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Why Gaming Sucks On Linux
lseltzer writes "Efforts have been made to improve the situation, but things have actually gotten worse for gaming on Linux rather than better. If you're a gamer you're just plain better off running Windows and dual-booting (or VMing) between the two operating systems than hoping your games will run in Cedega or some such product." From the article: "So where does all of this leave Linux gamers? One word: Windows. Yep, you read that right. If you're a gamer, do yourself a favor and just buy a copy of Windows and set up a dual-boot system. Why bother to torture yourself with the headaches presented by Linux gaming? Why should you continually not have the games you want to play? Why settle for half-assed solutions that might or might not run the games you crave so desperately?"
...water is wet and the sky is blue.
.nosig
Why Gaming Sucks On Linux
By Jim Lynch
Despite last week's article about running World of Warcraft on Linux with CodeWeavers' CrossOver, I can't help but feel a sense of despair when I think of gaming under Linux. It seems that over the last few years, with a few exceptions, things have gotten worse rather than better. Frankly, I've had it with gaming under Linux. It's not worth the time or the effort.
The Tragedy of Loki
You might remember that a while back a company named Loki Games tried to make a business out of porting Windows games to Linux. Loki had an ambitious idea and did deliver some good games for Linux. But could it pull it off? Could Loki show that there was a real market for games under Linux?
Well Loki sure did have some significant achievements. Here's a list of the games that Loki released:
Civilization: Call to Power
Descent 3
Deus Ex
Heavy Gear 2
Heavy Metal: FAKK@
Heretic 2
Heroes of Might and Magic 3
Kohan: Immortals Sovereigns
MindRover
Myth 2: Soulblighter
Postal Plus
Railroad Tycoon 2
Rune
Sid Meier's Alpha Centaur
Simcity 3000 Unlimited
Soldier of Fortune
Tribes 2
Unreal Tournament
As you can see, Loki offered a good selection of games (yes the games listed are old, but Loki has been out of business since early in 2002, so it's understandable that its product list is dated). And some of those games--back in their day--were considered top of the line and were wanted by lots of Linux gamers.
Alas, Loki was never able to make the numbers work and ultimately went out of business as a result. For Linux gamers, the death of Loki was a true tragedy. After that, who would want to ever bother making Linux versions of the latest and greatest games? As it turned out . . . nobody. And nobody will probably bother again . . . ever.
So where does the death of Loki leave us?
CrossOver Linux: The Few, the Proud...
As I noted in last week's review of CrossOver Linux, that program did a very nice job getting World of Warcraft to install and play under Linux. It ran well, and I'd recommend it to any desperate Linux player who wants to try World of Warcraft, right now CrossOver Linux is simply the best way to play World of Warcraft under Linux, period.
WOW and KDE
TransGaming: A Beautiful Promise...and a Bitter Disappointment
Now I can hear some of you immediately beginning to think "But wait: What about TransGaming's Cedega, Jim? Isn't that the solution for Linux gamers?" Well my own recent experience playing with TransGaming has left a bad taste in my mouth. So bad that I decided to can a review I was writing of the product, as I felt it simply wasn't worth spending any more time on. While I was able to get Call of Duty to run, I was unable to get World of Warcraft and some other games even to install, let alone actually run.
The fact that World of Warcraft gave me an error message and then refused to accept the second install CD just irritated the hell out of me. WoW has been out for ages now, it's not a new game. What is the point of TransGaming if it can't easily and quickly install something as common as WoW? CrossOver Linux did a fine job of handling WoW, so there is no excuse for TransGaming's Cedega product not to also handle it with ease and comfort.
I was also dissatisfied with the installation of Cedega itself. Installing it under a regular distribution was an irritating headache. Fortunately I had a copy of Mandriva 2007 with Cedega bundled. Even then though, installation of certain games didn't work properly.
TransGaming's Cedega download page itself is a mess. It should more easily guide customers to the proper version of Cedega for their distribution. Right now it's a disorganized list of files, and I think it should be cleaned up.
In general TransGaming needs to start focusing on the quality of experience that Linux gamers get from their products and not on mass quantity of games. Make the Cedega product easy to install, configure and us
Dual booting is okay for games, but how about when you want to play music in the background? And all of your music is on your ext3, Reiser, or XFS file system? How is the read/write support from windows back to linux? I think there have been advances on read/writing NTFS from linux, but how about the other way around?
Oh it's not that bad I don't think... yeah if your a gamer run Windows, but Linux is hardly the lost cause this summary makes it out to be. The only game I play right now that I need Windows for is FFXI. In Linux I play Civ4, WoW, UT'04 without problems (Civ4 does crash time to time, but it does in Windows too). I'm actually impressed with how far it's gotten over the years. Long way to go, but keep up the good work the guys at Wine and Cedega (yes I bought Cedega, and yes I got my moneys worth outa it in my opinion)
that seems a fairly counter-productive suggestion. Better not to buy windows and just buy the games that actually support linux out of the box. That's the only way to improve gaming on linux - get the games publishers to actually support linux from the start. Doom3, quake4, neverwinter nights... There are a few already.
*sigh* Now I just wish I could take my own advice.
Buy a console if you want to play games. A Wii is going to be cheaper than a top of the range graphics card, it will be up-to-date for many more years. Unless you are a fps addict (read that a first-person-shooter or frames-per-second to taste) the games are probably better too.
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
Yup. More ads than paragraphs, and they managed to stretch no content over a few pages.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
the whole point is not "whatever". the point is people want to play games that aren't 2-3 years old. I like having new games around and playing on any *nix system was a chore.
Are you stating that all linux users should be happy with their old games? I find it very worth while to have windows installed.
It is all about OpenGL vs DirectX. As long as developers will opt for DirectX, the games are not going to be portable to Mac OS X and Linux. And if the trend ever reverses, we might have a chance. Anyway, most people just buy a game console and are done with it. But there is a ray of hope in the fact that these consoles start to use Linux and OpenGL to run/make games. So theoretically...
If programs would be read like poetry, most programmers would be Vogons.
I agree. It neglected to mention actual native Linux games, such as DEFCON, or these. It focused almost solely on running Windows games on Linux. But it didn't even do a good job of that. It focused on saying how much Cedega sucked (it does), and how it's possible to run WoW on crossover. It did NOT seem to mention Wine, and it didn't seem to notice that MOST older games run just fine in Wine.
I do actually dual boot on my main gaming box. But I don't boot into Windows all that often, you might be surprised to learn. I only really boot into Windows for Civ 4, and Battlefield 2/2142. That's about it. In Linux, I run Starcraft, Warcraft, Homeworld, Tropico, Half-Life, Half-Life 2, and many others. No, it's not native. But it does work. And it's nowhere near as sorry a state of affairs as a Mac. And we DO have SOME native games. (not many, but some). Saying that you NEED a dual boot system is just nonsense. I do dual boot as there's some games I just have to have. But I think for the average person, Linux might do the job just fine if you are willing to miss out on some things.
There are a couple of ext2 drivers for Windows with read and write support. They also support ext3, but last time I checked they treated it as an ext2 drive, so no journaling. The driver also completely ignores UNIX permissions, though that's understandable seeing that in most situations the permission info is useless even if you just dual-booted over to another install of the same OS.
I used to get high on life, but I developed a tolerance. Now I need something stronger.
That's what most people get Xbox's and Playstations for...
"Some things have to be believed to be seen." - Ralph Hodgson
-without crashing? Seriously, one of my favorite PC games (a windows game), plays better under Wine than in Windows. Wine hasn't emulated all the bugs yet, so my game doesn't crash at all, as opposed to windows, where it is one of two apps that actually can take my system down. Actually, even more funny, it's not just Linux it works in, I play it on something even less friendly: BSD, but I did have it up under Linux/Wine too... Yeah, gamin gwithout crashes sucks. I feel so abused.
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Connection too slow for X forwarding? Try "ssh -CX user@host"
I leave the answer as an exercise for the reader.
are all gamers the same? do they all want to play all games? does someone simply want to play games, or do they want to play GTA, doom3, WoW, etc.? (btw: all games supported by wine/cedega).
I'm not really a gamer, but if I were to have a subscription to WoW I'd like to be able to play it. Why would it matter to me if other games don't run on linux?
There's other games out there for linux, such as NWN, UT 2004, Quake 3/4. They all have native linux ports. I have purchased them BECAUSE they have native linux ports.
Find Nearby Indie Events
disclaimer: I've been known to store numbers in my ass for which to dig out when quantities are required.
Yeah I have a lot of trouble with multiple CD game installs too.
/cdrom /cdrom /cdrom
mount
cd
cedega Setup.exe
{Installing... insert disk two}
umount
WTF! The cdrom is not busy you lying piece of crap! Eject you SOB!
This review is simply stating that games that are not meant to run on Linux, and sometimes even not allowed, are bad at it.
The only valid point the article could make, is that most Linux software is written to be cross-platform and it's easier to run anything Linux on Windows (CoLinux, Gimp for Windows, AbiWord, Gnumeric, XMoto, etc) then the other way around. However, the article doesn't make that point.
In my opinion, this article can only make people mad (and comment on it) or bore them into clicking on adds.
"Are you stating that all linux users should be happy with their old games?"
YES. Name one non-console, non-MMO game that came out in the past, say 2-3 years, that is BOTH worth playing AND a PITA to run on Linux.
By reading this signature you agree to not disagree with the post you just read.
I can't see how that's supported by the fucking article.
I'm not a linux gaming apologist. It sucks on Linux, I can't deny. I've not tried crossover, but I DO subscribe to Transgaming. I've only been able to get a couple of old games to run well enough to play after much tweaking. Lately I find it's easier, in fact, to get a CD crack and use regular-old-wine for most of the games I would play.
My examples are Fallout II and Planescape: Torment. Both reasonably old games. I was completely, and utterly unable to get either one to install under Cedega. Both installed, and after using CD cracks, played on regular Wine. Although it DID take considerable trying of different settings to hit on a configuration that was useable given my parameters: I wanted it to play in a Window, not take up the full screen. Both worked full-screen right off the bat.
