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OS Independent Games?
Jakyll asks: "Why aren't there [more] games for the PC that come on a BOOTABLE CD-ROM? Use Linux and autodetect the hardware - it would make DirectX and Microsoft irrelevant. Boot the disk just like your PC was a Playstation or an XBox - what is the main reason this isn't happening?" A few publications have been released like this: Gentoo has done this for UT 2003 and America's Army (they have their own site but it appears to be broken at this time); and there are the ScummVM Live CD ISOs, out there. Does anyone know if the major game studios have plans on doing something similar, or if not, the reasons why they aren't?
yeah.. but how are you going to apply patches?
nobody wants to reboot their computer. Rebooting often takes a while because you have to save, close apps, and it can sometimes strain hardware such as harddrives.
1) Rebooting == sux ...
2) To avoid graphics problems I advise sticking with zork
3) Can't save game or data
4) This would only work if we can get a general linux that always works with most video cards and most audio cards
First, there's the need to reb00t. Not fun.
Second, what about the hard drive? Most games are complex enough to require the high-speed access for files on the hard drive... CD-bootable games would either need to run entirely from the CD (PS1/2 style) or they'd need special code to mount the hard drive and use it.
"Times have not become more violent. They have just become more televised."
-Marilyn Manson
The reason consoles do it so well is because one X-Box has the same everything as the next X-Box. This isn't so with computers.
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
I would think a large factor in the decision against making games on bootable CDs is that the companies would have to provide a lot of drivers: for video, sound, networking - you name it. Even with basic drivers, people couldn't use there gaming machines to their full capability without the installed drivers from nVidia and ATI. To the game publishers, it's much easier to release a game for PS2, GameCube, or XBox.
After the Creation, the cruel god Moloch rebelled against the authority of Marduk the Creator. Moloch stole from Marduk the most powerful of all the artifacts of the gods, the Amulet of Yendor, and he hid it in the dark cavities of Gehennom, the Under World, where he now lurks, and bides his time.
Once I find the amulet and complete Nethack, I might take a look at those other games. I've heard about this thing called PacMan that seems to be quite popular with the young crowd...
Autodetect hardware? A technical support nightmare. It's hard enough getting your game installed and working on the variety of hardware out there in the world, and thats with the operating system in place as an abstration layer between you and the different systems.
You don't want to be responsible for getting the Operating System to install as well. Madness!
# (/.);;
- : float -> float -> float =
and then I realized, part of the issue is standard drivers are not bundled with bootable CDs for damn legal issues.
Knoppix is the best one for hardware detection, but uses the nv driver which is not accelerated, and nVidia for some reason wont allow redist of their nvidia drivers. Same is true of ATI and others. I dont know if there are binary drivers from creative and others for linux,
DirectX is still relevant. Too many companies have invested in DirectX rendering and cannot just move their sources to OpenGL. For now theyre stuck with win32 and XBox, but with enough games released using opengl under Linux, the momentum will weigh towards Linux. Right now we just have to line up and cuss at Sierra for refusing to release halflife linux binaries.
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
Why isn't it done? Because most people would feel inconvenienced by having to reboot, but only a few people become aroused at everything involving Linux.
For great justice.
...the size of modern games keeps this from happening with CD's.
Consoles use DVD's or similar technologies to cram as much on a disc as possible, but with huge hard drives out there, you have the option of installing 3-4 GB of stuff and not using up all the space.
Still with DVD-ROMs being fairly common on new PC's it's more feasible. The only other downside I can see is longer load times. (Still probably not as bad as consoles)
One thing I just thought of, console games are written to one specific set of hardware. You'd have to cram an awful lot of drivers on there to support a wide enough array of hardware.
I can't see why it WOULDN'T work, or at least couldn't be made to.
No sig for you!!
it would make DirectX and Microsoft irrelevant
Does anyone if the major game studios have plans on doing something similar, or if not, the reasons why they aren't?
Why would they? DirectX is a very powerful set of APIs that there's no real equal to on Linux yet (it's more than just Direct3D, you know), and by including the entire OS as part of the game, you're hurting your forward compatibility for everyone except people technically savvy enough to recompile a new kernel and burn a new bootable CD with drivers for newer hardware.
