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Games Drive Wider Linux Adoption
Will in Seattle writes "C-Net has a story about how the bundled-in games on newer Linux pre-installed boxen may drive the rapid adoption of Linux in the mainstream. Which, naturally, all the coders fear above all else. Who let in these gamers? (Reminds me of my days at SF and Comix cons back when I was a SMOG and a SMOF - will we ever learn?)" The story also says that Penguin Computing is now building Linux computes specifically for gamers, too. Enjoy!
Yes but will all these games be free?
You seem to object to paying for software, or at
least you're allergic to software where you've
no control of the source. Why should a game be
any different to an OS? It either does enough
of what you want or it doesn't...
that's why mugs like me put up with rebooting
our Windoze machines so often!
Who wants to spend a fortune on a Linux PC when
they can have a new Playstation II? If they're
happy to BUY games a console is a lot easier.
On the other hand, get some FREE games going on
Linux and the tight-wads like me will come running!
Don't get me wrong, I wish Linux well, but it
aint for me, not yet...
Lazy Coward
"Romanus eunt domus"
Personally I wouldn't like most gamers to use Linux. It would mean that I had to answer a lot more email for the products I'm developing, which of course aren't stable at the first release. There is a solution though - I could enter another OS scene and leave Linux behind. This is probably what most programmers will do. Either scare newbies away (as is the case with a lot of other open source operating systems) -- or leave when it's getting hard to find (really) interested people. Think about it.
.... But Linux is taking it while walking within a single pantleg. I like others who have posted see the need for a common access interface to hardware and 3d api's. Without anything of this nature (making rpm's more like installshield would be kind of interesting...) gaming is going to stay in the "experimental" area for programmers, and even worse for gamers. The Linux community is going to have to do something for the first time.. Agree on something (besides listening to LT on what will be their next kernel).... -D.Alphaeus
-- Java is not a Jedi trait... "do, or do not, there is no try" --
Exactly thanks for illustrating my point to everybody else. It is what you like, but nobody here seems to follow that mantra outside a select few. My other point is that it is too late for Linux as a game machine. It has far too much to catch up on in supporting 3D hardware & other gaming devices. I consider recompiling your kernel wasted cpu cycles just as you ppl consider installing NT wasted cpu cycles. Though it's all about what you want to do. For the record, I doubt you were compiling a kernel & cd-ripping at the same time. Granted it might be possible inside X, but I'd like to know your configuration so I could update mine :).
Loki also has been working on open-source projects to improve how well Linux handles JPEG graphics files.
Oh? The open-source projects in Loki's homepage have projects for improving MPEG and MJPEG (=motion JPEG) movie playback. Neither of those actually deal with "JPEG graphics files", really.
Hi Eugene,
:) Well, take care, and e-mail me if you have any more good ideas/comments/suggestions..
You raised a good point in your response to my post... I agree that you can build cheap boxes on your own, but the minimal extra cost in having a box built by a VAR like Penguin is, in my experience, is good for people who want a pre-built, pre-installed box, where we at Penguin do the work, shop for parts, burn-in the machines... You also get a lot of cool stuff besides the hardware: If you go to the Penguin Computing homepage, you'll see on the system configurators that a Red Hat Linux box set, cables, a Linux How-To Book, a Penguin Computing Quick Start Guide, a plush toy Tux Penguin that places like Linuxmall charge about $8 USD for, are included with every system we ship. Penguin Computing systems come with a warranty (see website for details) and offers free tech support by phone during our business hours (6AM-6PM Pacific) and 24-hour Tech support with a San Francisco number. We at Penguin also have a toll-free number, 1-888-Penguin... and an online support page where customers and non-customers can post software and hardware support issues... All of our support staff know Red Hat Linux, especially our custom kernel installation, like the backs of their hands... Oh yeah, there's also the thing about employee salaries, and money to stay in business
Best regards,
Justin "no-K-in-my-name" Cheung
Founder and Vice-Penguin, Gnuidea Software: Santa Cruz, California
Gnuidea Software: "well-paid developers, fabulous free software"
http://www.gnuidea.com (coming soon)
Penguin Computing Complete Linux Solutions, "because downtime is not an option"
On the web at:
http://www.penguincomputing.com
The definition of Linux is still plastic - fundamental design decisions may be made to support the gaming market instead of your most demanding use. Would it even be wise for Linus deliberately disregard the needs and wishes of 10% of the market? 30%? 50? There are millions of gamers out ther trying to breath life into old Pentiums or 486's. They could triple our ranks overnight
In the longer run, gaming is likely to be a boon. Home LANs, video, audio, etc. got a giant boost from games. However, if we're going to look at the long term, we might be better served by a massive gamer focus in late 2000 vs. late 1999.
Games are widely considered the most demanding and fastidious applications on a typical system. We may enjoy fiddling with the OS (rather a game in itself, no?) but someone who only cares about their 'kill factor' may find themselves pushed to accept all the 'not ready for primetime' PR that is noted here each day, if they have a bad experience.
Is the linux community aupport up to this influx? Many gamers, downloading from FTP, may find that Linux leaves a bad taste in their mouths, and that's a black eye for us (even if half the problem is just "this ain't how Windows does it" - we're all frustrated by apps/OSs that don't do things as we're used to)
Maybe your top app isn't that demanding; maybe you dying to build your joystick calluses; maybe the demands (OS/support/discussion) of gamers will fling you out the nearest (X)window; And maybe you'll gnash your teeth to nubs because the driver for some card on your older-tech box gets held up, while the perpetual torrent of new gamer cards gets instant support and constant driver updates.
[The Linux community is somewhat fad-proofed by volunteer efforts, but that still doesn't necessarily make gaming support more attractive to a typical Linuxer]
The Lamborghinis don't mean that there's tons of capital available for Linux. Rather they illustrate gaming capital that is not available for Linux. Tell a hotshot game coder you're cutting his perks/pay to go into a OS that he (obviously) doesn't currently use -- he'll wish you luck (and enjoy the fruits of your labor - as a consumer) and hightail it to another outfit,
Just a few Lamboghinis can cost you enough coders to put you in chapter 11, without doing that much to help your company, the Linux community, or computing in general. What's a million these days?
If you can go to bed, knowing you did a valuable thing today, you're very lucky. If you can't... it's not bedtime
For the record, I doubt you were compiling a kernel & cd-ripping at the same time
I'm a little confused. On my p2-450 cd-ripping (cdparanoia) only takes about 15% of my cpu time (via the highly accurate :) top). If I do that and compile a kernel I have plenty of free cycles to play even intense games (quake, q2, etc)
What kind of computer do you have? Just running three apps at once is hardly a test ot Linux's multi-tasking.
