Linux gaming. Let's face it - it's terrible. Tux Racer? Please. Quake III, okay, I'll give you that. NeverWinter Nights? If you can get it to work. WINE? If you have enough hair left to pull out, WINE is a good choice.
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I can play some popular FPS games in Linux (Quake III, UT, America's Army) but where are the other games? Battlefield series? Call of Duty? Warcraft III? Far Cry? SimCity 4?
I haven't tried Call of Duty, Far Cry and SimCity 4, but I am succesfully running Warcraft III and the Battlefield games in WineX, and they run perfectly.
Installing games with WineX is a one-minute process that even my mother could do.
Quote:
"and many a techie will point out that what Linux REALLY needs is native gaming, and WINE will allow many developers to be lazy "
SPOT ON!!! I've been saying this for quite some time now - we need native gaming in Linux. Wine is just an excuse for games developers to be lazy and do bugger all and reap the money in from the Windows platform sales. They argue 'no one buys Linux games'. I argue bulldust and fair pinklewinkles - if you don't give me the opportunity how the hell can I buy the damn games?
The only way they'll learn is to boycott the bastards. Don't buy their Windows ports. Write letters. Write nasty letters. Make a noise with your local MP. Give em hell. If enough people get off their lazy bums and actually do this sort of stuff and they lose sales they'll take notice.
Dave W Pastern
Since I'm up I'll take a stab at your editorial here. Seems to me that despite all the market saturation Linux is claiming, it remains a "nerd" OS for all but the most mundane desktop tasks. While I'm willing to grant the emergence of projects like Lindows (err, Linspire . . .) and Lycoris as evidence that non-geeks can, will and are using Linux, there is an entire class of people who tread a very broad line of being quite well versed in computer technology. The problem is that what they know is Windows. For the sake of argument we'll call these "power desktop" users. They know what their computer is capable of, but could care less how it achieves it. Thus, they'll pay $480 for the best Radeon-based video card around, but they want to be able to plug it in, start the computer, run a .exe file and start playing their games. Right now, Linux does not allow that. Those "power desktop" users would have to learn a whole new set of skills to tweak their Linux computers, while they grew up knowing how to do it already with Windows. Thus, game developers focus on Windows primarily and in enters the chicken-and-the-egg problem.
Some people say, Linux needs native games and Wine prevents that. Iīd rather doubt it, only a handful games run on wine, a few more with glitches on WineX. Wine is and never will be a serious solution for games.
We have SDL and this is an excellent base for Linux games, but why do we have so few of them. The answer is simple. It is Linux itself.
Face it, the PC is not the favorite platform for game developers, due to the fragmentation of hardware, which no driver really can abstract and no high level api either. Add to that the distro fragmentation and the neglegtence of the LSB and you have a market which is hard to target (close to impossible I must say) if you donīt want to run into a support nightmare.
Even though Linux has reached a critical mass which would make it a viable platform, if you look at the platform itself it is rather uniteresting to develop for.
You can abstract some parts somewhat with SDL, but most commercial libs the game developers use donīt have hooks into SDL and even then you run into the nightmare, of endless lib revisions which even can be broken between major revision numbers.
What we need would be a consistent and enforced linux gaming base, with defined library revisions, with defined installers and so on, but unlike the normal linux standard base, the games base has to be followed by the distro makers, otherwise I donīt see any chance to have a good gaming experience on linux.
Hey, there's still some stuff missing from Linux. Gaming is one of them. Luckily I don't care for games beyond FreeCiv, Minesweeper, Solitare and the like. For me, the crutch is iTunes. I really like Rhythmbox and Muine, but they don't have a store.
This is utterly ridiculous. Please, don't be silly, Open GL just hit the 2.0 spot, it's way better than DirectX and it's not a toy...
And then one day, the poster will find the real joy and excitement of getting real work done on a computer, which makes Linux an excellent OS choice.
I have always find the gaming fetish a bit odd for grown up people. Don't you have anything better to do with your time, like help your local community, get in shape, read or write a book, play music, go for a bike ride?
I just never understood the allure of wasting hours upon hours trying to master and conquer the perils of a make-believe world.
FWIW, iTunes supposedly works in CrossOver Office 3.1 (which hasn't been released yet, but there's a beta available).
Linux have terrible 3d/sound support, it is the main game stopper. Games are most real-time, and long-time Linus ignoring RT with respect to net and filesystem server performance only. BTW, even sacred for hardcore hackers command-line tool - terminal so slow (gnome terminal).
How the hell can you play games on linux when you even don;t try. Come on power users ... this is redicilous even a baby can install a linux game and play it. If you expect from linux to be started and just run .exe well you don;t have that hust because it;s not Windows ! power users are just to stupid to want a better p[latfor call them gamers nothing more! And i think the same way one user can lurn windows the same way he can learn Linux or any other OS he just have to start with it and not be lazy like more of the windows community. And who wants to waste his time with games anyway ?
"raison de vivre", not "raison de vive".
A French guy.
I really don't understand why people complain when they do not get their Windows games to run on Linux. The games are made for Windows! You don't hear someone who owns an XBox complain that he can't play PlayStation 2 games on it!
Although I do agree with the fact that Linux needs native gaming, one must be fair too. Game companies try to make money. And, other than the big shots in the gaming world, most companies simply cannot afford and justify the time put into a native linux port. Why would they "waste" their precious time on a platform that has about 3% of the desktop world in its hands? These people need to make money too, and the easiest and fastest way to make money, is to make Windows games.
>> but OpenGL lags pretty significantly behind DirectX
Do some basic research, please. You're comparing apples with bananas.
OpenGL is a 3D API. DirectX isn't. Direct3D is.
OpenGL does not play sounds. DirectSound does.
OpenGL does not take care of input. DirectInput does.
OpenGL does not bake cakes. DirectX doesn't either.
Bah.
I play Unreal Tournament 2004 and Red Orchestra 3.0 under Linux: the first was installed with an executable installer located on my purchased DVD (just like under Windows), and the second was installed using a similar installer, downloaded from the web. And in a couple of weeks, I'm gonna enjoy DOOM 3 under Linux as well.
"Linux gaming" is not terrible - it's just as good as it is in the Windows world. The problem is rather the lack of support from studios. Epic Games and id Software, two major ones, have shown the way: I bet high-quality ports for Linux are going to be more and more common in the short to mid-term.
1) easy to use packaging/installer system
--> whatever happened to LokiSetup?
2) compatibility across distros (e.g. file locations, where to put menu items, etc)
3) easy-to-install 3D and hardware accelerated drivers
--> hmm somehow this is related to #1
i guess when these are addressed, more and more game developers will step up to the plate 
i mean, it is attractive for the gamedevs that you don't spend anything on the OS, so you have a lot more money left to buy games, right? 
Maybe there isn't a big demand for commercial games on Linux. Not knowing the specifics, but if there was such a demand why then did Loki shut it's doors?
yeah, probably demand is THE problem.
but i think the approach being used by id software -- putting windows binaries on CD then allowing linux binary version download over the Internet but using the same CD for the data files -- is the right approach at this time. of course that doesn't make it any easier to develop games that work on multiple OS/platforms; it just makes the distribution/publishing part simpler.
Nice article. I still think Linux is miles away from gaming if compared to the Windows OS. WINE and similar software is not something that would interest a cassual gamer and those with more knowledge would have a dual boot for games if neccessary so I agree that these kind of programs don't do much good to Linux gaming.
I think you should include some John Carmack's (id) comments from slashdot which he posted some time ago regarding Linux & games, because many people (particularry Linux fanboys) still think Linux is fit for games and how thing will change to good for Linux.
Here are some of his discussions, you can check the link for full thread:
"It has been pretty clearly demonstrated that the mac market is barely viable and the linux market is not viable for game developers to pursue. Linux ports will be done out of good will, not profit motives. From an economic standpoint, a developer is not making a bad call if they ignore the existence of all platforms but windows."
Some later replyied with:
"I think it's only been established that Id didn't do well with the Linux gaming market (Admittedly, that's NOT a good thing) and it's been pointed out repeatedly by myself and others what went down with the sales of Quake III:Arena- and it wasn't because you did a bad game or did bad by us. (On the contrary, you and the great people at Id given us all KINDS of things- including the initial 3D support for the ATI RagePRO, etc.)
When you lag the release of the game by a bit, offer a way for Linux users to buy the Windows version and then "convert" it to the Linux version, and have a situation of mixed quality support of 3D (Some of the blame can be laid at the community's feet for that- some of it can be laid SQUARELY at the feet of the chip vendors...) sales are going to be most certainly in the toilet. One has to wonder how many of the sales for the Windows SKU were really impatient Linux users. You're never going to know- because there's no way for you, or any of the other management there at Id to know for sure because you didn't have a framework for keeping track of the "conversions" in place (Should you have? I'm not so bold as to say you should have- but it would have helped to know for certain that the Linux market was a washout at that time or not. I tried to buy it at the rollout for Linux, to no avail- and in Dallas, one of the larger markets...)
I don't think anybody would blame you for not seeing Q3A on Linux as a success or viable for gaming- I sure wouldn't and I completely understand the position you're taking on this. I just don't see it the way you are because I'm seeing different data points."
With Carmack replying with:
"All linux games sales EVER don't add up to one medium selling windows title. We are one of the creditors that aren't likely to see money that Loki owes us, so we have some idea just how grim it is.
That isn't saying that it can't change in the future, or that doing linux ports isn't a Good Thing, but it isn't an economic motivator at the present time."
Just get over it. Microsoft has DX and the vast majority of (game) developers and I also don't see this changing in 5+ years future.
Mac OS X does the same thing. Heck, even Amiga and Atari ST did the same thing (just click and run).
So it is not that "linux is not Windows". It is more that LINUX IS NOT F5G READY!
Heard of Linspire? (http://linspire.com).
Sorry, forgot to put the link in the above thread.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=20503&cid=2194363
Almost every day for the past several months I have asked myself why I'm even bothering with Linux on the Desktop any more. I love it as a server, but as a Desktop - I don't think it's improving in the areas that matter most. KDE and Gnome get a little better with each new release, but they are still dog slow compared to Windows. (I can hear it now. "You're crazy. *My* system runs circles around Windows! You Microsoft troll") uhh... yeah, sure it does. Just keep telling yourself that sparky.
It's definitely true that Linux is virtually free of viruses and spyware. (Largely due to the fact that it's install base is too insignificant for bad guys to bother with.) But that really isn't a compelling reason to keep me away from Windows. I've got a router/firewall to protect me from worms, I know better than to open e-mail attachments, I know to check for security updates, etc...
In my own experience, *Desktop* Linux (servers are a totally different issue), but *Desktop* Linux isn't any more stable than Windows XP. In fact, I think it's pathetically unstable. X hangs regularly. If I'm lucky I can ssh into my machine, kill X, and restart it. If I'm not lucky, I have to reset my computer. The UI feels like it has been doused with mollasis. Everything is laggy/slow. (This is the part where people blame KDE/Gnome bloat. Well - I switched to OpenBox for over a month. Window movement, resizing, redrawing is still painfully slow. Face it ... X is a joke. Linux needs a new windowing engine.)
(Oh - I'm running Gentoo by the way. Stage 1 install. And I've spent HOURS tweaking everything for performance. So there goes the argument about running an unoptimized distro.)
Every time I boot my computer, I wait and watch, and then breathe a sigh of relief when X actually comes up. At least 20% of the time, I just get a black screen. CTRL+ALT+BACKSPACE does nothing. CTRL+ALT+F1 does nothing.
