Linux Port For id's Tech 5 Graphics Engine Unlikely

DesiVideoGamer writes "John Carmack, the lead developer for id's Tech 5 graphics engine, does not plan on making a Linux port for the new engine. From his e-mail: 'It isn't out of the question, but I don't think we will be able to justify the work. If there are hundreds of thousands of Linux users playing Quake Live when we are done with Rage, that would certainly influence our decision.' One of the reasons for not making a Linux port was due to the fact that the new engine 'pushes a lot of paths that are not usually optimized' and that the Linux port would have to use the binary blob graphics driver in order to work."

Comments

Too bad

[pwizard2]

I've come to count on id porting their games, so I'm disappointed over this bit of news.

I use the proprietary Nvidia blob (version 180) for my Nvidia 8400 and I have no qualms about it. Windows users use proprietary drivers for practically every card that I've seen over the years, so how is it any different in principle if you replace Windows with Linux? While I take open stuff when I can get it, I would rather have a video card and wireless device that works on Linux. Not every Linux user sees things the same way that RMS does by insisting on a 100% FOSS operating system. While you can have that if you want it, I prefer the freedom of being able to mix and match as I see fit.

Re:Too bad

[nacturation]

First they implemented video card drivers as blobs, and I didn't speak up because I was happy playing games.
Then they implemented the network drivers as blobs, and I didn't speak up because I enjoyed faster network connectivity.
Then they implemented the storage drivers as blobs, and I didn't speak up because now the latest hardware ran in Linux.
Then they implemented my kernel as a blob, and there was nobody left to speak up for me because their systems were causing kernel panics because of all the blobs that nobody could debug.

Binary blob ... eh?

[Lemming Mark]

"and that the Linux port would have to use the binary blob graphics driver in order to work"

From TFA, it seems that Carmack believes it would be hard to get the necessary performance without using the NVidia drivers. It's somewhat surprising to me if it wouldn't be possible to get it running acceptably on anything else, even if the game does use a lot of advanced features - but if Carmack says so!

However I'm not so keen on his assertion that if you're using the binary drivers you might as well run the code under Windows. I guess this probably *does* make sense for most people, since there are relatively few people who don't have a Windows license available somewhere. However, it would be *nicer* not to have to reboot into Windows for a specific app even if that were unnecessary.

Unfortunately I saw a fair few quite negative reactions in the linked thread and I expect we'll see others here. Carmack has not ruled out a port for sure. But even if he does, that's not exactly evil or a betrayal of open source or anything else negative. Many gamers here will have benefited in some way from the GPLed code he's released to the OSS community in the past at some point, pretty much all gamers will have benefited from his position as a developer pushing the games industry forwards. He's not done anything *bad* here, he's just not necessarily doing something we'd hoped for.

Hopefully the Rage code will - one day - be GPLed and get ported to Linux. I think that's a fair way down the road at this point, though.

Re:Big news...

[houstonbofh]

Linux users never pay for anything, so it doesn't even matter.

Nope. I didn't buy all those iD games the day the Linux port came out. Never happened.

And Red Hat and Crosover Office really don't make money at all... It is all a myth. ;)

Re:Big news...

[hairyfeet]

I think the bigger issues with Linux gaming, and this will probably get me modded down for daring to say this, is that MSFT is pretty much the only game in town thanks to DirectX. OpenGL just hasn't kept feature parity with DirectX in quite awhile, and last time i read anything about OpenGL development they seemed to care more about CAD than gaming.

So when you talk about making a cutting edge DirectX FPS and making a native Linux port, you are really talking about taking a DirectX 9-11 level game and trying to make it work with a DirectX 7-8 level API, which is what OpenGL is about at last time I checked. They are simply more worried about the CAD sector than they are games, which leaves Linux out in the cold. maybe it is too late to start a new API, but short of simply having to run Wine constantly (which of course will always be behind because they are trying to reverse engineer a VERY complex API that is constantly improving and undergoing revision) I just don't see how the newer games won't be prohibitively expensive to port considering the state of OpenGL VS DirectX.