Granted it might be possible inside X, but I'd like to know your configuration so I could update mine
Why would X matter? wouldn't just using multiple virtual teminals (or running processes in the background)require less memory? If ypou want config help, feel free to email me at mcorde61@maine.edu. I'm always happy to help.
It's amazing how this all changes given enough time.I, as a former/current Amiga user, remember all too well the snide comments from the PC crowd."Get that gaming machine outa here!" & "Come back when you have a real computer, not just some over done console with a keyboard".Well, back then as now, games push the technology farther than any "business" software can ever do.If my machine can run Quake3 @ 100FPS what do you think it can do with Word/Excell/etc.!!
So, I am happy & excited that games are making thier way to Linux.I have been trying to decide whether or not to install NT on my new BP6, but have decided to go with Slackware.NT is NOT gaming friendly, but it appears that Linux IS gaming friendly.How nice!Later...
KangarooBox - We make IT simple!
There's a whole bunch of operating systems though, so I don't think one could compare phenomena occuring to the internet to linux nor vice versa.
Linux can gradually die if core developers loose interest. As opposed to the internet, newbies (e.g. companies, blind governments) couldn't help Linux survive.
There's tetris for the Linux console.
The ggi (general graphics interface) project has some thoughts along the same lines and thinks about security issues too. http://www.ggi-project.org/
>>>
Indeed, that flood *did* destroy the Internet as we knew it - it drove innovation, swelled the Internet's infospace exponentially and led to Internet access becoming a simple matter instead of the complicated mess it was at the time.
>>>
If by 'innovation', you largely mean 'dumbing-down and pretty pictures', yes.
I can think of two benefits of the invasion of the GUM - cheap home dialup access exists at all, and you can buy stuff on-line. The price of this is Eternal September on Usenet, Skript Kiddies rampant, web sites that take hours to download on a modem and are almost totally free of any actual content, banner ads, corporations trying to monopolize the namespace, namespace pollution to try and create 'kewl' URLs ("come.to" et al), search engines that turn up more porn than useful hits of any kind... (unless you're looking for porn, of course)
The amount of Useful Stuff on the net has increased since the GUM came. The trouble is that the amount of dross has increased many, many times faster, to the point where you're searching for pennies in a mountain of shit.
>>>
... and with time, those clueless newbies became experienced users...
>>>
No. *A few* of those clueless newbies, those who have any interest in learning and are prepared to work at it, become experienced users. The vast majority remain clueless, but because they've been here so long now can make it seem to clueless newbies that cluelessness is the natural and correct state of the net.
To get back on topic, I do worry that the same could happen to Linux. Imagine Linux newsgroups, web sites and mailing lists being full of the whinings of the people who can't manage to understand the difference between 'left click' and 'right click' under Windows, who now face the possibility of having to *shock* type something. (Those of you who have done tech support will know what I mean).
No, you shouldn't need a CS degree to run Linux (or to use a computer at all). But like driving a car, you should be prepared to learn a little in order to use it properly.
Bah, humbug.
Tim.
Linux won't have comparable framerates to Windows even though the underlying architecture is more stable and faster. Windows provides ways for the programmer to pipe data directly into the graphics hardware at the cost of robustness. Linux could do something along these lines but it would be a compromise. I'd see something like that as a package that would need to be optionally installed. I don't want any program to be able to get around the robustness on a server for instance.
This is part of why Mesa3D is dog slow compared to OpenGL under Windows. (you're also talking through the X server, there are plans to streamline that portion of the operation)
We don't need a game API on Linux - we already have enough. SDL, Clanlib, Crystal Space, LibGGI, Mesa. Sorry if I missed anyone out :). They may be specialised in some cases (Mesa only does 3D I believe,) but isn't this the correct approach; to mix & match?
XFree 4 will be a lot speedier because of the direct video access, is that what you are after?
playing quake on linux is as fun as it is under winbloze. once you're inside quake, what's the difference ?
> It seems we just need a better sound API.
Loki is aiding in the development of the OpenAL project (open source 3D sound API)... and there's also the ALSA open source sound driver project...
:wq
You mean something like the Direct Rendering Infrastructure from Precision Insight (http://www.precisioninsight.com/piinsights.html), included in the forthcoming XFree86 release 4.0? That's much closer to have the application directly talk to the graphic card (through an OpenGL driver, certainly) than Direct3D.
Direct3D doesn't talk directly to the graphic card, it is a layered approach just like everything else - the fact that it also sidesteps GDI doesn't make it better, if anything, it shows how badly designed GDI actually is. Direct3D is even more layered than OpenGL, at least earlier versions (you put commands into a buffer and have them executed instead of executing them right when you need them). Later versions look more like OpenGL, for DirectX 8.0 SGI and Microsoft promised to unify OpenGL and Direct3D.
I mean, how M$-brainwashed can one be to ask for Direct3D on Linux, when top game programmers like John Carmack say "trash Direct3D, take OpenGL" with rage, and even volunteer to make Mesa faster (for G200/G400) than the Windows ICD? M$ is a marketing driven company. They tell you DirectX is the best thing they invented since sliced bread. And rev. 2.0 is a lightyear ahead of 1.0. And now we have rev. 7.0. If it was a honest GNU project, the revision would be very likely 0.7, and the programmers would tell you that it's half-baken and they will add a lot of cool things before it becomes 1.0.
"If you want it done right, you have to do it yourself"
I really don't see what's bad about Linux becoming a "gaming box" alognside with being a regular workstation. I mean... it's a lot more fun playing quake ona linux box thatn a windows box isn't it?
I though that anything that lets Linux gain a wider acceptance would be good
---
Killroy Woz Here
Why do we have to worry about games being included in the distributions?
Games are just another type of applications. If Linux is good enough for other types of applications, Linux should be good enough for games.
So why worry?
Instead, we should rejoice that at last the game producers (coders ?) are recognizing the true value of Linux - A stable and robust operating system that is backed up by thousands of volunteers all over the world, as coders, as those who dispense answers, as someone who really cares.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
I promised I'd wait until I got my next computer to get a 3D-card, a better video card, more RAM, etc., but... ngg! I want that 500Mhz Athlon. :)
;), so either more detail or no comment at all would have been better.
:)
I was very happy to actually see Civ:CTP for Linux in the Linux section at a CompUSA. That section is growing while the Macintosh section is definitely shrinking. Hopefully we'll see more shrinkwrapped apps for Linux, but games are a good start.
What was wrong with the joystick support? Not developing for 2.2 at the time? And what, was Loki trying to optimize libjpeg, or something? 'Linux' handles jpegs just fine (or doesn't at all, depending on your view
Goodnight all, we American boys need our sleep.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
"...the bundled-in games on newer Linux pre-installed boxen may drive the rapid adoption of Linux in the mainstream. Which, naturally, all the coders fear above all else."
