Company Seeks To Boost Linux Game Development With 3D Engine Giveaway

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Company Seeks To Boost Linux Game Development With 3D Engine Giveaway

Posted by Soulskill on Friday November 26, 2010 @10:58AM from the for-services-rendered dept.

binstream writes "To support Linux game development, Unigine Corp. announced a competition: it will give a free license for its Unigine engine to a seasoned team willing to work on a native Linux game. The company has been Linux-friendly from the very start; it released advanced GPU benchmarks (Heaven, Tropics, Sanctuary) for Linux before and is working on the OilRush strategy game that supports Linux as well."

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wonderbar.... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-11-26 11:03 · Score: -1, Flamebait

now if video cards run under linux were more than just framebuffers we might go someplace.
1. Re:wonderbar.... by Iceykitsune · 2010-11-26 11:06 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Yell at the manufacturer of your card, not the linux devs. They can only do so much without the full details of how the card arcitecue is tsructured.
  
  --
  GENERATION 24: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation. Social exper
2. Re:wonderbar.... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-11-26 11:23 · Score: 1, Insightful
  
  How is he yelling at Linux devs? He's pointing out this engine licensing doesn't do much for the main bottleneck facing 3d gaming on Linux.
3. Re:wonderbar.... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-11-26 11:42 · Score: 0
  
  He should keep preaching over and over to get ATI and Nvidia to release all of their code as GPL or they will be crippled. Free the Software..
  YEAH LIKE THAT'LL WORK LOL.
4. Re:wonderbar.... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-11-26 12:42 · Score: 0
  
  You mean like how they were but nothing came of it?
5. Re:wonderbar.... by MrHanky · 2010-11-26 12:50 · Score: -1, Troll
  
  Stuff like this is modded "insightful" is incontrovertible proof that Slashdot is a site for morons and clueless gadget freaks, not "nerds".
6. Re:wonderbar.... by braeldiil · 2010-11-26 13:10 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  Actually, the first step towards good linux drivers is entirely in the dev's hands. No one to blame but the kernel hackers. Provide a stable interface. Provide a stable binary interface, and the manufacturers will provide drivers, at least for common processors. It really is that simple. As long as the drivers need to be rewritten every few months because the kernel was changed (often for no other reason than to break compatibility), linux will have crummy drivers. No sane company is going to sign up to do 10 times the work for a platform with 1% of the usage.
7. Re:wonderbar.... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-11-26 13:12 · Score: -1, Troll
  
  Are you saying "Make Linux Windows"? Fool, Linux IS NOT WINDOWS. Go push your grand idea of an unfractured, unified driver environment elsewhere.
8. Re:wonderbar.... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-11-26 13:34 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  Welcome fellow moron.
9. Re:wonderbar.... by 3vi1 · 2010-11-26 14:06 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  To those marking the parent as insightful, I'd like to see one single link that backs up what he says about video cards being "just framebuffers" under Linux. You realize that most of the OpenGL driver code is shared with the Windows implementations (which is why Heaven pretty much has the same framerates in both OSes), right?
10. Re:wonderbar.... by CyDharttha · 2010-11-26 15:08 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  The Unigine tech demos look excellent, and have been used to showcase just what Linux gaming can look like.
11. Re:wonderbar.... by walshy007 · 2010-11-26 15:38 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  Provide a stable binary interface,
  This is wrong on so many levels in linux land.
  For starters, unlike windows land, in linux drivers tend to have common things that many drivers need put into modules and re-used. For example the mac80211 stack. In this example all the actual card drivers have to do is basically tell the kernel where the registers are and what they do and bam, working wifi.
  Bug fixes in used modules fix bugs in all things that use it. Code re-use to the extreme.
  It also helps with portability, can you run your nvidia binary driver on mips? Hell no, could you run neauvou which exposes the hardware through gallium and uses GEM etc.
  
  As long as the drivers need to be rewritten every few months because the kernel was changed (often for no other reason than to break compatibility), linux will have crummy drivers.
  Linux by far has the most in-built driver support of any operating system that has ever existed. To call it crappy is a bit of a farce.
  All hardware vendors need to do is give a kernel dev specs and a driver which will be indefinitely supported is created. I can still use a tv tuner card from 2001 on my machine now, could you do the same with windows 7?
  Having a stable ABI limits improvements to the kernel, and loses a great deal of flexibility and usefulness. So really, screw that. If you 'want' a stable ABI, it is a good sign you are doing it wrong anyway.
12. Re:wonderbar.... by Blakey+Rat · 2010-11-26 16:18 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  There aren't any characters in those images, or videos... just an empty landscape. How does the engine perform with 300 armed ogres running around?
  
  --
  Comment of the year
13. Re:wonderbar.... by grumbel · 2010-11-26 16:39 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  now if video cards run under linux were more than just framebuffers we might go someplace.
  Linux already had pretty solid 3D support going all the way back to the Vodoo1 days. Yeah, sometimes you needed to take a little care to buy a card that actually worked in Linux and not just the next best random piece of junk, but that isn't really that that much different from Windows where when you don't take care you might be stuck with some unusable on-board graphics solution.
  If 3D hardware would be the problem of Linux gaming, it would have been solved ages ago.
14. Re:wonderbar.... by Gaygirlie · 2010-11-26 16:55 · Score: 1
  
  It sure looks great, I especially loved how the shadows worked realistically when interacting with water.
  As for performance: I ran the demo in benchmark mode in Windows 7 using both DX10 and OpenGL, and in Ubuntu 10.10 using OpenGL, and I got the same numbers. Of course since the demo is rather limited it doesn't reflect the full picture of how a game would run, but what it does do is show that Linux is perfectly capable of running a good-looking, modern graphics demo just as well as Win7 at the same speed. That should already be enough to debunk OP's claim: if it was nothing more than a simple framebuffer under Linux it wouldn't achieve equal performance as compared to Win7.
15. Re:wonderbar.... by LingNoi · 2010-11-26 17:09 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  Please hell no. If windows is an example of doing this right then I don't want it. The ABI for windows hasn't changed in 20 years and it's horrible riddled with bugs and simply a PoS. All one has to do is look at how lame their visual c++ compiler is because it has to compile down for their archaic abi to realise that's not the way to go.
16. Re:wonderbar.... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-11-26 20:33 · Score: 0
  
  This is pretty much what my problem with Linux is: politics interfere with development.
17. Re:wonderbar.... by kayoshiii · 2010-11-26 22:30 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  I use Unigine on Linux at work. Everybody else uses it on Windows. OpenGL performance is slightly faster on Linux than Windows but DirectX11 runs a bit faster than OpenGL/Linux I think this is down to DirectX11 multi-threading better thus the CPU becoming less of a bottleneck.
  This is with the nVidia drivers.
  Unigine is really targeted at DirectX10+ class hardware and is one of the first engines to support new DirectX11/OpenGL 4 features. Our most recent project involves perhaps 100kms of Railway track with animated crowds of people and thousands of animated cars. We have it running on about as fast a systems as you can get. But we don't do optimisation either unless we have to.
  Unigine is really good at cross compatible too. All the tools are equally available on Windows/Linux and almost all the code I write under Linux will work the same on Windows.
18. Re:wonderbar.... by marcello_dl · 2010-11-27 00:32 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  > Provide a stable binary interface, and the manufacturers will provide drivers, at least for common processors.
  Are you sure it's all about binary interfaces? Hardware vendors lose control of whatever runs under linux, while a slightly incompatible windows release/service pack every now and then ensures forced obsolescence.
  That would change a bit with binary interfaces but not that much.
  And it would get in the way of kernel development.
  But I could be wrong so somebody could mantain some kernel with a fixed ABI and see what happens. T2 project does have specified targets already IIRC.
  
  --
  ---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
19. Re:wonderbar.... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-11-27 01:37 · Score: 0
  
  A polygon is a polygon, no matter what it's representing. Animated characters require a bit more CPU time and state changes for matrix manipulation, but that's about it.
20. Re:wonderbar.... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-11-27 02:26 · Score: -1, Flamebait
  
  You are a troll and an idiot. The Visual C++ compiler is one of the best optimizing compilers in the world. It is only now with the 4.0 optimizations that GCC is finally catching up with it.
21. Re:wonderbar.... by Yetihehe · 2010-11-27 04:07 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  All hardware vendors need to do is give a kernel dev specs and a driver which will be indefinitely supported is created.
  Yeah, driver for my Asus WL-167g wifi was created and worked, but now I can't compile it anymore, because someone thought that net_device struct is no longer needed (starting from kernel 2.6.31). Driver is still open source, but I'm not good enough at driver programming so I can't use this with newest kernels. Now imagine normal user, which buys a card which has "Compatible with linux" on a box but when he tries to compile the driver he is greeted with errors. Yes, I found what happened on some obscure forum, but I had others means of connecting than this card.
  