NO CARRIER
If I'm playing a game and someone sends me an instant message, I can pause the game and talk to them if I like..
If I receive an email, I can check on it and maybe respond if it warrants it.
Turning my PC into a console takes away my ability to do this stuff.
I can see this being a good idea for places like gaming cafes, but that's about it. For personal computers? There just isn't a big enough market for it.
I had a dual boot Linux/Windows system for the games that don't have Linux versions and don't play well with Wine, and just found myself booting to Windows ALL the time, because rebooting to play a game was too much hassle. I eventually removed Linux because I was always in Windows anyway.
Then you run into other problems, like perhiperal support. Neither my sound card, nor the 3d portion of my video card work out of the box with any distro I've tried. I've got common hardware on that front - SB Live and GeForce 4. Sure, neither took much work to get working properly, but if they don't work out of the box, they won't work for a bootable games. Then there's network cards - it was easier for me to switch network cards than to get the one that was already in my system working. Hardware support just is not bulletproof enough, and the large number of drivers needed to make sure all the necessary hardware works would be space restrictive. Bootable DVDs, maybe.
Then there's the issue of saving games, patching the software, downloadable content, etc. I'm sure there's ways around some of those issues, but they're big enough barriers for this to not make corporate sense.
Dark Nexus
"Sanity is calming, but madness is more interesting."
DirectX is extremely relevant. It puts a nice abstraction layer out there so that game developers no longer have to worry about supporting every freaking darned obscure piece of PC hardware that might exist. I honestly believe that if DirectX hadn't come along the driver situation would've spiraled out of control and PC gaming would've died a long long time ago. It'd be console gaming or nothing right now.
No user in there right mind wants to reboot their machine all of the time to play a game. Developer's don't want to be hamstrung with driver nightmare and only 650MBs (minus space for an OS and drivers) of space.
You could quite conceivably do this. You could effectively turn a PC into a mediocre abnormal console by using a bootable CD to apply an O/S and then execute the game.
But just because you can do something doesn't make it a good idea.
Here are the flaws:
1) This is advocating using Linux for gaming on a PC. Linux is a great O/S in that it's open, free, and functional. But it has never, ever exceeded Windows in terms of gaming performance, even for OpenGL games that have optimisations for Linux. Linux doesn't have any API's that get close to the tight HAL/driver/API system that Windows uses so smoothly. Ahh, you say, but a bootable linux CD would be streamlined to run the game! Less overhead! This is true. But you'd also have more overhead because, as you know, Knoppix doesn't run nearly as tight as a properly optimised Linux install because it needs to be robust rather than sleek for compatibility purposes.
2) The reboot factor that people have mentioned
3) Windows XP boot time on my system at home: ~15 seconds. Redhat boot time on my system at home: ~20-30 seconds. Knoppix CD boot time on my system at home: ~120 seconds.
4) The no-patching problem that people have mentioned
5) Hardware support. There was another thread recently that mentioned the good, but not excellent hardware support under Linux. It's always getting better, but it's still not perfect.
Having said all this, once Linux starts supporting DirectX, there will most likely be a full scale revolt amongst gamers against the beast of Redmond. It's good to dream, isn't it?
I am government man, come from the government. The government has sent me. -- G.I.R.
Instead of providing your ISP's account info/config only once, do it for every game? No.
For the last time (I swear) if you want to use your PC like a console just buy a friggin' XBOX. It reboots whenever you swap discs and it doesn't need driver updates or swap space and you can slap it on a 61" LCD television.
I'm even worse: my XBOX is plugged into my PC's video capture card so I can play a quick game on the same screen as whatever 'work' I promised myself I'd finish. The best part ? The game alawys runs, rarely crashes if ever, and uses up NO cpu power.
Thank you, Goodnight!
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This was discussed on slashdot a little while ago. The short version is that OSes ultimately run on some sort of hardware. Up-to-date hardware detection and utilisation is hard to do and in the real world only big companies like MS have the resources and $$ to make sure that every little graphics card, audio card, input device, network card etc work as promised for everyone.