What exactly is it that the coders are afraid of? Bundled-in games? Rapid adoption of linux? The article said nothing about coders fearing the adoption of Linux. In case you haven't noticed, most programmers actually *like* it when people use software that they have worked on -- an awful lot of us are proud of the things that we put our time and effort into.
---
"Go Metallica. Die RIAA." -- Linus Torvalds
I think will_in_seattle made a casual comment about elitist attitudes, and everyone's picking up on it as gospel and the entire point of the piece. Not so.
Just as SMOFs miss the halcyon days when everyone read every SF book available, so will we soon reach the day when it's no longer possible to buy every Linux game; the rabble will well and truly have crashed the party.
No-one except those with the most severe case of elitist-assholism thinks this is a Bad Thing.
Back to the point. Two lines in the article struck me:
The Penguin Computing gaming machine, which is based on a 500-MHz AMD Athlon chip, comes with a 3Dfx Voodoo 3000 video card and a Sound Blaster PCI128 sound card. It also has a Logitech Wingman Extreme digital joystick.
What can I say? Cool. Beyond cool.
Loki also has been working on open-source projects to improve how well Linux handles JPEG graphics files.
Eh? Can someone explain this one to me?
I can see why many long term Linux users would fear an announcement of this sort. Linux is being dragged kicking and screaming in the the realm of consumer O/S and with that comes the threat of even more clueless newbies.
:-)
However, I would point out that exactly the same thing happened 4-5 years ago with the Internet. I remember the cries of horror and the constant allegations that the influx of newbies would destroy the fabric of the Internet as we knew it.
Indeed, that flood *did* destroy the Internet as we knew it - it drove innovation, swelled the Internet's infospace exponentially and led to Internet access becoming a simple matter instead of the complicated mess it was at the time.
... and with time, those clueless newbies became experienced users, the effects of the newbies were distributed around the expanded infospace and those of use who use the Internet as a serious tool created our own communities and areas where we can get on with using the Internet in the way we want to.
IMHO, anything which drives Linux development is a "Good Thing"(tm), in time Linux will spawn more new distributions that make it easier of the newbies to get on their feet, while those of use who use Linux because it is the best tool for the job at hand will still have the option to hand-install and tweak to our hearts content. And in those rare moments of relaxation, we'll also have the option to kick back with a round of whatever game of the moment has just reached shipping
A little planning goes a long way...
It is more than a faster X-Windows, it is about being able to create sprites and scrolling using the hardware, allocating memory buffers in the off-display video memory, accessing directly the Z-buffer or outputing hardware accelerated audio streams... a completely different goals and ways of programming compared to a spreadsheet with Corba objects !
XFree86 4.0 will have Precision Insight's Direct Rendering Interface which will bring Linux 3D framerates on par with Windows. Precision Insight has even hired Mesa's Brian Paul to bring his experience to the project. The day is coming when Linux will achieve gaming parity with Windows...
:wq
Oh yeah, it can.
Would somebody please explain to me why this attitude is good for Linux? It is not the first time I have seen such sentiments. Kind of reminds me of a couple of friends I had back in my college days with regards to their favorite bands. As soon as one of the tunes got some airtime on the radio, the group quickly fell of their list never to be listened to again -- not even the old, "unpopular" stuff. I guess you can only like a group if nobody else knows about them!? Sure makes it difficult for them to continue producing music if nobody ever buys their CDs. People have to eat... Newbies are not newbies forever -- just think, Smoke, you were once a newbie too. It's only natural to believe that the more people who run Linux on their machines, the more chances you will have to be able to find "really" interested people in your software products. In order to have popular software that is of excellent quality, you must have users first!
F*ck DirectX, get OpenGl working properly, with support for all the major cards, and the games will come. It's not the coders you have to worry about, it's the distributers, publishers, and development managers.
Work those IHVs!
> If my memory serves me correctly Linux has been adopted as the development platform for the Playstation II.
...and as the OS for a future PS2 based workstation. I mean, why would Sony want to write an OS?
Think embedded!
The driving factor for PC/Windows/DOS home PCs may have been games, but the real money flowing into Redmond is from the business community. Many home PCs came into existence simply because mom/dad had one at work, became comfortable with it, and bought one for home. Better gaming support (i.e. solid API's) is only a small part of the solution if the goal is to make Linux more mainstream.
One of the main reasons console platforms are as popular as they are today is the fact that they don't act like computers, such as having a file system that needs to be maintained or having to install drivers to get your hardware to work, etc. Until Linux PC admin becomes as easy as it is in Windows, it will likely not be adopted by the 'masses', and will stay in the 'techie' world. I'm afraid enough when my father calls and asks for some Windows help ... I can't imagine him calling and asking for Linux help...
Most of you probably have NO idea just how often Windows 98 becomes unstable, crashes or spontaneously reboots when you are running a games application in development. Glide, OpenGL, Direct3D, Directsound and the Windows system itself are ALL crash- and corruption-prone in this platform.
How would you like trying your modifications in runtime and know that you will probably have to restart the computer if your change was a bad idea?
I'm just glad I still have most of my hair!
/ per
/ Per
Didn't it occur to you that Dad probably won't need as much help with Linux? I know my mom doesn't need nearly as much help with her Linux system as she did with the Windows box it replaced.
Doug Loss
Yes very much so the case. and I did distinguish from the home market and the corporate market.
However:
Once reason Windows is used in the corporate market is that the users already have experience of it from home and hence there is little retraining required. And I am well aware of the cost of training especially in businesses where staff turnover is quite high.
This is where I base my premise that by infiltrating the games market you will make the "L" word more acceptable for the desktop in the corporate market. I'm not saying Linux is ready for the desktop and after having spent months on this I'm pretty sure it isn't, but isn't that on of the directions that we want to be heading in?
What about buying a computer for porno?
"Don't open the gates, who the hell needs a wooden horse that size?"
Aarrrggghhh!!!! No!. Mesa is an implementation of OpenGL (although it's not officially OpenGL compliant). OpenGL is a generic graphics language, which works fine in 2D. It just happens to excel at 3D as well.
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
That's probally true, but most of them use Windows now with its, IMHO, much easier install program. And then there are the new gamers, who have very little idea what DOS is, and never really messed around with it.
The future:
Gamers using linux, with easy install programs. The oldies remember windows which was just as easy, but the machine crashed now and then. A few gamers become linux hackers out of curiosity - none out of necessity.
OK, first let me say I'm one of those "clueless newbies" you all seem to hate so much. Sorry, I'm not going away (though I will be evolving...stay tuned).
I thought, (and perhaps I was wrong) that one of the common Linux-developer/user sentiments was a dislike of MSoft's stranglehold on the personal computing world.
But here I'm reading that you really don't want linux to grow and possibly offer i386 owners a viable alternative to Windows.