I, personally, find the Cedega interface (point2play) to be nasty and difficult to use. But I admit they're trying very hard to make it easier -- the buit in updater/upgrader has always been nice, and the recent addition of a database of game settings for a variety of games is also nice -- although as usual none of the games *I* am interested in is on the list!
That's all I guess. I don't have any mystical insight... just my report as a user. I guess it might be interesting to some that Wine often works "better" than Cedega.
-Chris
It neglected to mention actual native Linux games, such as DEFCON
;-) )
Has the Linux version of DEFCON actually been finished and released yet?
(Yes, I'm still waiting for the Mac release - so I can take proper advantage of the 'office' mode...
Tedious Bloggy Stuff - hooray?
Since "because OpenGL 2.0 wasn't done yet" they developed NWN2 with DirectX. Will there be a linux port? Possibly. Likely? Not really.
I am starting to think that, on the surface, OpenGL isn't dominating because there's no money behind it for games. Windows has a vested interest, if they can lock games to windows, people will buy windows. For OpenGL, the only people really putting money into it aren't gaming companies, they're 3D/CAD companies. And they don't really care about features in the same way gamers do.
I think that the game companies need to actively participate in the OpenGL standard and throw a little money behind it (I'm looking at you EA) and we might be able to get a truly cross-platform standard.
All of them.
What if you like to play strategy games? Somehow I don't think Civilization 4 or Rise of Nations will make it to the Wii. The same goes for tons of other strategy games both old and new.
What if you want to play MMORPGS? MMORPGs are predominantly a PC experience currently. Sure there is Final Fantasy on the Xbox 360 or PS2 and WoW on Mac but the majority of them are Windows only.
Sometimes my arms bend back.
Is as bland as top 40 chart music. I play games on linux, gleaned from http://www.happypenguin.org/. Sure, they're more raw than a commercial game, like a track from an unsigned band's blog is raw. But they're _more fun_ and have more integrity in the little finger of their blender-drawn blobby characters than 1000 gory commercial FPSes.
It really drives me mad when slashdot refuses to post articles about the last 3 games we released, despite at least 30 or 40 people (that I know of) sending in messages about it, and then go criticise the state of Linux games. If they did their bit maybe our company would be in a better position to get the licenses for more games.
Tux Games. Your complete source for native Linux games.
And we DO have SOME native games. (not many, but some).
I beleive this is starting to change, and to the detriment of the games producers.
Looking out there, there are quite a few FOSS games under development, and they also seem to fill each niche:
Vegastrike : Space sim
Wesnoth: Turn based strategy
Danger from the Deep: submarine sim
Racer: Car sim
etc.
I guess that sooner or later, all these projects will mature to the point they start displacing customers at the cheaper end of the games market, and big commercial games will be forced to either innovate, or find other revenue streams.
**TODO** Steal someone elses sig.
Oblivion and GTA exist for consoles, but not for consoles that I've got. On the other hand, I can play them in Windows. Cedega doesn't work with my Radeon 9800.
Or simply buy an console, which has far more game support then Windows, better games (especially of late), and better controls (sorry if I barf at the idea of playing a game with my keyboard).
Both of which work beautifully in linux, although the installation process is perhaps less than friendly. However, Cedega has crappy performance for garry's mod for HalfLife 2, no antialiasing, and it chokes when lots of things move.
Looks like it's time to stop whining, and make a decision about how you're going to solve this problem.
Here's an idea. Prepare in advance. Burn an audio CD (or MP3 CD if your audio system can play those) with the play list you want to hear during your gaming. Burn multiple discs if you have a multiple CD changer. Then pop 'em all in, boot into Windows, and game away. An advantage is that you can change tracks on your CD player without having to switch to your media player.
Or just keep all your music on an NTFS partition. (Yes, just do it and get over it. Once you manage to cross this psychological barrier, you will enjoy increased self-confidence as a bonus.)
Or just have a second computer where you keep all your music, shared over your LAN. Connect this computer to your audio system. You can get an older Pentium perfect for this purpose, for less than $200.
Either way, I don't believe that you absolutely need to have your 20 gigabyte music collection playing on random while you play games.
I recently spent 3 months with Ubuntu (6.06 LTS) after moving from Win XP Pro. I use the PC primarily for gaming, but took the Linux plunge when a trojan forced a reinstall of Windows (Side note,the trojan was my own fault as I ran an exe intentionally when I figured the risk was worth the potential reward). Using Cedega, I was able to play WoW, SWG, HL2, Guild Wars, and others. However, while these games were able to run, they didn't run well, and didn't come close to the performance in Windows. Obviously, they shouldn't perform as well as in their native OS, but it's worth noting that while they work, they don't work well (WoW being the exception, due to it's use of OpenGL most likely). I spent hours upon hours getting games to work, rather than actually playing them. And if a game had been released in the past 6 months, you may as well forget about it. By the time most games get around to being playable with WINE/Cedega, they're in the bargain bin at retail stores. So, I went back to Windows. As much as I'd love to leave MS behind, it's just not practical. I'll be getting a Wii also, and have a 360 that I won, but I still prefer a PC to a console and until developers start porting their games to Linux, I'll be stuck with Win.
"All of them".
Non-console (versions) ? Fail check on 50+%
Non-MMO ? Fail check on ??%
Worth playing ? Fail check on 90+%
PITA to run on LInux ? Fail check on ??%
Try again.
By reading this signature you agree to not disagree with the post you just read.
I think you've overstated things just a tad.
I do a "little" gaming under Linux. I have played with Unreal Gold, Unreal Tournament, Quake 3 and America's Army a bit just to pass the time of day. But beyond that, I don't really play games that much in the first place. But I don't use Windows except at work and even then I use my linux loaded laptop more than the Windows machine. So in effect, I have switched to Linux completely, and if you feel that my switch isn't "complete" because I need to use it at work, then you're still wrong because it has nothing to do with gaming.
But for any sit-down and play games for hours (which I haven't done in a *very* very long time) I use a game console. Forget about using an expensive computing machine for gaming... that's what game machines are for.
You have a linux only system. A game is released for Linux.
The game is NEW FOR LINUX
So what if it was on windows 2 years ago, it is new to Linux, new to the player.
The fact is that newer is not always better, in fact a whole lot of games are just utter rubbish these days. The games that we publish are not always the latest, but before you criticise them, try playing some of them, they are all excellent games and fun to play.
Tux Games. Your complete source for native Linux games.
I only really boot into Windows for Civ 4... I run Starcraft, Warcraft, Homeworld, Tropico... and many others. No, it's not native. But it does work. And it's nowhere near as sorry a state of affairs as a Mac. And we DO have SOME native games.
That's funny. I can run Civ IV, Starcraft, Warcraft 3, Homeworld, Tropico natively on my Mac. So how is Mac gaming in worse shape than Linux gaming???
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
what age has to do with anything? I regularely get my wife angry while playing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baduk a game that is more than 3.5ky old. Incidentaly clients for connecting with http://www.pandanet.co.jp/English/ for instance, run on linux as well as on windows boxes. But that is me and my way of playing.
Other than "game support", all of your other points are debatable.
Better games? Maybe, unless you prefer RTS or MMORPG
Better controls? I know purists that would barf at the tought of playing FPS games with anything other than a keyboard/mouse combo (myself, I like either one just fine).
But yeah, this article doesn't add anything new to the state of gaming on linux. Move along.
No sig
http://linuxgamepublishing.com/
LGP has stepped in to fill the void that Loki left. In fact, they've already outlasted Loki and still appear to be pushing on, and several of their games are excellent.
The author misses a few critical points when he looks at Linux games. First, many companies are porting in-house rather than having a third party do the work. Often, these binaries are downloadable from the companies website rather than shipping them on the CD (Quake 3, Neverwinter Nights, Darwinia, etc.). Also - Sometimes things take time. I wouldn't say that Linux gaming is "worse", but is perhaps "different" than it was when Loki was around. Companies are being cautious. Take a look at the slew of high-cost Activision games that Loki managed to score, only to run themselves into the ground. Think that there is perhaps a reason for their fall?
I don't believe that WINE is an appropriate alternative to having a dedicated Windows gaming system. But for those that casually game on Linux, or play more console games than Linux games, we can still find many excellent Linux games available without resorting to using WINE. I feel that the author's turn from discussing Loki ports to using WINE for gaming on Linux misses the bigger picture... Because it simply details his bad experience with using WINE for serious gaming. *NOT ONCE* was a modern native Linux game mentioned, and there are several games that are (in my opinion) MUCH BETTER than many of the Loki offerings. So, basically his gripe is about being unable to play Call of Duty on Linux. Good job on summing up how well a compatibility layer works instead of talking about real Linux games.
I must confess... It really pisses me off when I post announcements about legitimate Linux games from LGP and other companies, and Slashdot mods neglect to inform the community by rejecting the article, further perpetuating the cycle of "sucky Linux gaming" because people are ignorant of the games that *ARE* out there... Yet, crap like this ExtremeTech article manges to get front-page news. Good job mods!
That said, it's my understanding that LGP has a few AAA games coming up that will knock our socks off. Will they be ignored by the Slashdot crew like the last few great games were? I sure as hell hope not, because I'm sick of reading articles like this. IF YOU WANT MORE GAMES ON LINUX, STOP BEING LIKE THIS EXTREMETECH GUY AND BUY LINUX GAMES INSTEAD OF RESORTING TO WINE AND BITCHING ABOUT HOW IT DOESN'T WORK!
And I don't have to get on the graphics card treadmill, either.
I'd suggest XP Home. It cheaper than Pro; get Pro if you need to be on a Windows domain (I dunno about VPN capability on Home). I think Vista should be out of the question: the EULA alone is bad enough, and it takes good hardware to run right, IMHO (XP and Ubuntu fly on an AMD 1.4G w/768M RAM compared to Vista RC2 crawling on it like I'm running XP with 64M).
I don't reply to Anonymous posts; if you have something to say to me, identify yourself or I won't reply.
Don't forget that the up coming Enemy Territory: Quake Wars is aiming to have a Linux client port in the retail box, if they miss the deadline it will be available for download later.