  Moral: Constant ABI changes are just frustrating.
  
  --
  Extreme Programming - Redundant Array of Inexpensive Developers
22. Re:wonderbar.... by BitZtream · 2010-11-27 06:05 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  This is wrong on so many levels in linux land.
  Yes, the political and other agendas that go along with Linux essentially result in it fucking itself over in this respect.
  
  It also helps with portability, can you run your nvidia binary driver on mips?
  So who REALLY do you expect to care that you can't run it on a reasonable obscure OS ... with a rather obscure (these days) processor? You might care, and maybe some guy in Europe ... but no one else does, so you're not really doing anything to help your argument in the minds of people who actually want to serve the most amount of people. You want to run some odd combination, you cut yourself off.
  
  Linux by far has the most in-built driver support of any operating system that has ever existed. To call it crappy is a bit of a farce.
  And to ignore what every major developer complains about and uses as their reason for not developing for Linux is just utterly ignorant. If you want people to develop for Linux you have to address their reason for not doing it, not sit around and tell them they are wrong.
  
  All hardware vendors need to do is give a kernel dev specs and a driver which will be indefinitely supported is created. I can still use a tv tuner card from 2001 on my machine now, could you do the same with windows 7?
  Really? You're using an analog tuner to receive what? Analog was done away with last year in the US, I suspect that any other major country in the world is either already there or going that way soon as well, so its awesome that you can get your old TV card working, I don't think any Windows 7 user will cry that they can't get the card they bought 9 years ago to work ... since even with drivers its effectively useless. I guess you could hook it up to cable providers until they drop analog completely.
  
  Having a stable ABI limits improvements to the kernel, and loses a great deal of flexibility and usefulness. So really, screw that. If you 'want' a stable ABI, it is a good sign you are doing it wrong anyway.
  Actually, you have that backwards. If you can't make a reasonable stable ABI, you're doing it wrong. Its just a sign of a dev who either is incapable of thinking about the future or or don't care, either way, you won't find people who bother to follow you constantly doing anything useful. The fact that you think this way shows that you have no concept of how proper software development works. Its not even unique to software development, standardized interfaces are considered one of the major innovations that brought us to where we are today as far as production is concerned.
  Do you think an assembly line would work if every engine, tire, bolt, or whatever had 'improvements to its interface' every day? Oh, today we get new bolts, gotta update the engines ... oh, the engines have a change that requires transmission modifications.
  The interface doesn't have to stay the same forever, and indeed can't, but consistency and stability are a good thing, even if you don't understand why. Perhaps you should try living in a world where every electric company providers their own 'optimized' form of electricity, complete with different voltages and frequencies. How well would that work out?
  
  --
  Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
23. Re:wonderbar.... by BitZtream · 2010-11-27 06:08 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  Wow, fanboys modded you up fast didn't they?
  The ABI generally maintains backwards compatibility to a good extent, but if you think it hasn't changed you're completely ignorant and blind.
  If it hasn't changed ... why do drivers designed for Win7 not work in XP or Win3.1? How do applications now take advantage of more than 640k? How do these Windows apps interact with the new security bits of Windows 7. Why did AV makers shout and scream about the changes made that screwed over their 'ability' to provide virus protection?
  Your visual studio statement makes it clear you're a clueless fanboy.
  
  --
  Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
24. Re:wonderbar.... by mr_bigmouth_502 · 2010-11-27 12:45 · Score: 1
  
  I agree. Linux video drivers are a b**** to work with. If that weren't the case, I'd be using it as my main OS instead of Window$.
25. Re:wonderbar.... by Sam36 · 2010-11-27 15:20 · Score: -1
  
  Yes a stable interface. Like windows c++ api stable //convert string stream to string class, then to char array, then to MS bstr return _bstr_t(myString.str().c_str()).copy(); Unfortunately linux devs don't get paid by the hour
26. Re:wonderbar.... by LingNoi · 2010-11-27 19:06 · Score: 1
  
  No YOU are the troll. Ever wonder why developers think STL vectors are slow? You can thank visual c++.
27. Re:wonderbar.... by RCL · 2010-11-27 23:29 · Score: 1
  
  Hell no. Think about the differences in the ways you do (or better to say, fake) lighting and shadows - whether your "polygon" is static or not makes HUGE difference. It's like saying "vehicle is vehicle, no matter how it gets propelled. Rockets require a bit more fuel and different controls than cars, but that's about it".
  
  --
  Coding etudes
28. Re:wonderbar.... by RCL · 2010-11-27 23:51 · Score: 1
  Well, if you call hacks like UtahGLX a solid support...
  
  Overall problem with accelerator card support in Linux is that it's several layers "thicker" than in Windows, and those layers tend to be uncontrollable by neither user nor even developer. E.g.
  
  you can't (couldn't?) have stable binary format for GLSL shaders, you have to compile them on the fly (which is insane, because this means that you can't do stuff they do in Windows, where all shader combinations may take hours of offline compiling)
  you can't manage video memory under Linux (without using nascent kernel interfaces at least, which are platform-specific by definition)
  graphics stack is not thread-safe, generally speaking, so you can't safely parallelize e.g. resource creation, which is particularly costly (which means: preventing hitches when something "pops in" during the game requires your own - pretty complicated - solution, etc)
  This is partially caused by OpenGL being much more higher level than (experienced) game developer needs it to be (and thus affects MacOS X and mobile platforms as well), and compounded by the fact that even (often incosistent) OpenGL features do not get uniform support on all hardware Linux runs.
  
  I don't see any good solution for this situation.
  --
  Coding etudes
29. Re:wonderbar.... by ludwigf · 2010-11-28 00:18 · Score: 1
  
  Provide a stable interface.
  Here NVIDIAs (you know, those who actually do the drivers) opinion on the topic:
  
  The lack of a stable API in the Linux kernel. This is not a large obstacle for us, though: the kernel interface layer of the NVIDIA kernel module is distributed as source code, and compiled at install time for the version and configuration of the kernel in use. This requires occasional maintenance to update for new kernel interface changes, but generally is not too much work.
  Srouce: phoronix interview
30. Re:wonderbar.... by triso · 2010-11-28 06:09 · Score: 1
  
  now if video cards run under linux were more than just framebuffers we might go someplace.
  Linux already had pretty solid 3D support going all the way back to the Vodoo1 days. Yeah, sometimes you needed to take a little care to buy a card that actually worked in Linux and not just the next best random piece of junk, but that isn't really that that much different from Windows where when you don't take care you might be stuck with some unusable on-board graphics solution.....
  Well, given that ATI and Nvidia make the only video cards that can go faster than 20 FPS It is even easier since ATI's 3-d support has never worked in their proprietary driver.
  .
31. Re:wonderbar.... by walshy007 · 2010-11-28 20:24 · Score: 1
  
  Really? You're using an analog tuner to receive what?
  Actually I'm using it to capture the composite output of various consoles. But you missed the point, this is one example of many I can give.
  
  The fact that you think this way shows that you have no concept of how proper software development works. Its not even unique to software development, standardized interfaces are considered one of the major innovations that brought us to where we are today as far as production is concerned.
  Standardised interfaces are a great thing for enabling functionality between discrete projects. Remember that this is the kernels INTERNAL functions we are talking about.. You would essentially be mandating the codebase to freeze.
  I think it has been well and truly established that having a release every few years as opposed to consistent incremental improvements is a bad idea. But you are free to argue for this if you wish.
  
  The interface doesn't have to stay the same forever, and indeed can't, but consistency and stability are a good thing, even if you don't understand why.
  If you want the same interfaces why not just keep using a single kernel version then? after all any improvements the newer kernels bring are changes which detracts from the codebase staying the same.
  
  And to ignore what every major developer complains about and uses as their reason for not developing for Linux is just utterly ignorant. If you want people to develop for Linux you have to address their reason for not doing it, not sit around and tell them they are wrong.
  We can't be blamed for thinking long-term, after all why should we care for binary only drivers when they will eventually be broken anyway (not to mention technically break the gpl anyway). And if they are open source they should be encouraged to go into mainline so they get updated to fit with the rest of the kernel automatically.
  