I'm really getting mixed signals here. Can anyone clarify?
BTW, if Windows users ARE going to flock to linux, you could do a LOT worse than have the invasion led by the gamers. We gamers tend to know a lot more about the innards of our systems than the average user (not more than you developers! I'm not saying that). If you'd ever done any significant DOS/Windows gaming, you'd know that. Half the games that come out now have a patch available within days of release, and we're always messing with drivers for our soundcards and graphics cards, tweaking ini files or the registry, and so on. Yeah, these are trivial tasks to you (and to us) but they're WAY BEYOND the average non-gamer computer users. Y'know, the ones who can't figure out how to download a file, let alone decompress it.
And I don't think you have to worry about this latter group coming to linux any time soon. They cling to the tried and true.
I agree on some points about Direct3D, but DirectX is not only Direct3D. DirectDraw allows you to control directly the graphic chipset and the video memory (onscreen and offscreen). You can control every operation of the 2D graphic accelerator directly. John Carmark is right about OpenGL and Direct3D, but 3D is not everything.
Personally, I find DOS games a lot easier to install and play than Windows games. They are easier to 'contain' -- you can install them in one directory and know they are not going to touch any other parts of your system. Sort of like /usr/local on unix. Also, if a DOS game crashes under Windows usually it doesn't do any harm, but if a Windows game crashes under Windows it can easily take down Windows with it. It seems all the games are being made for Windows these days though :-(
Sorta makes a fella wonder... if CompUSA were to move the Mac section to just a few shelves, and gave Linux an entire section, would the extra attention create a huge shift in sales? I think it's worth a shot... when's the last time you've seen anyone even look at an iMac (much less buy one)...
Great.
We can have all the software support we like.
What about hardware support?
Whee...Quake3 installed, but still only 15fps because of poor drivers!
Linux has a way to go yet before it gets seriously considered as a gaming platform.
To start, comparing with music is way off; it has nothing to do with what is popular. Second, I'm not against ALL gamers, I just don't like the idea of annoying gamers to flood me with useless messages on how to get something running. When I was a newbie, I read books and asked gently. A lot of computer users nowadays just yell at you without patience. It's hard to keep motivated to work for that crowd.
I should have made clear that I didn't mean ALL gamers. Just the uninterested bunch (the ones who yell that "windoze is broken", not the ones who really want to know what's wrong). Sorry for that.
What, specifically is it that the coders fear in the rapid adoption of Linux in the mainstream? Good question, but I remember the reactions of the Net community to the worldwide exponential growth of the Net and the countless newbies who didn't know about the underlying protocols (and didn't care). Similar to the reaction of radio hobbyists when both commercial radio and then, eventually, CB radio, became popularized.
Personally, I agree with you: we should be glad that people use our code and that we make a real difference in this world.
But then, you've never had a letter (or a few thousand) from an irate (and newbie) gamer who wants you to fix his game and won't give you enough details for you to figure out what's wrong in the first place.
Will in Seattle
If you take that attitude, Linux would never have gone anywhere at all. If nobody pushed Linux as a web server platform before it was suitable, would it ever have become suitable? At one point, Linux wasn't suitable for anything. Now it is suitable as a platform for many, many applications. That wouldn't have happened if nobody was pushing.
The Unreal engine already HAS been ported!
:).
In fact, last I heard, the chances are 50-50 that there will be a Linux client version on one of the UT CDs - and if not, it will been released very soon after.
There's already a server port which you can download.
Just waiting until a Linux client version is available for the demo - of course, with my puny K6-200 / Voodoo 1, it probably won't run very well
You've got three choices: make your code easier to use, provide better documentation, or start filtering and auto-replying to messages. In nearly every case I can think of, pressure from new users has ended up leading to major improvements (and more developers) in open software projects.
$2200-$2500 for a gaming box? I thought Linux was supposed to *reduce* hardware costs! Their PC's are a goor 25-30% more expensive than a comparable Dell or Gateway (which themselves are a good bit more expensive than home-built PCs).
I guess that blows a hole in the theory that Microsoft bundling inflates prices...
How long before Windows gets the latest 3D software/Hardware support? Oh it's there when you buy the product. With Linux you wait 6
months hoping it will be there. Then you wait another year for the bugs to be fixed. Until it comes out you are stuck with Snakes on XWindows.
Meanwhile 3D tech has advanced on the Windows platform faster than a linux zealot can post "will it be GPL'd." Way to be on top of it ppl.
Rember they all thought Java would be serving up games over the 'net on any platform. What happenned with that? Oh that is right it
didn't work like it won't for Linux.
I was playing Doom, Quake, Civ, & Mame while all you fools were recompiling your kernels on your 486 for the weekend. I'd rather have fun with my
computer than waste CPU cycles recompiling yet another Kernel from your "blessed leader" to finally get that support for .
I'm sure this will be deleted by the *ahem* moderators (aka KGB) as it is not Pro-Linux, but that is ok. I live in the US I'm used to proganda
machines no matter how grassroots they seem.
I've been saying this to myself for awhile, that there seems to be two groups of "power users" (as vague a term as that may be: The programmer/sysadmin/linux guru and the hardcore gamer (different from the everyday gamer). Now being a little of both (though more on the gaming side) I have wrestled with the idea of removing linux or removing windows (I dual boot now)...Windows 98 is Ass-Slow (TM), but it has the latest drivers and support for my hardware. Linux is Nice, Quick, and Slick (TM), but it does not support my video card or sound card! Basically i use it now only for emacs for class, but I am waiting impatiently for the next release of XFree86 which will hopefully allow me to run X. To get to the point, IMHO these two groups need to combine in order to fight Microsoft. Either two left on their own, im afraid, just will not be able to do it.
>God, what a fscking tiresome attitude.
Let's not get personal... Oh, I guess I can't get personal with you, coz you're an AC.
>The internet inconveniences you daily? All this
>because its tools and ideas and users are
>evolving?
Once upon a time, the 'net was a technical place where technical people communicated about things of interest to them. I was there, and I liked it. Those days are gone forever, and of course I can't do anything about that.
Why did I like the old days better?
Every time I find another website that I can't navigate because I've disabled flash/shockwave/jscript/java, that's inconvenient.
Everytime someone sends an HTML email to a mailing list that I'm a member of, that's inconvenient.
Everytime someone posts HTML to a newsgroup that I read, that's inconvenient.
Everytime I wait 5 minutes for a page to load because some fsckwit put all the navigation buttons as GIFs and didn't bother with old fashioned ALT tags, that's inconvenient.
I don't have Win98 on any PC that I control, but I do have to use it on occasion, and I find the "IE everywhere" design to be amazingly annoying, exasperating, and inconvenient.
Yeah, that's evolution, ain't it. You can't fight progress, can you? It's not "healthy".
