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Linux Live Gaming Project
Fabio writes "The mission of LLGP (Linux Live Game Project) is show to Wintendo users that also Linux can be used to game. And now a new version is out. Features: KDE 3.3 with Plastik theme and Nuvola icons, kernel 2.6.10, Nvidia drivers, TORCS, Wesnoth, SuperTux, TuxRacer and much more! It's based on Knoppix, but contains deep changes in the startup scripts. Now the hardware probing is completely based on hotplug and udev; kudzu was removed. Challenge your friends on LLGP, and convert them to Linux!"
I've been playing Vendetta (vendetta-online.com) for a while now and it's superb.
I've been playing it on a Mac, but there's also a Linux and Windows version wich is equally beautiful.
No one doubts Linux could be used as a gaming platform. You guys simply have to sell the idea to game developers.
What the community needs in order to show that 'Linux has game' is to have a group create and publish a full game that people would buy in the shops.
We have plenty of 'game distro' CDs that contain Neverball, Wesnoth, SuperTux, et al, but we don't have anything that you could get attached to like people get attached to Half-Life, Deus Ex, Diablo.
Give me a singleplayer game with a plot for Linux! Yes, sir, I am willing to contribute.
I have tried out tux racer on both Windows and linux and I have noticed that the Windows version runs significantly better. I have a computer with a AMD 3.2 Ghz processor and a Nvidia 6800 GT. When I run Tux Racer on Windows it runs very smoothly. I then tried it in Fedora and it was unbearable. I had the updated drivers for my card installed and all the packages were up to date but it still ran horribly. I wanted to confirm that this was a fluke so I tried this out on my laptop (which runs Mandrake) and got similar results. If people want linux gaming taken seriously then the games will have to be built more reliably. I have also noticed that in order to get anything with 3D support there are often several packages that need to be installed and these aren't always included with most distributions.
There are lots of people complaining that too many games focus on eye-candy.
Linux could do fine in terms of RTS Turn based strategy, adventure, etc.
The awsome multiple window features gives great possibility for hotseat gaming.
Why is Linux trying to be an FPS platform, that's just silly.
Unfortunatly, while Linux does have support for games such as Doom 3, UT2004, and Half Life 2, the quality of the support is almost always lower.
Here is an example. In both Doom 3 and UT2004, Windows gives you tight integration with the built in editors. In the Linux versions of these, games, however, the editors are both MIA.
In addition, while Cedega boasts a wide range of supported games, the quality of that support is even lower than the native games. For example, to get pixel shader support, you need a Geforce 5 class card or better. In Windows, you only need a Geforce 3 class card or better. And while ATI arguably has some of the best hardware, they also have the worst driver support in Linux . And while people say that they got game X, Y and Z working perfectly under Cedega, it probobly took them X number of hours to configure, hack, and crack the game before it would actually run. (Trust me, I've been there.)
The obvious solution is to dual boot. This becomes a problem, however, for people who can't afford to buy Windows. But then again, if you can't afford Windows, maybe you shouldn't be buying games either. ;)
The bottom line is that we won't get good game support until publishers believe that Linux is a viable consumer market. Furthermore, most developers use DirectX, which is a Windows tehnology, not an open standard.
I enjoy Linux for it's other benifits. I don't mind that it's not the ultimate gaming platform, although it would be nice if it was. I instead enjoy that it has a stable enviorment for me to explore UNIX, program, and explore free software.
Linux might be fine if you like the top of the top First Person Shooters (and occassionally a port of something popular over a year later), but what if you like something less than mainstream?
For instance while all of my friends were getting absorbed in Half-Life 2 or World of Warcraft I was left out because everytime I went to the store to pick up a copy of WoW (and to a lesser degree, HL2) the stores were out of stock.
While looking for something to play I managed to stumble upon a gem that caught me totally off guard.
I noticed Pirates! on the shelf. After reaading the back I realized it was a remake of the old C64, Mac, Amiga, and PC title and I had to buy it, even though I hadn't heard that they were remaking it.
I can honestly say it was not a waste! The game captures so much of the feel of the original while still being made modern. They haven't overlaiden it with stupid features, nor have they made it full of some lame linear storyline.