Likewise, every time I come to my computer in the morning, the screens are black because the power management has kicked on. That's good. But I tap my mouse and wait to see if I get X back or not. Linux likes to "hard lock" while sitting here doing absolutely nothing over night. When that happens, I can't even ssh into my machine to shut it down gracefully.
Totem/gxine/other mpg players ... laughable. When they work, they are sorta OK. But just as often as not, they don't work. (Windows Media Player blows, but it always works.)
ALSA, OSS, OSS emulation, gstreamer, etc... it's hard enough understanding what that junk even is, let alone how to properly manage it.
So where was I? Oh yeah. Linux rules. w00t. In your face Bill Gates. boo-ya, boo-ya to the all mighty penguin. Hail Linus! (sarcasm)
Maybe there isn't a big demand for commercial games on Linux. Not knowing the specifics, but if there was such a demand why then did Loki shut it's doors?
Yep, that's the reason. There're no impossible technical problems to overcome. If the game companies just see that there are enough dollars to be won from good Linux games, or lost if they fail to provide them, they will do their best to serve people's need for Linux games.
Personally I may not be not very much into gaming, especially the typical drive, hack & slash type of games. But I suggest that people who are, who use Linux and want commercial games for Linux, just buy them. It is as simple as that.
On the other hand: I think that there are too few interesting Linux games available, and what little there are tend to be of the same genre.
Maybe even I could buy many more Linux games if there were more strategy games avalable (my personal fav game genre). Doom, Quake UT etc. maybe be perfect for many, but many gamers don't so much care for such games. Maybe I'm partial, but I would say that the Linux users/gamers are not the average game market, and there could be much demand for smart strategy games ā la Civilization, Total War series, Europa Universalis II, Crusader Kings, Tropico, Port Royale, or good sports and war simulation games. At least there is a lack of Linux ports of such games (usually they don't work via WINE or even Cedega either, AFAIK).
I do like games, though I'm no game addict. But, sorry, I'm not going to buy Doom, Quake or UT, how ever good the Linux ports of them (or all the derivatives) are. I'm sure there are many similar Linux users who could buy Linux games, but different ones.
maybe the problem is lack of interest. yes! but not only from game-devs but also from all the linux-devs. In linux , things only get done if somebody needs them AND then starts to implement them HIMSELF! So instead of complaining, start coding yourself, because thats the way to go (or shut up and just f... use ur windows-box for gaming -- like i do too) nobody wants linux to take over the world, they just want to have the best system for THEIR neeeds, and thats what they create (and they do it very well)
"Games are most real-time"
Not in the way you bring it up, I don't think. Games don't need time guarantees--they just need as fast as possible.
I have heard several times that it is a bad thing that you cannot extend or upgrade your gaming consoles. I disagree with that.
First, you say that your 8-year-old PC is better at gaming than you N64, which is also out since 1996 (production ceased in 2001). If your PC is from 1996 i guess it's a Pentium in the area between 100-200 Mhz, 16 MB RAM and a first-generation 3D card. I really don't know what you mean by 'getting more mileage' out of it. Granted, you can use such a PC for a lot of things (like a server, or just for browsing with BeOS), but a PC (especially one suitable for gaming) is much more expensive. I would say that you would have to spend around 1000$ for a PC that plays today's games reasonably well, while a new Gamecube costs only 99$. Even if you buy a new console every 3 years, it will still be much cheaper than upgrading a PC with a state-of-the-art graphics card (and the PS2 is out since 2000 and new games will be released for several years).
Second, your article evolves around the fact that getting games to work in Linux is really hard and should be simple. This is another strong point of consoles: No installation. Pop in the cartridge/cd/dvd/umd and start to play. If simplicity is your concern, go for a console.
Finally, I do understand that there are some people who just don't like gaming consoles. That's OK, of course. But your arguments against them seemed a bit strange to me. Also, I know quite some people who just buy a new graphics card worth hundreds of Euros just to play a game they don't really like, but which has great effects and is something you can show off with...
Loki games did an alright job at bringing games to Linux, but the "community" didnt support them enough. I'm not a gamer, and even I bought a couple of their titles(Sim City and Civ CTP).
Loki wasnt in an ideal position to make big money though, their games were released months after the Windows versions, because they weren't simultaneously developed. Plus developers like Maxis blocking ports of games like The Sims, didnt help.
The best hope Linux gaming has is for some Linux loving company to develop a killer game, release it for Linux do a windows port after a few months. Maybe that'll make other devs follow suit?
Linux is sure more difficult to configure than Windows, seen from a typical PC gamers point of view - and especially if you compare Windows XP to Gentoo Linux that you say you use...
But speed? Could you provide some real benchmarks that show that Linux is much slower than Windows as a desktop OS? My experience, on my PC (no Gentoo..;-) is that there's not so much difference, and if there is, Linux tends to be a bit faster (e.g. it boots faster).
As to highend 3D gaming, of course MS Windows wins Linux or any Unix hands down. One reason is Direct X. But personally I would rather have a bit slower gaming experience on Linux than use anything as unsecure as Direct X on it... Another reason is that game companies and Microsoft cooperate so much, even MS itself is also a big game company. Gaming and entertainment hss been one of the main goals of Windows development quite much from the beginning. Not so with Linux/Unix. However, that doesn't mean that good games could not be developed for Linux. Especially with current common PC hardware speed should not be any sort of a restriction.
You know its all in the games.
To win the desktop war, you need the home users,
and home users want games.
And Windows owns games because of its API.
Its REALLY AN API WAR!!!
So, what can be done?
Is it possible to abstract a common API for both windows and Linux that utilises DirectX on Windows and OSS APIs under Linux and other platforms?
Do we have that already?
Now the following sounds like a really stupid comment, but please bear with me, as I'm brainstorming a solution.
If Windows ran Linux would this solve the problem?
Think about it for a moment, without considering, the bloat and the performance overhead, which could possibly be addressed through some trickery.
If you were to patch Windows and MacOS with a "Linux compatability layer", FOR FREE. Then Linux Apps and Games software would inevitably result, as it would minimize risk for the software houses. They would just need to write for Linux. It doesn't get Linux as the main desktop initially, but like a trojan virus it would infect Windows installations. At some point the user may find themselves running Linux native applications on Windows entirely and then uninstall windows altogether. It might save people from having to upgrade to Longhorn if it was popular in time.
You know its all in the games.
To win the desktop war, you need the home users,
and home users want games.
And Windows owns games because of its API.
Its REALLY AN API WAR!!!
So, what can be done?
Is it possible to abstract a common API for both windows and Linux that utilises DirectX on Windows and OSS APIs under Linux and other platforms?
Do we have that already?
Now the following sounds like a really stupid comment, but please bear with me, as I'm brainstorming a solution.
If Windows ran Linux would this solve the problem?
Think about it for a moment, without considering, the bloat and the performance overhead, which could possibly be addressed through some trickery.
If you were to patch Windows and MacOS with a "Linux compatability layer", FOR FREE. Then Linux Apps and Games software would inevitably result, as it would minimize risk for the software houses. They would just need to write for Linux. It doesn't get Linux as the main desktop initially, but like a trojan virus it would infect Windows installations. At some point the user may find themselves running Linux native applications on Windows entirely and then uninstall windows altogether. It might save people from having to upgrade to Longhorn if it was popular in time.
"just saying "I got it to work" or even letting that thought through your mind means Linux has issues"
Erm, # apt-get install flightgear && flightgear
ditto for TORCS. Not sure what trouble you had. There's no such OS as Linux, you know. These games run just fine on Debian though.
"I *WILL* pay for games on Linux"
Yeah, you and about a hundred other people. So if you each pay $10,000 for the game...
For every hacker working on OSS games, there's a hundred people saying he's not doing a good enough job. If you're going to hack OSS, hack something people will appreciate.
There's not much point in churning out more FPS's or MMORPG's anyway. They're all pretty much the same.
They probably would never have gotten off the ground if their buisness plan (sell Linux games) was rotten. Instead it got rotten managment and that can kill almost any company.
I use my computer almost exclusivley for games but I rarely use MS Windows. Why? because most of the good games have already been written. 99% of my gameing is retro. I do not care about the latest and buggiest games, I care about the classics. So it's mainly emulators for me, except for those games that have open source code. For example did anyone here know that Elite has downloadable code and you can compile and run it in Linux?
I think most modern gamers don't even know what Elite is. Until you read in some magazine about how some game tried to have the feel of Elite.
Not everyone wants to play the latest MS Windows games. I know that all the games some people play are those Java ones they download off the web (yahoo, etc) and console owners don't really care about Linux vs MS either. Don't try to put you game players into a box they won't fit.
Who cares if Linux attracts the masses as a desktop operating system? As it is now it is wonderful as a server platform and many developers like it. And more importantly it is free software and has loads of free software available for it. Personally I could care less how many more people adopt Linux. At this moment it has enough inertia and applications that I'm happy with it as a platform for web browsing, email and development, which is essentially all I do on my computer.
As Linus said, the goal of Linux is not to topple Microsoft in the desktop market (though he implied it would anyway).
... I don't think it's improving in the areas that matter most.
gaming is not the area that matter most
It's definitely true that Linux is virtually free of viruses and spyware. (Largely due to the fact that it's install base is too insignificant for bad guys to bother with.)
viruses and spyware need a homogene evironment to spread. Linux is not hogene... viruses and spyware use features of windows bundled application. such featur aren't planed on moust OS programs (JavaScript to send mail)
In fact, I think it's pathetically unstable. X hangs regularly. If I'm lucky I can ssh into my machine, kill X, and restart it. If I'm not lucky, I have to reset my computer.
that must be a feature of your config. I use Mandrake and an nVidia card (nVidia driver), and not a single chresh. all was automaticli configured....
Window movement, resizing, redrawing is still painfully slow. Face it ... X is a joke. Linux needs a new windowing engine.)
right on this one. X protocol "feature", but X.org server 6.8 solvs some(or moust) of issus...
Every time I boot my computer, I wait and watch, and then breathe a sigh of relief when X actually comes up. At least 20% of the time, I just get a black screen. CTRL+ALT+BACKSPACE does nothing. CTRL+ALT+F1 does nothing.
try using a bugy driver on windows not even ssh to help you...
Totem/gxine/other mpg players ... laughable. When they work, they are sorta OK. But just as often as not, they don't work. (Windows Media Player blows, but it always works.)
mplayer and xine work for me 100% of the time. try solve codec conflicts on windows...
ALSA, OSS, OSS emulation, gstreamer, etc... it's hard enough understanding what that junk even is, let alone how to properly manage it.
try a user friendly distro, and you don't have to manage/understand
So where was I? Oh yeah. Linux rules. w00t. In your face Bill Gates. boo-ya, boo-ya to the all mighty penguin. Hail Linus! (sarcasm)
All this talk about Linux being such a slow gaming platform compared to Windows...
What I really find ironic is that Star Wars Galaxies (sort of the only game except Diablo 2 I play on the computer) running with Cedega is way faster than when I run it natively on Windows (XP) on the same computer. It is smoother and lags less at 1440x900 with hight detail textures compared and more higher detail options than the chunky chop chop disklag I get in Windows at 1280x1024 with low detail textures.
I actually laughed the first time I started up the game from Linux
Bzzzzzzz -- wrong. You don't like to hack. You like to play games. I like to develop using Linux as my tools. If I'd like to play a good game, I: a) would get a game console b) put my football outfit and go outside.
