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UT2003 Gone Gold, Ships with Linux Support

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the unix-heads-like-games-too dept.

SiW writes "This announcement should be music to a Linux gamer's ears: Unreal Tournament 2003 has just gone gold, and supports Linux (client and server) out of the box!" It's not often that I get to play a new game without rebooting. I'm really looking forward to this.

14 of 340 comments (clear)

  1. I wonder who will actually use it. by Vinum · · Score: 4, Interesting

    You know what would be funny? If UT actually put some code in there to send statistics back to its HQ to see how many people actually ran a copy of it on Linux. And no... 50 people replying to this post saying they will does not count as part of statistics :P

    Even more importantly, if those stats could be found from certain slashdot admin. :) I always thought it would be funny if slashdot put peoples USER-AGENT header next to their posts too...

    1. Re:I wonder who will actually use it. by TheLinuxWarrior · · Score: 4, Interesting
      The registration tool will probably tell them which version you installed. (If you register the game that is)

      To me, it doesn't matter if I actually use it or not.

      I've never played UT before, but I am impressed enough that they shipped a native linux client and server that I will buy the game. If for no other reason than to support future gaming on linux.

      I'll also be emailing them and letting them know that their support of linux was a factor in my purchasing decision.

  2. UnrealEd support too ? by SILIZIUMM · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Anyone have some informationss regarding a Linux version of UnrealEd 3.0 on the final release ? It would be cool if we can both play and map !

  3. I wonder if user bitching caused this? by garcia · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I was a little pissed off when I heard that they were not going to do Linux support right off the bat. I couldn't understand why they wouldn't at least put up the binaries on FTP/WWW and let the geeks download it after they bought the Windows version...

    I like this idea a lot better though :) We don't have to have a poor showing on the shelves (yes, we will) and we still get the binaries out of the box.

    I don't play games on my computer, but I think that this is the best way to go. Just bundle both in the same box and forget about it.

    Thanks for letting me rant my hangover off.

  4. support by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    just noted that UT2003 doesn't support Mac (as far as I could tell).
    Does this mean that Linux is now considered to be a more lucrative market than Mac, or is this just a show of support for Linux?

    UT original did run under mac, but it used an engine that was native to DirectX. Now that UT2 is more openGLish, cross platform would be much easier. Perhaps the portion of linux users that play UT is greater than that of mac?

  5. Video support by back_pages · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Anybody want to share their experiences with UT2003 on Linux with whatever video card you have? Many here might be going shopping.

  6. hah by the_Speed_Bump · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Doubt it. Both have a pretty small niche, but Mac still has something on the order of 4 times Linux's desktop userbase.

    More likely, they did it just because it was easy, (same hardware) or because one of the staffers ported it on his/her own time. Or both.

    A Mac port would be more lucrative. But not as easy. :)

    oh, and one final nitpick. The original UT favoured software rendering and glide, not D3D. UT2k3 is geared towards Direct3D first and foremost. The GL renderer was extremely hard to code, as I understand it.

    --
    "Break out the gin, and the small violin, I'm a raging success as a failure." --Firewater
  7. But what about dependencies ? by vluther · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I downloaded the demo in Linux, only to find out that the game will only work with Binary Nvidia drivers. I own a laptop, I can't just go around buying new video cards and putting them into this machine.. I really hope they will have removed the dependency on nvidia by then.

  8. Re:Linux support.. by rhakka · · Score: 5, Interesting

    1. Every hit I've seen has some kind of effect, ranging from covering your target in electricty to blood sprays, sparks, or the "green glow" when you cover them with link gun secondary

    2. Laggy? 90% of the demo servers are some yahoo hosting a 20 person non dedicated game on his home cable connection. Find a good server (search by ping, lower is better for those who dont' know) and look for player max counts of 14 or less if you want to be pretty sure the game is going to be smooth. Also, avoid anything called "Another UT2003 server", as whoever is running it is so clueless they couldn't even change the default name of the server, and it will most likely suck.

    3. Very different then UT, but still also the same.. just like a good sequel should be. The new movement tricks and faster weapon speed alone drastically change combat, the weapons are weaker on the whole (until you get good with them, instead of just being able to kill kill kill with no ability), game moves faster, and adrenaline replaces most of the powerups. Just like UT?

    Also, just a personal note, Bombing Run is a wildly good, fast paced, sports like game. You owe it to yourself to give it a shot. Even if every other game mode were utter crap, it would be worth checking out simply for that one gametype. Picture rugby with guns and you've got the basic idea.

