Slashdot Mirror
CRYENGINE Finally Lands On Linux
An anonymous reader writes: CRYENGINE, the video game engine from Crytek, will run natively on Linux starting from version 3.8.1. Other improvements include the ability to run on the Oculus Rift, support for OpenGL, 8-weight GPU vertex skinning, and improved POM self-shadowing. Here are the full release notes. They've also added Game Zero, a full blown example game that demonstrates how various features of the engine can work.
Valve mostly uses the Source engine and it already supports Linux, so a lot of Valve games are already Linux+SteamOS games.
The Linux port of CryEngine does not mean however that the existing CryEngine games get a Linux port overnight as it requires further work on the game developer's side (at the very minimum a recompilation but I guess there will be lots of small things and also it may be a problem if they use any third-party lib that does not support Linux)
Real life is overrated.
Actually, this is the release with VR support, which has already been confirmed as being the last version of Cryengine they're going to merge in. As for the work involved, Cloud Imperium Games didn't hire away half of Crytech's engineers and open an office in Frankfurt for nothing.
No-one is going to make a multi-million-dollar game for exclusively for Linux, but releasing on Linux as an additional platform can be worth it if the extra effort to support Linux is small enough.
releasing on Linux as an additional platform can be worth it if the extra effort to support Linux is small enough.
Why? So you can spend a fortune porting it, only to be hit with:
If the engine already supports Linux, porting the game won't cost a fortune.
a) the fact that most Linux users are cheapskates and rarely pay for software
The sales stats from the Humble Bundles suggest that Linux users do in fact pay for games.
b) the complaints that it only works on X and Y distros, as opposed to the thousands of others
Games typically ship with their own versions of all the libraries they need, so they don't depend on the way a distro packages libraries. In any case, this is something that would be handled in the engine, so it's not a burden for the game developer.
c) the stupid-ass Stallman hippies who complain that it isn't open-source
Any game developer that can't deal with people complaining won't stay sane long... ;)
Besides, real Stallman followers don't use the term "open source"