In my own experience, *Desktop* Linux (servers are a totally different issue), but *Desktop* Linux isn't any more stable than Windows XP. In fact, I think it's pathetically unstable. X hangs regularly. If I'm lucky I can ssh into my machine, kill X, and restart it. If I'm not lucky, I have to reset my computer. The UI feels like it has been doused with mollasis. Everything is laggy/slow. (This is the part where people blame KDE/Gnome bloat. Well - I switched to OpenBox for over a month. Window movement, resizing, redrawing is still painfully slow. Face it ... X is a joke. Linux needs a new windowing engine.)
(Oh - I'm running Gentoo by the way. Stage 1 install. And I've spent HOURS tweaking everything for performance. So there goes the argument about running an unoptimized distro.)
I use Windows, Slackware (desktop), and Mac pretty much every day. X is no where near as bad as you make it out to be. In fact ,the reason it's so bad is this: I've spent HOURS tweaking everything for performance.
Your the reason it's crashing so much. I've never had the problems you claim with X.org. Granted, I go with something stable and that is setup for performance: Slackware.
Using all three desktops everday, I feel qualified when I say that each has it's problems, and each are pretty much the same in speed. Heck, my person opinion is that the Mac is the most sluggish/heaviest, Windows is the flakiest, and that X is the most painful to configure.
The thing is: Your the reason your Gentoo machine runs slowly. I can easily get Windows and Mac to run slowly as well, Gentoo just makes it easier. I mean, seriously, anyone who blindly equates Gentoo with performance has some issues. Yeah, Gentoo can be fast, but only if you know what you are doing. You clearly don't.
Sorry for the strange english, I rewrote part of the post before I posted it and forgot to take away one or two words... :/
> Let's see your 4 year old son have a go at it then.
(comment about installing win games on linux with wine)
1. whose 4 year old son uses a pc?
2. I would not let him play the shooters until 14-18 years (some sons are responsable enough with 14, but the father has to decide if this is possible)
Another point of linux:
linux is not a gaming os.
linux has in fact its roots from unix systems. unix as linux were meant to be only as network os for servers and so on.
Now linux does this job excellent.
(take statistics, it is known as most stable os for servers, and there are more linux servers then windows, so the argument as "more used, more cracked" does not help defend windows.)
Now the developers are aiming linux as desktop solution, but mainly for enterprises. As you can see, there is already a migration of win to lin .
This means, the desktop is good enough. I do not miss anything. Keep in mind the pure desktop, no applications installed.
Well, it is not easy enough to install? yes, hardware is a problem as most hardware developers yet not develop drivers.
Easying lin for home users is now in steady and fast advancing progress. One problem remains.
Lin is different to win. As you had a learning curve to learn win, this is also for linux. I know many people having a lot of problems with win, but because many people use win, the chance asking someone and getting an solution is high. Besides this, Microsoft has influenced many people with advertisements how easy win is, that is not completely right.
A mac advertisement brings this to the point: Think different.
Well, I want to point out with this explanations:
Developing the desktop for enterprises is more important.
Why?
more desktops in enterprises --> more hardware developers will be forced to make lin drivers --> more home users will use linux as hardware does no more matter, parallel to this more commercial software will be developed as marketshare grows --> more game developers will see a potential market --> surely this leads also to more standardization of fast API's for games.
So for me gaming is last in the row, although quite many home users play (me too). *sigh*
Well - I'll try this again. X just crashed on me so I lost what I had typed before. Maybe I'll get through it this time.
and especially if you compare Windows XP to Gentoo Linux that you say you use...
Lay off the X-Files man. There's no conspiracy here. If I were going to lie about what distro I used, I wouldn't have said Gentoo, I would have said Linux From Scratch.
But speed? Could you provide some real benchmarks that show that Linux is much slower than Windows as a desktop OS?
Well - could you provide some real benchmarks that show that Linux is much faster than Windows as a desktop OS? I don't need benchmarks to show me that X is painfully slow to use. It's blatantly obvious. I should mention though that I have 2 LCD screens running in Xinerama mode. One of the Linux aplogists that I talked to a while back told me that dual-head is a real problem in Linux and that that was the reason for my sluggishness.
My experience, on my PC (no Gentoo..;-) is that there's not so much difference, and if there is, Linux tends to be a bit faster (e.g. it boots faster).
Eh ... if you say so. I've yet to see a Linux distro boot faster than Windows. Gentoo takes at least 3 or 4 times longer to boot. Though I really don't care about that. It could take 10 minutes to boot if the UI was as snappy as Windows is once it was booted.
As to highend 3D gaming, of course MS Windows wins Linux or any Unix hands down. One reason is Direct X. But personally I would rather have a bit slower gaming experience on Linux than use anything as unsecure as Direct X on it...
I use to think that way. But lately I've come to realize that the number one problem with security exists between the keyboard and the chair. If you are completely incompetent, maybe Linux would be a better choice for you from a security stand point.
It's not that bad already for the size of the linux market.
Keep buying "built for Linux" stuff or subscribe to CEDEGA or both. It all contributes to show to game developpers how big the linux gaming market really is.
Native would be best, but a close second would be "developped with Wine/Cedega in mind".
there is already some developement. Think of gtk+
gaming is not the area that matter most
I didn't say it was. I didn't even imply that.
that must be a feature of your config.
Instability and slugishness is a "feature"? That's terrific!! Where is the option to turn that "feature" off??? Please tell me. I'm dying to know.
I use Mandrake and an nVidia card (nVidia driver), and not a single chresh. all was automaticli configured....
I used Mandrake for several months. I even bought the 9.2 Power Pack DVD. I didn't experience as many problems with X as I'm having lately, but it was every bit as sluggish.
Window movement, resizing, redrawing is still painfully slow. Face it ... X is a joke. Linux needs a new windowing engine.)
right on this one. X protocol "feature", but X.org server 6.8 solvs some(or moust) of issus...
What was solved? I just emerged xorg-x11 6.8 a couple of days ago. After which point X wouldn't even boot. Though I quickly discovered that that was due to a renaming of the keyboard module. It use to be "Keyboard", now it's "keyboard". But it's still as slow as ever. Have any of you people ever used X with multiple monitors? I use to have a triple-head setup, but now I've settled on dual-head. It's still horribly slow, but not as bad as triple-head was.
try using a bugy driver on windows not even ssh to help you...
True, but safe mode has always sufficed to get me out of any video jams I've ever ran into.
they are allready here:
opengl covers 3d and in fact even be used for 2d (uplink did that). www.opengl.org
openal is a "new" project to bring to sound what opengl brought to graphics. www.openal.org
sdl is the big one tho (allso known as simple directmedia layer). its abstraction layer that enable a game that have been coded towards sdl to be recompiled on windows, mac, linux, bsd, amiga, you name it. www.libsdl.org
if you want to check out what can be done with that toolset then take a look at: www.eternal-lands.com
i think opengl have gotten a lot of spotlight given that id software have embraced it from quake 1 and on. the rest have gone below radar for a long time but should get some more primetime.
"Almost every day for the past several months I have asked myself why I'm even bothering with Linux on the Desktop any more. I love it as a server, but as a Desktop - I don't think it's improving in the areas that matter most. KDE and Gnome get a little better with each new release, but they are still dog slow compared to Windows. (I can hear it now. "You're crazy. *My* system runs circles around Windows! You Microsoft troll") uhh... yeah, sure it does. Just keep telling yourself that sparky."
That's a gross and vast generalization that is not true for everyone. I run Gnome and it's not "dog slow compared to Windows." I wouldn't claim that it "runs circles around Windows" either, but as far as I am concerned, your statement does not apply to me. And it does not apply to most Linux users that I know either...so it might be a problem on your end.
"It's definitely true that Linux is virtually free of viruses and spyware. (Largely due to the fact that it's install base is too insignificant for bad guys to bother with.) But that really isn't a compelling reason to keep me away from Windows. I've got a router/firewall to protect me from worms, I know better than to open e-mail attachments, I know to check for security updates, etc..."
Right. And does your router/firewall protect you from trojans, rogue Active X controls, etc.? Or do you not surf the web? Windows 2K/XP Pro can be made mostly secure, but you'll need to apply the NSA security recommendations which are in the 100's of pages long. How many people can do that? Certainly not a sign of "user-friendly" computing. As for XP Home/9X/ME? Dump it and upgrade. It can't be done by mere mortals. LOL.
"In my own experience, *Desktop* Linux (servers are a totally different issue), but *Desktop* Linux isn't any more stable than Windows XP. In fact, I think it's pathetically unstable. X hangs regularly. If I'm lucky I can ssh into my machine, kill X, and restart it. If I'm not lucky, I have to reset my computer."
Again, probably a problem at your end. I experience none of this.
"The UI feels like it has been doused with mollasis. Everything is laggy/slow. (This is the part where people blame KDE/Gnome bloat. Well - I switched to OpenBox for over a month. Window movement, resizing, redrawing is still painfully slow."
Maybe you need to upgrade to a modern Nvidia card? Because I have a bargain Nvidia FX 5200 and I don't experience any of the above either.
"Face it ... X is a joke. Linux needs a new windowing engine.)"
X is not a joke. It runs fine on my machine. It does not render as fast as Direct X w/o extensions, but hey it wasn't designed for that.
"(Oh - I'm running Gentoo by the way. Stage 1 install. And I've spent HOURS tweaking everything for performance. So there goes the argument about running an unoptimized distro.)"
Just because you run Gentoo doesn't mean you're running an optimized distro. Using the wrong USE and CFLAGS can actually SLOW DOWN your system. And just because you spent "HOURS" doing it doesn't mean you've exhausted all of the options or have done it correctly.
"Every time I boot my computer, I wait and watch, and then breathe a sigh of relief when X actually comes up. At least 20% of the time, I just get a black screen. CTRL+ALT+BACKSPACE does nothing. CTRL+ALT+F1 does nothing."
Nothing like that here either. Problem at your end?
"Likewise, every time I come to my computer in the morning, the screens are black because the power management has kicked on. That's good. But I tap my mouse and wait to see if I get X back or not. Linux likes to "hard lock" while sitting here doing absolutely nothing over night. When that happens, I can't even ssh into my machine to shut it down gracefully."
Sorry to hear that. Nothing like that ever happens here either. Problem at your end?
"Totem/gxine/other mpg players ... laughable. When they work, they are sorta OK. But just as often as not, they don't work. (Windows Media Player blows, but it always works.)"
Complain to the authors, make bug reports, or make it better yourself. That's the spirit of OSS. Just because you use Linux on the desktop doesn't automatically make you an idiot incapable of independent thought. As for Windows Media Player, it doesn't blow and it doesn't always work here. Sometimes it will crash for apparently no reason. I personally prefer mplayer on Linux. Never had a problem with mpg, DivX, etc. Only had problems with RT, WMA, and QT...but those are proprietory so it's understandable.
"ALSA, OSS, OSS emulation, gstreamer, etc... it's hard enough understanding what that junk even is, let alone how to properly manage it."
So don't. Don't use Gentoo then. Use a distro. where you don't have to care about it. It's like buying a complicated book and then complaining that it's too complicated.
"So where was I? Oh yeah. Linux rules. w00t. In your face Bill Gates. boo-ya, boo-ya to the all mighty penguin. Hail Linus! (sarcasm)"
Sorry, but this doesn't help you in your claim that you're not a troll. I can see where some people would mistaken you for a troll. It's probably just the frustration talking so I'll give you the benefit of a doubt. But since I have none of the problems you describe, maybe it's because your hardware configuration is incompatible with Linux or you're not setting up Gentoo correctly. I've experienced some hardware configurations that have made Win XP unstable also so it's not too much of a far-fetched idea.