;-)
It's not a very old game either, in fact it's not even out yet
"Some things have to be believed to be seen." - Ralph Hodgson
>So how is Mac gaming in worse shape than Linux gaming???
Cripple Fight!
I used to also get frustrated that I couldn't play
any of the windows games on my Linux box and that
none (or nearly none) of the game makers would port
their games to Linux. It took me a long time to realize
what the problem was:
Simply put, the game makers can't keep up with the pace
of Linux. Let me try to explain what I mean. Take a look
for example at how many Linux distros there are out there:
something like 300 now or so based on distrowatch.org.
And some of those distros run on different hardware platforms
than just x86.
On top of that, not every Linux distro has the same versions
of the same libraries at the same time with the same patches
and compilation options.
There is no way that the proprietary software makers can
keep up. That's why Oracle only supports RedHat Linux and
only for certain versions. This is why Adobe's effort to
provide 1 flash plugin (version 9) for _all_ Linux distros
by doing some funky static compiling is at best misguided
and at worst massively brain damaged and stupid because it
won't work for any platform except for x86.
It's no wonder that the game makers prefer writing to windows:
It's not just that windows has 90% market share -- what kind of
profit oriented businessman would say: I could make 10% more
profit with a little bit more work --- but screw that, 90% is
good enough at most! And that's assuming they _could_ get massive
penetration when realistically all they could expect is at most
10% of the windows population.
The genius of Microsoft Windows is _not_ that it's ubiquitous.
The genius of Microsoft Windows is that it's stably obsolete ---
it's glacial in its pace of development. Five freakin' years of
the _same_ libraries! My God, that's hog heaven for proprietary
software makers!
Contrast that with the Linux world, where 6 months is a lifetime.
If you're software is older than 6 months, it's already obsolete
and might as well be dead. The only kind of software that could
survive that kind of testosterone laced Darwinian death-to-the-weak
Jungle is open sourced software, and only in the case that the
Linux distros maintain the downstreams versions of the software
package to guarantee it will work. So, it's no surprise to see
that the only (popular) games that run on Linux natively are
open source games: Tuxracer, frozen bubbles, gcompris, bzflag,
cube, nethack and all its variants, blob wars, etc.
The only counterexamples that come to my mind are:
Enemy Territory. Are there any others?
--Johnny doesn't use proprietary software if he can help it.
LGP
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
Last generation, I finally gave up keeping two separate PC's (one for Linux, one for gaming), and bought an Xbox 360. My Linux PC does everything non-gaming I need/want to do, and I fire up the 360 when I want to game. Problem solved.
BTW, for others who do this: if you want to stream audio from Linux to the 360, Google "x360mediaserve" (or go find it on SourceForge).
"Can't you see that everyone is buying station wagons?"
LOL, minesweeper doesn't crash windows... Actually, I was talking about Master of Orion 3
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Connection too slow for X forwarding? Try "ssh -CX user@host"
try this, and this
OpenGL != DirectX.
OpenGL is close to what Direct3d offers, but Direct3d is offering a LOT more than OpenGL currently can. Even the latest additions to OpenGL do not bring it to what Direct3d 9.0, let alone 10.0 offer
Now if you want to include the fact that the DirectX suite has a tonne more functionality than just Direct3D, like DirectSound, DirectPlay, DirectInput, DirectDraw, there is no way in heck that OpenGL can compete with it. DirectX is exactly why developers have made the move to it (including Carmack), you don't have to worry about all those things like sound drivers and engines, network stack plug-ins and the like.
Compare Direct3d to OpenGL all you want, but before attempting to FUD, at least know your facts.
Until Linux offers a similar all in one API for game programming, and until Linux users actually go out and pay for the software (read about Carmack's tracking of Linux SKU's for Quake sales), then there is no way in hell any developer interested in making money is going to focus the time and resource to make a portable game, espeically for the Linux platform.
Just out of curiosity, are you using Cedega or something else to run those games? Any luck with Prey or Farcry?
This poo is cold.
Majesty Gold
Return to Castle Wolfenstein
Creatures Internet Edition
Doom 3
Unreal Tournament 2003
Candy Cruncher
Uplink
Medal of Honor: Allied Assault
Neverwinter Nights: Shadows of Undrentide
Hyperspace Delivery Boy
NingPo MahJong
Soul Ride
Savage: The Battle for Newerth
Neverwinter Nights: Hordes of the Underdark
Dominions II: The Ascension Wars
Gorky 17
Software Tycoon
Unreal Tournament 2004
Northland
Postal 2: Share the Pain
Darwinia
Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil
Robin Hood: The Legend of Sherwood
X2: The Threat
Quake IV
Tribal Trouble
Airline Tycoon Deluxe
Cold War
Dominions 3: The Awakening
A lot of these games may be older, but not all of them, and most of them are top notch and FUN games. Go try some, and enjoy them! Natively, no need for emulators, or rebooting. Now if you can tell me that there is no way to play games on Linux, I think I'll have to just disagree.
Right now we are working on a number of deals for some games that will be far better than anything Loki managed to publish. Of course when we do, I am sure slashdot will ignore the release announcements and continue to report on the death of Linux gaming.
Tux Games. Your complete source for native Linux games.
The PS3 uses OpenGL.
e velopment
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_3#Game_d
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
And you know what? They're probably wasting their time. The people who are interested in indie games are going to be gaming hobbiests who are gonna have a closet full of consoles and a Windows machine. There's the techie/computer nerd crossover, but even the majority of that crowd doesn't use linux.
Gaming on Linux sucks because users need a reason to switch to Linux first to make it a viable platform. OSX is a success and it still sucks for gaming, why should Linux be any better? "Because it's free and open source and you should support open source" isn't really an answer...
Wise men say, "Forgiveness is divine, but never pay full price for late pizza."
It's bad when "crap" is informative.
``My internet cock is _this_ big!''
``Well _MY_ internet cock runs linux! omg!''
Its terrible.
I like playing games, but nobody makes games I want to play. Does the author really mean to suggest I should be playing games I'm not interested in?
And what else could Loki expect by picking a very small percentage of a very small percentage? Did they really think they could do better than the Dreamcast? I mean, Sega's Saturn numbers were larger than Linuxs' at the time. Isn't this really just a big no-duh?
Here's an idea: If you want to buy the game, buy the game. If you want to justify the 2,000$ you spent on your ``eff-pee-ess'' by buying crappy games, all you're really doing is perpetuating this myth that "gamers" have small penises and bad hygene.
Meanwhile, at least somebody is paying attention to the fact that the "gaming population" is pitifully and unmarketably small, and that while many of them actually like to play games, the more vocal jackasses with their so called "culture" makes them the target market of only the most brain-damaged.
Huh, what do you mean no games?! There are plenty of them:
1. Extreme Man Page Reading
2. Obscure error puzzle palace
3. Mega Nmap Death Ping
4. Ksolitaire
5. sudo
6. IRC
7. Learning Emacs
I could go on and on!
Ok, let's close the sarcasm tag for now. This is not news. How did it get to the front page? It has been obvious for years.
Older doesn't mean good either.
There's the chance you'll want to play with your friends. There's the chance not all of your friends run Linux, and they may have played and grown tired of the older (though not necessarily good) game you just bought.
Why can't they support keyboards and mice on consoles? it would be trivial to make a device that allowed you to plug in PS/2 or USB keyboards and mice into a console. With so many people asking for this, especially for FPS games, why haven't they gotten around to supporting this?
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
With Linux, I don't have to sift through the excrement of ignorant/lazy/greedy game companies to find decent games.
Wine, and it's offshots, are a great way of getting things to run. For mundane programs which cannot be ported, it works wonders. But although it works well for games too, it's not a solution.
Of course, with less than optimal support for some hardware, linux has a bit of a disadvantage from the performance standpoint with some setups, but again this is because of the developers--or the people working above them. From what I've heard, no sane developer would wish to use directx over opengl, but I don't have enough experience with either to make any strong arguments about that.
When all is said and done, if you think gaming sucks on linux, you may be right. But who's responsible? The developers, or the project managers above them, are merely developing for the largest market. Although on a different topic, if I may quote V, I think the message is the same...
As long is Microsoft Windows continues to dominate, nay decimate*, the OS market, then hacked together solutions such as Wine will have to suffice for anyone who wishes not to 'sell out' to Microsoft.
*I realize this is an awkward use of the word decimate. Literally, it means to reduce by 1/10th, where as MS Windows has reduced competition to below 1/10th. Although technically incorrect, I think you understand what I mean.
PS: I fully support the Wine project and all derivatives. I think they're doing a great thing by allowing users to run software to which there is no alternative. However, the better support Wine has for software, the less reason most companies will feel the need to port it at their cost, and most companies feel uneasy to say the least about the idea of giving away their source code. It's a bit of a catch 22. Even so, any support for an application is better than no support. Keep up the good work.
I agree with your point, but let's not forget Darwinia, DEFCON, Doom 3, Quake 4, and the upcoming UT2007 and Savage 2.
There's a few big producers out there, and they deserve our support.
WeRelate.org - wiki-based genealogy
I'd take your point one step further and say it's ubiquitous because it's very stable. MS learned long ago that they way to succeed in creating an operating system is do everything you can to ensure that developers find your system the easiest way to access the marketplace. If they are responsible for an innovation in this business it was that. Whenever there was a threat to their control over the developer base they attacked generally viciously.
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
If so, then whould a "Virtual Game Machine", something like Java or .Net VM, build upon some sort of open standards and specifications for CPU, Memory and GPU interface, an Open "Closed" sandbox exclusively to run games.
Developers would just need to develop considering the standards, that would common for all implementations, and could even evolve as fast as linux(on pace with hardware evolution).
Am I talking bs here or is the Free community just not that organized?
Mind you, an AI that learns and can be updated from the web would be great. If there's one thing I hate it's AI that effectively cheats by being told where you are and knows what your objectives are and the routes you've set.
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
Right on the point. I'd mod up if I could, and agree on all points. Add to the list of playable games anything that Icculus is spending 150% of his time developing/porting/maintaining.
When I grow up, I want to have Christopher Walken hair.