... and at those points linux is just not as good as windows to base a game on.
Yes, most hardware works most of the time on Linux but it doesn't have anywhere near the coverage as windows. Hence windows provides a much better foundation upon which to build a game. Apart from that configuring windows is still far easier for the average user to do (if/when it doesn't work).
Building a bootable game out of linux would still fall prey to the hardware detection routines and abstraction.
Games traditionally push hardware and software right to the very bleeding edge
Look at it this way, consoles are just like a smaller variety of PCs, each (Xbox/PS1/PS2/GC/DC) has it's own cd-rom drive, proccessor, motherboard, grahpics and sound chips, an operating system (though not as useable as on the PC) and DirectX-like grahpics/sound handling layers.
:)
When the game developer makes a game, hm...which console(/OS?) should I make this for? a descision is made to make it for the PS2, the developer imidiatly knows that the PS2 has such and such parts, CPU, mobo, etc.
Imagine each person with an xbox having a different type of xbox, with different sound/video chips, proccessors, and no grahpic/sound handling layer (like DirectX), games would take YEARS to develop, Mario 64 would come out at around the year 2064 (or more likely, they would figure out to create consoles the same, or atleast have a handling layer, like they do).
Now, with consoles there is still a choice as to which type it will work on, but it's not that big of a choice, only 4 non-obsolete CD-Based consoles, PSX/PS2/XBOX/GC, some would argue that the DC isn't obsolete, but that's for another conversation.
So now we go back on the subject and see that developing with this kind would be a nightmare, because not only would the developer need to include drivers for every existing video/sound/whatever card out there, and be able to autodetect it, they would also have to develop either code to directly access the hardware (good ol' dos days), or a handler that the games communicate through to the hardware, like DirectX, which each developer would include with all their games (DirectUbiSoft, DirectBlizzard, DirectEA), spooky isn't it?
It's true that when playing UT2004 I shut down everything else before playing, but I don't *have* to--and in 3 or 4 years, when I feel like breaking out the game my rig will be able to handle the game in its sleep, in a small window while I surf the web, etc. I like that choice.
If bootable games became big, what would be the difference between my computer and an XBox? Answer: none, except the XBox boots faster.
Given that, I'd prefer my computer games to run on computers and my console games to be console games.
Two words: hardware support. If that isn't a criterion, you might as well skip the operating system and just write code that runs on the bare hardware. Besides, what would be the goddamn point? That is one of the stupidest ideas I have ever heard.
How am I going to save my game?
Am I going to have to have a special partition on the harddrive or will the disc be ready to dump save-games in some file on whatever filesystem I might be running? I could be running some pretty interesting filesystems...
Sure I could use a USB drive to save my games... Is that where I'm supposed to save all the game patches and whatever proxy settings I might need to play the game online?
Surely you'll want the game to remember settings for that computer that you've personally tweaked...
I already carry around a disc with Steam-CounterStrike install files and a winex install in case I need it. I can install everything, play the game, remove everything, and be gone without rebooting the computer. I can even leave the game on there and come back to play it later without having to run anything from a CD, and the campus computer types just do a remote ghost install when they notice and don't like it.
Direct away from face when opening.
If you want to know the honest truth, its because a linux liveCD isn't worth the investment of programmers time it would take to create. Game companies don't have unlimited time and money, and spending either on something as unrelated to the game as added overhead. Game developers cost a decent amount of money and not one dollar more will be spent than necessary.
1) The operating system would take up a significant amount of space on the disc.
2) A read-only filesystem makes saving preferences, screenshots, etc. difficult
3) Extreme variances in architectures and hardware would limit the playability.
4) Liscense violations against non-free components (nvidia).
5) Slow load times.
6) Game patches and updates would require the download of an entire new disc.
7) CD/DVDs deteriorate rapidly. Constant inserts/removals can lead to irreversible damage.
Just to name a few.
I still think an EOS would be a better solution. Then again, those are already found in game consoles.
