Does Linux Have Game?

kwpulliam writes "Tom's Hardware has an interesting writeup, discussing the difficulties in bringing games to Linux, and the dilemmas faced by the graphics card developers."

Comments

Big releases

[BWJones]

Well, I hate to say it but one of the biggest titles coming to Linux was pre-empted from Linux, OS X, and even Windows in favor of the X-box. Yes, eventually it shipped for Windows and OS X, but Linux was left out in the cold when Microsoft purchased Bungie. Bungie had plans for simultaneous release of Halo on Windows and OS X to be followed soon by a Linux release. That all changed when Bungie was bought out. Honestly given the consolidation within the game industry, I don't see much hope for games on Linux for a few years yet which is sort of odd given Linux's marketshare as being so much greater than OS X. Perhaps Toms Hardware is correct when it comes to Linux being a true desktop replacement?

Linux needs to penetrate

[ForteMaster]

This is the final goal for open source. They need to become a gaming platform, both commercially and not, if they want to win the war with Microsoft.

OpenGL is the Future

[toonerh]

Game developers should only use OpenGL for newly written rendering code. It is a high performance, advancing standard. Microsoft often "borrows" from it for Direct X (n+1).

OpenGL makes Linux, BSD, MacOS X and other ports practical as well as not having to deal with Microsoft's arbitrary API's.

Re:Direct3D on Linux?

[JonLatane]

Better yet, why don't more developers program for OpenGL? Granted, DirectX 9 has a lot of good support for pixel shaders and stuff, but OpenGL 2 can do that too. Seriously, DirectX is a completely closed-source solution and MS can do whatever they want with it, breaking games (although, to their credit, DX9 is supposed to be compatible all the way back to DX5 I think), forcing people to update their OS (which is why Windows 95/98 are dead) and, well, anything else.

Take a look at what Apple did with OpenGL and Aqua. Perhaps they should adopt the it like they did BSD and give it a similar overhaul, providing source and giving back to the community. That way, not only Linux gaming but Mac gaming could seriously improve.

MS is using their OS and browser monopoly to create their own standards and maintain control. They're doing it with ActiveX and their poor CSS support in IE, and they're doing it with DX9 by getting hardware designers the make their graphics cards specifically for their API. Something's got to stop them, and porting DX to Linux (which would never happen anyway) is not the solution.

Re:Direct3D on Linux?

[LocoMan]

The main difference is that someone that has a Mac computer and has only one computer can't run a windows game, so it's a lost sale... while most people that use linux and are even half interested in gaming at all at least dual boot into windows, so a linux version doesn't give extra buyers, while a mac version does. At least that's how it looks to me.. :)

Re:Direct3D on Linux?

[the Hewster]

Better yet, why don't more developers program for OpenGL? Granted, DirectX 9 has a lot of good support for pixel shaders and stuff, but OpenGL 2 can do that too.

I have read this type of notion before. Microsoft pulled a nice PR stunt by convincing, even some "tech heads" that that DX is more advanced than OpenGL. OpenGL does not need some future version to come out to offer all the functionnality of Direct X 9. OpenGL does that already, most notably, pixel and vertex shaders in a C like language using the "GL_ARB_fragment_shader" extension and the "GL_ARB_vertex_shader" extension. Proof of this is that games that supposably showcase advanced DirectX functionnality, like Far Cry, often have a more or less hiden "OpenGL" rendering mode that implements all the eye candy effects. Direct 3D could dissapear TOMMORROW and the realtime 3D graphics community would lose NOTHING. I defy anyone to give me an example, some sample code, an effect in a game, anything that can be done with Direct 3D and not OpenGL ANYTHING!