*SNIP a bunch of irrelevant crap*
>What folks *ought* to focus on (and yes, I said
>"ought" not "might" or "might want to consider")
>is how to utilize (or, at least, theorize about)
>the evolving internet instead of pointing
>fingers at the "influx of AOL/webTV" users.
s/users/lusers/
I've been utilizing the Internet for a long time, sonny. Some of the changes are positive, but I can't think of a single positive thing about either AOL or webTV.
I remember when spam was a meat by-product sold in cans. I remember Usenet before cancelbots. I remember the first time I ran into a website "optimized for NutScrape 2.01.03 at 400x500 with 42 colors", and I remember how angry I was. The whole point of the Internet is that anyone might want to read your page, no matter how they access it. I suppose you might say that the Internet has the ability to "democratize". What you like to call "evolution" is interfering with that, and offers nothing of value (to me anyway) in return.
But it's a big 'net, and you and I can co-exist just fine. Me and my kind will thrive on the scaps of bandwidth left over from the real-audio streams, shockwave movies, Outlook Express emails with GIF stationary attached, pr0n downloads, and all that other really really valuable and socially important stuff that I'm too old-fashioned to appreciate.
To have an emulator (eg. Playstation) and leverage off that?
If you work towards an existing standard you already have a large number of games out there and little Johnny at christmas will be happier then he would be if he was looking at a command line (unless Johnnys a geek).
I will have to say that I saw a VA Linux presentation a few weeks ago with a couple of games from Loki running on dualhead matrox hardware under XF-pre4 with some in-development driver code. It was indistinguishable from Windows games, except for the fact the other monitor was showing an E desktop with StarOffice opened up. The code is out there and is on its way to The World(tm).
Like many here I'm not sure I see what the comment about the fear of adopting Linux into the mainstream is all about?
It would seem every time a mainstream company invests in or starts shipping some Linux distribution everyone cheers, including me.
People who Game allot (at least the ones like me) have allot of time on their hands and often fill it with games. There is allot of young gamers out there who were born into the windows world and have stayed there to play games (for my games I have too). I think this is a great loyal consumer base that has the time to work with and enjoy Linux.
All this time I thought people were joking when they put a (tm) next to "Good Thing". I just did a trademark search, and guess what. The mark is owned by Martha Steward! Why am I not surprised?
Word Mark GOOD THING
Owner Name (REGISTRANT) MARTHA STEWART LIVING OMNIMEDIA LLC
Owner Address 20 West 43rd Street, 25th Floor New York NEW YORK 10036 LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY DELAWARE
Attorney of Record HOWARD J SHIRE
Serial Number 75-516347
Registration Number 2272142
Filing Date 07/09/1998
Registration Date 08/24/1999
Mark Drawing Code (1) TYPED DRAWING
Register PRINCIPAL
Published for Opposition 06/01/1999
Type of Mark SERVICE MARK
-- Virtual Windows Project
Linux isn't ready for the average home user, and it's not even close to a viable gaming platform. We don't help the linux movement by pushing it as a platform for things that it's not suited for.
At least Windows *has* directx. How many of those directX games are running on linux ? Sure , linux has openGL, but it doesn't help a great deal when there are no OpenGL drivers.
The only viable hardware acceleration option working on linux now is Glide with one of the older 3dfx cards. The TNT and Matrox drivers do not cut it against Windows.
While I use and advocate linux, it is just stupid to push it to a market segment for which it's not really suited. You're going to create a lot of vocal linux haters if you do this.
Dude, what are you, like 50 years old? Like 40? Like some old codger who pines for the good old days, huh?
..."
Likes it when the net was dumbed down.
Hell, Lynx was good enough? What's with this graphical stuff? And the damn web in the first place?
Yeah it's so tiresome to deal with the ignornant, huh?
I see this all the time among the so called "net veterans." What a buncha crap.
It really is. It's crap. It's not PC to call it crap. And it's not personal. It's not you. It can't be you. I don't know you. And me? Who am I?
But it is. It's crap. It's the worst kind of -- what? what do you call it? -- retro-luddite? neo-luddite? crap.
"High technology was better when it was lower and hadn't been glommed onto by the uninformed masses."
Yeah, you and I can exist just fine. Blah blah blah. I'm sure you've filled usenet with your share of AOL bashing. "Hey, man, as soon as AOL opens the gates to the internet, everything is gonna fall apart."
And when they did open the gates?
Oh yeah, you were right there looking for the so-called "AOL newbies" to subject to your crap.
Lots of talk amongst your buddies about the damn AOL newbies.
And then webTV? Watch out, man, everyone is out to incovenience you. Why? Well, because they send HTML in their attachments! Oh man, what a drag.
Dude, I suppose you hate the fact that Sega bundles a browser with their new Dreamcast, huh? Pretty soon you can complain about the damn 13 year olds composing mail with their Dreamcast. I mean, you, you don't play video games, right?
"Hell the last game I played was Eliza, and that was on a TRS-80 Model I" Or maybe the last game you played was "Colossal Cave."
"I'm too old, the bones are too tired. I've fought my share of battles. Damn, I miss the good old days. Why, I remember the time me and Denis Ritchie had this little talk about
Blah blah blah.
Yawn.
Given what we've seen about the GeForce256, does anyone think it is possible to embed the X server into a video card's GPU for extra speed? It ought to be possible to do a minimalist version of this, given that a high performance video card has at least 8mb of RAM...
American components. Japanese components. Russian components! All made in Taiwan!!
Hello... I personally think the price range Penguin proposes is quite fair for what you're getting... all high-quality top-notch Linux-compliant components that are rigorously tested... I believe Penguin was the first of the hardware-software-support "linux solutions providers" to offer a 72-hour burn-in process. And what the previous Slashdot poster said is right... Try putting together a box like Penguin's on your own. First of all, I doubt you can get parts as cheap as a VAR like Penguin... Secondly, you can simply compare Penguin's pricing with say, Dell, and you'll realize that Dell is the one forcing huge (seems like 50!% margins) for less-than-perfect hardware... Penguin prides itself on not only using purely high-performance top-of-the-line components, but it uses the creme de la creme, those kick-ass high-performance components that ritually survive its rigorous 72 hour burn-in process. I think if you objectively compare (1) pricing, and (2) components, between Penguin and other Linux hardware or complete solutions providers, you'll see that Penguin stands better than most when it comes to excellence in performance, reliability, service, and pricing. I'm a firm believer in the saying, "you get what you pay for". When I get my gaming system, I'm going to have Penguin build me a 3DFX Athlon system, one because I love Penguin hardware, Red Hat Linux, Penguin's customization of the Red Hat software, and the service you get when you have any questions about your system... I've known (personally) support staff happy to help Penguin customers, and even some non-customers who visit the Penguin support page, with all sorts of set-up, troubleshooting, upgrading, configuration problems... How do I know all this? I worked for Penguin full-time from early may 1999... now i'm at UC Santa Cruz full-time, and working on an IDG Book for Turbolinux, but I would be honored to be invited back by Penguin to work as a full-time employee after I graduate... I've never worked among a finer staff in all my life... Way to go Penguin!!! You're leading the way for Linux and you're making major strides for Linux desktop computing market share! Woo-hoo! Justin (justin@nospam.mathix.com)
Is linux really a viable gaming platform ? How many of the latest games run under linux ? And how many of them run with hardware acceleration ? Are we going to have to wait till tomorrow to get yesterday's games, which will run at the day before yesterdays speeds on tomorrow's hardware ?