For the sheer fact that every console is the same the only main diffrence in diffrenr revision is where the chips are placed but there essently the same from a first run ps2 to a new run ps2 the diffrences are very minor ie progessisve scan dvd player which doesnt matter much in terms of loading a game. Now look at your average pc theres litery hundres of thousands of diffrent configurations and you have to code something that can detect them all on the fly then load the game. Its probbale but simply not worth spenidng the dough to make it. not to mention the speed los
On the subject of cross-platform games, I'm rather surprised more ambitious games have not been released in Flash. You can't put together a MMOFPS or something, but it seems that you could assemble a SNES-grade RPG or something similar. The budget would be tiny and the game would run on nearly any modern PC. Why isn't this kind of thing done more? It seems like the only things I've seen done in Flash are three-minute diversions.
I can't figure out why so many Slashdotters seem stuck on the merits of this idea.
Here are a couple of reasons why this is a bad idea:
* Complete lack of forward-compatibility with hardware (huge -- effectively kills the idea, and the reason why this scheme works in the console world with a standard set of hardware but not in the computer world).
* Forced rebooting and no other apps running
* Poor access times
* No patches
Basically, even if you overcame all the obstacles, you'd have little more than an expensive console (abeit with a lot of RAM), but without the standardized hardware and input devices that benefit console developers.
The benefits of the PC are pretty much different from those of the console. Trying to turn a PC into a poor copy of a console is just a bad idea. Leverage the strengths of the PC -- more memory, big, fast writeable storage devices, keyboard and mouse input devices (many buttons, good text-input capabilities, rapid and precise aiming), very commonly available network access, forwards compatibility, patchability, game extensibility, good toolkits -- widget sets and the like -- for producing things like editors.
May we never see th
Well. I do not like the idea of rebooting etc. at all. Also the "auto-detecting" of hardware would be less than great. Having a game fit on a single CD/DVD wouldn't be the best either and there would be speed issues. However, maybe there is a hybrid choice. You'd still need to reboot and it would auto-detect your hardware in the sense that, it looks up your existing configuration and uses that as it's starting point. Using this method you could utilize all of the computers resources towards the game and nothing but, squeezing that much power out of the system..... Although, the gains would be minimal. Be neat to see a prototype though to actually measure what the gains could/would be.
Put it on a CD so you can't save games or run any other programs, and not only that, you get worse hardware support since linux lacks useful drivers for modern hardware. A brilliant plan!
I admit I read only the posts with a higher rating. But some of those posts are plain stupid. Some people trying to support blindly what they read over and over again on some sites.
They talk about the space ocupied on the disk. But many games come on two or more CDs or on a DVD. Space is not an issue here. Maybe it was six years ago. But not anymore.
They talk about read-only filesystem. But they ignore the fact that even Live Linux distributions use the existing hardware to store various data. MandrakeMove uses a USB memory stick. Knoppix can save the rc files (or even the whole system!!!) on the existing harddrive (without interfering with the existing system, just another directory).
Problems with the drivers. But even nVidia can be convinced to supply the drivers for the actual game.
The patches problem - well, see the saving information. Those who invoked this argument didn't even bother to notice there are some years since most games offer LAN/Internet conectivity. A patch would be downloaded by default and saved next to the config files, game saves and all the rest.
And my favorite:<em> CD/DVDs deteriorate rapidly. Constant inserts/removals can lead to irreversible damage.</em> Dude! We're talking about CDs and not CDRWs.
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Once again, wishing there was a Troll score for a story... this one certainly deserves it.
Do I really need to restate the extremely valid reasons mentioned by virtually all replies so far?
A better question is, WHY would any company do that? Is there ANY possible business case for increasing your QA budget tenfold, and possibly doubling your development budget? Not to mention the extra hassle customers would be faced with in this case.
There's reinventing the wheel, and then there's shooting yourself in both feet and starting to crawl around...
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My friend has one.
Its called an xbox.
I really, really don't like rebooting my computer.
It bugs me that FFXI takes up my full screen.
I want to be able to multi-task.
If I want to reduce the usefullness of my desktop to a console system, I will just get a console and games. Its cheaper and I know they will work together.