  Do you think an assembly line would work if every engine, tire, bolt, or whatever had 'improvements to its interface' every day? Oh, today we get new bolts, gotta update the engines ... oh, the engines have a change that requires transmission modifications.
  Within a single project, when dependent parts communicate to eachother about the changes and improvements, incremental improvements are far better than complete overhalls (do you really want a linux 3.0 that comes in five years time that has problems an order of magnitude worse than vista did? while having a stable abi that whole time just from lack of updates?).
  Yes it can come across as nasty to simply ignore those that propose retardedly stupid ideas such as a stable in kernel ABI, but unless you make release cycles longer and suppress technical improvements to single big releases, you can't do it.
  And more to the point if you are doing things 'the right way' the lack of a stable ABI does not effect you in the slightest.
32. Re:wonderbar.... by walshy007 · 2010-11-28 20:33 · Score: 1
  
  This is a perfect example of why having drivers in the mainline kernel tree are a good idea.
  If it was it would get automatic updates as the other parts of the kernel are changed. What tends to happen though when there is an open source driver not in kernel, people study the source and within 3-6 months create an in kernel driver that supports it.
  So typical worst case is you are stuck using an old kernel version for maybe a year until the new proper drivers are ready for prime time.
  Had this happen to me with my eeepc that has an rt2860 chip in it for wifi. At first dependent on their module, it broke, kept old kernel for six months now in kernel driver works a charm.
33. Re:wonderbar.... by badkarmadayaccount · 2010-12-04 21:26 · Score: 1
  
  Moral: Constant API changes are just frustrating.
  FTFY.
  
  --
  I know tobacco is bad for you, so I smoke weed with crack.
34. Re:wonderbar.... by badkarmadayaccount · 2010-12-04 21:28 · Score: 1
  
  Solid state switching PSU?
  
  --
  I know tobacco is bad for you, so I smoke weed with crack.
Not quite as exciting as the headline sounded by Solar+Granulation · 2010-11-26 11:07 · Score: 2, Insightful

When I read the headline I, foolishly perhaps, imagined a free-for-all release. Nonetheless this is excellent news!
1. Re:Not quite as exciting as the headline sounded by Threni · 2010-11-26 12:19 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  That's what I thought. Nice advert for the company, I guess. It's going to boost Linux development by precisely one game, in 18 months time, maybe....
2. Re:Not quite as exciting as the headline sounded by Anonymous Coward · 2010-11-26 14:17 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  When I read the headline I thought "why would anyone care?" There are plenty of good, free engines out there already.
  ioquake3
  XreaL
  Cube 2
  Irrlicht
  OGRE
  Crystal Space
  Blender
  Panda3D
  And if John Carmack doesn't go back on his word, id Tech 4 will soon be free.
3. Re:Not quite as exciting as the headline sounded by Anonymous Coward · 2010-11-26 14:40 · Score: 0
  
  You neglected to mention Darkplaces, which slaughters all of the above '90s-stuck engines.
  Irrlicht, Panda3D and Xreal are a freaking joke, and OGRE isn't even an engine.
4. Re:Not quite as exciting as the headline sounded by walshy007 · 2010-11-26 15:41 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  have you even checked out a modern version of cube2?
  It may not be up to par with the latest, but to call it 90's is a bit of a stretch.
5. Re:Not quite as exciting as the headline sounded by LingNoi · 2010-11-26 17:14 · Score: 1
  
  OGRE isn't even an engine
  OGRE stands for object Oriented Graphics Rendering Engine. So yeah, it's an engine, it's simply not a game engine however.
6. Re:Not quite as exciting as the headline sounded by DaVince21 · 2010-11-27 01:05 · Score: 1
  
  Care to explain? DarkPlaces looks worse than Cube 2, judging by the screenshots...
  
  --
  I am not devoid of humor.
7. Re:Not quite as exciting as the headline sounded by Anonymous Coward · 2010-11-27 15:00 · Score: 0
  
  XreaL is far, far better than Darkplaces. Have you even grabbed recent source from SVN or are you basing your judgement from years old pre-built binaries?
  Actually, Darkplaces is rubbish compared to all of the other engines. The developers took Quake 1 and sloppily patched on features which make even the most basic looking of games, Nexuiz, run like shit on even the most powerful hardware. For example, I can run Crysis and Bioshock at maximum settings with smooth framerates on my PC. The instant I turn up the details past about the halfway mark in Nexuiz, it chokes. That is due to some incredibly shitty programming in Darkplaces.
8. Re:Not quite as exciting as the headline sounded by Anonymous Coward · 2010-11-27 17:10 · Score: 0
  
  Examples for ioquake3
  Examples for XreaL
  Examples for Cube 2
  Examples for Irrlicht
  Examples for Object-Oriented Graphics Rendering Engine
  Examples for Crystal Space
  Examples for Blender Game Engine
  Examples for Panda3D
  It's quite obvious that all of these engines are much more advanced than Darkplaces. Darkplaces doesn't even do basic stuff like HDR lighting, DOF or parallax mapping. You could reproduce most effects in Darkplaces with shaders in ioquake3, which is basically just a cleaned up id Tech 3 engine. Then there is the issue of poor performance in Darkplaces...
Bleak future of PC gaming? by whiteboy86 · 2010-11-26 11:20 · Score: 3, Insightful

We are now entering a transition period when the masses are starting to migrate to low-spec tablet computers from the PCs. The iPads, the new wave of Android tablets and such.. There is no need for the old PC-format packaged computer, the average joe consumer is quicky realizing that fact. The games that need gigs of memory, are CPU/GPU hungry, draw lot of power and require these 3D engines might not be such a hot genre to dive in and develop for right now.
1. Re:Bleak future of PC gaming? by AnonGCB · 2010-11-26 11:34 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Yeah no. You have no idea what you're talking about. That said, I wouldn't be surprised to see Steam be released for Android/iOS/mobile, and get a chunk of that market.
  
  --
  http://CryoLANparty.com/ A lan I'm staff on!
2. Re:Bleak future of PC gaming? by Lucky75 · 2010-11-26 11:40 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Damn I wish I had mod points. Whiteboy86 seems to just be repeating the standard apple rhetoric. PC gaming is NOT dying. The quality of the games on a phone/tablet is no where near what it is on a PC. Full stop.
  
  --
  DNA -- National Dyslexic Association
3. Re:Bleak future of PC gaming? by larry+bagina · 2010-11-26 12:09 · Score: 1
  
  Aside from the fact that Apple won't allow Steam on iOS, I fail to see the need. On the PC, Steam was the first good app store. Game developers can use the iTunes App store (and get a better percentage than they do on Steam). On Android, maybe, since Google is pushing free apps with advertising, but the only advantage there would be supporting more countries. What would steam bring over existing app stores? Play and sync Plants vs Zombies on your phone and your pc?
  
  --
  Do you even lift?
  These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
4. Re:Bleak future of PC gaming? by Culture20 · 2010-11-26 13:05 · Score: 1
  
  What would steam bring over existing app stores? Play and sync Plants vs Zombies on your phone and your pc?
  Buy once, play everywhere? That's better than the iTunes+steam model where you have to buy once for each platform. Of course, iTunes makes more sense than steam since if Apple dies, your iPhone is quickly worthless. If steam somehow dies, your computers still work, but you can't install your software anymore.
5. Re:Bleak future of PC gaming? by Dr+Herbert+West · 2010-11-26 15:31 · Score: 1
  
  What are you talking about? I've been playing Left 4 Dead2 on my Mac for months now.
6. Re:Bleak future of PC gaming? by The+Mighty+Buzzard · 2010-11-26 17:02 · Score: 1
  
  Nice. I'm not sure I could manage offtopic, troll, and flamebait all at once. Go you!
  
