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Nvidia and Linux to Power Namco Arcade Games

Posted by Zonk on from the arcades-and-pcs-meet-halfway dept.

jshriverWVU writes "Seems the next-gen Arcade hardware for Namco is going to be running Linux and using video hardware from NVidia. The first game to use the system will be CounterStrike Neo, a version of the popular game currently only available in Japanese arcades. The official press release is also available."

4 of 20 comments (clear)

  1. Good For Linux Ports? by DeckerEgo · · Score: 3, Insightful
    I wonder if this will do the same thing for Linux gaming that Windows did for the XBox. Producers could easily port DirectX apps to XBox (and vice-versa), which encouraged support for the platform. I wonder if game producers will be more likely to release games for Linux, since they can go from arcade console to desktop distro easily. For that matter, they should be able to go from arcade console to Windows or consumer console easily as well, since it's OpenGL on fairly standard hardware.

    Most of all I hope this encourages Nvidia to keep supporting Linux drivers for X... and this becomes a commercial opportunity for other vendors to provide hardcore drivers for the *nix community.

  2. how things change by doofusclam · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Anyone else find it interesting that home hardware is so advanced over arcade machines that the latter are powering the former?

    I remember when I used to look at a Defender machine and think 'no way will I ever have that at home'.

    No, my name isn't Bill Gates :D

    1. Re:how things change by Firehawke · · Score: 4, Insightful

      That's been brought about by the decline of the arcade industry. Game manufacturers used to create custom hardware for games, but diminishing returns make that impossible now. As far as they're concerned, it's cheaper and safer to use a console-based arcade hardware, since they can do the home port more cheaply in the end.

  3. Re:2 questions. by spitzak · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I doubt it is running X. But from the article, the screen interface is OpenGL. This would imply that it should be relatively trivial to modify the game so it runs on Linux and displays in an X window.

    This is the display only. The interface to the sound and to the input peripherials is another problem, and may be very difficult. It would be best to write some kind of emulation library so that the arcade machine calls can be used unchanged.