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Review of Doom 3 on Linux
yamla writes "Doom 3 was released for Linux sometime last week. LinuxHardware.org decided to test how well it runs compared to the Windows version. Read the article here, including some technical information from the id Software employee who did the Linux port, Timothee Besset." AnandTech has a similar review available.
Don't you realize that all the Linux Doom 3 advocates are busy playing it right now?
I mean, who has time to post on slashdot when there is all of humanity to save.
Now what we need is a way to post on /. from Linux via Doom 3!
"You're older than you've ever been, and now you're even older."
That's it folks. For more boring details, well RTFA :)
You forgot to mention that a large part of this performance difference is likely due to the lack of SSE2 instructions in the linux version. This will be fixed as he finishes porting the ASM from the windows source.
It was me, I did it, I moved your cheese
find it funny that the screenshots are near-total black!
(reading in a well lit office)
1) Does anyone know when will Linux nVidia drivers catch-up to the Windows versions, or why they are behind?
! !!!!!!" If Carmack wants to email me the source code, I'll happily get starting compiling it for 64-bit for him...
2) Any idea when 64-bit versions of the drivers will be available? (And what distro I need to take advantage of it)
3) Any idea when 64-bit version of Doom 3 will be available for either platform, or what priority that has over Linux-SSE2 instructions?
4) How is the Linux install? What package manager does it use? Or is it just an executable?
Oh, and "yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!!!!!
No, they use OpenGL on both platforms
but they use DirectX for input and sound on Windows.
id have been porting their games to Linux since the original Doom, and I'm sure that Linux gamers weren't that much of a market back then...
They look quite different on the different platforms anyway (in general the Linux version looks worse)
Maybe you should look again.
From the article:
The final graphics point we'd like to point out may be the most important, especially when comparing the Windows to Linux benchmarks. Going back to the full-size screenshots shown above, when comparing the Windows to Linux images, you can tell that at both low and medium quality settings the images seem to produce comparable results. When moving to high quality though, the Linux output does not match the Windows output. If you pay attention to the rock area highlighted by the flashlight, the image is much improved under Linux. When looking at the Windows output, the high quality image is indistinguishable from the medium quality output. This may explain some of the speed differences between Linux and Windows at high quality. It is unknown why the two operating systems are treating this setting differently.
So not only does the linux version look better, but that's part of the reason it's running slower.
... one of mainstream games being ported to Linux, proving that there is a Linux gaming market? ...
Actually the "proof" is to the contrary. Id has previously stated in Game Deverloper Magazine that Linux games do not make sense from a business perspective, that they support Linux only because they think it is cool to do so. Bill will continue to sleep very very well.
Additionally, id is not in the business you think they are. Retail game sales are only part of their business, licensing engines to other game developers is another large part of their business. Here Linux can merely be a marketting tool, a potential bullet item that some developer might like. The licensee might prefer to have a Linux option should a Linux market actually develop during the years their game is in development. Whether that market actually materializes makes no difference to id, they already cashed the check.
Of course the above refers to clients, for servers Linux does make a lot of sense.
You can play Doom3 on fully Open Source system (without any binary drivers).
./doom3
All you need is:
- Radeon with R200 chip (8500, 9000, 9100, etc)
- latest DRI driver (from Mesa CVS)
- S3TC library (you can find it with google)
Just compile Mesa, copy file r200_dri.so to your X modules, make sure hardware acceleration is working, then... run Doom3 (with following env set):
LD_PRELOAD=libGL.so.1 R200_NO_TCL=1
(if you see no textures, make sure you have installed S3TC library!)
I have it working on my computer. Please don't repeat that nVidia and binary drivers are required. It is not true.