Now if only these systems that booted into games plugged into normal household entertainment systems. I would love to be able to put this system in my living room, maybe get a few controllers, hook it up to my stereo and tv...
-Tim
-I just work here... how am I supposed to know?
"1) The operating system would take up a significant amount of space on the disc."
:p
Linux takes maybe 120-200mb. That's talking about a kernel (1mb) plus a basic set of OpenGL + X + X driver for cards. That's not much of a 4.5 or 9gb disc. It'd be even less if there was actual work on making it into a standard.
"2) A read-only filesystem makes saving preferences, screenshots, etc. difficult"
My PS2 and GameCube and PS1 and Dreamcast, etc, all seem to save fine. I can get a 16mb USB dongle for 16$ CDN. Why not have it save prefs to a USB dongle? Can you say memory card?
"3) Extreme variances in architectures and hardware would limit the playability."
That's why you have a standard, like MPC was supposed to be a standard about 14 years ago. If you have a set (Athlon/ATI disc, Pentium/ATI disc, etc), you'll be able to make that OS footprint smaller and allow better gaming. Serious gamers only have one of 4 possible combinations (nCr from Athlon or Pentium with ATI or NVidia). Shitty computers with same Cirrus logic bullshit won't be used for this kind of work anyways.
"4) Liscense violations against non-free components (nvidia)."
Whatever sells more video cards (Hey, games that have great OOB experiencies!) will change their distribution policy. Money talks.
"5) Slow load times."
If people will put up with PS2 load times, there is nothing to worry about with the much faster and easier to cache (PCs usually have more than 64mb of RAM, the amount of UMA RAM the Xbox has) PC memory and DVD-ROM technology.
"6) Game patches and updates would require the download of an entire new disc."
Hey, maybe PC game companies will start shipping games that aren't broken. I mean, 20 years of console games has taught me that it's easy to ship games that aren't bugshit. You just have to put in the QA effort.
"7) CD/DVDs deteriorate rapidly. Constant inserts/removals can lead to irreversible damage."
Right. That's exactly why I somehow can't play any of my Saturn and Dreamcast games anymore... wait a second!
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"Boot the disk just like your PC was a Playstation or an XBox "
This is basicly what this does, but with pc games.
Im not sure if this is real or not, but check it out, it looks hot.
http://www.discoverconsole.com/
Now *there's* a rubbish idea.
1) Take an OS that's worse at running games than the one that most people have on their computer
2) Put it on a bootable CD along with the game, takes forever to boot, has slim chance of finding right drivers, savegames are a problem
3) ?
4) Profit my arse!
Why can't companies supply a USB stick for save games / config / driver updates / HD Info (for use as storage), etc, etc. For the amount a game costs to buy retail, they SHOULD supply some value addon. As an aside, it could be used as a type of 'dongle' - no USB, no play. The speed of the CDrom drive is the only barrier I can see. This could be negated by storing some highly used files on the HD - config stored on the you guessed it USB stick. I know this sort of defeats the purpose of having the whole thing on CD, but it's an option.
What's On Your Network ??? http://www.open-audit.org/
There are alternatives to rebooting if you want to play.Javagaming
LWJGL
Being bitter is drinking poison and hoping someone else will die
Why not pick the OS that most games are developed for right now for this theoretical idea? I know linux sells better in nerdland, but the majority of games aren't made for it yet. This suggestion still ties you into an OS, it's just harder to see.
This idea isn't as bad as everone says it is. Patching and junk is possible. And havving no other programs running, I fail to see how that is bad. 1) So much less ram is being used. 2) Developer can do so much more knowing that nothing will stop him. 3) If you F up your computer Direcx or any other part of your computer it still will run the games. I would love the idea of a GAMING OS, while it would be a boot OS, it would have HD parts, so correct drivers and such are not a problem. The 1 and ONLY problem with a boot OS is drivers, if you can't get them, everthing falls apart, but other then that its great.
The idea has promise. However, not in the manner you suggest.
Linux, for all its advantages is just the wrong OS for this sort of thing. It's far too complex for something that will only be used for playing games. It takes up a lot of space, and takes a long time to load.