  --
  Violence is like duct tape. If it doesn't solve the problem, you didn't use enough.
7. Re:Bleak future of PC gaming? by LingNoi · 2010-11-26 17:17 · Score: 1
  
  Your Mac isn't iOS.
8. Re:Bleak future of PC gaming? by Tromad · 2010-11-26 20:12 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  Support for the notion that PC gaming is dying: Civilization V, Spore, Supreme Commander 2, Dragon Age 2 (maybe). All dumbed-down versions of their predecessors. The current selection of PC games at retail stores. The trend of UI for PC games. Mandatory online DRM for single player games. Lack of innovation in the past decade/consolidation of genres. Games run like shit even on modern PCs. "Ship now, patch later". Shift towards netbooks/phones/tablets.
  Support against the notion that PC gaming is dying: Steam holiday sales (AAA titles for poverty prices), wide-berth of indie games, probably more AAA titles released per year now more than ever, digital downloads, nearly the entire back catalog of PC games available to play (GOG) on modern hardware. Integrated graphics are good enough to play games from several years ago on minimal settings.
  Regardless of where you stand on the issue, one thing is for certain: PC gaming is definitely not like it used to be.
9. Re:Bleak future of PC gaming? by Patch86 · 2010-11-26 22:08 · Score: 1
  
  Laptops, which are more than capable gaming platforms, won't be going anywhere for a long time. Your iPad or Galaxy might be fun and might be a good substitute for some tasks, but I've yet to meet a single soul who has ditched their main PC for a tablet or smartphone.
  And while we're on the subject, tablets aren't exactly "low spec". Compared to the PCs of only a couple of years ago, these tablets can hold their own quite nicely. Maybe PC game devs might be forced to hold back on the bloat a little for the next few years, but I'm not going to cry over that.
10. Re:Bleak future of PC gaming? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-11-27 00:01 · Score: 0
  
  Yet.
11. Re:Bleak future of PC gaming? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-11-27 00:45 · Score: 0
  
  I wonder what whiteboy86 means by "these engines." Unity and Unreal both run on iDevices and are expanding to other smartphones/tablets as well. Games for them don't have the ravenous performance appetite "these engines" are supposed to have, because they're tailor-made for the platform.
  Nothing about a 3D engine requires it to be have unreasonably high performance requirements. An engine is just a foundation to support games, on whatever platform. As other platforms become more popular, the engine creators will adapt to target those platforms' particular strengths and shortcomings.
12. Re:Bleak future of PC gaming? by whiteboy86 · 2010-11-27 10:32 · Score: 0, Flamebait
  
  Most iPad apps we use are polished, nice, robust and way better then the clumsy apps on the desktop. There is no way for us to go back to the desktop. Apart from some content creation I see frighteningly little use for the desktop. I auctioned off nearly all household laptops and desktops, partly because I fear they will depreciate way faster now when more and more people discover the iPad.
13. Re:Bleak future of PC gaming? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-11-27 16:09 · Score: 0
  
  Sure it is. I guess you aren't old enough to remember lusting after EGA or VGA hardware so you could have those awesome (for the time) graphics. Or how about being stuck with a Trident SVGA card when you really wanted that Tseng with truecolor support? What about wishing you had an Adlib or Sound Blaster so you could get more than just the 1-bit beeps out of your PC speaker? Or maybe getting that 486 so you could do 640x480 resolution at a playable speed in games that started supporting it?
  I would say that the production of games is the same as it's always been. The only thing that has changed is more games, but the ratio of good to bad is about the same. The same for hardware requirements and the percentage of people who have the high end stuff. There have also always been bargain bin games and backlogs of older games available, just more of them now because more time has passed since the introduction of the PC.
14. Re:Bleak future of PC gaming? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-12-03 05:43 · Score: 0
  
  ...oh how I wish I could get the games of ten years ago on a tablet.
  NWN on an iPad? I'd never get work done again...
How do they plan to make money on free? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-11-26 11:20 · Score: 0

Volume!
1. Re:How do they plan to make money on free? by hedwards · 2010-11-26 13:29 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  I'm guessing it's to get word out. But more than that I suspect that they're hoping that by giving out the engine that it will help a community develop from which developers can recruit the talent. Talent that's used to working with their engine. Probably not a bad idea.
  
  It will be interesting to see how this turns out, but it definitely could work. The downside is that since only the winner gets a free license, I'm interested to know how many people are going to be willing to work on that, knowing that they'll not be able to redistribute their game if they don't either win or pay up.
2. Re:How do they plan to make money on free? by The+Mighty+Buzzard · 2010-11-26 17:23 · Score: 2, Insightful
  It got them mentioned on the front page of /. As many a weeping webmaster can attest, that is a lot of traffic to their site. Yay advertising.
  
  If even a few quality games come out of their offering, it grows the Linux gaming market that they can then take advantage of to sell more of their own games.
  
  It gets them some non-trivial good will from the Linux community. Always a good thing to have if you want money from it.
  
  It gets games made with their engine that otherwise wouldn't be. That makes it easier to point to quality examples of its use if they later decide to sell licenses.
  
  It doesn't cost them anything except a few man-hours reading and replying to applications.
  
  There really is no down-side to them. Take more economics classes.
  --
  Violence is like duct tape. If it doesn't solve the problem, you didn't use enough.
What surprises me... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2010-11-26 11:35 · Score: 5, Interesting

What I find curious about the general poverty of the linux gaming scene is how the prerequisite elements that do exist seem to have come together much less well than I would have expected, even as, in other areas, the prerequisite elements come together better than I would expect.

A lot of effort gets dumped into Linux and the software ecosystem that people generally mean when they say "linux"(gnome, KDE, prominent programs for both, etc.) A fair percentage of it is paid for(kernel work that makes it more suitable for vendor X's servers and vendor Y's embedded platforms, some Freedesktop consortium stuff, etc.); but much of it is purely voluntary, even the sort of thing that corporations might shy away from under the advice of their lawyers(swift reverse-engineering of iPod and MTP syncing, that one French physicist who single-handedly built support for about a bazillion pre-UVC webcams, etc.).

Similarly, a lot of purely voluntary effort gets dumped into the modding scene. On occasion, a very prominent and successful mod team gets snapped up and goes pro; but that is a sucker's bet. There is a lot of hard, sometimes tedious, modding/art/game balance work going on around commercial games purely voluntarily.

On the Linux side, support for cutting-edge, just-released games and engines is rather sparse; but there are a number of fully free engines and generic asset packs that have been kicking around for a while. All of ID's older engine properties have been cleaned up and open-ified, some from-scratch engines have as well, as well as a few other scratch developed or commercially abandoned projects.

There exist the engines(not cutting edge; but adequate enough for reasonably pretty graphics), there exists a talent pool, as proven by the modders, and their exists a reasonable amount of volunteerism and paid-for-by-people-unconcerned-by-free-riders paid work in the linux ecosystem generally. Why does that so seldom come together on the Linux side? Are the modding tools with contemporary-release proprietary games just that superior to the tools available to the freed engines? Is the mass of potential gamers to turn into modders just that much larger on Windows? Something else?
1. Re:What surprises me... by hedwards · 2010-11-26 13:33 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  It's a catch 22 sort of a situation. Which is why when I buy a game which is available on Mac, PC and Linux that I choose the Linux version or tell them that my main system is Linux.
  
  I have a copy of HoMM3 bought from Loki before they went belly up, unfortunate since the produce was quite well polished and plays just as well as the Windows copy I now own.
  
  More than that though, there's an awful lot of free Linux games out there, and Linux hasn't really drawn enough attention from either games or developers to make it a gaming platform. Crossover Games helps, but it's really not anywhere near good enough. Not to mention that the developer has no way of knowing that it's being played on Linux and that DRM schemes often foil it.
2. Re:What surprises me... by Kjella · 2010-11-26 14:38 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  For one most of the people that are paid have employers that want them to focus on specific things, not in detail but I doubt they'd could sit around making games on company time. The other thing is that it's much easier to envision a mod of an existing game than a new game, and on Linux you're mostly talking about a new game. There's few existing communities today. The open source model has proven much more effective when there is a clear rally flag, the way FreeCiv is a clone of civilization.
  
  --
  Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
3. Re:What surprises me... by Yfrwlf · 2010-11-26 15:42 · Score: 1
  
  I think you may have hit the nail on the head. I don't think it's anything like a lack of standards that is keeping there from being more open source Linux games, except good cross-distro installation standards (getting your game recognized by the software manager so you can control it, and even update it, using it), I think it's vision and organisation issues. Conveying one's vision for a game is difficult, and getting several developers to agree and want the same vision is pretty hard too. With something like FreeCiv, like you said, that vision is already very clear if you're simply trying to duplicate an existing concept. That, plus existing games that are good are great attention grabbers so those can get a lot of modders flocking around them, while you need to have a well-presented visible open source project if you want to grab attention.
  