The opinions expressed by a sloshdot article do not necessarily reflect the views of Slashdot's Editors, Subscribers, Karma Whores, Trolls or ME. Every once in a while, yes. This one not so much.
I gave up my windows partition long ago and will never go back, thanks in large part to WINE, Cedega, and you guys. You have my eternal appreciation. The only time I see that damn logo is now in a VM and as rarely as I can manage. Somehow life seems just a little more peaceful.
As to the article's content. Yes Setting up a game is a bitch. Finding out what WINgames work under what conditions (Install on windows and copy directory/copy CD/NOCD crack/Registry Entries/etc....) can be excruciating. Every couple of months you have to check them again. (Please when we do this record it at the varios compatability db wikis)
Is that more or less painful than living with windows? Subjective, but as a developer/sysadmin/engineer/father it is far less painful to play/dl/buy Linux friendly games only. While constantly checking my vast library for new compatability.
This weeks wine/cedega Dissapointments ... nothing
Prince of Persia 2 ... So close Maybe next year.
FEARCombat ............No DXinput.(Guess I'll leave that 1.8gig install just sit there too)
Indigo Prophecy.... Looks like No DXinput
Incredible Hulk
I paid my Cedega subscription for 18months. No new games (that I wanted) were fixed in that time frame (and several ***HL2**cough broke and P2P became the hideous beast it is today)
Meanwhile...
WINE has gotten better with age, hunh. Without any of my money.
Free Games have gotten waaaay better.(Due in no small way to the work of people like you) I have more games on my debian box than most people have in thier entire PC & Console Library combined.
OSGGFG - Open Source Gamers Guide to Free Games
I know you can plug a USB keyboard into the Xbox 360 and use it for the new Phantasy Star Online game (back when they had the beta test a couple weeks ago). It probably works for other things, but you can't use it as a controller for some reason. :(
'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'
I haven't been a big game player for years (and years and years), but if I can remember back that far, playing the newest games was a big part of the fun and excitement. Being a fan isn't about logic, it's about emotion. I could port my ancient Atari 2600 game to Linux and it would be NEW FOR LINUX, but nobody would care.
I think you miss the point, windows is USER friendly. Not programmer, hacker, sys admin happy, but user happy.
What's shocking is people constantly switch and then act like it's a crime that everyone should switch even though 90 percent of the computer market still only supports Windows. Then they'll end up quoting emulation as the savior. Emulation should be used when the alternative is not an option, most linux boxes run on systems fully capable of running windows.
Linux needs to be more "user-friendly". You might enjoy hunting for new drivers, kernel updates, drivers for new kernel, program updates, program tweaks, and programs but gamers arn't looking for that. Personally I hate having to download new drivers every time I want run a new game or updates to the game itself. If I get annoyed by updating two devices, why would I want to add more complexity to the arguement. Why run 2 programs to play Flight Simulator, when instead I can just run flight simulator?
Windows isn't perfect, but Linux has flaws too, acting like it doesn't won't help the community. Btw this is the same position that Mac gamers were in five years ago, now they are almost extinct, realize it's time figure out if this is solvable or just an area Linux will wither in.
And all of this is becoming moot for me. I've become a console gamer. I am sick of ALL drivers, I'm sick of ALL updates, I want to play games, not make my machine ready to play games and many people are agreeing with that, not to meantion people don't want to make PC based games because they see it as a hot bed of piracy.
I used to play music in the background by burning an audio CD and playing it my computer's CDROM drive. It would come through the speakers or headphones same as the game. And I could skip tracks with the button on the front of the CD drive. It provided much better music than the game usually did.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Does anybody still use EXT2/3 on Linux? I thought everyone had moved over to JFS,ReiserFS, or something else. Maybe slashdot should have a Poll about which file system people prefer the most.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Enemy Territory is free (beer), but there are other examples. The best of those are Doom 3 (and its expansion, Resurection of Evil) and Quake 4. Bioware did a great job porting Neverwinter Nights for Linux as well but, unfortunately, Neverwinter Nights 2, which is made by another company and AFAIK due to be launched today won't run on Linux. Unreal-based games are also very portable (see UT and America's Army 2.5 and earlier).
Stupidity is an equal opportunity striker.
Fellow slashdotter Bill Dog
No freakin' way! The one word is "console".
Caveat Utilitor
God what a ramble.. But the unfortunate reality is that developing games for linux is a nightmare compared to windows. I want to ditch Microsoft as much as anybody. It is such a pain in the ass, the way they go out of their way, to make you go out of your way, just to get your pc to do what you want.. But what when I want to do is play a game with all the latest whiz bang features, there just isn't any other choice.
"To lead the people, you must walk behind them"
For me:
Many, if not all, are a PITA to get running under Linux.
"Every vision is a joke until the first man accomplishes it; once realized, it becomes commonplace." -Robert H. Goddard
Not enough OpenGL,SDL developers at Ubisoft/EA/Atari and so on.
OSGGFG - Open Source Gamers Guide to Free Games
This is something that very well may save linux gaming, if Sony ships Linux with the Ps3 like early reports mentioned.
It has all of the benchmarks of a perfect development environment:
1) unified hardware
2) unified operating system
3) potentially huge audience
everyone can say that this article is crap all they want, but actually developing games for linux is truly a nightmare. hundreds of OS's, thousands of mismatched libraries, configurations etc...
all for such a tiny percentage of the gaming audience. it's just not worth it.
however, if sony pulls the linux-on-ps3 thing off and doesn't cripple it like they did for the ps2, then it could be a very good thing for linux gaming
Gekido's Lair
Mod the parent up for outlining the sound driver problem in Linux. I love Linux but I hate the sound resource tie-up with application design. It is anal.
This article is bad for one reason:
It doesn't mention Wine.
It was obviously not written by a Linux gamer.
I am a Linux gamer, and I use Wine to run all the games I play. The author didn't do his research at all.
It's because of DirectX - and not just the graphics, but DirectSound, DirectInput, etc.
I've written games under Windows and Linux (and way back on the Mac) and it's just easier on Windows because unless you're really stressing the system with new-fangled graphics wowness all the awful nasty bits of interfacing with sound, graphics, mouse, etc. are abstracted away and taken care of for you. This was the brilliance of Alex St. John at MS, and something Linux users and Apple have never seemed to understand; or perhaps the Linux users understand but aren't in a position to do something about it as unilaterally as a small team at MS was. Almost by definition they can't - as soon as you create a standard someone will come up with a competing 'superior' standard. We (Linux users) can't even agree on sound drivers.
I do have fun writing 2D cross-platform stuff with PyGame (based on SDL) and Python. SDL is a good shot at providing the equivalent of cross platform DirectX, but it certainly doesn't have all the features you'd want, because who has as much money and resources as MS? The sound stuff is particularly limited, and you still have the Linux sound driver nightmare (perhaps too harsh a word - 'unpleasantness'?) to deal with.
So gaming on other computer platforms will never be as good as gaming on Windows, because nobody else understands just how much gaming drives hardware sales and platform acceptance and is willing to invest that much into making games easy to create on their platform. Apple has been particularly schizophrenic about this, variously embracing and rejecting gaming. Linux users seem to realize that gaming is important, but it's such a huge amount of work it tends to just end up in denial ('Why would anyone need anything more than Nethack?'). Kudos to LGP and Tuxgames, who are going the extra mile.
So, why not just support a Knoppix type DVD? Unlike productivity applications, you don't need IPC between a game and the other stuff running on the machine.
This could mean a single target could support Linux, Windows and Mac users, provided you could get your disro to boot. Any game related state could be saved to a small USB flash drive.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Just regular Wine. I did purchase a Cedega subscription for a few months. But the software is truly terrible. It's usually not as good as Wine, and I had an absolutely horrid experience even trying to get officially supported games to run. (Pirates in particular) I wouldn't recommend purchasing the software. It's a waste of money IMO.
As far as Prey and Farcry, they really aren't my style. I do own a copy of Farcry (I got it for free), but I've never tried it under Linux. It would appear that the wine appdb is down at the moment. But a quick googling reveals that Farcry is supported by Cedega, which means it probably works to some degree in Wine, and Prey works perfectly. (Unsurprising, as it's based on Doom 3). So I'm tentatively prepared to say "yes". They run in Linux.
Ext3 can cover the needs of most home users just fine. Or, you can simply have an Ext3 partition for the files that you want to share. Still better than NTFS (even with the assumption of full write compatibility).
I made that comment because of the lack of a fully working Wine on Macs. Your native games tend to be the ones that work the best in Wine or Cedega, but you pay a high premium for the Mac version, rather than the Windows version that's usually cheaper. That is changing now that Apple is adopting x86, but it's still nowhere near the compatibility of Linux.
I didn't originally mention it, because I thought it went without saying, but Linux also has Doom 3 and Unreal Tournament. Cedega also supports Civ 4, but I hate the program, so I didn't mention that either. So no, I can run all those games you listed in Linux. I just think that the enhanced functionality of Wine in Linux makes it a better gaming platform.
The point is that your "question" was just your opinion poorly disguised. By whose criteria is a game "worth playing"? The only opinion that matters there is the person who wants to play the game. By whose criteria is a game a PITA to run on Linux? What percentage of people having how much trouble? Check the Cedega forums and you'll see that a significant number of people have trouble even with "supported" games.
They both work.
Far Cry. (Requires some fiddling)
Prey. (Might have some sound issues)
It was released recently, I don't think any further comments are required (I'm too busy playing).
I do use ext3. One reason is that I dualboot WinXP for gaming and I want to be able to access my files from both systems (and for obvious reasons I won't use FAT32 on my data partition).
Also, when I started playing with Linux I put SuSE 9.0 on an old computer, using ReiserFS for everything. It turned out that the hard drive developed bad sectos which quickly took out much of the data. That has caused me to perceive Reiser as somewhat risky - the data dies much more quickly than with other FSes. Of course it could've been due to blocks belonging to the metadata tree failing.