Linux is not viable as a platform for gamers now. It lacks accelerated drivers. The only hardware acceleration that works worth a damn is GLIDE. We're not going to have DirectX any time soon. OpenGL drivers are work in progress, but still don't give the kind of performance that a gamer would hope for.
Why push linux as a gaming platform ? It's great for a lot of things, but someone who asseses it based on it's use for gaming is going to become a rabid anti-linux envangelist.
I haven't tried doing what you explain, but maybe, if you are using pthreads you could make sure that the read-ahead (p)thread gets mapped directly into a kernel thread. It could happen that you have two user threads but one kernel thread and pthreads doing the switch at user level.
Maybe I'm wrong and processes block on I/O but I can't guess why.
Playing Unreal makes me sick.
.02 dollars in
just had to throw my
--Have a Johsonville brat.
NVidia had their flak over the obfuscated driver thing - it just shows that we can't afford to immediately jump down companies' necks and annoy them when they make decisions we don't like
I could just as easily say "We can't afford not to..."
NVidia woke up one morning with their house on fire. They set the blaze and the community stoked it. They were not able to ignore it. They had to put the fire out. All the kind words in the world won't bring about such a turnaround as the presence of half a million complaints. You can attract more flies with honey than with vinegar. But if you're trying to attract flies, you should use rotting meat.
I didn't complain, personally, preferring rather to gently suggest that as a Linux user and a repeat buyer of their products, they might have better results if they cater to the Linux community. I got a nice response, but that's not important. What's important is that a LOT of people voiced their outrage at the actions of NVidia. They could not ignore it. So they changed their policies. I wonder if they fired the guy who thought it was a good idea to obfuscate the code in the first place.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
Why doesn't slashdot have a filter option to filter out any stories that contain the word "boxen" ?
"If you look at hot games like Quake3 and Neverwinter Nights(RPG) that are coming out. They are being developed for all 3 platforms. "
If I remember correctly, it's still like an alpha release, but BeOS has a Quake3 port.
Bye . . .
Dan
There are a couple of things that are changing in the way games are handled for Linux.
The first is perception. As more and more games become available, the Publishers will start to realise that Linux is a viable platform to port software to - the desktop marketshare isn't there yet but more games arriving means a virtuous circle of more gamers making the switch means more games arrive....
The second is libraries. Loki (amongst others) are doing an admirable job of creating software libraries to support games production. I'm assuming more and more libraries will become available, from handling different video cards to whole 3d engines. I don't think Linux libraries can compete with DirectX yet at least in terms of mindshare, but it's only a matter of time and with the increasing availability of OSS engines the cost of market entry becomes substantially lower for developers. There will be little need to pay six figure sums for a 3d engine.
With reduced costs, hopefully the publishers will be a little more adventurous in the projects they green light.
stty erase ^H
It may sound silly that having Linux becoming a bonified gaming OS is one of the most important things that could happen to this little OS.
Why?
If my memory serves me correctly 50% (or greater) of all software sold is for entertainment purposes, and the majority of that is games. Linux is stable (duh) and because of its lower overhead may be able to get better framerates. I know I am upgrading to a dual celeron system for Gaming/Linux SMP goodness. (No Athalon duals yet!) NT will do SMP, but its not the best gaming OS.
What do we need? An easier method of installing games now if we... wait... What was that that Loki just released? Hmm, we seem to be working on that.
Mesa? Well thats coming soon too! Hmmm.
It seems we just need a better sound API.
I also expect many gamers to migrate over to Linux without too much difficulty - Remember many gamers are used to the DOS days and messing about with all of DOS's annoyances.
You may call me crazy, but I think that an excellent selection of games for Linux will be one of the major driving forces behind Linux.
Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
A few weeks back, Linus Torvalds was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Stockholm (the story was right here). Before the actual decoration took place, Linus held a one-hour Q&A at the University. While I didn't take notes or anything, I was there and listened hard. At the end of the session, the topic had drifted towards games and gaming, and Linus clearly stated the opinion that games help drive technology, since games tend to place very high demands on the machine they're running on. I tend to agree with this position myself, having written a game or two for other platforms (nothing commercial, though) and working full-time with real-time 3D graphics development under Linux. So, if Linus has realized this about games, I don't see him standing in the way of more games on Linux. After all, they will put higher technical demands on the kernel, at what else does a kernel hacker desire? ;^)
main(O){10<putchar(4^--O?77-(15&5128 >>4*O):10)&&main(2+O);}
I think games are a tremendous vehicle for conversion (like the promise of eternal life). I'm personally looking forward to building a super-powered smp workstation that dual boots both Linux and BeOS. I'll get the best cards available for both operating systems and build around those. The problem with Linux on my laptop is that my laptop's a piece of shit so it makes Linux look bad. People keep saying "that's what you're so excited about?" In short, though not a gamer myself, I have to prove Linux is highly games-capable in order to unpaganize my fellow man (in violation of the advocacy-how-to ;-)).
One word: Q3. The fact that ID is making a Linux-version from the start is a good sign for the future. If there is any game that will make linux more accepted among gamers, thats the one.
You are the same decaying organic matter as the rest of us.
I think they must mean MPEGs - Loki's smpeg works pretty well and far better than xanim. Now if I could just find a DGA wrapper for all my regrettably windowed movies and games -- full-screen stuff always looks better, and Loki's player doesn't do it.
The best way to get drivers for Linux is to have a lot of cutting edge games. Companys have a lot of profits on the "gamer's new fancy gadgets" ,market, so it will became commercially sound to port the drivers to Linux in order to get a little more units sold. Also, the "Linux compatible" ckechbox is becoming more common in gamer's hardware reviews.
When his defense asked, "Which computer has Jon Johansen trespassed upon?" the answer was: "His own."
if you can't see it now, you may never see it! linux has won the war. first off, its destroyed the commercial unix sector with price/performance, scalability, reliability and the fact that nothing else compares to its incredible security features.
now we will take windows down, imagine games that dont crash your machine!!! linux is just superior, its all in the facts.