  9. Just what I want... by Telex4 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Another Unreal game! I've mucked aroud with the demo, and it's not really markedly different from UT2 (except it runs natively on my machine). Same weapons, same taunts, same levels, and its all really boring.

    I mean, CTF... the classic CTF maps were back in Quake1/2 CTF and Team Fortress Classic (2fort being the best). The idea of them is to divide the level up into areas which you can defend in different ways, giving the game some tactical depth. The level with the demo is just one big open space full of spikes, with two little rooms at each end Boo. Dull. And the lightning gun is horrid... I suppose the idea is that the old sniper gun was untracreable, and therefore too good on open maps, but why not just give it tracer bullets? The lightening gun just feels, well, rubbish.

    On the plus side, it's nice to see they've used Loki's installer program (and update program) which work like a treat. Hopefully in the next releases they'll also know they'll be able to ship the UNIX versions in time, and so will write that it runs on various UNIX based OSs on the box. Oh and maybe they'll support more drivers than Nvidia :(

  10. OS X version: DECEMBER by blakespot · · Score: 4, Interesting

    OS X version coming in December

    blakespot

    --
    -- Heisenberg may have slept here.
    iPod Hacks.com
  11. Re:No gaming on Linux here by 13Echo · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I use a 1400 MHz machine at home with 1024 MB of RAM, 3 hard drives, and a reasonably good videocard. I made the transition from Windows to Linux this year, and I was surprised to find that if you have the right hardware- there are games to be played. There are even plenty of good 3D games. My computer is by no means top-of-the-line anymore, but it will still run all current Linux games at good speeds. I'll be upgrading the machine by sometime early next year. I take Linux gaming pretty seriously as a hobby. The platform works great for that stuff, it just needs a bit more of a boost from the game companies.

    That said, I understand what you mean about giving up on your favorite games. Giving up on MOH:AA was one of the biggest decisions that almost made me not want to switch completely, but the benefits have outweighed that single game for me.

  12. Re:Register IT! by Ramses0 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Also, buy it from TuxGames ... they report all sales to the manufacturers as "Linux Sales" so that's one less thing to worry about. Actually, I've been having pretty good luck with a few titles under WineX (found some cheap games and they work really well under WineX). It might be nice if TuxGames stocked some of the older game titles which are 4 or 5 supported by WineX (ie: Baldurs Gate 1, Black & White, etc) and then reported those sales as Linux sales. (are you listening Michael?)

    Heresy, heresy! I hear the cry. But these older games are never going to be native ported to Linux. I'd be willing to pay $30 instead of $20 to buy them from a Linux store (this means $$ for TuxGames) where I knew that the game had a good chance of working (this means no stress for me) and that the manufacturer would know that people are using Linux to play their games (meaning that they'll consider it in the future).

    Only after the games have dropped in price to ~$20 in regular retail channels, though. Transgaming is making a big deal about how WineX supports WarCraft III really well out of the box. That *is* exciting, but I still have hope (actually, I don't) that Blizzard will port it to Linux. When WarCraft III is on the $19.99 shelf, I have no hope that it'll ever be ported to Linux, so at that point, I'd be willing to buy it from TuxGames.

    I don't remember who said it, but this is a case where we shouldn't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

    --Robert

  13. Re:let's hope... by mythr · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Why can't they just program it to use open standards? They don't support other video cards than nVidia GeForce and Ati Radeon.

    They can't program it to use open standards because, in order to run any faster than a legless sloth, it needs to use things for which there are no open standards. OpenGL 1.x is a getting long in the tooth, and the extensions used are used because they are needed. I'm tired of people not seeing that.
    With a few exceptions, UT 2003 is basically a graphical upgrade to the original UT, which will run on almost any card. If you want a game that will run on any old hardware, play the original UT and get a mod to tweak the weapons to match UT 2003. UT 2003 is a next generation game, which requires next generation hardware. Unfortunately, no matter how good your hardware is, it still needs drivers to run. NVIDIA and ATI are the only companies that have released drivers for their next-gen products so far. Matrox is coming, but they haven't come yet. There aren't that many other companies making graphics hardware that will run UT 2003 anyway.
    If other hardware manufacturers don't want to release Linux drivers, then they shouldn't be surprised when people stop buying their hardware to use in Linux boxes...