This does interest me (also because I'm currently cursed with a flaky HDD controller): Which FSes are the most resilient to damage? I'm not talking to a power outage interrupting some transaction, I'm talking about the HDD controller creating random bit errors or the hard drive itself developing bad sectors. It's nice if BlahFS is up to ten times faster than ext3 but if it gives me the safety of striped RAID I'm not going to like it...
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
"Why does gaming suck on linux? Developers."
Developers and publishers, yes. Most game developers have never seen or heard of anything besides windows before, and are fresh out of their directx for dummies course, eager to work for less than minimum wage for companies like EA. Suprise, this leads to crappy games, that are windows only, and often don't even work right there.
"Sure, some games could be ported, but unless the demand for a linux compatible version is enough to warrant the cost needed to port, no company is going to consider it. Even then, only a handful are willing to take the risk."
There is no cost, every major engine except source is already multiplatform, so there is simply no technical reason why games based on these engines are released windows only. And if you are not licensing an engine, then just write it in opengl to start with instead of direct3d, still no additionall cost. Of course, because there's no cost, there's also no risk. Companies aren't willing to release linux games because they are full of middle manager dummies who's sole purpose in life is to make things difficult for others while trying to make themselves look good in comparison. They have control, and they have no motivation to change anything.
Fuck, go back 7 years... Everquest. Me and a friend both tried to run it using WINE in Linux. We both work as linux sysadmins, we aren't clueless. The game doesn't run reliably.
More recently? WoW. 7 million users, probably usurps the number of home linux faithful in the number of hours played vs. number of hours spent in front of their respective linux boxes. Also flaky under Linux, my friend tells me (I don't play).
I know a lot of people who would take advantage of this situation, not complain about it. How much do you hate saving money anyway?
"To lead the people, you must walk behind them"
For many technical reasons: the inclusion of many helper classes that need to be written (vector/matrix/quaternion libraries, for example), inclusion of sound libraries, advanced device handling, etc. Read up a few posts for a better description.
But the real reason to develop in DirectX/MDX is that your programs port easily to XBOX - more easily than your OpenGL game will port from Windows to Linux. And your target audience of XBOX users is bigger and focused on games. Your Linux crowd is mostly the non-gamer type. There is a real, good, distinct reason to develop DirectX/MDX.
That's a lot of wishful thinking you've got there. 4 games that no one has heard of, that have no marketing muscle or names behind, are going to supplant EA or Ubisoft or whatever?
They may end up being decent games, but please don't be delusional into thinking they'll change anything in the retail space.
There have been "alternative" sources for indie games. Not counting just independent publishers going a shareware route, there are (were?) things like GarageGames where smaller teams were selling relatively quality but small games. The shareware developers eventually became part and parcel with the major retail companies. GarageGames hasn't done anything of note, even if it was a novel idea.
Being able to cause any kind of change means that the games themselves have to be absolutely spectacular. They have to be so good to point where word of mouth drives thousands of downloads a day. Otherwise they'll just end up at best in a small niche and really won't change anything.
Because DirectX is a whole lot more then just a graphics library.
I really don't understand why you're comparing two completely different things. For a fair comparison you should either compare:
A) Direct3D vs. OpenGL
or:
B) DirectX vs. OpenGL + SDL/ClanLib/OpenAL + GStreamer/xine-lib + esound/arts/dmix
Not yet, no. But it's on its way, and I felt justified including it in my list of games, given the quality of the Uplink and Darwinia ports. Besides, it works fine in Wine on single-player mode. (Multiplayer mode doesn't work, but I'm not overly concerned, as the Linux binaries will be here before long).
We see this type of comment all the time. A few problems:
1. Drivers. You have to include drivers for all the hardware that your game needs (graphics, sound, network, input devices), including future devices in these categories. I've heard some interesting ideas for ways around this. They're interesting, but lead to a complicated and lengthy install process. You need to get your OS to boot on everyone's crazy hardware configurations.
2. Networking and patching. If you're making a network enabled game you're asking people to put their computers on a network (likely even the Internet) with an OS that can't be updated without spinning another DVD. There will be security holes found in the OS. Lots of people running the exact same unpatched OS version will be playing these games. Just because the OS installation on the CD/DVD can't be modified, it leaves open an attack vector to data on the hard drive. Game manufacturers like the ability to easily patch their games for bugs, anti-hacking techniques, and other random things. Argue all you want that they should get it right the first time, they wouldn't want to give that up.
3. Rebooting. People don't like rebooting. It takes a long time. They have to disconnect from IM programs, they have to turn off their music players, etc. They lose their software stack and configuration info (think configurable input devices that require userland apps for configuration). Configuration that would be shared between multiple games must be redone for every game you buy. It's more difficult for people to minimize the game and post the video of their latest frag to their website.
4. Licensing. What OS would game developers use for this? Windows or some similar variant. The driver support and developer tools are there for Windows, and most PCs sold today have undergone QA on Windows. Paying the licensing costs would drive up the price of the game.
And what is gained? The day-to-day experience (that is, the experience outside of patching and installation) for Linux/Mac users would be the same as now: a reboot into an OS they use mostly for gaming; in fact, since a real Windows installation would be more useful than the game OS the experience would really be slightly worse. The day-to-day experience for Windows users would be much worse: two reboots to go from regular use to game and back. Reboots between different games.
I love PC games and have been playing them since the BBS days. I don't own any consoles because my gaming rig is always better than the latest console, as are the games (unless they are bad console ports). I would switch completely to linux if they could achieve 100% compatability. Until then, I'll stick with windows. Lack of game compatibility is the -only- barrier for me to make the switch, and it's an all or nothing decision. I won't settle for 98% compatability is what I mean, because chances are the odd game that doesn't work will be the one I want to play most.
I use FAT for OS-swapping between Linux and Windows. Works just fine both ways. So, what's your point again?
What those who want activist courts fear is rule by the people.
My son thinks its great IF and only if he uses a gamepad. We were big fans of Omicron:Nomad Souls, so maybe we aren't as objective as you.
Is it possible you chose-your-own suck adventure?
OSGGFG - Open Source Gamers Guide to Free Games
The Windows read/write drivers for ext3 are great...NTFS had such a hard time getting supported properly in Linux because it's closed, while ext3 is open.
Here's the driver: http://www.fs-driver.org/
I'm a hardcore Nintendo fan. I bought a Gamecube back in 2003 and I think it's a great system, far superior than Sony PS2 in every aspect (exept online playing). The problem is that there are not enough games for it.
This year the only decent game I would get it's Splinter Cell Double Agent, but I'm getting the PC version for obvious reasons. On the other side PS2 has Bully and dozens of fresh titles.
I could get a PS2 (Windows in this analogy), money it's not a problem, but I refuse to support Sony (Microsoft) and greedy developers cough*EA*cough, so while my Gamecube collects dust I'm sticking to my DS and wainting for Wii.
I was looking to make a push for this this month. Now that someone started the topic here, maybe we can get more attention. ubuntu.com suse.com These are the two topics I had started to get people to contact the major game producers and get them to notice us. Develop native applications, don't charge the Microsoft Tax just to be able to play a video game. As for Tux Gaming and LGP have nice products, but I don't think they quite compare to the major publishers out there. Why not send a message this month?
Aim? Aim with what? Some sort of REAL gun? I don't see how a mouse helps you any more than a joystick.
PCs are a dead end for gaming, most gaming is shifting to consoles.
In actual measurements, you'll find console gaming sells far more units than PCs ever would.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
I've just finished writing Tic-Tac-Toe in Python for KDE and it's running smooooth. I'm a bit indecisive about GPLv2 or GPLv3 but expect Kic-Kac-Koe to reach the shelves well before christmas.
"I'm not much interested in interoperability. I want substitutability. I want to be able to throw your software out."
I barely notice any differences when comparing D3D to OGL in games, Homeworld for example, had 0 visual artifacts that i noticed.
I don't need to test my programs.. I have an error correcting modem.
I don't need to test my programs.. I have an error correcting modem.
Gaming sucks on Linux? Why didn't anybody tell me? I'm just finishing up Final Fantasy V, and was thinking of trying Secret of Monkey Isle next. If I'd known that it sucks, I would have installed Windows to run the emulators on.
"They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
Besides, there are good games that install/work perfectly in linux, UT 2004 being one of them. Heck, on linux you don't even need to use the play disk. (Disclaimer: I don't actually know that it is used in windows, but I never needed it, not even during install, and I doubt they would have bothered printing an extra CD for no purpose)
Since good FOSS games are hard to come by, I'd just like to plug ABA Games, they make some real gems. Specifically, if you are at all into space shooters, give rRootage (linux binary here) a try, it's one of my most-often played games, even in the presence of giants like WoW.
Mr. Period: Nine is the one that's right by ten!
Nine: One day I will kill him. Then, I will be Ten.
And it's a good one. Your argument is that the libraries on Linux aren't stable enough to distribute binary programs long-term. I would like to point out that the nearly four-year old Enemy Territory still installs and runs fine on Edgy Eft, a Linux distribution hot off the compiler, a Linux distribution not even a week old. So while there has been alot of change, there hasn't been that much.
I've been using ReiserFS on almost all partitions on several machines with no hiccups at all, even where I *know* the drive is marginally dodgy. (The "almost" refers to the fact that I use separate boot partitions mounted read-only - so no journalling, so they get ext2.)
Or do we not have these games because the libraries change too quickly?
I'm sorry, but I do believe that I can still play Quake3 with an up-to-date Gentoo system.
This points out another problem with Linux, although not one exclusively related to games. Finger-pointing.
... oh wait.
Ok, so it's not Linux that's flawed, it's one particular program. But what about Ubuntu for adding that program to its package manager despite being obviously buggy? Point the finger that way!
Oh, your wireless card doesn't work in Ubuntu? Well, try SuSE! Now your modem doesn't work? Try Fedora! Now your USB drive isn't auto-mounting? Try Ubuntu!
Look, people don't care who's at fault, they just know there's a problem and it has to be fixed. Apple and Microsoft don't engage in finger-pointing, they just FIX THE PROBLEMS. This is what the open source community needs to do.
Why the hell are there different sound libraries in the first place? Why would anybody need more than one?
