Slashdot Mirror
The State of Linux Gaming
Srikant_Chaudhry writes "CTZ has an interesting article that talks about hardware and software problems, along with others, that is limiting Linux gaming as a whole. Here's a quote from their concluding paragraph: "As of this moment, gaming on Linux is still a little like the Wild West. It's somewhat chaotic, random and empty, but it can be very exciting too. As time progresses and the market matures, we will see a plethora of games on Linux. Right now, many distributions are concentrating on other materials, like making their distributions easy to use, and making sure they work well with all the different hardware. Once the Linux desktop has stabilized to a certain extent, you can expect to see developers turn their energies to better gaming support under Linux. That's when the Linux gaming market will really take off."
Give me tactical shooters like Operation Flashpoint, Ghost Recon and Rainbow Six and I'll get rid of Windows on my home computer.
The owls are not what they seem
Well while we are here - I think it has been shown to stem from a) drivers b) opengl only c) user base and portability vis-a-vis drivers and opengl only.
:-(
Microsoft owns about 60% of opengl.
In good news, flash games and java games all fly like shit out of a teflon coated colon. Which is kinda cool.
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
PC gaming 'Took Off' without PCs being easy/simple to use devices. Just remember back to the days of DOS with games like the original Wing Commander, not necesarily very easy to get running, when compared with installing and getting modern games to run under Windows.
Linux gaming shouldn't be an afterthought, it should be a current thought, going along with the development of an easy to use desktop operating system.
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
There's
Project Starfighter
Blob Wars
Virus Killer
Give them a try. After all, they're completely free.
Summation 2
I remember when lots of "Windows" games just booted into DOS, for performance and stability. That's when Windows gaming really started to take off. Linux is so much more flexible, the OS is freely available and hackable by any game developer, and "LiveCD" and other subinstance techniques are now widespread. Why wait for the Linux desktop to stabilize? Why not just take a lesson from "Windows" gaming, and develop Linux games embedded in a complete, bootable Linux image? The increased use by demanding users (without developer fetish for touching the bleeding edge tech) will instead pressure the Linux desktop to stabilize. It worked before, on Windows, and such "bootable Linux games" can even be run on a "Windows" box, helping convert them to the Light Side.
--
make install -not war
GAME COMPANY CEO: That's that OS used by those people who are rabid about not paying for anything involving software, right?
GP: Yeah.
GCC: Get back to work, dumbass, or I'll cut your balls off.
Hey! I tease!
--- Ban humanity.
it doesn't mean Linux won't continue to see a few good games. Wildfire Games are developing a 3D real-time strategy game, 0AD. Just like we enjoy free/open source software applications such as openoffice and the mozilla suite, there will be free games worth playing. America's Army has a large fanbase, 0AD most likely will have one when released, more will come :).