The other issue that people have mentioned, is hardware compatibility. Actually, this is probably only an issue when it comes to graphics cards. Most other hardware has some sort of fallback compatibility mode.
While we can assume that all gamers will have one of a small selection of cards, this will not always be the case. A new player could enter the market. This is an area that would need work.
I'd suggest that having part of the OS on a small partition may work, but setting that sort of thing up is more effort than most people really care for.
You answer it yourself in the post.
Basically, you mention only one reason why bootable CD games are a good thing; because it means "no Microsoft or Direct X".
Firstly, that's so not a comercial reason to do anything.
Secondly, look at Quake 3 for an example of how you can easily make a game that doesn't care about Microsoft (OpenGL, a Linux and a Mac client) without all the pain of making a console boot disk.
~~~~~ BigLig2? You mean there's another one of me?
Wouldn't it make more sense to have open libraries that are operating system independent, for more than just video? Sort of like Java meets open GL.
Also keep in mind that your Linux boot won't support Apple hardware, unless it's a dual boot disk or something, but I don't even know if that's possible.
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Damn, why did I have to read ALL THE WAY DOWN to the score:2's to find this? Everything above is the same stuff: Rebooting sucks, back drivers and hardware support. The end. Mod this sucker up! OS independent games? Use an OS independent language to write them!
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
They're are called "board" games
I believe something like this will eventually happen. Right now it is....well not impossible....but a bad idea. All the ideas concerning how to make this work (futureproofing, drivers etc.) basicly ammount to creating what we already have in Direct X and Windows. While there would be benefits on system resources ease of development and distribution would suffer.
The only way something like this will work is assuming that in the future somebody (porbbably John Carmack) develops the ultimate game engine. Perfect visual and audio quality....there would be no need for further development and all future hardware would ahere to these standards. Then this uber game engine will become the operating system and games will all be like mods.
We are seeing the beginnings of this now (and the past few years) with the licensing of engines from the likes of id and Digital Extremes/Epic to hoast entirely new games.
I suppose eventually we have one engine, one platform standard. How this will effect the gulf between PC and console gaming....who knows?
The reason why bootable games won't happen on PC are roughly the same as why people moved from DOS to windows as a gaming platform. The 3D revolution made programming game engines much more complex due to hardware support. Direct 3D alone made this issue disappear. So the best way to achieve something close to this is to make an OS based entirely on Direct X....I have one downsatairs....it's balck and green and plays Ninja Gaiden...YUM!
So this won't work for the end user....they like their multitasking, and for developers...they like not having to code support for all the hardware out there themselves.
Still with Windows Media Center edition...who knows could a Windows Gaming Center edition be the way forward for maximum performance in the PC gaming mainstream?
I suppose the issue for me is not bootable games, but a dedicated gaming operating system that could be a game engine itself. Long way off to be worthwhile though!
The entire point of PCs is that they are upgradable (and not just by buying a bigger "Dongle"). Console gaming systems are standardized. I suggest you stick with them.
I would stick with consoles, but I have no way of running code on a GameCube, Xbox, or PS2, without breaking laws that could get me in jail and my backside sexually assaulted.
My friend has one. Its called an xbox.
Where can I get Counter-strike for any of the major consoles? Can anybody say why console games aren't moddable?
OS independent games? Use an OS independent language to write them!
The problem here is that developers are too familiar with the Direct3D and OpenGL models to change to Java 3D, which has a rather different architecture. In addition, do popular Java platform VMs implement the Java 3D API?
"Try closer to 250 MB minimum for a working install, probably more, like in the 300 range. More, if you assume a person might need a web-browser, or things like that as well."
No. No browser is needed, no QT is needed, no GTK+ is needed. Only the game binaries, OpenGL, a set of drivers for the most common 3D cards, X, and a kernel. Slackware can run in 250mb with a full OS. You need way less as a base for 1 gaming program which is the sole application.
"That take space. (sic) Most games need on the order of 10-20 MB per save file. Looks like that memory card got more expensive."
No. If they are designing games for this purpose, they will optimize the save/load features. There is no reason to save a huge dump of every flag or internal variable of an engine when a handful of variables in a couple of data structures can adequately describe the situation. You're advocating bloaty code. That way lies madness.