The last time I had any major problems with X crashing the whole system or even crashing at all was probably greater than 5 years ago. This is true despite of the fact that I run Debian unstable on the desktop so I can't even begin to relate to your experiences. Linux is rock solid on the desktop as far as I am concerned.
You're well off base stating that Gentoo takes 3 or 4 times as long to boot as Windows. Even twice would be pushing it. It's tough to get it to boot as fast (although possible), but it's not THAT much slower. And Windows does a lot of loading after reaching the desktop, whereas Linux tends not to.
Security problems with Windows aren't exclusively between keyboard and chair either. Yes, a bit of experience helps, but it's basically playing whack-a-mole with security holes.
Back on topic anyway.... I find OpenGL slower than DirectX in highly scientific UT2004 tests. I don't know how much of this is due to the game being optimised for DirectX. It does annoy me though because it's generally much more responsive under Linux - maps load faster, system isn't unresponsive for a minute once I quit etc...
Differentiate this two apis.
opengl was made for professionals. this was commonly used in 3d programs for developers.
well, direct x evolutioned faster, but take in account, opengl is for profesionals.
One example: Have you ever tried to use an old direct x game with newer api? Many games do not work.
direct x was a qick and dirty programmed api. since direct x 7 it got almost stable. that is the difference.
"it's basically playing whack-a-mole with security holes."
Hahaha. You just made my day. That's the most amusing metaphor I've ever heard.
Have any of you people ever used X with multiple monitors? I use to have a triple-head setup, but now I've settled on dual-head. It's still horribly slow, but not as bad as triple-head was
Yup, and it was as fast as the normal desktop. My only issue was the third monitor was too far (the way my desk is set), so it didn't make much sense. My other issue is that Xinerama doesn't allow for 3D support (a real problem with Xinerama, in my book).
However, again, your problems are with Gentoo, the operating system you are using. Maybe you should switch to something that does some of the work for you. As has been said by many others: running Gentoo doesn't instantly mean your computer runs faster. Indeed, your belief that it does (as I gather from your comments) shows me your real lack of experience, and I believe the problems you are experiencing are a direct result of you.
I'm puzzled... Why the heck do you continue to use Linux on your Desktop if you consider it to be inferior, sluggish, unstable and that any application you use doesn't do the job?
There must be some logic I don't get...
According to your posts, Linux on the desktop is so unusable that no one would want to touch it with a 10-feet pole. Should I ask myself what I am doing?
I was just thinking... Wouldn't it be wonderful if I had the time or desire to play games on my computers?
I have a feeling that a good portion of the home Linux user demographic has little or no interest in playing computer games. Though not always the case, it seems that the people who are most militant about gaming on Linux are the script-kiddy types who switch over to Linux because it is the 'cool' thing to do...
Only my humble opinion...
-uberpenguin
does your router/firewall protect you from trojans
No. But my Linux distro doesn't protect me from running "rm -rf /" as root either.
Again, probably a problem at your end. I experience none of this.
Kudos.
Maybe you need to upgrade to a modern Nvidia card? Because I have a bargain Nvidia FX 5200 and I don't experience any of the above either.
Maybe I should "upgrade" my AGP 128MB NVidia FX 5700 Ultra to a 4MB S3 PCI card. Because that's what I was using back in about 1998 with Win98 and it was far more responsive than my system is today.
X is not a joke.
Really? I read an article (on this very site I believe) just a few days ago that stated X is 20+ years old and is a hack of a hack of hack that was never intended to do anything like what people want now. And that if one were to design a "windowing engine" today, that X would basically be the prime example of how NOT to design it. The primary issue being that when X was designed way back when that computer hardware was so much slower then than it is now that the network overhead was completely unnoticed. Fast forward 20 years and (according to the article) all the network overhead is a huge bottleneck.
Just because you run Gentoo doesn't mean you're running an optimized distro. Using the wrong USE and CFLAGS can actually SLOW DOWN your system. And just because you spent "HOURS" doing it doesn't mean you've exhausted all of the options or have done it correctly.
Agreed.
Nothing like that here either. Problem at your end?
Must be.
Sorry to hear that. Nothing like that ever happens here either. Problem at your end?
Must be.
make it better yourself.
The biggest cop out in all of Linux.
Don't use Gentoo then. Use a distro. where you don't have to care about it.
My reason for switching to Gentoo in the first place was because I was read so many posts about how bloated Mandrake is. Or how much SuSE sucks. Blah, blah, blah... Gentoo was supposed to be the ultimate way to go. Just boot the install CD, set your CPU type, and 4 days later when it's done compiling, you have a completely optimized setup.
Linux is rock solid on the desktop as far as I am concerned.
I believe you. And that's why I put myself through the hell I put myself through.
"[i]
"raison de vivre", not "raison de vive".
A French guy.
[i]
"
Maybe it was in spanish.
A Romanian guy.
:))))))
Just think of all the fun we could have if someone made a closed source XBOX emulator under Linux (Would ONLY work under Linux) People would swap over to linux like crazy ..
DREAM DREAM i know ..
Linux as far as I can tell has superiour 3D performance than windows does. I usually find my gaming experience a lot faster and smoother under Linux than I do on windows.
I actually think Linux is a much better platform for games than windows because everything is portable, not the other way around, most libraries are written to go cross platform (we are talking hardware here people!) so you don't even really need to optimise your code (although I still would).
There is no excuse now, we know developers can do it and its starting to show with big titles moving onto linux.
NWN2, Doom 3, there are even rumours of HL2 being ported to Linux!
I was dual booting Mandrake and Win98, where I was using Mandrake for web-browing and Win98 for games.
When WinXP arrived, I figured that:
- WinXP reliability is equivalent to Linux (for desktop usage) if you treat it well (but you have to be careful also with Linux anyway).
- Web-browsing on WindowsXP is now quite good thanks to Mozilla (no pop-up, no spam..).
And I was tired of having two OS to patch, to configure, so I dumped Linux.
I may reinstall Linux if I want to do some programming, I find programming on Linux easier than on Windows, but it is a matter of taste..
Frankly if one likes gaming, Linux is not interesting and I don't expect that the situation will change soon..
The Windows marketshare is so big, why would game's editors care about making game portables?
The expense of making the games portable and the added distribution effort probably cost more than it brings money, so this won't change until Linux has a much bigger share than it has now on the desktop.
And no games --> slow increase on desktop, this vicious circle won't be broken soon!
I'm puzzled... Why the heck do you continue to use Linux on your Desktop if you consider it to be inferior, sluggish, unstable and that any application you use doesn't do the job?
Like I said in my first post, I have been asking myself that same question every day for at least a month. "Why bother?"
There must be some logic I don't get...
Me neither. An incredible hatred for MS I guess.
According to your posts, Linux on the desktop is so unusable that no one would want to touch it with a 10-feet pole. Should I ask myself what I am doing?
My primary Desktop is more or less unusable. (I'm on my Laptop at the moment.) X isn't as horribly slow on my laptop, but I can still see windows redraw and trail as I move them. It *feels* to me like a latency issue. As if my system is always 1 second behind me. For example when I click "File" in my Firefox browser, it takes about a half of a second before the menu drops down. And then if I trail back and forth over the menu items "File, Edit, View", etc... it's always lagging behind. I don't get that in Windows. And that my seem trivial to you, but it's that way with everything I do and it's really noticable and extremely annoying.
> Maybe it was in spanish.
No, that is not right.
live = vivir
yo vivo, tu vives, el vive, nosotros vivimos, vosotros vivis (ok, not sure about this one ), ellos viven
the live = la vida
Neverwinter nights has NATIVE linux client and it works very well!
Do you complain that you shouldn't have to take a woman out first as well, or is it ok to do a little work for them but not your fast, free, Free, versatile, stable OS.
You're preachin to the choir man, send this complaint onto game dev companies or something.
Go to google and type: how not to design a window system
Then click I feel lucky. (If for some reason you have google preferences that send you to some other link, here is the direct link I'm referring to. http://today.java.net/jag/wsd.pdf)
You seem to have a problem with your video card. If it's a NVIDIA card, I suggest updating the card's BIOS. Most of your problems (instability, sluggishness) probably come from there. I used to have X lock up, but since I updated my BIOS + NVIDIA drivers, and switched to xorg, I haven't had a single one.
I have an Athlon 900, by no means a recent machine, and I have zero performance and stability problems - much less than with Windows 2000 at work.
At least 20% of the time, I just get a black screen. CTRL+ALT+BACKSPACE does nothing. CTRL+ALT+F1 does nothing.
This is proof that there is something seriously wrong with your hardware. This is not normal behavior by any stretch of the imagination.
Oh, and MPlayer (with the KMplayer frontend) always works on my Linux machines, and plays pretty much every format I throw at it. Meanwhile, WMP often chokes, even on relatively small files (i.e. less than 10 MB).
In my experience, Linux is a much better desktop OS - games excluded (which is why I have a PS2 and an XBox, which are better for gaming that a PC IMO).
(I'm on my Laptop at the moment.) X isn't as horribly slow on my laptop
I'll ask the same question again: Why are you using Linux at the moment then?! You've been bitching about it on all your posts, but you still use to write your comments.
It doesn't make any sense. If you think Linux (globally speaking) sucks and that Windows serves your needs much better, then be logic with yourself and drop Linux.
But please stop bitching around because you've only been able to mess with your Linux setup. Mess up an OS, whatever it is, doesn't require any competency, anyone can do it. It doesn't serve any purpose to "vomish" at everything because you did bad.
X isn't as horribly slow on my laptop, but I can still see windows redraw and trail as I move them.
What most people perceive as slowness in X is actually a lack of desktop-double buffering and compositing engine. It also involves redrawing the entire window even if only a portion has changed. All of these are currently being fixed in xorg.com.
There's nothing wrong with X that a little optimization can't solve.
I'm curious, though: what's the CPU speed of your laptop?
You seem to have a problem with your video card. If it's a NVIDIA card, I suggest updating the card's BIOS. Most of your problems (instability, sluggishness) probably come from there. I used to have X lock up, but since I updated my BIOS + NVIDIA drivers
Question. If it's a hardware problem, why is it only an issue in Linux?
What most people perceive as slowness in X is actually a lack of desktop-double buffering and compositing engine. It also involves redrawing the entire window even if only a portion has changed. All of these are currently being fixed in xorg.com.
That's the most intelligent reply I've seen yet.
I'm curious, though: what's the CPU speed of your laptop?
My laptop is a few years old. The CPU speed on it is only 700MHz. My main Desktop is an Athlon XP 2500 w/ 1GB (512MBx2) dual channel DDR corsair memory. (Low latency XMS series.)
The fact is...if you play native games and dont do WINE stuff than my experience is that games work just like Windows.
Quake 3
UT
UT2k3
UT2k4
Americas Army (my current addiction)
Tribes 2
NWN
All of these games are available as NATIVE LINUX games, and they install and become icons on the desktop and click and run exactly like running them on a Windows desktop.
There is no "problems" with Linux that keep it back from being a good gaming desktop, its just there are not that many games to run.
The native linux games that are out there work great and provide the same easy to install and play experience that windows users have.
Come on!!! NeverWinter Nights its easy to install it, where is the difficult part? To download and extract Linux binaries? Moreover there are installers for this.
Linux gaming, all gaming for that matter is based upon content. Graphics, sound, game engines make up a game. While you may find a decent game engine designer who will do gratis work, good luck finding a graphic / sound artist who will do the same for linux.
Seems as though there aren't enough game engines available, or enough kits to modify existing ones, considering the vast amount of game MODs available for nearly all popular games. If there were more linux game engine developers, perhaps those who design the graphics & sound for game MODs would switch over.
