NWN Linux Client Delayed

An anonymous reader writes "Posted tonight on the Neverwinter Nights Linux client page: '[Dec 13 2002] There have been many questions as to why the Linux client is taking so long. The two big issues are sound and movies due to the fact that BINK and Miles are only available for Windows and Mac. BINK is the in-game movie player and Miles is the sound engine for Neverwinter Nights. We are having to find our own solution for Linux sound in Neverwinter Nights, and we are exploring possible movie options. Due to these factors, we are revising the estimated release date from Fall 2002 to Winter 2002 (Dec 22 2002 to March 21 2003), with January 2003 being the earliest date it could be out. Progress has been made on sound this week, and to re-iterate, the graphical side of the Linux client is looking excellent and is almost complete.'"

Comments

try using something that already works...

[protomala]

Why not using divx and mplayer (a downsized version, of course) to play the movies? mplayer can operate in a lot of ways (that's what I like on it) with various input and output systems, and I think it's nice as backend for playing videos in linux games. Sure, there is smpeg too, that was used by lokigames.

Re:try using something that already works...

[WWWWolf]

Why not using divx and mplayer (a downsized version, of course) to play the movies?

SDL already has MPEG support... And interestingly, Myth II was a similar case: Original Myth II had (AFAIK) Smacker video files, which was the previous video codec from RAD (makers of Bink), and the solution was that Windows and Mac versions of the game used Smacker and Loki's version used MPEG.

Miles Sound System and portability

[igomaniac]

The Miles sound system is implemented in a very portable way, it is available for all major Consoles, Windows and Mac. We use it for our game "IGI2: Covert Strike", and I have to say it is very good (Much better than using DirectSound which is the main alternative on the Windows platform). Since I know that the Miles license includes access to the source code (I built Miles myself in search of a bug, and submitted a patch for it), so why not port it to Linux? I don't think it would be very hard at all (and in contrast to 99.9% of the other posters, I have seen the source), and it would also make bringing any other game using Miles to Linux that much easier. Miles is used in hundreds of games, as it is the fastest, most reliable, tried and tested sound system out there... AFAIK, all EA's games use it. Bringing it to Linux would be the right way to go, and would bring Linux gaming one step closer to a reality.

RAD Game Tools, the company who sells Miles is the same company that sells Bink, but since I have never used Bink, I don't know how easy it would be to port it to Linux. But as a general rule, it would be better to use effort to port APIs that many developers use rather than porting specific applications like NNN... Just my .02 Euros...

Re:What's the holdup?

[Daniel Phillips]

Here's a sound engine [libsdl.org].

Actually, for sound you'd want OpenAL. This works together with SDL but isn't tied to it.

Wanna try and back up your statements?

[Lethyos]

Divx is a joke as far as commercial products go...

Troll. The quality of a compressed video, using any codec is going to be shit if the encoder used an extremely low bitrate. The only DiVX ;-) you've seen has probably warez movies. If you encode DiVX (MPEG-4 actually) at high bitrates, the quality is astonishing and the size surprisingly small.

Don't knock technologies you clearly don't understand. DiVX would be great for commercial products!

Quicktime/sorenson is the only thing that even approaches an acceptable compromise for video in a game, due to its high quality at reasonable bitrate. On the other hand, it's pretty CPU heavy and it doesn't give you very fine control over the encoding process.

Wait a minute, you just reamed on DiVX -- which has very high quality and a very reasonable bitrate. Note that MPEG-4 decoding is not very CPU intensive, which makes it a better choice than QuickTime for games of all applications. Perhaps you want a video playing while something interactive is taking place. Furthermore, having a fine-controlled codec is hardly specific to QuickTime. You make no sense.

Bink is PC and mac compatible out of the box, it's optimized for animation, the encoding process is very tweakable, it gives great quality at a range of bitrates, and the SDK is very well developed with games as the primary application. So really, I can see why they would have chosen it - not to mention that it's basically been the standard for any game with cutscenes since PCs gained the ability to play video.

Bink works on N platforms, eh? Trust me, there are plenty of other video codecs that work on at least N + 1 platforms. For the uninformed (the parent), DiVX ;-) would be one of those. It's optimized for animation? Yes, all video codecs are optimized for animation. That's kind of the whole point of a video codec. So Bink gives great quality at a range of bitrates? What the hell does that mean? So you have to be sure you use between 100Kb/sec-271.5Kb/sec or something otherwise it will look like shit? The bitrate of any media stream is directly proportional to its quality. More data, more detail. It's just that simple. You're talking like there's some secret magic to getting a well chosen bitrate and that only some codecs do it. As for why Bink is used for games -- only because it's marketed that way. Many companies clearly choose technologies without being clueful as to why they are choosing them. That's certainly the case here (read the story). There's no reason for them to have chosen Bink aside from someone saw an ad for it somewhere and immediately assumed it was the answer to their prayers.

You sir, are a troll. I cannot believe the moderators rewarded your clueless meanderings though the world of video encoding. You probably picked up a few sparsely scattered jargon terms in you day to day life and now fancy yourself an expert.

Sam Lantinga solved the Miles problem!

[DeathPenguin]

From the NWN Community board ( Great Linux Client Thread #18):
Posted: Saturday, 14 December 04:45PM

Miles problems solved!

I've ported Miles 6.5c over to Linux. It works flawlessly, including dynamically loading ASI, FLT, and M3D modules. I've submitted the code back to RadGameTools. NWN dev folks, please contact me for details: slouken@devolution.com

--Sam Lantinga, Software Engineer, Blizzard Entertainment

Fantastic News!

[Derek French]

We have just been informed by Rad Game Tools (http://www.radgametools.com) that they have Linux versions of both Bink and Miles, even though its not mentioned on their web site. We will be getting our hands on these tools on Monday and we should have further information for you then.

This solves the two outstanding issues with the Linux Client, and I bet we will have even more good news for you in the coming week in terms of future Betas or Demos of the Linux Client. We here at BioWare are thrilled with this development.

We would like to apologise for the confusion arising from the Dec 13th update where it seem like we were blaming Rad for the delay. This is entirely untrue. We were stating that, to the best of our knowledge, we would have to find our own solutions for movie and sound playing in the Linux Client. This is no longer the case and we look forward to using the Linux Rad Game Tools just like we are in the Windows and upcoming Mac version.

Rejoice (and I guess its time to upgrade the TNT2 video card in my Linux Box at home)!