have system level access).
I mean, Tribes 2 is cool, but not being able to play it is nothing to loose sleep over. DOn't upgrade your graphics card just on account of it. If you want to get the upgrade anyways then yeah, I'd say make it an nVidia, but if you're happy with what you have don't worry about it.