I don't see linux getting too many game developer's work anytime soon (unless you count obsolete, no longer profitable work.)
Game development is difficult. Doing it for free & not getting credit for your work is even tougher.
I used to be one of the biggest anti-M$ ranters, and you know what? It accomplishes nothing.
I used linux for my desktop for most of 2001, double booting to Win98 for gaming... (ok, triple booting to BeOS.. Not that I could do anything in Be).. It was annoying having to reboot all the time, and to constantly struggle to do the simplest things in linux, but at least I could work on stuff without the machine rebooting in the middle of my work for no good reason.
Finally I upgraded off the old monster in 2002, and put XP on the new box for the dual-boot. More and more I found myself staying in XP for long periods of time... When I discovered something that blew my mind. It seemed stable... Perhaps more so than Linux. (ok, let's be fair... Linux is not the problem when it comes to stability, X is)
Last year I had a windfall, and decided to treat myself to something a bit more cutting edge. When it came to select parts for my new machine, Linux compatability never even entered my mind...
Microsoft has won me back. XP is stable and reliable so long as you update/patch regularly and take the proper precautions (Antivirus, spybot S&D AND Adaware, Google toolbar if your gonna use IE). The worst crash I've seen in a year of use is the explorer (not IE, but the proggy that handles the taskbar/desktop/folders) crashing and reloading itself. In exchange for that effort you get the largest, most varied and most useful application library available, cutting edge gaming, and ease of use. I want a program I download it or buy it, run the installer and I'm done... Even makes shortcuts on the desktop or on my start menu, often giving you the choice during install. When Linux ACTUALLY GAINS that level of functionality, I MIGHT think of going back. (They'll probably have to fix the billion other minor annoyances first)
Despite multiple lawsuits, over everything from unfair practices (lemme get this straight, a company giving away software were sueing M$ for giving software away!?!) to simply having too large a market share (god forbid a company does well!), Microsoft has perservered. How did they get to be the biggest target with the bullseye painted on them? By working towards an OS that my grandmother can figure out e-mail and internet on, and my nine year old nephew can install games on in under a minute, and generally being THE operating system people use more than any other. You don't get there by having something hard to use, despite the many claims to the contrary...
Something I definately cannot say about linux, and increasingly cannot say about the Mac much to my horror. When a friend came over flabberghasted over his Mac having multiple problems involving auto-updates and several other programs not working, and the solution being opening up an XTerm and running a few simple BASH commands followed by an existing shell script... I was shocked, thinking "this is a Mac, right?" while he was livid, cursing apple to the ninth ring of hell for switching to *nix under the hood and asked me what it would cost to build a comparable XP box. (not the first time I've heard this rant from him!)
It called into question my beliefs about M$ and the industry as a whole, something I have the feeling the writer of the article is doing himself.
Personally, if I felt like dicking around in a *nix shell to get even the simplest device working or spending hours recompiling supposedly finished software trying to make it run, I'd probably still be screwing around with Xenix on a Trash-80 model 16.
Really? I read an article (on this very site I believe) just a few days ago that stated X is 20+ years old and is a hack of a hack of hack that was never intended to do anything like what people want now. And that if one were to design a "windowing engine" today, that X would basically be the prime example of how NOT to design it. The primary issue being that when X was designed way back when that computer hardware was so much slower then than it is now that the network overhead was completely unnoticed. Fast forward 20 years and (according to the article) all the network overhead is a huge bottleneck.
-------
next time . talk about something you know. X network transparency is one of its cheif advantages and it uses unix sockets on a local system which is never ever a bottle neck.
besides X is a protocol which is very much extensible. do you whine about ftp or tcp/ip being old. same with X.
xorg has a new release which has a damage extensions which can significant reduce polling and screen redraws which people *percieve* as the slowness of X. with the composite extension enabled(its experiemental in the current release) its really feels modern and better
throwing away X is like throwing away the primary graphics engine in unix like operating system excluding mac os X. its not going to happen that easy or soon. neither it is required at all.
read joelonsoftware.com for the mozilla rewrite problems and read the presentation on freedesktop.org and lwn.net on how xorg(implementation) and x(protocol) is being improved.
Game developers see the Linux crowd as a very limited niche market. The same is somewhat true of OSX.
How do you get someone to spend 60 bucks on a game when all the Linux community cares to talk about is FOSS?
No wonder large gaming companies are more than a bit shy of spending a lot of development for the Linux platform when potential sales are slim compared to the same product for Windows. Not everyone is into developing software for FREE, and thankfully so.
If you're desperate to play a PC game that was written for Windows, and are unwilling or incapable to get it to work in Linux, don't run Linux.
I'm tired of this "what Linux needs for the masses to like it" stuff... people start to sound like religious missionaries. If you like Linux and can deal with its pros and cons, use it. If you are a PC gamer, stick with Windows and install Cygwin or something. Or dual boot. Or get a second box for Linux.
Operating Systems are supposed to be there to provide you with a place to run the programs you need to get things you want done... done. If you run Firefox, AIM and an MP3 player when you're not playing games, just spare us the "What Linux Needs" lecture and just run Windows already. If you prioritize games over other things, stop complaining that your favorite OS doesn't play the games you want. If you care more about what OS you run, prepare to not be able to run some games.
I hate this mentality of people trying to convert users to Linux, or people making the switch without realizing the technicalities of the situation, and then writing rants like this. Yes, if you move to Linux, you will not be able to play all of the games. Period.
I play City of Heroes and Warcraft 3 on my Debian/unstable box. I had a few problems with performance issues that were corrected, but did cause a bit of nuisance. I couldn't get Worms World Party to work with Cedega.
[shrug] But that's the decision I made. I knew what I was getting into with Linux, and I was willing to trade the few PC games I played for it. I'm more of a console gamer anyway... and I'd NEVER try to switch over a Windows gamer. You end up with rants like this article.
simple install is good, that is probably why projects like amsn and firefox like to have them. i think they are a nice idea, personally, and one like the amiga installer would be a good move. developers just wrote scripts for their program which used the installer to install their software.
sorting that out, so that games that are written now can be run by anyone would be nice. THEN I would consider what new technologies linux needs or doesn't need.
WINEX/WINE fantastic effort, but I feel it's true potential is compatability with older windows software for those who want to move on from windows 3.1/95/98. Anything that is new enough to run native on 2k/xp (along with new games) really needs a native equivalent. using wine for these is just a desperate move made in the absence of native versions.
how many of loki's games came out at the same time as windows version? maybe that is why sales could have been better.
linux users dont like games ... erm, console emulators seem to be popular.
Yeah, I forgot to mention that X has its problems and it's been rather old technology that needs some improvement. But the new X technology is developed fast now and it shows a lot promise.
If your X has really crashed that much you say, it MUST be a problem at your side (or hardware or Gentoo), not so much X itself. X simply is much better than what you try to say it is.
Well - could you provide some real benchmarks that show that Linux is much faster than Windows as a desktop OS?
What I said is that that there's no real difference in speed worth mentioning. In some cases Windows is faster and in some other cases Linux is faster.
I've yet to see a Linux distro boot faster than Windows.
With boot time I meant the total start time from turning your machine on to the point when everything is properly loaded, and that both operating systems have approximately similar arsenal of services and default apps running. Oh, and I have Windows 2000 on my machine (that boots rather slow), and the Linux distros are Debian and Arch Linux. I know that WinXP is snappier than W2k. But on my mchine both Debian and Arch clearly win Windows 2000 in the start time.
If you are completely incompetent, maybe Linux would be a better choice for you from a security stand point.
Huh? You know, especially security experts tend to prefer Linux or any Unix over Windows. *nix is built especially security in mind, MS Windows is built with ease of use for home users in mind. If you're an expert and want to tweak the security settings higher, that is where *nix systems like Linux especially shine.
I can't believe this "article" was even published. L1n0x g4wing suxor!!!!! would have been better.
No Linux gaming doesn't suck. Gaming works very well thanks. UT2004 etc. The only problem is lack of publisher interest. So once again, no Linux gaming is actually very good and fast. Publishers are the problem, Not Linux.
It is really, really funny how much credit people give Microsoft for the efforts of third party companies developing for Windows. Whether it be device drivers, games, or other applications, any third-party vendor has to extensively test their product to make sure it installs and functions easily under Windows. If there is any consideration given to Linux, it generally consists of "here's a binary (or a tarball or whatever), our in-house geeks tell us it basically works, good luck with it because we can't help you with support".
I would really be curious to know what fraction of user-installed apps are games - I bet it is a high percentage. Face it, folks, most of the population never installs any software, let alone an operating system. From my interactions with people in real life, I would guess that 50% of computer users use whatever shipped with the machine and never install anything, another 40% rely on someone a little more knowledgable to stick in the disc and click "OK" (Daddy, can you put this new game on the computer for me?), and maybe 10% even go so far as to install anything.
"'Linux gaming" is not terrible'"
The hell it isn't.
10 FPS do not = gaming... especially when there is no Half-Life 1 or 2.
Linux gaming, is sadly, a joke right now, and no spin doctoring is going to change that.
DirectX is an awesome development tool.... sadly it stifles porting to other platforms. Maybe if there were some more powerful cross platform development environments / libraries / tools etc...
Improvements to X are happening. That's a great achievment because like everyone has been saying, it's ancient, it's hard to find documentation, and it's not modular. It appears this is rapidly changing, according to some other recent articles. Games are an eventuality on Linux, but games are sophisticated software, and for the time being, it might be a good idea to pick up a console like Xbox, or PS2...or wait for Xbox2 or PSX.
loki failed because of bad management.
Possibly, but ya know what really killed them? The market. Linux gamers are all talk most of the time. How many loki games did you buy? I bought every game they ever released, even the ones that I had no intention of playing.
linux desktop speed
I have to agree with the disgruntled guy. My linux box does infact feel slower on the same hardware compared to windows xp. However, I wouldn't say that XP is as stable as Linux by a long shot. SP2 really made my XP pro install start doing some seriously flakey things.
NWN is hard to install
I haven't tried installing it on linux yet. I was kinda pissed about the whole Blink video issue. After actually playing the game (on windows) I realized that there are so few cut scenes in the game that it was complete ignornance on my part to have bitched about it so vocally on various forumns. I admit my mistake. What I will say about NWN is that its still pretty damn buggy. I started playing it again a couple months ago and after about 2 weeks of playing the game I ran into a critical bug (yes i reported it) which basically ruined the experience for me. I'll try it again after the new patch goes gold. If its not fixed, I'll probably not buy another Bioware game again. Kinda sad that a game that has been out that long can still have those kinda bugs.
general observations
I keep seeing these articles on various sites talking about linux gaming. Personally, I don't really think linux is ready for gaming. Its really kinda clunky as a desktop. Ultimately I think linux will rule the world. But not today. I think linux is the ultimate server OS right now. I can't think of another server solution that even compares. The desktop still has a ways to go. Do I still use linux on the desktop? Yes, 40hrs a week.
There are a lot of things about linux that need to change/improve. In my opinion (as a full time user/admin of linux since 1992) the following technologies are key to making linux the ultimate desktop.
1. full HAL and DBUS integration with all aspects of the OS
2. gstreamer fully stable, fully integrated with the desktop and full codec stability (that will probably mean forking over cash for licenses)
3. alsa. as much as I hate to say it, its still pretty clunky.
4. x.org. more of what they are doing with the newest release.
5. kernel. more focus on the desktop. maybe with DBUS the desktop will have a way of notifying the kernel as to which application is in the foreground and give it processor priority.
6. open gl 2.0 support in drivers and mass application adoption.
