Doom 3 for Linux Released

edawg writes Linuxgames reports that "the Linux edition of Doom 3 has been released by ID Software. Although it didn't ship with a Linux version on the install CD, its still nice to see they release Linux binaries around the same time as their first game patch. Here is Information directly from ID Software."

Comments

questions

[mirko]

1. does this means this uses OpenGL instead of DirectX ?
   
2. has somebody any clue when the osx version will be released ?
   

Linux for games? Hahaha-hey wait.

[Faust7]

This ought to go a long way towards legitimizing Linux as a gaming platform. It's Doom 3, for god's sake. Hard to get bigger than that. As long as they're able to standardize installation across some of the most popular distros.

Do I have to pay twice?

[a_nonamiss]

Please forgive my ignorance, but would I have to buy a seperate version for Linux, or does my serial number for the Windows version somehow allow me to download the Linux binary?

Not that this question isn't entirely academic, because my Linux box isn't capable of running Doom 3 anyways, but I am just curious how they are handling this.

Re:I wonder if the hardware specs are the same...

[gowen]

It's pretty sad that when you say something even slightly critical of linux, you feel the need to defend yourself from the moderators by parading your linux qualifications to prove that your really truly one of the cognoscenti.

(Beowulf Boy, this isn't a criticism of you, but the mentality of moderators)

Re:oh no, not again...

[pgrst]

time will tell, and maybe these things will come, but most of the time these things loose steam as the team loses motivation and counts $$$.

you say that like it's a bad thing. ID is a business, not a charity. The economics are probably very simple. The Windows version will likely turn a profit several orders of magnitude larger than a linux version.

If I worked for ID I know which version I would concentrate on.....

Why not use SDL?

[Izaak]

id have ALWAYS used OpenGL for the graphics rendering. But they use DirectX for sound on windows, which is what will take time to convert to *nix..

I've heard this said before and wondered why they don't use a combination of SDL/Alsa/OpenGL to keep it cross platform. I've been doing that and have a single code base that compiles to Linux, Windows, and Mac with no nasty piles of #ifdef'ed code.

Re:Why not use SDL?

[Dogers]

Not knowing much (read: anything) about SDL and ALSA on windows, my guess is they dont want to be stuck supporting that if theres any problems with it. Why bother with that hassle when the numbers of people donwloading and actually USING the linux version are so small compared with that of windows?

Re:I wonder if the hardware specs are the same...

[JudgeFurious]

That's the way the system works. Say nothing critical of Linux, Acknowledge nothing positive in Windows, and you take your chances when making a comment on OSX. That is of course because you never know which moderator you're going to get. It might be the Apple zealot or it might be the guy who's so sick of Apple zealots that he slams you down for daring to mention it.

At least with Linux and Windows you know where you stand. ..."all your Beowulf clusters in Soviet Russia belong to us for Profit!!!" may be the only truly safe ground in here.