  --
  Promote true freedom - support standards and interoperability.
4. Re:What surprises me... by Blakey+Rat · 2010-11-26 16:01 · Score: 1
  
  The motivator for (most) people doing creative work is to have people see/experience their work.
  You can make a mod for a PC game, which thousands of people share and talk about, or make a game from scratch on Linux, which not only has a significantly smaller audience, but is actually a harder development process (modding on an existing game lets you re-use a *lot* of stuff you'd have to make yourself on Linux.)
  
  --
  Comment of the year
5. Re:What surprises me... by LingNoi · 2010-11-26 17:23 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  Most open source projects are only developed by one person. X.org for example has only 12 main contributors even through it's a 20+ year old project.
  This is why open source games never go anywhere because a game needs far more then one person working on it, people quickly get bored due to lack of progress and the project dies. I've seen it over and over again on open source games.
  Also I think this is a good guide that sums up the situation too.. http://cube.wikispaces.com/How+not+to+start+a+mod
6. Re:What surprises me... by mrmeval · 2010-11-26 18:36 · Score: 1
  
  Their freebies do not work in 64bit Fedora 13.
  
  --
  I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
7. Re:What surprises me... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-11-26 23:29 · Score: 0
  
  One thing that always bugs me about gaming is that if you're not playing a game that uses the latest and greatest graphics engine, you're a worthless waste of time.
  Fuck that shit, now that I've got some free time, I would love to have an FPS-based adventure game to play in.
8. Re:What surprises me... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-11-27 01:07 · Score: 0
  
  Working at a small game development studio, I can say it's not so much a matter of luring attention from developers, but rather of enticing publishers.
  You can have a top-notch team raring to go make Linux games, but you won't, in the current ecosystem, find a publisher willing to front the money to pay salaries for the months or years the game is in development. Publishers lose money a lot, so they're a cautious bunch, and so far they haven't seen a business case for distributing on Linux.
  Heck, many publishers (outside the casual sphere) are pulling away from personal computers entirely for fear of piracy. It's rampant in the Windows space, even though most Windows users (not the tiny sample reading this site, more the ones who run Windows Starter on their netbooks and call the sample who read Slashdot when they have a problem) don't know enough to remove copy protection, or know where to look for unprotected copies of a game. The Linux community is much more literate in software modification, and better-connected to non-commercial software distribution channels. Although I have no doubt many, many Linux users would want to buy games, I suspect the piracy rate for Linux versions of games would be even higher than it is currently on Windows. (To catch a potential misunderstanding: I'm looking at the piracy rate, the ratio of copies played to copies purchased, not total number of copies pirated, which would be lower because of the smaller user base, at least initially)
  This may change if Linux develops a critical mass of users such that publishers can no longer resist trying to sell them something, or if a trusted distribution system like Steam takes the plunge in offering a Linux version that gives publishers some sense of security in their investment in the platform.
  In any case though, in order to foster commercial development, the Linux community needs to first convince publishers that it's a profitable investment. Then the developers will follow.
9. Re:What surprises me... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-11-27 01:47 · Score: -1, Troll
  
  The main problem is the linux 'community'. Overall they spend the majority of their time arguing over which flavor is better.
  And slamming new users for not knowing the obscure commandline syntax to do task X. Not all of them. But a huge majority.
  Secondary problem i've noticed in the game worlds the linux people are frequently the assholes.
  Why? Age? Eliteisim? I have no idea. But the majority really are assholes on purpose. (please stop doing Z, Screw you i can do Z if i want.)
  Plus from a pure marketing standpoint, many nix centric players are less likely overall to pay money for any given game.
  Linux gaming is not worth it by any measure. Low potential time/cash return. Unpleasant community. High drama over pointless subjects. Open hostility to new users.
  What nix only games i've explored were quickly dropped for various ratios of the above reasons.
  This will be modded troll/flamebait. As it's the truth. Sorry. Linux might be perfectly capable and ready for mainstream gaming. But overall it's users are not.
10. Re:What surprises me... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-11-27 12:46 · Score: 0
  
  Sauerbraten may have no mods but it`s a great FPS. After a multiplayer internet game on sauer, playing CoD makes me yawn.
A nice gesture by somenickname · 2010-11-26 11:37 · Score: 5, Interesting

This is a nice gesture but, I don't really see it jump starting linux game development. I don't think linux will be considered a viable gaming market until a gigantic name like Blizzard starts releasing native linux clients. In fact, I think Blizzard could single handedly make linux a gaming platform. They already release OpenGL versions for the Mac so technologically, they are a short hop from a linux client rather than a giant leap. I wonder if thousands of e-mails to release Diablo 3 with a native linux client would be enough to persuade them to do it.
1. Re:A nice gesture by Shikaku · 2010-11-26 11:58 · Score: 1
  
  s/Blizzard/Valve/g
2. Re:A nice gesture by Anonymous Coward · 2010-11-26 12:00 · Score: 0
  
  I wonder if thousands of e-mails to release Diablo 3 with a native linux client would be enough to persuade them to do it.
  Nope.
3. Re:A nice gesture by Enderandrew · 2010-11-26 12:03 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  World of Warcraft and many of their games run fine on Wine already. Eve Online officially supported their game in Linux for a while, and that was just Wine + their Client bundled together. If Blizzard officially recognized and supported their clients on Wine, that alone would be a huge win for Linux.
  And if Google is really pushing for greater success of Linux, helping advance Wine would help them.
  
  --
  http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
4. Re:A nice gesture by gman003 · 2010-11-26 12:53 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Valve is another company that could do it. Importantly, they're currently porting all their major games to the Mac, which is a very good halfway point for porting to Linux. More importantly, they've been releasing Linux ports of their dedicated server software - no renderer or client software, meaning you can't actually play it, but that means a good chunk of the code is already there. Most importantly, though, Valve is pretty much in control of digital distribution, which is the ONLY way commercial games are going to come to Linux (many shops don't even stock Windows games anymore, let alone Linux) - and their current push onto the Mac is causing other companies to port there as well.
  Looking through my current Steam gamelist, I see 20-odd games that already have Linux ports, and another 30 or so that could be ported with less effort than normal. Now, not all of them are guaranteed to get a port - but even if half of them do, that's enough for 35 games on launch day, probably more (I used my "purchased games" list instead of the full "all games on Steam" list). That's enough for a pretty good launch, which would probably push other developers to either release ports, or hire someone to port it.
5. Re:A nice gesture by mqduck · 2010-11-26 13:25 · Score: 1
  
  They already release OpenGL versions for the Mac so technologically, they are a short hop from a linux client rather than a giant leap.
  That brings up an interesting point. If a developer knows they're going to make a Mac port, why in the world do they still write their game in Direct3D first?
  
  --
  Property is theft.
6. Re:A nice gesture by mqduck · 2010-11-26 13:30 · Score: 1
  
  This seriously deserves some modpoints. While I'd prefer truly native GNU/Linux ports, I'd be a happy ducky if we could see "Made for Windows XP/Vista/7/Wine" on game boxes in the future.
  
  --
  Property is theft.
7. Re:A nice gesture by somenickname · 2010-11-26 14:19 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Official Wine support would certainly be a step in the right direction. I played WoW under Wine long ago and I got the impression that while it wasn't officially supported, it wasn't such an unsavory configuration that Blizzard would tell you to bugger off if you asked for support for it. I have no evidence to back this up but, I also got the impression that the desire to play WoW on linux gave the Wine project a very tangible flagship kind of "This Must Work" application. So, while I would love to see native linux clients, official Wine support would still be amazing and, possibly more beneficial to the linux community because of the side effects of having a better Wine.
8. Re:A nice gesture by DurendalMac · 2010-11-26 14:20 · Score: 1
  
  Except that Blizzard has been releasing Mac games for nearly two decades now. Macs still aren't a real gaming platform. Why would Linux, which has a much smaller piece of the desktop market than Apple, suddenly become a gaming platform when Blizzard releases a game for it? You'd need a serious Linux EXCLUSIVE game to do that, and I don't see that happening.
9. Re:A nice gesture by gman003 · 2010-11-26 14:21 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  Performance. On Windows, Direct3D apps are faster. Not by much, but enough to be used. Also, the renderer itself is only a small part of the port. The main thing is optimization - fine-tuning it to run quickly and efficiently.
10. Re:A nice gesture by DurendalMac · 2010-11-26 14:21 · Score: 1
  
  Because they can just wrap it up with Cider.
11. Re:A nice gesture by somenickname · 2010-11-26 15:03 · Score: 1
  