7. full featured video drivers from Nvidia and ATI supporting all the features on their cards. (video in.. video out.. etc.)
8. kernel driver abstraction. stable ABI? driver on demand?
9. adoption of new plugin api being produced by the mozilla guys.
what else did I forget?
You're more or less right except that there can be arcane configuration problems on Linux to be able to run games:
- having to use different drivers for example (the free driver if you want to report a bug to the kernel developpers, the NVidia driver if you want 3D performance).
- difference between distribution may create problems for game installation.
Also you're playing on word a bit: "No Linux gaming doesn't suck."
Yes, it sucks because there are very few games running under Linux.
>Publishers are the problem, Not Linux.
"the problem" For who is-it a problem?
It is a problem for Linux's users.
I can assure you that as long as creating&distributing a portable game for Linux cost more than it bring revenue, publishers won't have any problem NOT creating games for Linux..
I found this 3d-engine on sourceforge:
http://irrlicht.sourceforge.net/downloads.html
Haven't seen it mentioned before, and it looks like a good idea, 3d engine in open source.
I wouldn't say that XP is as stable as Linux by a long shot. SP2 really made my XP pro install start doing some seriously flakey things.
Again I want to point out that I'm talking about Desktop Linux. I think there's a big difference. I think Linux accels at server related tasks. I've ran linux servers for months at a time without rebooting. And when I would reboot, it was probably to move the hardware or upgrade the kernel. I think it's rock solid for those tasks.
But when it comes to Desktop tasks, it has proven rather unstable for me. Various computers and various distros. I rarely have to go to the task manager in XP and end task on a program. But I find myself in an xterm several times a day killing some process or another. (Video playback has been the biggest issue lately. I have to "kill -9" totem about every other time I run it.) Firefox, which has always been very stable for me, is "crashing" on me constantly as of late. I'll go to a website, click a link, and it just disappears. And like I pointed out in other posts, X. Bah ... besides being sluggish and unresponsive, it causes my system to hang or just won't even come up at all.
It pains me to say anything positive about windows/microsoft. But I consider myself a realist. I'm not going to be one of these Linux apologists that over looks any and all Linux problems, focusing only on the positives of Linux and turning a blind eye to the negatives - while at the same time ignoring the positive points of windows and making an international case out of the negatives. Those guys are only hurting themselves. The sooner people step up and say "Hey! You know what, this (thing) really sucks!" ... the faster it's going to get solved. But no - some people would rather push those (things) under the proverbial carpet and pretend they don't exist.
OpenGL lags pretty significantly behind DirectX
LOL!
In other news Photoshop lags behind Flash..
Well, I did not notice any crashs with firefox yet.
But I agree with you. No need to push the negatives of linux under the carpet.
If you ignore this and act blind, then this is not a constructive discussion, but distructive discussion which helps nobody.
I think this shows quite well the slowness of X.
http://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?t=1913
Perhaps this is due to SDL, the graphics engine he was using. SDL is not known for it's fast 2D graphics and it is not likely to change either as development seems to have stalled.
Well frankly X is not made for what he is trying to do.
Anyway I've read that the new X server 6.8 has a new 24-bit visual setting, I'm wondering if it could help?
It is too long since I've made X programming, so I'm not sure..
And maybe this require a patch to SDL to use this new visual.
Before someone brings up but C# is too slow, I'll preempt by saying that developers used to say the same thing when the move from assembler to C occcured and from C to C++. C# has some niceties that make it a bit better for speed than Java like value-type on the stack and being able to dip down into using raw pointers when you want to avoid bounds checking and the compiler can't optimize it away.
The fact of the matter is that in the future you'll see a lot more games being written in managed code for windows and that's just one more API mess that developers don't need to deal if they use Mono/DotGNU.
Here's a very nice engine that runs on Mono. axiom.sourceforge.net It has a DirectX and OpenGl backend for windows people and has a very clean design.
The OP claimed to have problems "getting FlightGear to work" on Linux, claiming it "just worked" on Windows. That's odd, considering that Linux is its native platform, the one that most of the FlightGear developers are using. Also odd given that the sim is aggressively made available to Linux users (e.g. is a part of all major distributions), so Linux users make up the majority of FG's userbase, while 80% of the "I'm having trouble getting it to work" questions come from Windows users.
Oh, and if you really wanna drive the FlightGear developers nuts, drop in on their mailing list and refer to it as a "game." Many of the characteristics most of us would consider integral to a "flying game" have been intentionally ignored by the aero engineers etc. that do the FG development, out of a desire to concentrate on realism of the flight dynamics model and such. You see this reflected in people who start using FG after years of MSFS and ask why the Cessna keeps pulling to the left during a takeoff run.
> You see this reflected in people who start using FG after
> years of MSFS and ask why the Cessna keeps pulling to the
> left during a takeoff run.
Note that IL2 Sturmovick (which is clearly a game) have also this behaviour: so being a game doesn't prevent you from being realistic..
"I have always find the gaming fetish a bit odd for grown up people. Don't you have anything better to do with your time, like help your local community, get in shape, read or write a book, play music, go for a bike ride?
I just never understood the allure of wasting hours upon hours trying to master and conquer the perils of a make-believe world."
I see what you are saying, but at the same time do you watch TV work on word puzzles if so what's the difference other than your opinion on the matter.
for crying out loud. Linux is an OS "for Engineers, by Engineers." Period. Wipe your ass with your f@#$ing games. It is not a desktop OS, it was never meant to be, and hopefully it never will be. Some things are better left alone.
I have to be honest, I don't really care about Linux gaming because I know PC Gaming is falling by the wayside. With the exception of *maybe* MMORPGs, no games made for a PC can't be made equally as well for a console platform. Game developers like consoles for lots of good reasons: a) it reduces the chance of game piracy, b) it provides less headaches for the support staff as something like an XBox won't BSOD as easily as a working, desktop copy of Windows XP will.
I'd prefer all the talent being put into Linux Gaming were put into some killer apps for Linux instead. I like Transgaming and what they've done with Cedega, but I think this should be the extent of it. Native Linux gaming is a waste of effort, IMO. Let the developers develop for consoles, and let the people who want to game do so on consoles. I might add, also, that I think consoles are a better idea from a social standpoint. Most games for consoles encourage multiplayer, whereas PC games encourage single player (or, perhaps even worse, Internet-based multiplayer) which causes gamers to live in isolation. Gaming should be a social affair, usually. At least that's what a healthy relationship with a game should be :-)
First, saying that Linux gaming sucks is purely a matter of perspective.
If you are into all the latest and greatest first person shooter or fantasy/role playing games, then yes, Linux is behind. This stuff requires the latest in video cards and 3D acceleration, and is written for game consoles or Windows. These games typically take upwards of 4 years to write and it's not economically feasible for vendors to port the stuff to Linux.
But if you prefer the simpler, lightweight or "classic" 2D style games that are still fun and addictive and easy to play and have great "game play", then Linux as a gaming platform is outstanding. For this category, Linux has more great games than one knows what to do with.
And frankly, IMHO, first person shooter and fantasy role playing games suck. The first time I saw someone play Doom back in the early nineties it looked cool and exciting and original. Now, my wife's 15 year old brother is a big gamer and always has the latest first person shooter games. I see him play these games, and I can't escape the fact that these latest games are exactly like the original Doom, only with more advanced graphics, more explicit violence, and different characters and scenes. And frankly, these games look excruciatingly, painfully boring. It's the same old crap, with different window dressing.
And fantasy/role playing games are really for people with waaaaaaaaay to much time on their hands. To play these games, you really can't have much of a social life or a job, or you have to be a pre-teen or teenager without any extracarricular activities (or friends).
The second category of games I mentioned, the lightweight 2D ones, are for adults with actual lives who want an entertaining diversion now and then. And frankly, these are a lot more fun and addictive. Tetris-like games still can suck you in. XSoldier is fun. Frozen-Bubble is fun. Klickity is addictive (and challenges your brain). Kolf is fun. The list goes on.
Finally, as much as I'd like to see Linux get the same kind of game support that Windows XP enjoys (to help further push Linux on the desktop), gaming is not that important. There are far better things to do with a computer (other things that Linux excels at), and far better things to do with one's life. And yes, games are best on consoles - that way you don't have to flush your hard earned money down the toilet buying ungodly expensive video cards trying to keep up with the latest boring (but slick) video game graphics.
Hardcore gaming on PC's is quite funny actually. The video game vendors pour the majority of their resources into advanced 3D graphics (taking years to develop), while not putting one single iota of improved game play into their latest games, all the while requiring all of the suckers out their to waste their money on upgrading their video cards. It's a vicious cycle that ultimately benefits the video card manufacturers. No thanks.
The OP claimed to have problems "getting FlightGear to work" on Linux, claiming it "just worked" on Windows. That's odd, considering that Linux is its native platform
I haven't tried Flightgear but I can say that both Neverball and Trackballs works better and faster in Windows than in linux, which came as a surprise to me since I believe both of them are developed in linux. In fact, I've heard people saying that Neverball performs better with the Win32 binary under Wine in linux than what the native version does. I can't confirm that though, but I find it kinda amusing and confusing if it's true.
Note that IL2 Sturmovick (which is clearly a game) have also this behaviour: so being a game doesn't prevent you from being realistic..
Note that I never said otherwise. My point was merely that many qualities we pretty generically associate with flying games are simply not top priorities to the FG developers; they don't see that as a problem, because making a game is not what they're after.
Honestly, who gives a flying turd?
Linux is powerful, fast, scalable, and is an incredible piece of software.
Why the rush for mass adoption by gamers and other Joe-Sixpack desktop/multimedia pc users?
The market for Linux is growing, quite rapidly. When game publishers see that there is a large enough market to justify the costs of writing/porting a Linux game, they'll do it, plain and simple.
Economics will dictate how this plays out. Right now, everything is in favor of Linux exploding onto the desktop; In fact, I beleive it is right now through corporate adoption and migration of governments.
What's the rush? It will and *is* happening. For now, use your pirated copy of XP to play your games. Yeah you, you know what I'm talking about...
I would have been very surprised if I had been unable to get torcs or flightgear to work. I have always just got the packages off www.linuxpackages.net or more recently, just done emerge flightgear, and it's worked. Flawlessly. In fact the only problem I ever had with flightgear was trying to install it on my other hard disk running win98. Likewise I've never had any problems with torcs, and neverwinter nights, unreal tournament and ut2003 all installed flawlessly on my system. First time. The only problem I ever had with the nvidia drivers was when I forgot to run depmod after installing them, but even if I hadn't figured it out that would have been working fine after a reboot. The first game I ever tried with wine after installing worked flawlessly. (Red Alert 2). Granted some I've tried running with it after haven't, but my wine success rate is over 50%, although it is true I don't tend to have the very latest games.
To me, linux gaming is real, and it's happening on my system right now. I think steve was just unlucky.
Well - could you provide some real benchmarks that show that Linux is much faster than Windows as a desktop OS? I don't need benchmarks to show me that X is painfully slow to use. It's blatantly obvious. I should mention though that I have 2 LCD screens running in Xinerama mode. One of the Linux aplogists that I talked to a while back told me that dual-head is a real problem in Linux and that that was the reason for my sluggishness.
Ummm...Strange. I run two monitors in Xinerama mode and haven't experienced the issues you describe.
Anyway...X as a protocl is not slow. You could argue that X.org is slow or Xfree86 is slow, but X is not slow.
You are using X.org? 6.8? Hardware accel?
Interesting...In my experience, X.org configured well is much faster than Windows XP.
Have fun.
Interesting...In my experience, X.org configured well is much faster than Windows XP.
