Doom 3 Linux Client

Brad writes "LinuxGames.com is reporting that the Doom 3 Linux Client has begun private testing. The Doom 3 Linux server has already been completed and will be released with the next win32 release."

Comments

But...

[redog]

Is there and ebuild for it yet?

Cool

[ChopsMIDI]

I'm excited to see what kind of performance difference there is between the Win32 and the linux client.

The Native Linux Client for Quake 3 ran MUCH faster for me than in Windows....to the point that I stopped playing Q3A in Windows altogether, simply because I could crank my Resolution much higher in Linux and it ran perfectly (like 100 FPS).

I hope it's the same for Doom3....It'll be like a free hardware upgrade.

Re:Cool

[grm_wnr]

Most FPSs do, but id software, for some reason, seems to prefer an OPEN, NON-MICROSOFT standard which is available for most platforms (OpenGL).

Re:Cool

[jwbozzy]

Ok, for the last time, Doom3 Win32 uses:

• OpenGL for graphics
• DirectX's DirectInput for input
• DirectX's DirectSound for sound

There is no Direct3D involved. Just remember, DirectX != Direct3D.

They don't use DirectX...

[Ayanami Rei]

Rather, they use OpenGL and a thin API over the other parts of DirectX (sound, input). OpenGL is cross-platform.

Porting is not bad...
1) Most resources are relative paths inside zip files or flat in a directory, so you remove filesystem issues (path seperators/case sensitivity).
2) The game code that uses DirectX for non-video stuff is kept to a library used specifically to interface the game code to the system.
Most of the work is just rewriting that library to use equivalent functions on Linux.
3) WineX has a DirectX emulation layer that can be used as a guide for 3.
4) Side note- SDL pretty much takes care of everything in DirectX, minus DirectShow. Can also be used as a guide.
5) NVidia has development tools (shader compilers and whatnot) that work on Linux.

Same goes for MacOSX, really...

Cedega

[Ford Prefect]

I downloaded the Windows demo earlier this week, in the hope of getting it to run on my (somewhat rubbish) PC. Of course, my games-only Windows 98 installation turned out to be somewhat insufficient - while the demo installed, it refused to run. Some hex-editing of the Doom3.exe as recommended for the full game turned out to be worthless, making it crash immediately after launch.

So, I decided to give Linux a try. I found a clever shell script for downloading the latest Cedega from CVS, and gave that a try. It worked brilliantly.

Absolutely no visual glitches, no audio glitches, and completely, utterly and boringly stable. Only criticism was that the frame rate was rather low, but I'm not surprised - my PC's below minimum specs processor-wise (1.1GHz Athlon), although merely low-end graphics-wise (128MB GF4Ti).

It'll be interesting to compare the performance of the native client with the running-on-Cedega one - I really wonder how much processor time Cedega takes to do all its API-translation thing.

As for the game? It's ... Interesting, but highly derivative. Pretty atmospheric, and an intriguing engine - but gameplay was rather dull, and the poor sound-effects really didn't help. Footsteps sounded horrible and far too repetitive, likewise a lot of the other sounds. Plus the repetition wasn't confined to the audio, with way too much scripting and linearity...

Will I buy the game? Probably, eventually, but only when it's come down in price. ;-)

Anyone can find the file ?

[da5idnetlimit.com]

Here they announce the beta is available on Shacknews but I cannot find it, which is a bit frustrating... full text here under :

"id Software's Robert Duffy updated his .plan file tonight to announce an open beta test for the Win32 DOOM 3 patch at Shacknews, an update in which he also commented on the status of the Linux dedicated server:

We have released the first update for DOOM 3 as a beta and on a limited scale ( it is only available on the File Shack at www.shacknews.com ). We don't anticipate any issues with it but felt it best to get it into the hands of a few thousand people rather than the entire customer base in case we missed something. We will release the update through our update server for wide release once we have verified there are no problems with it.

We will be releasing another update in the near future that will include Punk Busters cheat protection functionality for DOOM III.

The SDK is also ready to go and as soon as the update is out in non beta form the SDK will be made available for download.

The Linux Dedicated server is also ready to go and will also be available as soon as the update is non beta.

Presumably, this indicates the Linux client isn't all that far away either."

I found here all the I could on doom 3 and Id software in Fileshack...

So, almighty Slashcrowd, who can help mefind the precious , working Doom 3 for Linux ?