Comment of the year
Uh, that's pretty much his entire point. Why would you want to use Linux game development tools, all 9 of them, learn different APIs and interfaces for every single one, and just cross your fingers and hope they all happen to work together when you could use just a single package that you *know* all works together, and you *know that once you've learned one part of it, you've learned most of it?
Comment of the year
I just gave up. Actually, I gave up after Quake I on OS/2 and inherited the attitude with linux.
Which isn't to say I don't have any games. (And I consider sims games.)
Sure, TORCS is so 1990 in some ways with better graphics but it _is_ entertaining. Neverball, shishen-sho and solitaire get some of my time.
What I really think should get more credit is FlightGear. I know the graphics are hardly competitive but they get a lot right. And where are you going to get more slavish simulation? The night sky is a planetarium with perceived magnitudes. You get local airport weather with multiple strata. People are populating their cities with buildings. You can buzz cows in the pasture.
The gaming scenario in Linux has never been better.
No, Linux still isn't at the point where any and all games that run in Windows will run in it...but installing WoW with Wine is trivial if you install Wine via something like apt-get. Neverwinter Nights Warcraft 3, Diablo 2, Starcraft, the original Half Life, Unreal Tournament, UT2k3, the Quakes, SimCity 4 and Steam are also possible. Some of these even have native Linux ports/installers.
For most people these days, WoW is also pretty much all they need anywayz...it also runs in FreeBSD with the Linux XF86-libs package.
Granted, with the exception of WoW, none of the above games are very contemporary...but as the trolls Zonk regularly links to point out, there aren't really any games worth playing being released at the moment anywayz.
So don't pay trolls such as this one any mind...go to , and look up your favourite PC game. 98% of the time, you'll find that with a minimal amount of mental elbow grease, you'll be able to play it under Linux just fine...and that usually translates by extension to FreeBSD as well.
MMORPGs are mindless timesinks, and Goldeneye is the most fun FPS I've ever played. But since when do purists care about fun?
That unfortunately is the biggest drawcard of DirectX. You write an application in DirectX and you pretty much guarantee that it will run on a host of different Windows configurations ( barring dodgy drivers ) because every application uses DirectX, so they all play nice. DirectX manages the resources and tries to make sure the system works.
I don't need to test my programs.. I have an error correcting modem.
pygame is much, much easier for a newb to "just jump right in to creating games" than DX is.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
On top of that, not every Linux distro has the same versions
of the same libraries at the same time with the same patches
and compilation options.
It really isn't as much of a problem as you make it sound. The open source software you have with your distro tends to be dynamically linked--meaning, it is compiled against certain versions of certain libraries, and you need to have those libraries installed for it to function properly. If you have a different version of the library than the one it was compiled against, you can run into some problems (depending on how much has changed between versions).
However, the commercial games I've seen released for Linux have been statically compiled. That means the functions they use from various libraries are built into the game's executable; therefore, whether you have those libraries installed, or which versions of them you have, does not matter.
And that's why I can still pop in one of my old Loki games that I got back when I was using Mandrake 6.something and it will run fine in my up-to-date Gentoo system. That's why, in addition to those Loki games, I've been able to play the Linux versions of Neverwinter Nights and Uplink across several different distros, and countless updates of my Gentoo system, without any problems.
Wine is cool occasionally for a few old games, but if you really want to support linux gaming then only play linux games. More and more great games are linux native these days. Support the companies that make them, give them your feedback and your money.
Existing "modern" (read: not something a windows gamer would call "crappy linux game") games that I play on native linux clients every week:
Neverwinter Nights
UT 2004
Quake 4 (and 3)
Doom 3
Savage
Enemy Territory
Medal of Honor
Upcoming awesome linux native games:
Savage 2
UT 2007
Enemy Territory: Quake Wars
The console wars are making companies put more work into making portable games, that can only help the number of linux ports.
Oh yeah, thats the Linux culture. It just happened to me as I migrated my laptop from Windows XP to Ubuntu 6.06. Neither Wireless or sound worked (I had to install a PCMCIA wireless card... which is stupid). And the sound as great parent said is terribly bad. Neither ESD (ubuntu-gnome sounds system) nor arts (kde sound system) are worth a dime, they crash every 5 mintues, you cant, as the GP stated play sound with 2 applications at the same time (trying to use AMAROK + KOPETE for example, with BOTH using ALSA just cause an ARTS message saying "sound buffer overflow" and the processor goes crazy). ESD has similar behaviour.
Anyway, to stay ontopic. I have programmed both on SDL-OpenGL and DirecX. I preffer the way to do things in OpenGL, however as someone else posted, to program in DirectX is so cool because you have a complete SOLUTION. That buzzword has a lot of value (for me at least). You only install VisualC++ IDE and install DirectX package and there you go, ready to program. Whereas to setup a complete game development environment to SDL+OpenGL you have to compile and run yourself all the SDL support libraries (libsdlmixer, libsdimage, etc). Last time I tried setting up SDL on Windows (my laptop now runs Ubuntu only) I spent like 3 hours configuring and compiling everything. DevCpp devpaks were quite helpful but it has been discontinued for a long time.
So, as lots other programmers, we game developers want to develop games, and not to develop whatever library is supposed to be available.
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
Dual booting is okay for games, but how about when you want to play music in the background? And all of your music is on your ext3, Reiser, or XFS file system?
Put your "playback often" media like music and video on a big disked media server in the basement? Add a Samba or NFS share? Just get an old box and a couple fast drives. RAID setup for backup is easy enough.
Qualitas edurus commercium, nullus penitus net rimor, nullus deus beneficium
How does this crap make Slashdot?
We've really thrown our journalistic integrity out the window with this one.
Other than three-quarter's a page worth of ads and useless linksoff to only god-knows-where per paragraph of actual text the article offered nothing more than some guys uninformed glance at Linux gaming. Something he doesn't seem to know anything about. It's almost as if he has just discovered Loki shut down and that Cedega doesn't work miracles this weekend.
Essentially this is nothing more than an ad for Crossover Office so Linux wannabes can play World of Warcraft and feel educated and smart (I'll spare the WoW players a cheap jab this time).
[article douchebag wrote:
The fact that World of Warcraft gave me an error message and then refused to accept the second install CD just irritated the hell out of me.]
For god's sakes the guy can't even mount a disc...
Again...
[article douchebag wrote:
Fortunately I had a copy of Mandriva 2007 with Cedega bundled. Even then though, installation of certain games didn't work properly.]
I don't even know where to begin with how asinine that statement is. The writer implies his distribution has something to do with Windows emulation?
As a matter of fact, the ONLY thing that isn't "just use Windows lololoz" and shows there may be a light behind this guys eyes is he gripe about Transgaming's Cedega download section. Sure, navigating through file names that have version numbers that go up incrementally as the software progresses can be very confusing when deciding what to download, but it's probably a safe bet to grab the highest numbered engine, and the highest numbered Cedega UI. It is messy, but based on the look of this website, this guy clearly does not understand what constitutes intuitive.
Just because you diffused the bomb doesn't mean you're not holding a half pound of C4.
As you said, Enemy Territory is exception. So why not create all games for Linux like Enemy Territory? ID software shows that it is possible to create games that are independent of distribution and libraries. They just bundle their own versions of libraries (not many needed). If someone wants to have bleeding-edge version of library he can just copy it to the game folder.
It would be enough if game developers created versions only for popular distros like Ubuntu or SUSE because guys from e.g. Gentoo know how to tailor the game to fit their distro. I think that bigger problem with linux gaming is DirectX. As everybody know it runs only on Windows. Many developing studios have programmers only knowing DirectX. If they started using OpenGL that is portable the problem with Linux gaming would be much easier to solve. But when looking on Wine it seems to get more and more promising. Their implementation of DirectX on top of OpenGL seems to gain momentum. They have managed to run e.g. Oblivion (with some glitches, but It's new and demanding game) and they continue active development.
OpenGL is for 3d graphics, DirectX is for 3d graphics, sound, input, networking and various other tasks.
There is not a single factor that contributes to this situation, there are many:
-Linux does not have a good set of libraries to program the games that covers modern gaming needs. Good means 'consistent' in this case. And please don't tell me about SDL, because it severely behind any modern gaming needs.
-Linux is fragmented. It is just not possible to know if a game could run in any distro.
-Linux has a small market share that does not justify the investment.
-Linux licensing schemes are a fear factor for commercial developers.
-Linux does not have hardware drivers for peripherals like controllers and others.
-Linux runs on non-80x86 machines, many of which are totally different platforms.
I believe we call this technique a "console game" where all hardware is the same (minus mod chip and variable size hard drives)
09:F9:11:02 - 9D:74:E3:5B - D8:41:56:C5 - 63:56:88:C0
I brought directx 9 graphics to Wine so I should know a little bit about the differences between Direct3d and OpenGL and the impact this has on gaming.
Though Direct3D (9.0) offers some features (Like custom texture formats, and some extra features in it's fixed function pipeline) that OpenGl doen't offer games just don't use them, and even if they did they could be implemented using shaders. Why do you think DirectX 10 has compleatly dropped with fixed function pipeline.
If DirectX 9.0 was so superior to OpenGl it would have been impossible for transgaming to write Cedega and others and myself to start to being DirectX 9 to wine.
DirectX 10 does offer a few new features but the main improvement is a stripped down API. It won't be long before OpenGL gets the extra features that are in DirectX 10 but I don't think it can compeate on the performance improvements DirectX 10s architecture gives.
That said, for 95% of games the performance improvements won't matter and for the other 5% of games I'm sure people could put up with a slight (5%) frame rate drop, and a year down the line the hardware will be so much better that you won't notice the difference.
Andhow, I believe SDI offers a lot of the additional DirectX features too.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
I'm an indie game-dev sort. I haven't yet released any games under Linux (because I didn't run linux in the past). Now that I do have a Linux box, I'll probably make Linux ports of my next games. And you are absolutely right, I _don't_ expect to make any substantial money from it. Why? I guess for the same reasons that I'm an indie.