L.O.L.
linux is awsome when it comes to first person shooters. what more do you need then unreal, doom3, and enemy-territory? each are the best in their sub genre, and have (or will have in dooms case) native linux versions.
as for the guy who was saying theres been no innovation in FPS games, try enemy territory. when people play their classes right and have a bit of skill, its so much fun it should be illegal. and best of all, its free (as in beer) :-)
-dr zoidberg the medic
You are not right.
In my experience as I was young I loved all this RPG games. You think I was isolated?
No! Totally contrary! Through it I had several friends also fans of rpg's, when playing, we made many savegames and met us regularly several times a week to discuss about solving problems, how to set "ghosts" which powers different parts of a character, how the teams should be composed and what the strengths of different characters are or discussing where to find secret caves or even finding bugs ... :-)
I did not feel the single player game was isolating. :-)
But right, the rpg's I played was on game consoles. PC's were to slow and you did not have to struggle with any drivers or sorts of this.
(Think of DOS and Win3.x . What a hassle getting a game to work ... )
Really? I read an article (on this very site I believe) just a few days ago that stated X is 20+ years old and is a hack of a hack of hack that was never intended to do anything like what people want now.
You really shouldn't believe everything you read. Windows is 20+ years old, but (just like X), has evolved.
X is not the problem.
Use code thats more portable. Make everything have the ability to move.
I am a long time Linux user. I won't run Win XP just so I can play games. I am a big fan of Nethack, but I do occasionally want to play a shooter or simulation. I bought a Playstation 2, hoping that would help, but I miss the keyboard and mouse too much.
Recently I bought an Apple G5. You install software by dragging it to the Applications folder from your DVD or CD. Nothing could be easier. Graphics and sound are well-supported, and there is no trickery to get them to work on Apple-supplied hardware.
Yet there are very few games on the Mac. To me this means that easier installers and better device detection might be excellent things for Linux to have, but they won't bring the games.
A boycott of Windows software by every Linux user willing to forsake gaming until it's native can't mean much; it's a drop in the bucket.
The only way to get developers to write for your OS is to get your OS on as many boxes as possible. Maybe this will change with Java or some new game-specific runtime, when the OS becomes irrelevant, and they can sell to anyone with electricity.
But when it comes to Desktop tasks, it has proven rather unstable for me. Various computers and various distros. I rarely have to go to the task manager in XP and end task on a program.
Again, in my experience, this is completely untrue. I use Linux for viewing movies, browsing the web, web dev and more.
Linux, for me, is much better than Win at all of these. Viewing movies has never been easier than mplayer + an easy-to-install package of codecs. I never have a problem with codecs like I did in windows whenever I wanted to play a high compression, high quality xvid or similar video. I never got the win codecs working well for ALL videos for a significant period of time. Since switching to Arch Linux, I've NEVER had a single video not play.
My home PC was up for 3 months with no problems until I did a kernel upgrade. I don't understan where you are coming from.
Interesting...In my experience, X.org configured well is much faster than Windows XP.
L.O.L.
L.O.L.
>"Viewing movies has never been easier than mplayer + an easy-to-install package of codecs. I never have a problem with codecs like I did in windows whenever I wanted to play a high compression, high quality xvid or similar video."
you don't know what you're talking about, xvid is best codec there is, much better than ffmpeg. video on windows is also faster and eats less cpu thanks to overlay and vmr9 hardware accelerated modes. virtualdud is also better than anything i've seen on linux, and as for the easy to install part don't make me laugh.
What about UT2004 and ET. I'm still waiting for Doom3 so I'll give you that one.
As for OpenGL vs DirectX, OpenGL 2.0 came out and it pushes the bar right up to DirectX. The arguments that one is better so thats why no one games on Linux is bull. The fact is game developers choose one or the other and the majority of the games using DirectX gets the majority of people playing games on Windows. And lets face it, even if DirectX is popular now, it came from very humble and pathetic roots at Microsoft.
I've never done any game programming development whatsoever (though I am a veteran software developer). Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't a potential games developer think in this way:
If I were to develop a game, what library would I want to use for graphics and 3D? There's OpenGL 2.0 which was just recently released. No hardware manufacturer has yet come out with a driver that's certified to be compliant, but I guess it'll come with time. What are the features in OpenGL 2.0 that would make developing games AND maintaining it easier as opposed to Direct3D?
And yet games programming also requires access to sound (a 3D API would be nice). There's Direct3D. What are my options on Linux that would be guaranteed to work an a wide variety of distributions? I need to access the keyboard and mouse (and perhaps the joystick). Is there any de facto standard on Linux that's guaranteed to work on as many machines?
Now, I need to combine all three but I don't want to be developing in different paradigms. Are there video, sound and hardware libraries on Linux which are similar enough (in terms of programming model and paradigm) that the learning model wouldn't be too steep?
And finally, I'd like to make my life easier by doing object-oriented programming. Maintaining huge projects such as games is a lot easier in an OOP model. Do my previous options fit the bill?
I love Linux. I play Neverwinter Nights on it. It's a great game. I've become a wiz at NWScripting and if Bioware came out with a Linux version of their toolset, I'd be churning out library after library of interesting stuff for their game. The hard truth of the matter is, it's very difficult to develop games for Linux for reasons I've alluded to above and probably more that I missed.
I dearly wish the situation improves soon.
I find it rather funny how people are bitching about Windows being superior in the gaming department. Whats wrong with that? Even when Windows is good at something, its still not OK because its from MS, which makes it bad...
Tons of comments below. Thanks to everyone that took the time to provide feedback. -steve
To the anonymous cowards that posted that I should do some research about DirectX and OpenGL, let's clear the air:
-DirectX is the proper term. Direct3D is the OLD term. I understand APIs.
-OpenGL, sorry, DOES lag behind DirectX. I'm no Microsoft lover but DirectX really is better (right now, at least). Have you seen a video card that implements DX9 features running a game vs. an OpenGL 2.0 game running on the same system? Night and day. Not only visually but performance-wise.
-Old DX games work on newer DX versions because DX does automatic "fallback" of features. Unless the games SPECIFICALLY checks for a version of DX and then quit if it does not find that specific version (it happens)
I do realize that Linux gamers don't spend much money. So? Tons of companies have figured out how to make money with Linux - selling hardware and selling support. E.g. Red Hat or IBM. Selling Linux software itself has never really been profitable (yes, I'm generalizing, and I'm sure someone could pull up a contrary example or two). That's a whole different article, though. The point is that I think it's feasible given the right combination of a business and tech savvy.
The the person that corrected my "raison de vivre," thanks for that, and I apologize to the French-speaking audience!
On the topic of PCs vs. Consoles: I do get more mileage out of a PC not only because I still play games on that old K6III/400, but that system also did so much more for so much longer. If you just want to play games, then I concede that a console makes more sense.
"RE: Bzzzzzzz -- wrong. You don't like to hack. You like to play games." Actually, I hack for hours and hours. I do a significant bit of web developing and I have another Linux box (Slackware) running several servers, which I hack on endlessly.
The the anonymous coward that posted that Linux isn't an operating system...well, okay, but we all know that. I *REFUSE* to call it GNU/Linux, Stallman be damned. I say Linux; you know what I'm talking about - get over it.
"RE: it seems that the people who are most militant about gaming on Linux are the script-kiddy types who switch over to Linux because it is the 'cool' thing to do... "
Sorry, uberpenguin, but no cigar. I'm no script-kiddy, I don't IRC, and I don't hack other peoples boxes (unless they ask me to). I don't use Linux because it's 'cool;' I use it because I have options. One of these is to play or not to play games. Name-calling never resolved anything.
I again refer everyone to Ryan C. Gordon's excellent article about porting code / writing portable code. This is akin to web developers writing for IE and saying "To Hell with any other browser!" Good programming practice SHOULD make games easier to code in Linux. Or at least easier to port. Arrogance and market share is not an excuse.
Thanks to the anonymous coward that posted the comment about fixing X issues in X.org. Have you seen Xorg's X11R6.8? The drop shadows and transparency are fantastic! This fork is really promising.
"RE: The native linux games that are out there work great and provide the same easy to install and play experience that windows users have. "
Anonymous coward Hans Solo is right, but the point here is that the games you listed are FPS games. I'm an RTS gamer, not FPS, not MMORPG, not freecell.
I'm not desperate to play WINDOWS GAMES on Linux, and I never said I was. The article is entitled "Linux gaming," not "Windows gaming on Linux." Let us not make assumptions about others' intentions.
"RE: Publishers are the problem, Not Linux."
This anonymous coward missed the point. If publishers are not making games on Linux, then nobody can buy games for Linux, so Linux Gaming Sucks! UT2004 works. So? I tire of FPS games. You like them? Go play them! For me, though, Linux gaming sucks. Thanks to anonymous cowards Jeff and RenoX for their posts along the same lines.
Oh, and you FlightGrear posters that had your feelings hurt: it *IS* a game. A rose by any other name...but this is not the right place for that argument.
FlightGear didn't install for me initially, but I later got it working, except that my joystick wasn't beeing seen properly (Logitech xtreme I think), even when I RTFM and my joystick was, supposedly, natively supported! I switched to generic joystick support and that was better, but then my twist stick wouldn't work and only a couple of buttons worked. The game wasn't fun anymore and I had spent hours reading, tweaking, relaunching, and then, ultimately, punching my screen in (yes, I'm teasing). I've loved flight simulators (except the MS ones - they've always been behind the times IMHO) since Flight Unlimited I. Anyway, Flightgear really did work in Windows right away. Which, I suppose, supports my claims: write your code so it can be portable across platforms, game developers! Lots of people do it (like the Flightgear folks), and it DOES work. No more weak excuses.
"RE: The Answer, Use code thats more portable. Make everything have the ability to move" by anonymous coward. Yes, you nailed it.
Thanks for all the replies. Very enlightening.
Doesn't the mere ability to discuss varying opinions on how easy it is to install a lot of games on linux prove that it isn't as easy as it should be? I don't think it is something that ever crossed my mind on other platforms.
Why?
Money cannot be the sole reason, although it has to be factor.
Loki? If the platform was so friendly, why did they end up developing tools like SDL to help them make their games? It suggests to me that it means that they didn't have essential things that they required. So it must be a barrier of some kind, even if it is not the main reason.
People have made great games, so it cannot be that hard. Has anyone read an interview I read with Id about their support for mac and linux versions of Doom3? They said that they like to showcase technology/operating systems and what they can do, that they like creating code that is portable and that money/profit is not their main motive. Make of this what you will, but many companies simply don't have those principles, they require cash and profits or they will not do it, period.
I don't care for what reason is most important, personally, I just recognise that there remain barriers, and all of them require solving. It took windows longer to become dominant for games than it did for it to dominate applications. The same will be true if linux ever makes it, and even the desktop application market is a while away from falling to linux.
"Have you seen a video card that implements DX9 features running a game vs. an OpenGL 2.0 game running on the same system? Night and day. Not only visually but performance-wise."
And without any more substance behind that claim I have to call that crap. You are obviously not seeing the the forest for all the trees or at least making conclusions you have no data for. It never occured to you that it might have something to do with the drivers and the chips involved? I have seen top of the line ATI cards (X800) loose against middle segment nvidia cards in openGL performance test, like here
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2196&p=5
This means that some cards and some drivers are more tuned for one api than the other and has nothing to do with the api per se.
I have a ferw points I would like to make...
1.DirectX is not faster than OpenGL, infact on my GeforceFx, OpenGL seems to display better and run faster, though this highly depends on your hardware.