"Only the very big developers (read, id, Epic, EA) can afford to say, only people with the best hardware can run this game. Valve showed with their HL survey that most peopel run on very low-end hardware."
I was talking about nVidia's positioning on releasing drivers that would be distributable in such a fashion. If you can have a guaranteed abstraction layer (OpenGL or DirectX), it's pretty easy to write games that'll work on all setups (note: I am simplifying, there are buggy drivers). If you really want to simplify even more, you could sell the actual OpenGL/DirectX layers on another USB dongle. 1 for saving, 1 for your video card. That'd make it so you could use universal discs on any PC that has a driver dongle available. You could even make it so that the driver dongles could take any standard download, like nVidia's detonator set. Standarization is something you're ignoring.
"Its (sic) a much more elitest group."
Yea, PC gamers are many things which polite people don't say in polite conversation. BeOS users are elistist too, as are Amiga users, etc. PC gamers can either work together to make PC gaming easy to do, or they can go the way of the dodo, because the majority of the people have control of money.
"Also, load times on a CD from a PC will probably be slower, as the read patterns and filesystem aren't optimized for it."
Slower than what? That's an OS layer problem. Let the purpose-based config people deal with it, because they will be able to change how UDF is read at the block layer to make things easier. Heck, Linux already makes reading from DVD/CD super quick. If you're using it as a base, I expect to see awesome results in any normal PC (as I said before, better caching and more RAM = fast). Just let the people who know about such things build an SDK, and you could revolutionize PC gaming.
I suspect Microsoft's trying to go this way with PC gaming anyways, based on all the news that's been put out about it.
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Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
It's called OpenGL. It lets me run Quake1 on my Radeon 9800.
Yes, OpenGL would be on these discs. It'd be stupid to not have an abstraction layer.
Did you even read my post before replying? I've addresses all these strawmen about drivers.
" Can you say "I've got a perfectly good hard disk in my PC"? You might as well buy a XBox/PS2/GameCube/Whatever"
If there's an HD we want to use, it'll have to be in a standard layout. Since you probably want your own config for GP use of your PC, you'll want to use the USB dongle for data storage. Plus it means you can move your profiles easy, not like the Xbox (which, I should point out, has an HD, and the PS2 has an HD option you gloss over).
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Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
The operating system provides some security for your data on your hard disk and other things (let's not start a windows security argument here). It would have to be a pretty damned trustworthy game developer for me to give them total access to my computer without any protection.
"Saying you'll have OpenGL on your CD is good and all but you still need something to talk to the hardware."
I mentioned it as a package with catalyst/detonator for the nVidia/ATI cards, since those tend to be the 2 most-common gaming cards. I mentioned in another post how you could easily have another dongle that holds the driver. So you have 1 save card for game data and 1 card for a driver than translates OGL to the hw layer.
Make sense?
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Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
I don't see how you could have a bootable PC game disc that's as compatible across different hw without a 2-dongle system.
/. commenters (not you) just like to argue that PC gaming is supperior the way it is ;)
It's neat to think about, even if some of the
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Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
What about on-line Java games like these from Pop Cap?
I really like the idea with games on a bootable CD/DVD so you can play it wherever but not so much
because it involves Linux, more that it excludes Windows.
Face it, I will never install Windows on any of my machines again.
So long boot times, hard to save things to disk etc... are not that painful if I think of the freedom it gives me.
Heck, why not distribute games on USB sticks to begin with?
"Prepare for the worst - hope for the best."
FYI, Pac-man is older than Nethack.
Both Pac-man and Rogue came out in 1980. Nethack is a "Rogue-like" game that came out in 1987 (as a fork of Hack, I believe). By this time, the world had already grown to know Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, Baby Pac-Man, Pac-Man Plus, Super Pac-Man, Jr. Pac-Man, Pac & Pal, Professor Pac-man, and Pac-Land. Pac-mania is Nethack's contemporary in age.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
If, say, NVidia and creative started funding a project like this where the CD contains only nvidia and creative hardware drivers it could be a nice little earner for both compainies...