The thing that I wonder about. There are a number of big companies who make Linux their bread and butter. Could some of these sponsor projects from indies. You can get surprisingly good bang for your buck from a lot of indies. Wikipedia says Red Hat has around 1,150 employees. Surely they could find maybe 3 teams of three and one solo indie to add some well polished professional looking games to the Linux repertoire. paying another ten people would be a drop in the bucket. It would have a notable impact on the overall impression of Linux by new users.
Not that I've asked any of these big outfits it they'd be up for it. I just figured someone should do it.
-- That which does not kill us has made its last mistake.
But there are great FPS titles for Linux. That must be the genre with the most support in Linux.
If you are lucky enough to have your favorite FPS games ported to Linux, like for example ID games, then the combination of the Linux machine, plus a console, that is more easily played on the living room, and with friends, could be a killer one.
Yep, that's the bit that anoyed me too. I don't want to have to reboot. When I play quake 4, I can have something running at a low priority in the background and it has no effect on gameplay. If I have to reboot to just play a game then I have to abandon the other things I'm doing as well. I suppose that I should also be able to afford several machines so that I can dedicate one to games playing too! This is clearly one thing that seprates these reviewers from the real world.
Why can't they support keyboards and mice on consoles?
I expect it¦'s a game design issue. Since console controllers typically don't give as accurate aiming as a mouse does, the games are designed with this in mind. You might have some level of auto-aim, or the enemies may move more sluggishly to compensate, etc.
Since so few people would be expected to want to use keyboard&mouse on a console, it's probably just not worth the effort to design the game to cater for both types of control system.
sigs are hazardous to your health
For some definition of "full support". Let's see... I have Intel 945GM video in my laptop, and the latest Xorg drivers. (I have tried several experimental driver versions too).
Q: Does 3d acceleration work? A: Only on the laptop's internal screen. There is no 3d acceleration when using an external DVI screen - turning on acceleration causes video initialization to fail with an obscure should-never-happen error.
Q: Does dual display (laptop and external screen together) work? A: Only for some resolutions (i.e. not the actual size of the external TFT), and only with some driver versions and rather picky Xorg.conf settings (i.e. extremely flaky), and only with all hardware acceleration disabled and software cursor, and even when it works it's a most unpleasant and sometimes buggy hack (initializes whole video card twice; two driver instances both poking the same registers without synchronisation). The version I'm using at the moment (Ubuntu Edgy's "intel" driver) doesn't work with dual display, though it is supposed to. I'd use the other Intel driver ("i810") but it doesn't work on this laptop with a DVI external screen.
Q: Does simply displaying at a screen's native resolution work?! A: For modern TFT resolutions (mine are 1280x800 and 1680x1050): only with an experimental driver, or a BIOS hack (it temporarily modifies tables in the BIOS). Neither of these works with a laptop's internal and an external display simultaneously - you have to pick one when X starts, switching to the other requires X to be restarted, all applications closed etc.
Q: Does suspend work? A: No, after suspend-to-RAM, the screen is blank. (I've not tried suspend-to-disk because I use encrypted swap, and suspend-to-disk doesn't work with that.)
But to its credit, with the appropriate hacks and experimental drivers, displaying on one screen only with acceleration disabled and software cursor seems to be good... Not sure I'd call that "full support" though! I'm looking forward to it when it arrives. Intel have got the right idea, it's only implementation which is lacking now, and that appears to be outside Intel's control, being more of an under-resourced Xorg thing.
The problems with, say, RedHat sponsoring game development for Linux are numerous:
1. RedHat is an enterprise software company, and thus their shareholders may frown upon the high risk of branching out into the home-entertainment market.
2. Games are, by nature, very risky investments. Most games fail.
3. Typical games now have multi-million dollar budgets, akin to Hollywood movies. RedHat can't afford to take this kind of risk on something not core to its business.
4. The target market for Linux games is incredibly small.
5. The lifetime of a game is very short, unlike business applications. Only a few hit games are still making money a year after they are released.
All of these factors basically shut RedHat out of the big game business. Now, your post was about indie games. But typically indie games are comparable to the open-source games Linux already has; these likely do not increase Linux sales or adoption and thus are not likely to be funded by any commercial distro.
I think I'll use a copy of Windows instead of paying the $200 or whatever to buy it, or I'll run games in my OS of choice by using Wine or the like, or I will just not play them and wait for companies to make Linux games. For all those who want there to be more Linux games around, they should do the same. Buying Windows games sends the wrong message, buying Linux games sends the right one, if you want games to be made for Linux. If Zonk, who seems to be a complete sellout, thinks we're all going to run out and buy Windows and Windows games because he tells us all to "give up in waiting for Linux games", he's a moron. That is exactly what you SHOULD NOT DO IF YOU WANT LINUX GAMES. Gee, Slashdot even has M$ ads now, I wonder if Slashdot has been a target for their marketing. Maybe, maybe not, but this article sure doesn't help anything. It's good to point out facts, but the fact is I'm waiting for UT2007 to come out for Linux so I can run to the store, and that's going to help send these hopefully soon-to-be old-world game devo companies the message they want to hear, and in return the message Linux users want to hear: More games coming to Linux.
Promote true freedom - support standards and interoperability.
Second Life isn't so much a game as it is an economic/artistic experiment. I know - I've got an account there and I usually log in once a week, if only to play with prims for some sort of idea. SL is great but it's now what comes to mind when I think "game".
I wasn't even bringing money into the equation. I was more or less talking about making freeware games for Linux. Unless you're a die hard Linux user who wants to provide something to the community or try and get more people to try out Linux, your goal is to have as many people play your game as possible. I'd publish my freeware game on Windows rather than Linux just because I'd want as many people as possible play something I put my sweat and tears into.
Wise men say, "Forgiveness is divine, but never pay full price for late pizza."
There is Savage, which I ran better on Linux than on Windows (and so, deleted my windows version).
It is free (as in beer) and fun (for a while at least).
There are also a bunch of shooters (noiz2sa and rrootage, and others from the same programmer) which are very nice too.
There are emulators for linux (mame, vba, psx...)
Also I have made a psx controller adapter to my parallel port, which works out of the box, and in windows I had to get drivers, not signed by MS.
So I don't think Linux is that much behind in games, unless you only want to run the latest blockbuster.
Actually, Wesnoth is developed for Windows, Linux, and Mac simultaneously. It's also a flat out, no joke damn good turn based strategy game.
I can't speak for other games he mentioned, because I only play strategy games.
I think the biggest draw to Windows is DirectX. It provides code for handling input devices, display, sound and networking. It hides minor differences in hardware, and will emulate as much as possible so that developers can code to a sort of reference platflorm. If gives what is probably the closest thing to a console in terms of uniformity.
The only major game producers that I know of that create popular games for multiple platforms are companies that were doing games before DirectX was introduced. Granted, the only two I know of are Id and Blizzard.
The difference is that mouse is motion-input while a joystick is purely vector based (a direction and a magnitude - i.e. how hard you're pushing it). With a joystick you have a firm bound on how fast you can move your gun. Or, if you've turned your sensitivity way up, you'll often have more trouble with fine aiming. A mouse is much closer simulation of aiming an actual gun, and is the best way to do it outside of a lightgun (or Wiimote).
That's not to say that the dual-joystick configuration for PS2 or XBOX doesn't work for aiming. But you take the top Quake players (using keyboard/mouse) out there and match them up against the top Halo players (using XBOX controllers), and I guarantee you Quake'll win.
Mame, anyone? perhaps its my age and addicition to emulators, just dusting off my Dreamcast now...
Agreed, Warcraft 3 runs with less crashes under Linux then XP, albeit slightly slower when there's huge poly counts on the screen.
j
But typically indie games are comparable to the open-source games Linux already has;
Oh, I take massive exception to that one. There are a few games like Frozen Bubble That get maybe halfway to the polish of a good indie game. Most of them look little more than a game developed to the proof of concept level.
-- That which does not kill us has made its last mistake.
Uhh.. except they don't. Most vendors still have to support Windows 98/Me. XP-only stuff is becoming more common, but there's still a lot of legacy support. At least DirectX is easy to upgrade on every system.
Just like some browser no-one has ever heard of is going to supplant IE?
Or some tinpot company from Seattle will never be able to take on IBM?
There have been "alternative" sources for indie games. Not counting just independent publishers going a shareware route, there are (were?) things like GarageGames where smaller teams were selling relatively quality but small games.
Shareware games have already removed the market for card games, platformers and side-scrollers.
In time, FOSS liscencing will mean the better 3D engines will get continual development, and eventually grow to rival the commercial versions, then only the big commercial games (WoW, Halo, etc) will survive, and the also-rans will be supplanted by these FOSS based games. Alot of the maps for NWN, Unreal Tournament and other FPS games are already community developed, so it is not a huge leap to have the engine supplied by a community too.
**TODO** Steal someone elses sig.
Why go to the trouble of maintaining a windows installation, just to play freaking games?!
just buy a console and play all the recent games you want hassle free.
And most linux people are probably happy with the current state of affairs, for every genre there is at least one decent game available, other then that we also have mame and a boatload of other emulators at our disposal.
On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
[As regards games on Knoppix-style live CDs] We see this type of comment all the time. A few problems:[1. Drivers, 2. Networking and Patching, 3. Rebooting, 4. Licensing]
To be fair, a lot of your listed problems are already solved: for example, a Knoppix live CD alreay has excellent hardware detection and loads of drivers included. The networking of a game-specific version of an OS could be extremely stripped down (no extra programs listening on various ports). And if the game developers developed for Linux, they could hack at the OS all they wanted. (The OS is modifiable and GPL'ed; the game is a closed-source userland program; the live CD is a simple aggregation and hence the game needn't be open-sourced).
I'm not saying this is necessarily the best idea. But if you could stick the same CD into a PC or a Mac and get the same game running (on Linux from the CD) then there would be no need to port games, hence each game could be developed for a single platform with potentially fewer bugs.
#define struct union
AC, you've missed the point 100%
It's not about the developer's setup - it's about the work involved. DirectX provides a complete gaming platform from which to work with. There is nothing in open source than compares to this. Network, sound, 3d graphics, input devices - all have DirectX methods, all without worrying about the end user's setup. Even if the user has a DirectX issue (bad driver), they have professional support services (nvida, microsoft) they can turn to and not cost the developer money in support not related to the game code. Linux may offer a mailing list that you can be told how dumb you are for not knowing to close your mediaplayer before launching the browser if you want to hear web page sounds.