  I'm not really sure how to say this without using stereotypes but, linux users and mac users are generally very different types of people. While the installed user base of OSX is larger than linux, the percentage of hardcore gamers is probably much, much higher on linux. I think when you target OSX for games, you are targeting a platform. If you target linux, you are targeting a demographic: Nerds with copious amounts of free time.
12. Re:A nice gesture by DurendalMac · 2010-11-26 15:17 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  Nonsense. If people were hardcore gamers then they wouldn't be running only Linux in the first place. There are some that run Linux and use games in Wine, but there aren't as many as you make out. Furthermore, those who do are usually savvy enough to get games running in Wine. Most Mac users have a hard time figuring out how to dual boot, and Crossover in OS X has much crappier performance than Wine in Linux. As such, combined with Apple having, at minimum, five times the marketshare as Linux on the desktop, you have game devs far more likely to port games to OS X than Linux. That's the state of things. I think Linux users can expect devs to try and make sure they don't break Wine compatibility at the very best.
13. Re:A nice gesture by walshy007 · 2010-11-26 15:46 · Score: 1
  
  You do know that the WoW beta included a linux client as well as the windows one yes?
  Apparently the official reasons it was dropped for release were 'legal reasons'. Nobody knows if the port is kept up to date, however it is known that one point some of the developers were using the linux build on their own machines.
14. Re:A nice gesture by somenickname · 2010-11-26 16:03 · Score: 1
  
  I may not have made my point well but, I think a love of gaming and a curiosity of technology are attributes you'll often find together in a person. I admit that this is again generalizing but, buying a mac is practically a declaration of "I have no interest whatsoever in understanding how my computer works. I just want it to work" (In fact, that's basically what Mac ads say). If a curiosity of technology and gaming go hand in hand (which I think they do), then mac users are the most abysmal gaming market available.
  Show me a hardcore gamer and I'll show you someone who would probably find linux interesting.
15. Re:A nice gesture by Blakey+Rat · 2010-11-26 16:09 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  That brings up an interesting point. If a developer knows they're going to make a Mac port, why in the world do they still write their game in Direct3D first?
  It's not an either/or problem. You can easily write your game engine to use either, and it's been done before. (For example, pretty much every game engine that exists ever in the last decade.) That way, you get higher performance on DirectX-supporting machines, and compatibility with more platforms, without having to change your core game code. This is how, for example, Gamebryo and Unreal-based games are ported to Mac and PS3.
  You have to remember, though, that adding a second platform doubles the QA time, and if you're talking about Macs (and especially Linux), OSes full of users who, for one reason or another, don't play (or don't buy) games, then the financials just don't line up for the port.
  You also have something of an image problem, in that DirectX 10+ games really, really do look completely different than DirectX 9 games. So you're stuck either writing a *ton* of code in your GL layer to simulate the DX10 look, or shipping a game that looks radically different on Mac/PS3/whatever.
  It's not some horrible nasty conspiracy towards less-popular OSes, like so many people on this site make it out to be, it's a simple equation on the developer's balancesheet.
  
  --
  Comment of the year
16. Re:A nice gesture by Blakey+Rat · 2010-11-26 16:14 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  the percentage of hardcore gamers is probably much, much higher on linux.
  Hardcore gamers who (generally speaking) don't see anything wrong with pirating software. That little detail is pretty important.
  
  --
  Comment of the year
17. Re:A nice gesture by somenickname · 2010-11-26 16:36 · Score: 1
  
  the percentage of hardcore gamers is probably much, much higher on linux.
  Hardcore gamers who (generally speaking) don't see anything wrong with pirating software. That little detail is pretty important.
  That seems a bit disingenuous. There are philosophically crazy open source users and there are practical open source users. The latter almost certainly outweigh the former and they don't mind paying for a game. I've met far, far more "This just works better" linux users than I have "Fuck the man!" linux users.
18. Re:A nice gesture by DurendalMac · 2010-11-26 19:02 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  I have several friends who are pretty hardcore gamers. None of them are very interested in Linux. Why would they be? Everything they want to play runs fine in Windows. Furthermore, I've seen PLENTY of hardcore gamers who are utterly clueless. Why else would people blow money on Alienware? You are completely mistaken in thinking that hardcore gamers are interested in how a computer works. Most don't really care. They just want the computer to run their games.
19. Re:A nice gesture by SheeEttin · 2010-11-26 19:13 · Score: 1
  
  Blizzard could single handedly make linux a gaming platform. They already release OpenGL versions for the Mac so technologically, they are a short hop from a linux client rather than a giant leap
  The Source engine does OpenGL on the Mac now too, so Valve is in the same position. The Steam client partially runs on Linux (natively, that is, not under Wine) too, although Valve is denying there's an actual Linux client for end users now. (Of course, Michael Larabel of Phoronix claims otherwise.)
  
  Time will tell if it will come to pass or not. In the meantime, write an email and express your interest.
  http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/company/about/contact.html
  http://www.valvesoftware.com/contact/
  Protip: writing a physical letter carries a whole lot more weight. Do that if you can. ;)
20. Re:A nice gesture by Blakey+Rat · 2010-11-26 19:19 · Score: 1
  
  Possibly, but the perception is the part that matters. It doesn't help that Mac game releases also generally have > 50% piracy rates if they're priced more than $15.
  
  --
  Comment of the year
21. Re:A nice gesture by Raenex · 2010-11-27 05:56 · Score: 1
  
  This is a nice gesture
  No it isn't. It's completely self-serving (free publicity) and limited in nature. It costs them nothing to license an engine people weren't going to buy anyways, and get this: The first place team gets to keep using the engine for free for their game, but the runner-ups have to buy the license to keep working on their game:
  "The winner team will get a free binary license on Unigine engine for a single project on PC platform (Windows / Linux) with full access to technical support and updates.
  The teams that will take the 2nd and the 3rd place are granted huge discounts on licensing Unigine."
  I don't have a problem with this contest at all. It's a good thing that companies are looking to invest in Linux gaming. I just don't want it mislabeled it as a charitable effort.
22. Re:A nice gesture by tlhIngan · 2010-11-29 04:13 · Score: 1
  
  Official Wine support would certainly be a step in the right direction. I played WoW under Wine long ago and I got the impression that while it wasn't officially supported, it wasn't such an unsavory configuration that Blizzard would tell you to bugger off if you asked for support for it. I have no evidence to back this up but, I also got the impression that the desire to play WoW on linux gave the Wine project a very tangible flagship kind of "This Must Work" application. So, while I would love to see native linux clients, official Wine support would still be amazing and, possibly more beneficial to the linux community because of the side effects of having a better Wine.
  So support the WINE project and purchase a subscription for Crossover - pro or games, either supports a lot of the Blizzard games. I think a week after StarCraft II came out, Codeweavers came out with a release that officially supported it.
  WoW, Eve Online, Steam games, etc are officially supported. And the patches they do to get it to work are rolled back into WINE. It's the easiest and best way to get official support.
  And don't confuse CodeWeavers and Crossover with Transgaming and the like. CodeWeavers officially supports the WINE project, rolls patches into WINE, and offers support, like all the other good open-source companies out there. The WINE project recommends them if you want paid support, too.
23. Re:A nice gesture by badkarmadayaccount · 2010-12-05 03:31 · Score: 1
  
  Galium3D is working on D3D11 support as a state tracker - i.e. native 3D performance, possibly faster than Windows, no tweaking the game engine.
  
  --
  I know tobacco is bad for you, so I smoke weed with crack.
24. Re:A nice gesture by badkarmadayaccount · 2010-12-05 03:32 · Score: 1
  
  Ever heard of dual boot?
  