(btw, i have heard of major movie production houses switching to linux for all their 3d animation/modeling/rendering. the main reason being that sgi graphics/hardware is now about 3 years behind intel/linux)
THE HANDWRITING IS ON THE WALL!
I dont think that linux having more game support is getting new people onto the system. I think the issue is that many of us who also play games found ourselves having Win-blows installed to play them. Now that games like Q2 are ported to Linux and as more are supported I can slowly get rid of Windows from my machine
It's in work as we speak and is an improvement over the OSS system while maintaining compatibility with it for old apps.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
of Linux, as Games are what made Windows so popular and PCs so cheap. At least this is what I think
I'm going to add another voice to the crowd pointing out that this is premature. Not only are games slow on Linux (because of the reasons other people have mentioned--no direct access to the hardware, and having to pipe things through X), but there just aren't a lot of commercial games on Linux yet. It's getting there--I know about XFree86 4.0, Loki producing new ports, etc... but it hasn't gotten there yet. Anyone who buys a Linux "gaming PC" with no previous knowledge of Linux is going to be vastly disappointed when they find that their frame rate is slow and they can play Civilization, Myth II, Doom, and Quake--but nothing else. This might create a few hackers, but it's also going to create large, angry, crowds of people who just assumed that "good for gaming" meant "runs games as fast as Windows, and I can go into a store and have dozens of selections of new games". They'll come away with the impression that Linux is junk, and it'll be a long time before we can recover from that. The only way gaming on Linux is going to popularize Linux is gradually. It does not make sense to buy a Linux PC for gaming, but it does if, say, 5% of what you want the computer for is gaming. As Linux gaming gets better, that number gets larger, bringing in more people on the fringes. By the time you get to 50%, Linux will have already won.
DirectX is a lot, lot more than just graphics. DirectSound makes it easier to have cool sound effects etc, DirectPlay makes it easier to program multiplayer games and so forth. So, Linux really, really need a DirectX-like thing. We need some industrybacked gfx/sfx/network/etc API that we can use to make all our cool games.
Are any companies porting good flight sims?
Yes you'd better thank Loki and other REAL game coders!
;)
If you want to win the desktop, the only way is to have games games and again games!
There are 3 types of desktop buyers:
-The Norton Virus folks. They won't buy Linux for another 5 years! And, in any case, they don't spend much on software!
-The gamers. Give them games and they'll get it!
And they buy a lot of software and hardware!
-The sohos. The most advanced of them might give a try to Linux, but I doubt it, yet!
So no desktop for Linux unless we get games, gamers will bring sohos in a few years and then the Norton folks!
Otherwise, Linux will be a good SERVER, nobody will use it as anything else, and since most users will still be on Win95/98/2000...., they'll want NT on every BOX, and finally Linux like other Uni*s will start loosing ground except in some really invisible places!
That will not bring money or any world domination to Linux!
So beat it all of you lousy sys admins
Ciao
The kernel needs a Gtk/Gnome-based post-install device configuration tools "a la" make xconfig. (Better sig coming soon
I'll add http://www.golgotha.org/, which isn't as dead as it looks, and will toot my own horn in a subdued manner *toot* :)
Return Of The Son Of Spacewar (ROTSOS) is my codename for a collection of GPLed sample programs that do terrain generation, with some very impressive possibilities. There is a lot of information on what the algorithms/hacks are and why, and more to come, and GPLed code (think of it as pseudocode, it's 'REALbasic' Mac code) for everything, and there are pictures and movies there too. I made a special effort to make MPEG video despite not being able to afford the real tools (ASTARTE Mpack) to do it- anyone who was able to view the Phantom Menace trailers will be able to see longer movies in Sorenson Quicktime format. There are pictures illustrating the concept behind the terrain generation, and plots of the distribution of the universe generation algorithms.
Who else is working on stuff that can be used for GPLed games? Come on, go public, the time is now! The more we can use good bits of each other's ideas, the better the whole field will be, without too much effort on any one developer's part. For instance, it's dead trivial to take the object placement variation on my terrain-gen code and use it to produce a consistent, godawfulhuge 2D map- and you could easily scale down the large dataset I use to produce a fairly large map from a very small datafile. You'd be basing it on tiles and getting specific index numbers for the tiles from the big virtual map- and would set up the distribution so that the result emerged with a style you liked. In some circumstances this could produce a map too large for any person to explore, so you might have a Warcraft-like thing in which network players would explore the world and discover neat clearings or forests or juxtapositions of natural resources and features like rivers or lakes- potential map situations that you the designer did not specifically put there, but which were emergent from the algorithms.
Put stuff out there! Mix and match
I think Loki is heading in the right direction, and doing a good job of taking semi-new games and making them linux-playable. However, this is only the first step in getting Linux more gaming-viable (to the MASS market). While Civ:CtP and Heretic II are GREAT games, they are not new, and most gamers look for the "Latest, greatest" game to play, not something that came out months ago.
I'm seeing more and more games being developed simultaneously for multiple platforms (WinXX/Linux/Macintosh). I feel this is the MOST important thing needed for OS's like Linux (and Macintosh!) to thrive on an equal basis with Microsoft Windows. (Lets face it gang, MS has so much money and so much of an installed user base, that even if we do make Linux out-perform Windows in all aspects, including desktop-usability, they will STILL be around, and software/games will STILL be developed for it).
If you look at hot games like Quake3 and Neverwinter Nights(RPG) that are coming out. They are being developed for all 3 platforms. When they ship, I can play these exciting games on my linux machine! THIS makes Linux viable for people like me, a huge gamer that doesn't have the patience to wait XX months for the developer, Loki, or some other company to put out a Linux port for the game.
Again, Linux ports of software thats already released helps a lot. But I wont be able to eliminate my Windows98 system partition til the day I know I can play the newest hottest games can be played on Linux.
--
Christopher Warden
With Linux it is much easier to port a game over several differant hardware platforms. The PPC version of Civ:CTP did not take very long at all, and came out earlier than the Mac version started many months before.
Linux was never "pushed" as a web server when it wasn't suitable. First off, its Apache, not Linux thats a web server. Linux is a STABLE and FAST OS. Apache was developed as a series of patches to improve some (forget the name) free Unix web server. No one ever "pushed" it. The hype surrounding it came about when MS said IIS was the best etc etc. Various columnists researched it (obviously not ZDs people) and found out that Apache had "suddenly" (over 5 years) become the standard for over 50% of all web servers.
We all hated the new machines and the things we need to do in order to make it run and began to love our old machines even more. But we did it, just because there was a new blazing fast and exiting game waiting for us to be played. We needed it to run. So we accepted the pain.
We all managed to install most things sooner or later. Installation after installation things were getting more common. First we had to ask friends how to do it, later we introduced other newbies. Now: "What does this mean for linux?"
