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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."
- A.P.
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Forget Napster. Why not really break the law?
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
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
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.
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.
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.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Linux.com took a glance at the Tribes 2 Linux beta a while ago. It is available here.
Banu