  --
  I know tobacco is bad for you, so I smoke weed with crack.
25. Re:A nice gesture by A+Jew · 2010-12-08 18:04 · Score: 1
  
  There's no point in pirating software on Linux, since almost all the worthwhile apps on it are free. If someone wanted to pirate software, he'd use Windows, since the selection is much greater.
No Thank You by goruka · 2010-11-26 11:48 · Score: 2, Informative

I'd rather use alternatives such as Ogre3D or Irrlitch even if not technologically advanced. I think that's the best way to support Linux-based game development, the same way Blender3D has been doing with their animated short films. Otherwise I feel the community will gain nothing from this. You know, what bugs the the most is that even though Unigine is closed sourced, It has never been used in any important industry title, despite being around for years.
1. Re:No Thank You by Anonymous Coward · 2010-11-26 12:43 · Score: 1, Interesting
  
  Technology wise, Ogre3D is not behind, at least on the 3D engine front. Unigine might offer a few features that fall outside the strict 3D engine category, but I doubt the 3D part is any more advanced than Ogre's. Not being able to fix bugs or customize the engine is a major downside.
  Still, it's good that whoever might be using it for a game can now release a linux binary with minimal cost.
Nexuiz, Tremulous, etc. by Enderandrew · 2010-11-26 11:59 · Score: 1

If you already have a fairly successful Linux game now, why wouldn't you put in a bid for this? It would take less work for you to port your game than one designed from scratch. And you can prove that you already know how to deliver on the Linux platform.
That being said, shooters come and go. Their are 10 million. Even with shooters being the most popular genre typically, I think a great platform game would be more likely to steal headlines and gain attention.
Retro-style platform games (New Super Mario Bros, Megaman 9 and 10, Sonic 4) are all the rage. Deliver a good looking game with old school sensibility as a platformer, and everyone will fall in love.
If I'm a start-up trying to explode with a commercial product, I'd see if I could buy the Commander Keen license on the cheap, end up landing a great engine here for free and capture the social/platformer market with releases on XBox Live, PSN, Wiiware, PC, Mac, Linux and maybe even iOS.
If someone steals this idea and does literally make a new Commander Keen game, please consider bringing me on for design.

--
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
1. Re:Nexuiz, Tremulous, etc. by TiberiusMonkey · 2010-11-26 12:43 · Score: 1
  
  God I'd kill for a new, well done, Commander Keen game.
2. Re:Nexuiz, Tremulous, etc. by DurendalMac · 2010-11-26 14:24 · Score: 1
  
  Heh, I don't know if "everyone" would dive in. There are plenty of good retro games out there that have gone absolutely nowhere. You'd need to serious advertising dollars to have more than a scant chance of real success. Heck, I'm building an old-school party-based RPG (Think Bard's Tale) for Android and iOS once I either learn Cocoa or see if there are any good cross-compilers when I'm done, but I'm not betting on it doing more than making me a few bucks. It's fun to dream, but try to keep your expectations low. At worst, it'll probably meet those expectations. At best, you'll have them vastly exceeded.
3. Re:Nexuiz, Tremulous, etc. by Blakey+Rat · 2010-11-26 16:22 · Score: 1
  
  Even with shooters being the most popular genre typically,
  Here in the Real World (i.e. outside of Slashdot and our parents' basement), sports simulations are the most popular genre of game. I mean, no doubt shooters are popular, but Halo 3 has nothing on Madden.
  
  --
  Comment of the year
4. Re:Nexuiz, Tremulous, etc. by Enderandrew · 2010-11-26 18:04 · Score: 1
  
  Halo 3 broke all the video game sales records. So yes, it does have something on Madden.
  http://www.informationweek.com/news/internet/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=202102318
  
  --
  http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
meh by larry+bagina · 2010-11-26 12:11 · Score: 4, Funny

there are plenty of FREE (as in GPL) 3D engines on Linux. These posers should take their closed-source engine and cram it up their ass.

--
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
1. Re:meh by hedwards · 2010-11-26 13:38 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  Actually, that's probably one of Linux's biggest problems in that respect. People are used to getting really good games for free or not being able to have them at all without Wine. It's a tough cycle to break because somebody has to release something in order for it to be bought, and gamers expect to have something to play or they won't ditch Windows.
  
  It's getting a lot better than it used to be, the commercially available Linux games are far better than they used to be in every way.
2. Re:meh by DurendalMac · 2010-11-26 14:26 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  Yes, cry that someone is trying to help Linux development. Get pissed because they're not doing it in a way that YOU want.
  
  Zealots like you are exactly what is wrong with Linux right now. Linux can be free and open all you want, but when you expect software vendors to strictly do the same and badmouth those who don't, you're driving developers away. Less software = less users, plain and simple.
3. Re:meh by gman003 · 2010-11-26 14:28 · Score: 1
  
  Not of this level of quality. I've checked out many of the GPL engines, and they just aren't up to the level of quality of Unreal Engine 3 or Unigine. There's a lot of things open-source does better, but so far, game engines are not one of them.
4. Re:meh by Gaygirlie · 2010-11-26 16:23 · Score: 1
  
  I see plenty of free 3D engines around, yes, but most of them are rather inadequate for modern games. And like it or not, there's still quite plenty of gaming companies who prefer closed-source engines.
  I'm just saying that I personally do not care if the game is closed or not, or if parts of it are, as long as it looks good, has great gameplay, and is available for Linux. God knows we lack good games.
5. Re:meh by hairyfeet · 2010-11-26 18:09 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  I don't know if it is the engines so much as the crappy lack of ideas. Look at the list of engines another posters added above, how many are nothing but shitty Q3:Arena clones? On the Cube 2 page I got "We aren't focused on single player, but click here for a bunch making a great single player with our engine" or some such. What do I find on the link? project: dead.
  You come up with a kick ass single player with a good story, maybe some nice twist like Bioshock? Folks WILL notice. Crank out the same tired ass Q3 shit we have been seeing for a decade? Why would we care, when Counter Strike and its kin have had that genre locked up for ages? Surely with all the paranoia I've seen on some of the forums somebody could come up with a good Deus Ex/Conspiracy Theory/ Matrix/ they are all out to get you storyline, and hell if it had cool twists and gave you a hell of a ride most of us wouldn't care if the graphics were at Far Cry 1 level.
  So WTF? Why is every damned Linux game designer on the fricking planet bound and determined to give us the same old CTF DM bullshit we've seen about 100 bazillion times huh? Hell I just got done playing a little NOLF and even though the graphics are dated it is still pretty damned fun to play. Yet another CTF or Mario clone is just too been there, done that. C'mon guys, I know there are some talented writers out there, if you want us Windows guys to suddenly start taking Linux gaming seriously make a game that makes Deus Ex or Bioshock look like DOOM. You can do it if you try!
  
  --
  ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
6. Re:meh by kayoshiii · 2010-11-26 22:10 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Please point me to a GPL game engine that supports DirectX11/OpenGL4 features.
7. Re:meh by WWWWolf · 2010-11-26 23:50 · Score: 1
  
  Yes, cry that someone is trying to help Linux development. Get pissed because they're not doing it in a way that YOU want.
  I know it's easy to point out that "but it isn't GPL! waah!" is not exactly a good argument. Obviously.
  But I think it'd be much easier to say "but we already have GPL engines! waah! How does this contest inspire us to do something we were already avoiding doing?"
  The problem with open source games, or Linux gaming in general, isn't the lack of 3D engines. It's the lack of budget (time, effort, talent?) for creating nice game assets and developing the content. An engine donation isn't going to make the game instantly awesome. It just raises the same question as always: "where the hell are we going to get the assets from?" It fails to give a great, new answer to the other burning question: "can we sell the game as closed source?" (because there are plenty of 3D engines out there that are under LGPL/BSD/MIT license.)
  Obligatory Car Analogy: It's kind of like lending a Ferrari to someone, who just replies "thanks, dude, but I don't have a driver's license and live in a hick town with only damn twisty mud roads, no much use for a sports car anyway. My dad promised me his old Lada when I grow up."
8. Re:meh by Anonymous Coward · 2010-11-27 01:14 · Score: 0
  
  Yeah, cuz those big name software companies really care about some post on slashdot. After reading that I would not be surprised if there were a number of developers on the floor crying because they got their feelings hurt. They are probably making a solemn vow to never go anywhere near linux for the rest of their lives. A shame, really. We were that close.
9. Re:meh by Anonymous Coward · 2010-11-27 01:26 · Score: 0
  
  Reason for that is that open source lacks artists and modelers and other designers. There are lots of pure code monkeys but too few artists and especially artists for games (to draw illustrations, ideas and the whole virtual worlds as example for code monkeys how stuff would be done).
  Example the spring engine for RTS games. It has nice code but totally lack of the artists. There are few games (like complete annihilation) on what projects has artists to model some new own models, other than copied from original Total Annihilation game.
  If they would get even 5 artists to intrest the games, it would be huge help.
10. Re:meh by DurendalMac · 2010-11-27 05:09 · Score: 1
  
  No single drop of rain believes itself to be responsible for the flood. One idiot on ./ is nothing. Thousands upon thousands ranting and raving all over the internet? That's a bit different. If someone is interested in developing a commercial game with Linux, don't you think they'll want to check the waters first? And when they see "OMG CLOSED SOURCE FUCK OFF", they'll probably can the idea. It's no secret that a large portion of the Linux desktop userbase thinks like this.
11. Re:meh by BitZtream · 2010-11-27 06:11 · Score: 0, Flamebait
  
  Yea, good attitude, someone trying to promote Linux and you tell them to fuck off because it doesn't fit your perfect little world.
  No wonder Linux will never make any desktop progress, its users are its own worst enemy.
  Angsty little fucks aren't you.
  