A good game, and certainly not one I'd expect to find ported to Linux, or even Mac. I just can't see it being popular enough with most people to justify it. Still, games like this are the reason I play PC games at all. As for the top first person shooters, blah. Sure I play them sometimes, but it would take more than that to get me to ditch my Windows box as my primary gaming machine.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
That was more or less what I was thinking too.
I would however disaggree about "mainstream". Die-hard in-your-face online FPS clansmen are a very vocal minority. But make no mistake, the keyword is: minority.
The fact is, The Sims outsold any FPS ever made, including any Epic, Id or Valve game. Ever. (And for that matter, any other game.) Think about it.
Or how about these quick facts: Quiz games routinely outself FPS. EA's cash cows aren't some FPS franchise, but sports games. And between the N64 which had FPS games, and the Playstation which had Final Fantasy and Grand Turismo, the Playstation won by far. And for every single online FPS player, there are tens of PS2 and GameCube systems sold _without_ the broadband addapter.
As I've said, online FPS clansmen are awfully loud, but they're a minority. The majority of the world's gaming (or gamers) is off-line and _not_ FPS.
Either way, you're not alone. Some of the best PC games I've played over the last year include:
- yes, Pirates
- The Fall - Last Days of Gaia (third person post-apocalyptic RPG)
- Crusader Kings
- Vampire Bloodlines (based on the HL2 engine, but a third-person RPG. Well, more like action-rpg.)
- The Sims 2 (well, after disabling aging. Never liked that addition.)
- Evil Genius
None of them is a FPS or RTS. So, yeah, I'll fully aggree with you. I'd like to see more of _those_ supported on Linux, rather than yet another "but you have Doom 3 and UT2004" argument.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Games can be written for linux, just as games can be written for pretty any computer ever made. Hell, Spacewar was written on a PDP-11, and there are numerous games for handheld calculators and the like. The question here is can commercial games be profitable on linux. At the moment, the answer would appear to be, "No." Why? Well, big developers like id and Epic have ported their games to linux, and even though those two developers provide the engines for probably 90% of the non-sport, non-RPG games out there, you rarely hear of licensees porting to linux. Where's Splinter Cell or Rainbow Six 3 for linux? Both of those (actually, most of Ubi's current lineup) are based on Epic's Unreal engine, which has been ported to linux several times over if you consider the engine "new" for different games like Unreal Tournament, UT2003, and UT2004. You won't see them, because the money's not there. It doesn't matter if it's possible or even easy to port. The fact of the matter is that it takes some amount of time to target another platform (even if the engine itself is written in a platform-neutral way, which really is the case with many commercial games these days since many target multiple consoles as well as PC). More time means a later ship date and more money spent on development (and potentially lost money in sales, if they have to slip significantly to accomodate the port), all to support a platform with a very small marketshare. It's all numbers. For PC gaming, you're talking ~95% of the market on Windows, ~1-2% on lnux, and ~3-4% on Mac (and that's probably generous). Is it any wonder that both linux and Mac get shafted on games?
Loki tried to make a business out of porting games for developers that didn't have the time or expertise to do it themselves. They failed. Granted, it's been a few years since Loki imploded, and we did get some good technology out of the endeavor like SDL, but I think it's a pretty safe bet that a similar effort today would die just as Loki did before. Games have a very short half-life (pardon the pun), and if the ports don't ship at the same time, nobody will really care. (Yes, I know there will be the few platform zealots that will wait and wait for a port to their OS, but by and large if you can't buy the game within six months of release, you're probably never going to buy it.)
I'm not even going to mention the difficulties surrounding multiple distros of linux (how should commercial games be packaged? RPM? deb? tarballs? some proprietary installer that doesn't play nice with any distro?) or multiple platforms (it's nice that your game works on linux, but is that for x86, PPC, sparc, alpha, or what?). I'll leave that for a different post, except to say that even if the linux market was large enough to matter, the test matrix for such a game would be hell.
....has been running a lot of windows OpenGL demos that I've downloaded at very good speeds. Even the Torque SDK runs over wine (Not that you need to as there is a native version, but it was amazing to see nevertheless). I know l33t users look down their nose at wine, but seeing a windows opengl demo running with music at 568fps in a linux window in X is pretty impressive.