Most gaming kids are pretty fast learning, and they bring their own community with them. They got their own friends who help them out and they help out other kids wherever they can.
It won't be the same as with the internet-newbies. There are many reasons why:
I'm sure there will be more newbies on the mailing list. And the load will be remarkable. But some of those kids will want to learn more of this strange system called "linux". There will be a growth of the newbie programers and hackers too. And it will be something good.
Linux shouldn't make the same mistake as BSD to consider itself as 'elite', (well, as far as I've heard of it) and shut the doors for a new kind of users.
I think the linux community should think of themselves as a bunch of people wanting to have fun. A community that is ready to help anyone who is interested to do the same. A community who is proud that it has so many users that they use their own stable and sexy system. Because that's what it is.
I was playing Doom, Quake, Civ, & Mame while all you fools were recompiling your kernels on your 486 for the weekend. I'd rather have fun with my computer than waste CPU cycles recompiling yet another Kernel from your "blessed leader" to finally get that support for.
Pardon? I was playing quake/q2/q3-test/ while compiling a kernel and ripping a cd this weekend. I think it is safe to say that if you are not using Linux, Free BSD, you would have a good deal of difficulty doing so.
It's all about what you like man. I like compiling Kernels and fiddling with modules and struggling with perl and learning c and finding info about servlets. If you enjoy playing games, more power to you.
Just for the record I'm not sure it is possible to waste cpu cycles, unless you consider an idle state to be a waste of cycles.
I have to agree that Penguin's price seems to be
bloated a little, I went over there and price
an AMD system, which came out to $1963, which I
can get around $1400 or so. Probably less then that.
It really depends on people I guess, some people who know how to build computer and knows their ways around, those people who will not want to buy an off the shelf system. On the other hand, a lot of people who don't want the hassle to build the hardware then setup the software are willing to pay money for the service.
Don't get me wrong. I also dislike people who immediately point the finger at you when something doesn't work, of course, without even researching the problem first. Unfortunately, this is the way the world works, and it most definately doesn't just stay confined to software users. I've found in my 10 years of building and supporting software, the most important ability a developer can possess is to have patience. Speaking of patience -- I have run out of it for Microsoft products and would love nothing more than to see Linux rain on Bill's party, but that will never happen unless more and more people use the OS. Even if that means having two annoying users for every good one.
What in the world are you talking about?? I'm running q3test on a PII 333 MHz with a VooDoo 3 3000 and 128 MB SDRAM, I can push 60-90 FPS at 1024x768. What HW are you talking about? I've benchmarked Q3Test on both platforms on the same machine and not only does Linux get higher fram rates, it also looks a little different (better in my opinion... You must not be using the right drivers or you have the VERY NEWEST HW..... and you can't tell me that the newest drivers for windows work well with the newest hardware, I'm in tech support, I know better.
This is way good news. One of the problems of Linux has been that some/much of bleeding edge hardware just wasn't supported. If companies see a gaming scene develop around Linux, then they will realize (much more so than the do already) that ignoring Linux (and thus not getting their hardware supported) will eat into their sales/profits.
... this would be the last step Linux needs to really applicable to the masses ...
Maybe within a year or so we'll be able to buy PCs with all the modern hardware available and have all of it work without anymore headaches about hardware compatability
At long last, it may be possible to delete ALL MS products from my computer. As you know, games are the only reason that are on most of our computers anyway. Viva Revolution!
We really need a game API on Linux. OpenGL is simply not enough, there is much more to games than plain 3D. Besides, the X-Windows layer is a real problem when you need SPEED. As far as I know DirectX talk straight to the graphic card thru the driver, and bypass all GDI and other UI stuff. We need something like that...
Parsec should be a nice addition to my desktop, when it arrives.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
I'm talking about a celeron 300a@464mhz, 128mb ram, with a asus v3400 tnt [16mb sgram].
:P
The framerate is godawful.
It's the poor quality of the nVidia drivers that are slowing me down. Sometimes I pine for a 3DFX card..sometimes
Yes but what are the chances of the most up-to-date games being available for Linux?
People are shallow and fickle. It's no use having
a whole shed-load
of good games that would take the rest of your life to play,
people will only want the latest, most trendy (over-priced) stuff.
I haven't played ALL the extra Doom WADs yet!!!
The Same Coward
"Romani ite domum"
You only want to hang around Linux while it's cool
and exclusive? You've got the wrong motives, mate.
Bah.
Computers should be so straightforward that WE
SHOULDN'T NEED to R.T.F'ing M.!
Why can't we have software that explains
itself as you go? Where every option has an
explanation?
Most computer users' requirements boils down to
a) creating or processing our documents of whatever type - words/pictures/audio/video
b) running software that for purposes of other than processing documents - i.e. games
c) managing the data on the system - i.e.
housekeeping of unwanted files, and making backups
... so why should we need an F'ing M. ?
Why should any of this be so complicated that we
even need to know what Direct-b****y-X is?!!
I can load audio files into equipment that plays
them quite easily using a... CD player. I don't
care what's inside it. Get the picture?
If you programmers did your jobs correctly you
wouldn't get any hassle from us poor "newbies",
you condescending *******!
Ranting Coward
"Ocelot spleens! Get'em while they're hot!"
I was using pthreads, and didn't do anything special to map the read-ahead thread to a kernel-level thread, so you are probably right. I figured the pthreads would automatically be created as kernel-level threads if that was supported.
This is getting personal, feel free to take it to email, kiddo.
Microsoft is working this angle already. They know that gaming is an important market in it's own right. The ability to play games well gives also gives the platform a lot of credibility. As others have pointed out, a lot of low-cost-but-high-end graphics development is done to support games too, which in turn benefits the platform in other areas.
If my memory serves me correctly Linux has been adopted as the development platform for the Playstation II.
Looking back at the success of the PC/Windows/DOS etc... it is probably safe to say that games was the driving factor. Consumers purchase PCs for home use and their main reason is for games, they might justify their expenditure, because the PC can be used for Word Processing, Spreadsheets and Internet Access (versatility), but I believe that the main reason is entertainment and that means games.
So, what can we do to encourage the expansion of development and the production of games titles that will eventually guarantee the adoption of Linux?
We must make the development of entertainment software for Linux as easy as possible. We have to support the latest dedicated hardware accelerations to keep up with the competition, which will shortly be engulfed by further console releases.
I think we should also support the entertainment corporations who have already started developing entertainment software for Linux (Loki for instance) perhaps even arrange communication lines between the developers of the games and the developers of system projects within the Linux development teams to ensure that we minimise the use of proprietary routines which could be GPLd and made available to all.
I still think there is still space for platform emulators, at least going as far back as the 16-bit console era (some of those games were really playable and still are!)
I hope someone will come forward to manage such projects I have described, and sadly, I wish I had mroe time.