  --
  Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
12. Re:meh by BitZtream · 2010-11-27 15:18 · Score: 1
  
  Mutually exclusive items. Drop the DirectX part and you might have a little better luck, but lets face it, no self respecting GPL zealot is going to have anything related to Microsoft in it.
  
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  Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
13. Re:meh by am+2k · 2010-11-28 04:00 · Score: 1
  
  Reason for that is that open source lacks artists and modelers and other designers.
  Uh, game engines aren't written by designers, they're written by programmers.
14. Re:meh by Ant+P. · 2010-11-28 04:38 · Score: 1
  
  Please point me to a non-GPL game engine that supports those features and has actually produced a fun game.
15. Re:meh by renoX · 2010-11-28 21:09 · Score: 1
  
  Uhm, what good does it do to have the game engine supporting DirectX11/OpenGL4 features, when the drivers don't support those features?
  AFAIK we don't have Linux's drivers with those features..
16. Re:meh by badkarmadayaccount · 2010-12-05 04:04 · Score: 1
  
  I believe the idea is - make Windows game, license engine -> profit, using savings from game engine licensing, make Linux port -> profit.
  
  --
  I know tobacco is bad for you, so I smoke weed with crack.
mod do3Jn by Anonymous Coward · 2010-11-26 12:14 · Score: -1

num3e8s continue
Mod Parent +Insightful by handy_vandal · 2010-11-26 13:19 · Score: 2, Insightful

Right on: you nailed it, clearly and succinctly and thoroughly.
Although you didn't take an outright "call to arms" tone, I hope the ideas you are propounding get the attention and action they deserve.

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-kgj
Re:"GNU" $tallman by Anonymous Coward · 2010-11-26 14:07 · Score: 0

Yes, you'll eventually see "GNU" on game boxes, along with pictures of your corpulent guru, $tallman.
I really don't understand... by suprcvic · 2010-11-26 16:55 · Score: 1

why there is even a question of "Why isn't there more gaming on Linux?" Look at how many desktops Linux currently occupies. I don't have the numbers in front of me but it's pretty small compared to Windows and Mac. Now look at how many of those users are going to be interested in playing games. Comparatively, not many. Hell, they already chose a free OS with mostly free apps, why would they pay for a game? The logic may not necessarily hold up, but I can imagine thats how the game companies see it. Nobody is going to put all the time, effort and resources into creating a port of a game for Linux when their return on investment is almost guaranteed to be negative. How people can't see this is beyond me. It's simple economics folks.
1. Re:I really don't understand... by IRWolfie- · 2010-11-27 04:22 · Score: 1
  
  Linux users do pay for games: blog.wolfire.com/2010/05/Linux-users-contribute-twice-as-much-as-Windows-users But yes, there are a relatively small number of linux consumer desktops.
2. Re:I really don't understand... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-11-27 15:07 · Score: 0
  
  Its not just that, a significant portion of the Linux gamers (The primary market for native Linux AAA games) also run Windows and buy Windows only games, Spending money on a linux port isn't really worthwhile if all it does is move sales from windows to linux.
3. Re:I really don't understand... by badkarmadayaccount · 2010-12-05 04:15 · Score: 1
  
  Add a $15 mark-up to recoup costs, casual gamers will still be saving money (MS tax).
  
  --
  I know tobacco is bad for you, so I smoke weed with crack.
mod 0p by Anonymous Coward · 2010-11-26 17:11 · Score: -1, Troll

from one 7oldPer on
we have plenty of engines! by Anonymous Coward · 2010-11-27 02:35 · Score: 0

The problem is not a lack of good engines. There are plenty of good engines. The problem isa lack of good and open source art, models, music, and sound effects. the creative commons really needs boosting here
Not Linux friendly at all... by hackel · 2010-11-27 03:06 · Score: 1

In my opinion, being Linux-friendly *cannot* exclude being Open-Source and GPL-friendly, as these are really the heart and soul of Linux. Releasing a free *license* is not like releasing the source code. This should not be applauded.
1. Re:Not Linux friendly at all... by BitZtream · 2010-11-27 15:23 · Score: 1
  
  Yep, turn away any help you can get because you have a retarded political agenda that says if you don't get the keys to the entire hotel, you won't spend the night there.
  You'll continue to be looking for a room while you stand in the rain, more or less alone.
  Linux can't make progress with ignorance like yours. You should probably learn to accept that people can use Linux for things you don't agree with, thats what FREEDOM is about.
  You don't want software freedom, you want free software because you're too cheap to pay for it. OSS and GPL are just the mask you hide behind.
  
  --
  Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
2. Re:Not Linux friendly at all... by jgrahn · 2010-11-27 22:01 · Score: 1
  
  You don't want software freedom, you want free software because you're too cheap to pay for it. OSS and GPL are just the mask you hide behind.
  What an odd thing to say to someone who just dismissed a free-as-in-beer offer!
Let me understand you by Anonymous Coward · 2010-11-27 07:23 · Score: 0

Let me understand you. A person who wants to understand how a computer works
Wants an Open Source Unix environment ... Mac Check
High quality software development tools for free ... Mac Check
Great available technical documentation ... Mac Check
A large pool of similar minded fellow enthusiasts ... Mac Check
The ability to write device drivers and kernel extensions ... Mac Check
Great user level software choices both free and commercial ... Mac Check
High performance options including graphics and distributed computing .. Mac Check
Lots of media to incorporate in projects ... Mac Check
Great dead tree books about how the computer works and software development ... Mac Check
Works out of the box and doesn't frustrate people attempting to accomplish a goal ... Mac Check
1. Re:Let me understand you by Anonymous Coward · 2010-11-27 07:31 · Score: 0
  
  I almost forgot:
  Correctly sleeps and wakes laptop ... Mac Check
  Works with common consumer electronics gadgets ... Mac Check
  Has a user interface that isn't a poor imitation of MS Windows ... Mac Check
2. Re:Let me understand you by Anonymous Coward · 2010-11-28 10:00 · Score: 0
  
  Oh, missed another couple:
  Is a huge fanboi ... Mac Check
  Wants to suck Steve Jobs's cock ... Mac Check
3. Re:Let me understand you by badkarmadayaccount · 2010-12-05 03:53 · Score: 1
  
  s/Mac/Linux||{[Free]||[Net]||[Open]BSD}||OpenSolaris/g
  
  --
  I know tobacco is bad for you, so I smoke weed with crack.
LOKI didn't belly-up, Employees sabotaged it. by Anonymous Coward · 2010-11-27 11:15 · Score: 0

(1) The were paying high rent and high electricity bills on their development building before releasing a ground-breakingly profitable port of a Title,
(2) Developers were being payed salaries that allowed them to subsist elsewhere when this should have been more of a College-dorm facility that had on-sight living quarters with low-pay (consider a Ryan "Icculus.Org" Gordon lived on-sight because his car wasn't good-enough for himmm),
(3) The employees gave the President too-much stress that when he gave them reverse-engineered employment changes through IRS Tax Forms they all turned on him because it exposed employees to more liabilities,
(4) The president of Loki Software, with a family of 4 including the wife, a house, and a big-screen TV that the entire team would join under at times after work, were all lost in-order to maintane Payroll to a group of employees that had no prior profitable employment under this industry yet demanded the Status & Image of such respectable Pay,
(5) Loki Software was a pack of Betas that gutted their own Alpha male President Scott Draeker,
(6) Every software porting group has always been an extension of the original title company, not an expensive Storate locker full of whiny over-paid bitching employees.
The one that lost on Loki was Scott. His payed-off house was taken under his feat, his car too, wife took the kids and left him abruptly to assume over $300k debt, employees have nothing good to say about him despite him making their Payroll as long as he did while they didn't perform a reputable task at bringing a ported Title to market for profit.