"In that respect, Linux really needs to get its shit together." "Linux" isn't a company, person or being it's a kernel. In what respect does it need to get it's shit together? If you don't like the way one distro does things quit bitchin and customize it or make your own. "It is such a pain in the ass, the way they go out of their way, to make you go out of your way, just to get your pc to do what you want.." They refers to who? RedHat? Slacwkare? Linus? I'm sorry if you don't understand the way a GNU/Linux system is setup and the difference between a Kernel and an OS but don't flip out about it being someone else's problem. I also find it funny that you are okay with all the hell Microsoft puts you through that is completely out of your control but you have a problem with learning to configure and admin your own GNU/Linux system that IS in your control. . .I'm going to be even more harsh here but maybe you should just stick with Windows and be oblivious to anything that has to do with Linux if you're going to take that attitude with things.
"Someone unwilling to change has already reached their full potential".
So the entirety of DirectX is significantly easier to learn, and the APIs and interfaces are all consistent and work flawlessly? And it's Free and cross-platform?
Also, good job counting all the libraries I listed. PROTIP: you only need (at most) one from each category.
A knoppix CD has good hardware detection and lots of drivers installed for the devices it supports. I'm sure it gets most of the common ones, but I'm just as sure there's a lot it misses. Knoppix can't legally distribute Nvidia's or ATI's drivers, for example, so the game companies would have to work out a deal for them. There are also devices that might come out in the future. The user, in the general case, would have to burn their own game CD upon installation to get all their drivers. Users would balk at this because it's complicated and time-consuming, game companies would balk because it would complicate copy-protection. And what about the program that aggregates the drivers for the LiveCD? Where does it run? On the normal OS? So you're right back to square one.
I still think the vulnerability issue is a problem. A vulnerability in Linux firewall code or in the services run by the game could leave the system open. To patch it you'd need to burn the CD over again (which takes two reboots). Think about the user experience for this: user reboots, sticks in CD for Game OS. Game OS says, "I need updates!" User reboots back to normal OS, runs update utility, burns CD, reboots onto new CD, plays game. Three reboots vs. the current status-quo, which is "wait a few minutes for patch to download, then go on playing".
The diversity of PC and Mactel systems is just too much; PC operating systems have spent a lot of effort providing an abstraction between hardware and software, and to replace the OS the user already has working with a new one that has to support all that diversity would be a nightmare. None of the problems I listed have been solved well enough for a game designed to work this way to work nearly as well a game distributed just as a single-platform binary for the user's existing OS. It's not just that it's not the best idea. It's that it's a complete waste of time trying to turn PCs into consoles.
this is one big bullshit article
i am a linux gamer, i play a ton of games on linux, even games not officially supported by game developers
mostly i play World of Warcraft thru cedega 100% issue free
i also play Civ3 and Civ4, both run fine (civ4 is slow though, on both windows and linux) thru cedega
i also play SimCity (whatever the newest one was, 4?) it runs fine (in software mode) thru cedega
i can even run crap tacular voip software like vent on wine for talking to guildmates on wow
steam games also all work on linux
not EVERY game does, but most people dont run out to buy EVERY game anyway
if game developers dont support linux, people wont be able to switch
if people arent going to switch cause they want to play games, the developers wont worry about linux support..
its a catch 22
personally im happy with the games i play, and happy with linux and am even know trying to make sure i can support linux with an indy game im working on (although its a little harder since its a road less traveled)
As for the "It is such a pain in the ass, the way they go out of their way, to make you go out of your way, just to get your pc to do what you want.." comment, if you had any sort of comprehensive reading skills whatsoever, you'd have realized that this statement WAS ABOUT MICROSOFT WINDOWS and not Linux. So, I don't know really WHAT the point of your reply was, but so certainly accomplished the goal of looking like a moron with a GNU/Stick up your ass.
"To lead the people, you must walk behind them"
The parent I replied to made that comparison. One of my whole points was that DirectX is MORE than just Direct3D, and can't just be compared to OpenGL, as it streamlines a lot more things for developers.
"To lead the people, you must walk behind them"
[DirectX] streamlines a lot more things for developers.
Proof? Just because Directx has a bunch of stuff under its banner does not mean that it makes anything easier. Also, I'm looking forward to your comparison of Directx and the other stuff I listed.
Just about ever game id software ever made, such as Quake 3, Quake 4, Doom 3, ect? Also, you're missing Nexuiz, Cube, UFO, and xbill!
Obviously you are not experienced in hardware 3D graphics programming. It is at times MUCH harder to accomplish the same effect in OpenGL than in D3D. Before 2005, there wasnt even a decent render-to-texture extension available, just pbuffers (and they suck hard). D3D had them since 1998. Shaders? Before GLSL was finally out, there were about 6 vendor-specific ones. Do you really believe that game developers have the TIME to implement and test so many code paths? Carmack has the luxury of spending time with this, but most other game developers don't. Resources for OGL are scattered across the net; in D3D, you have one big, detailed programmers guide and reference, along with over 30 examples covering a lot of state-of-the-art effects. In D3D, I have examples for PRT, instancing, subsurface scattering, motion blur etc. Where is the kickass OpenGL SDK offering me this? NeHe covers just the basics. 99% of all OpenGL sites recycle the basics over and over. Its extremely hard to write a state-of-the-art engine with OGL, it is much easier with D3D. OpenGL 3.0 is likely to change this, but until then, we have to fiddle with a severe lack of resources and many fallbacks for different OpenGL architectures.
This sig does not contain any SCO code.
So the entirety of DirectX is significantly easier to learn, and the APIs and interfaces are all consistent and work flawlessly?
Yes. MUCH easier than OpenGL for advanced effects (like ambient occlusion). DirectInput kicks ass; where is the Linux equivalent? OIS is the next best thing, covers about 1/4th of DI's functionality, and is hard to discover (I stumbled upon it by accident). And while DirectShow is a PITA, it is still easier to use than some Linux video playback library (libtheora means a LOT of work, libavcodec is just a thing from another world, Gstreamer needs the correct codecs and lacks a good documentation).
And it's Free and cross-platform?
This is absolutely IRRELEVANT for game development. Game development is about MONEY. AAA games need a system that does not stand in the way and takes too much time to learn - because time is money. "Free" has absolutely zero relevance there. If a kit costs $1000, but cuts development time to 1/3rd, it will be bought by the companies. This is why game developers usually choose FMOD over OpenAL or Audiere (aside from the fact that FMOD 4 has so many features the other two don't even remotely provide). Cross-Platform is irrelevant for AAA games as well; AAA means tons of effects. Porting it to the console absolutely requires additional work. You do NOT want the extra overhead from the cross-platform layer on a PS2, for example.
Also, good job counting all the libraries I listed. PROTIP: you only need (at most) one from each category.
Most have little to no documentation, are not thoroughly tested in non-Unix environments, have no VisualC workspaces (don't even think of using autotools in Windows), have APIs with exactly zero similarities, and at best a few samples. Yeah.
This sig does not contain any SCO code.
Why would anyone port something to Linux? There is no market there. "Cross-platform" means "consoles & Windows" for game developers. Oh, and your "relinking" is not as simple as you think. You have to rebuild the entire project.
This sig does not contain any SCO code.
Thanks for joining the conversation so late. I suggest reading all the posts up to this point, as most of your reply has nothing to do with what we're talking about. Thanks.
Of course it does. You propose usage of multiple libraries as a pendant to the DirectX SDK, and I commented your points about it. Now I suggest YOU read my points and give me an actual reply. So far you didn't prove anything wrong.
This sig does not contain any SCO code.
I don't need to test my programs.. I have an error correcting modem.
Sure there are time and money issues which you have to balance with all your other budgetary constraints.
Exactly. The result is almost always: "use D3D". Less time-consuming, less demanding -> costs less -> most companies choose D3D, with OpenGL becoming a rather exotic option.
This sig does not contain any SCO code.
Dude, give up the crack! My entire statement: "One of my whole points was that DirectX is MORE than just Direct3D, and can't just be compared to OpenGL, as it streamlines a lot more things for developers." Your dimwitted reply: "Proof? Just because Directx has a bunch of stuff under its banner does not mean that it makes anything easier." DirectX streamlines more for devs than OpenGL. Duh. OpenGL is just graphics. DirectX is graphics, sound, networking, etc. Get it? DirectX does MORE than JUST OpenGL, so it ISN'T A GOOD COMPARISON! A good comparison would be with all the other things thrown in. That is what I was saying in the first place.. And in my own personal experience, one unified package for complete 3d multimedia application development, is easier to work with than several disjoint ones. You can't necessarily PROVE "easier" because that is an OPINION that will vary from person to person. But it is a FACT that the entire DirectX package handles more than JUST OpenGL. Please work on your reading comprehension mmmkay?
"To lead the people, you must walk behind them"
Your "comments" consisted of opinion, unsourced assertions, and a very dubious argument about what it takes to develop a game in the "real world". Once again, nothing related to what I was talking about.
If it's such a bad comparison, why do you keep making it, when my replies clearly are directed toward a different aspect of your Escher-esque logic?
Network hard disk or on some other machine.
this is just a facet of the whole issue with cross-platform software... develop cross platform software.. and you don't have platform related issues... eof
The reasons gaming sucks on Linux?
1) X.org and XFree86 are slow.
2) Multimedia hardware changes faster than Linux developers can clean-room reverse engineer drivers for it
3) Linux software advances faster than companies can port binary-blob drivers, if they even do
4) Lack of commercial games, and thus lack of investment potential for any other games: see also, Macintosh
5) Lots of games are designed for x86, or at least only tested on Intel hardware; have fun, SPARC, PowerPC, Alpha, ARM, MIPS, and Itanium!
People just need to start writing games in Java that way everyone is happy. They just have to scale back the graphics... and the sound... who cares about that stuff anyways?
:-]