Linux Port For id's Tech 5 Graphics Engine Unlikely

Posted by Soulskill on Sunday August 23, 2009 @02:58PM from the sounds-like-they-need-some-encouragement dept.

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."

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Re:Too bad by ToasterMonkey · 2009-08-23 19:43 · Score: 1, Redundant

Think I'm being over-dramatic? Not really, since at some point, nVidia will decide it's no longer worth their time and effort to maintain the driver for it, and the last driver they release will eventually suffer bitrot against the Linux kernel. Being closed source, eventually there's a chance that it cannot be easily patched because there are changes required in the binary blob parts.It's not their fault Linux isn't stable for more than a year or so. Other OSs deal just fine with older drivers when they want to. Open Source is not an excuse for unstable APIs.