Turn Your New Opteron Into A One-Game Console

An anonymous reader writes "A new 64-bit Linux CD can instantly turn an AMD Opteron-equipped PC into the ultimate gaming console, according to Super Computer Inc. (SCI). The company has created a distribution of the popular America's Army multi-player strategy game on a bootable Linux CD, that it says was developed in partnership with AMD, nVidia, and the US Army."

Comments

Well gee

[KDan]

If that's the killer niche app for the opteron, I feel sorry for AMD!...

Daniel

Hang on....Gentoo?

[reality-bytes]

Didn't Gentoo already do this when they created an Americas Army LiveCD for "any" x86 system?

Well, alright, it didn't actually run on "any" system - maybe on ran on "some" systems but I seem to remember this was quite a while back when Icculus first ported it.

Turn your $2000 PC into a $150 Toy!

[Anonymous Coward]

Where do I sign up?

Maybe they can release instructions on how to dissemble my car and build a go cart out of the parts.

Single Game Console? Try Multi-Game,,,

[Synic]

Why would you ever want a console that only plays a single game? I thought the whole point was being able to switch between games. In this case, the writer of the news blurb fails to realize that you could switch between several such self-booting, self-contained discs (such as the UT2k3 Linux LiveCDs that Gentoo made) and then your PC would be kinda like a console system in that you don't need to muss with drivers or OS configuration outside of the game to set things up properly.

Re:Single Game Console? Try Multi-Game,,,

[Davak]

I thought the days of this crap was over. Am I the only one old enough to remember games that required you to reboot from DOS into the game? What a pain!

Now, granted... this fine for the game makers to include this as an option. That way if you can't get the game running any other way, you can always just boot into it. However, please don't start making this the only way to get into the games.

Please let those days die.

Davak

This concept is not new

[djhankb]

There is a project going on called Advance CD which utilizes the same concept of the bootable linux CD "game console" though it uses mame... I like the idea of the "Bootable CD game" and could be the next generation of a way to distrubute them? -Henry

How far we've come...

[3Suns]

How far we've come since the days of Apple IIe and Commodore64 and Kaypro. With all this new technology, it's interesting to see the return of the "Application Diskette".

Proof that Linux is becoming The One OS

[heironymouscoward]

Using Linux for a CD-ROM bootable game is no simple thing. It assumes full and excellent detection of hardware: graphics, sounds,...

I see the future and it looks like this: a bootable Linux CD with my choice of applications, and a USB dongle with my /home. Need new software? Download a new ISO, burn it. Take any PC (office, home, cybercafe), insert CD, boot, insert dongle, work/play.

It is a revolutionary way of using PCs. And only possible (AFAICS) with Linux and the kind of support provided by Knoppix et al.

I predict 12 months before bootable Linux CDs become a completely standard model for games and application distribution, and 24 months before Microsoft attempt an imitation.

Just love it...

All the comments so far...

[efatapo]

...are missing the point. This isn't a permanent change to your computer it's a way to get the best performance for your games. You're not turning a $2000 machine into a $150 toy you're maxing out your machine for a certain task. How often are you multi-tasking while playing a game like America's Army? Not often. When you're playing a game best to get all of the potential of your machine focused on putting out the most frames per second, most textured and anti-aliased pixels, and least lag. End of story...

Except that I will say this sounds like a cool idea and I will definitely give it a shot.

~Dan
http://www.pbase.com/efatapo

Re:All the comments so far...

[NanoGator]

" When you're playing a game best to get all of the potential of your machine focused on putting out the most frames per second, most textured and anti-aliased pixels, and least lag. End of story..."

Why is that when anybody ever says "end of story", it never is the end of story? I should sic Lionel Hutz on your ass.

You'll see some FPS improvement, maybe. But you'll also see less bearable issues. How do you patch it? How do you install a new driver that makes things go faster or more stable? How do you justify the time lost rebooting the machine by getting another 2 fps? How do you go about using other programs such as Roger Wilco to talkk to your team mates? Etc.

Sorry, I don't share the 'cool factor' here because PC based architecture is too varied from machine to machine. If they were all the same generic build, then yeah I'd be on your side here. But no, too many different machines, too much can go wrong. That's why us gamers like having a common OS with an API like OpenGL or DirectX. If your hardware works with those two APIs, then the game should (theoretically) work, no need to tell the game what kind of sound card you have.

So no, not end of story. Piece of advice, when something seems so gosh darn simple to you, it's not because everybody in the world is a fucking moron, it's because you're missing information that they have.

Now this sounds like it has promise for Linux

[dr_canak]

There are always posts about where can linux break out and really take over market share (i.e. desktop, server, etc...), and when i first read the story, I didn't really see the point to this. But then:

From the article:

"The fact that America's Army is available in 64-bit on the GameStorm CD allows gamers to get a taste of the next generation of gaming just by inserting a CD and powering up the computer," said Major Bret Wilson, Operations Officer for America's Army.

This really does make sense to me. P.C.s in my mind are just better for the serious gamer, and hardware issues aside, if they can actually get to a point of porting single CD games like this, it could really create an exciting new breed of "console games." I'd love to just pop in a disk of Baldur's Gate, Nascar, Halflife, etc... and get the best of both worlds. Quick access to the game w/o the hassle of an install and all the advantages of the superior AI seen on the p.c. platform as compared to the console platform.

Add in the capability to save games and "ini" info to a CDR or Floppy and you are good to go.

just my .02.
jeff

Re:A 64-bit gaming console?

[Wakko Warner]

Yeah. I'll be able to play TONS of games on a BARE CPU.

- A.P.

You're smoking crack and it's not even good crack.

[Wakko Warner]

I predict 12 months before bootable Linux CDs become a completely standard model for games and application distribution

I predict the entire computer gaming and applications industry will not follow your lead. Just a hunch, but it seems slightly beyond farfetched to think that anyone who sells software for money would consider a bootable Linux CD the ideal method of application distribution. It's especially farfetched to think they'd drop everything they're doing and begin selling their products this way.

- A.P.

Re:A 64-bit gaming console?

[zero-one]

...including catch the CPU, hide the CPU, throw the CPU and Opteron Jenga