2.I persume the reson Developers would use DirectX instead of OpenGL is becuase OpenGL is just a 3D graphics API whereas DirectX is a sound, networking, and 3d graphics API all one, wich simplyfies things.
3.Cedega(Wine x 4.0+) runs most of the games you stated transperantly on Linux easily, with comparably good speed.
4.If you want things on Linux to be as easy as on Windows, I would suggest buying(Or Downloading) a copy of SuSE 9.1
Its extreamly easy to use, and the first decently fast KDE based system Ive Used also It automaticly downloads and installs the NVIDIA Linux drivers over the internet through a graphighical tool called yast.
direct x:
yes, direct-x does have a fallback, but since later versions.
I assume direct-x 5 to 9 are rather compatible.
On earlier versions I heard much news of compatibility issues.
I remember having several dx2 games that did not work after an dx3 install (yes, I also checked for the drivers and so on). ok, perhaps the games also were not cleanly enough compliant (eg. yet using some msdos code).
opengl:
ok, it lags on so called features. But DX was developed as gamer only api.
opengl was developed for 3d Developers using Highendrendercards. This cards had very stable ogl drivers and worked also on new opengl api's flawlessly. MS pushed dx as his standard although there was already one. As opengl was for professionals, it was important of an consistently growing and stable API. The evolution was too slow as MS thought.
Perhaps you remember, the first versions of dx were unstable and had lot's of bugs. OK, this has now changed as more 3D Applications demand a consistent api.
And being realistic, the better the code and api, the less fallbacks you need. Fallbacks lead potentially to more failures.
Compare this with a similar problem, the windows network. MS changed his own network communication with almost every win version. But the fallback does not seem to work flawlessly.
I never got working different win versions on network without problems.
Even OSS got better networking with samba on the foreign closed source specifications than MS himself. Does this not wonder?
This is what I mean dirty programming. For MS was better featurenities than slower stable developing api's.
Therefor open API's are more and more important. Slowly the companies like the oss developing better and better. Developing is slower, but cleaner and more compatible. Failures does a company cost money.
By the way an anecdote, one OS says much about MS's earlier filosofy (and yet true?):
MSDOS, this OS was _not_ programmed by MS, but buyed and modificated and the Name was DOS = DirtyOperatingSystem
>> Loki Installer - http://liflg.sourceforge.net/ <<
As far as I can see it, Winex and Cedega will never make 100%.
There was an interesting Artical about this recently.
But there are some big Gaming Producers out there, that care enough to code a Linux Binary, and I hope the support continues. Some listed below.
idSoftware - Produced Doom and Quake series binaries
Loki - Linux binary producer of Tribes2, Rune, etc
Splash Damage - Producer of Wolfenstien Enemy Territory
All these games run with high Framerates, and are very stable.
Things are becoming alot better for Linux, Its come so far! I dont see any point in writting a slandering post about an OS that has been born by the world. If only more people would just give a little support.
Yep! That I forgot also to mention in my last post.
In the earlier times (and yet) the opengl drivers for consumer cards are less carefully programmed than directx.
After reading all this negativity, I have to wonder if I'm really running Linux after all.
I'm typing this on a full-time Linux box, with no Windows partition to chicken out to. When I'm not reading OS News, I'm able to use this machine play far more games than my wife thinks is necessary. I still like Quake 3, so that one's easy. Other FPS games are also easy to come by. I also like puzzle and card games, and let's face it, there are plenty of those in Linux, not to mention simple action-type games like Frozen Bubble and Breakout, which are great fun when you only have a short time to play.
I bought the full version of Tux Racer, by the way, and it runs great and it's lots of fun. I'm saving it for my son when he gets a little older (he's only 10 months right now).
Occasionally, when I'm feeling strategic, I play LGeneral or Battle for Wesnoth. I've also got a copy of Dominions II.
I also spend far too much time playing ThinkTanks, which is a Torque Game Engine based game published by Garage Games. It's a 3D third-person perspective game in which you drive a cartoon tank and shoot other cartoon tanks, against the AI or online. It looks great, is well designed and may well be the most fun and addictive game I've ever played. Like a lot of Torque based games, it's cross platform, and there are versions for Windows, OS X and Linux.
Another Torque based game, which Garage Games also distributes, is Marble Blast Gold. It's now being distributed with all the new G5 iMacs. It's a fun game, and it's also available for Linux.
I find it odd that the discussion here seems to be revolving around display technologies, as if to prove/disprove that good games are even possible in Linux. All the while, there are plenty of very good games out there that nobody even seems to realize exist.
In short, it is possible to be a gamer and a Linux user, and I don't think you need WINE to do it.
iyou don't know what you're talking about, xvid is best codec there is, much better than ffmpeg. video on windows is also faster and eats less cpu thanks to overlay and vmr9 hardware accelerated modes. virtualdud is also better than anything i've seen on linux, and as for the easy to install part don't make me laugh.
Yes, I do know what I'm talking about. I've been a longtime Windows AND Linux user. Xvid is the best codec, I agree. I don't know why you;d think I said something to the contrary. I'm simply saying that Windows installs of the Xvid codec were plagued by inconsistent installs that made videos made with one version not work 100% in Windows, due to different audio compression or video problems. I had this consistently for MONTHS, despite installing many a Xvid codec package. I used Windows for quite some time, and used many players and installed many codecs and I STILL couldn't play as many videos as well as I could by simply typing the following on my Linux box:
pacman -S mplayer
pacman -S codecs
I can play everything from .movs to xvids, mpegs and more. I've NEVER had an unplayable video, which is much more than I can say for Windows. As for performance, I've never had any issues in Linux or in Windows in that regard, both systems look and feel quite smooth while running videos, although I haven't run any benchmarks.
The only way Linux will become a killer gaming platform is if game developers start using it to develop and deliver their product.
This might come about because they see that the proprietary alternatives are becoming a hindrance, not a help, or it might come about because Linux offers the best toolsets and base platform.
It won't come about from a collective sigh of resignation to the fact that Windows has more games and they are easier to install than on Linux.
The Linux kernel didn't come into being because thousands of sheeple computer users started whining about how poor Windows, DOS and MINIX were at supporting their existing UNIX/POSIX applications, and that if Windows, DOS and MINIX were ever to be replaced 'somebody' - thats is, somebody other than them - would have to do 'something big' to do it - because they have only the vaguest clue what might need to be done.
No, the Linux kernel was developed because one guy (Mr. Linux Torvalds) thought it would be a fun, and helpful project, and a hell of a lot of other people (I'd love to credit you all, but lets not go there) thought that idea was way too good not to be a part of. So people got involved, they contributed, they worked - actually put time and effort into making the dream a reality.
If you want to see Linux gaming improve, then start contributing to Linux games. No amount of complaining or 'Haha Windows already works fine so why should i bother' rhetoric is going to make one iota of difference.
Obviously, there simply arent enough passionate people who have any idea of how to author games, or are prepared to even give it a shot around.
I know these people do exist, because I am one of them - and you can find more at sites like happypenguin.org or linuxgames.com, elysiun.com and others. However, there obviously arent many here at OSNews.
I've never done any game programming development whatsoever
Thats obvious by only your OOP question.
There are many libraries that can be used for cross platform games such as Allegro, SDL, etc. Each offers varying degrees of functionality. All offer the basics such as 2D graphics, sound, and input. Some offer wrappers around 3D libraries such as OpenGL, SDL does this. There are other libraries that take care of 3D to a much higher extent than either OpenGL or Direct3D do such as Crystal Space. As for 3D sound you should look at OpenAL. Bascially there is a library for everything under Linux but no one library to rule them all (though some try, such as SDL).
As for your OOP question I wonder do you even know what Linux really is? Have you ever written an application for it? OpenAL is C++, SDL is C, Crystal Space is C++, OpenGL is C (at least at the binary interfaces though they can be used with many other languages)
Also OOP is not neccesary for some games and sometimes trying to fit OOP into a game will destroy it's structure instead of making it better. Horses for courses! You should always try to fit the solution to the problem not the problem to the solution.
Reading the author, it shows he doesn't know much about gaming development.
Most PC games are optimized to run on Windows and Direct3D. It is clear they are not designed to run on other platforms like Mac or Linux distros. Porting a Windows games to these OS is not hard like Loki proved.
Like several posters, the source codes for developing games on Linux are available. Games like American Army proved that crossplatform is possible. For example, the animation and map loaded on Fedora Core 2 are smooth or better than Windows version depending the settings.
The problem is not why Linux lacks any commercial games, it is more about the developers/publishers will to work their games on Linux. That is something the author entirely missed in his opinion.
In order to install NWN Linux, you can get the unofficial Ravage installer (derived from loki-setup), and it will work easily:
http://icculus.org/~ravage/nwn/
I have just tried the other day, and now am enjoying NWN on Linux. As you can see installer for the expansion pack are there too.
PS: The reason Bioware does not host the unofficial installer is because of an (EULA) agreement with InstallShield not to use any 3rd-party apps to extract the archive. As gamers are not part of this agreement, you can use the unofficial installer without worry.
When a cutting edge OS designed specificly for gaming is created, the users will come.
Comparing OpenGL to Direct 3D, I find on my hardware that OpenGL performs better both visually and in frame speeds than Direct 3D.
Now as far as games go, the only thing I miss from moving to Linux is Il2 FB but that is only cause I can't get my controllers working properly in it under Cedega. The best game at the moment for me is Red Orchestra 3.0 and it runs very well on Linux. I also have America's Army running very well too and both of these games are Linux native. I have a copy of Doom3 but am waiting for the Linux binaries before trying it.
All in all it works and works well. Sure the choice ain't there compared to Windows but then again, there is a hell of a lot of crap out there on Windows Gaming. I would like to see Half Life2 and STALKER running natively on Linux but maybe oneday.
Xorg works fine for me, better than Xfree86 and opera scrolls much more smoothly on my system under Linux than it did under WindowsXP or Windows2k on my P4 Workstation at work. Under OS-X on one of the G4's we have at work it is painfull to try page scrolls in Opera. Bloody slow rendering. I also like Gnome 2.6 and am waiting to see what 2.8 brings us. Audio under Linux is more stable and better quality than WindowsXP and with the Alsa-Tools I have a control panale for my DSP24 C-Port that works properly. Still there is a way to go in the audio department but a definate work in progress.
Sick and tired of windows NTFS and the hand holding I had to give my home system. Linux you set it up and it works. That's what I want. Non of this maitenance crap that Windows needs and yes it doesn't take much fragmentation of NTFS to render your OS unstable.
Anyway my experience and I will stay with Linux over Windows but I do have my eye on Haiku but not hoping to much )-:
I've never done any game programming development whatsoever
Thats obvious by only your OOP question.
Honestly, what is it with people in these forums and Slashdot that make them think taking a condescending tone gives their posts any more value?
I never said there weren't any libraries or attacked anything, for that matter. I said those are the questions a potential games developer would ask. If you can provide the answers to those questions, then good! Please post them. Thank you for offering us with those pearls of wisdom. Now, of the libraries you mentioned, do any offer the same breadth of functionality that the DirectX family of libraries offer? (Again, i'm not saying they don't. I just posed a question) Do any offer the same similarity of use? Put another way, is any set of libraries as attractive to program games for on Linux as DirectX/3D/etc. is for Windows?
As for your OOP question I wonder do you even know what Linux really is? Have you ever written an application for it? OpenAL is C++, SDL is C, Crystal Space is C++, OpenGL is C (at least at the binary interfaces though they can be used with many other languages)
Posts like yours sicken me sometimes. How in heaven's name can you get constructive replies with posts like that?
For your information, I've been seriously using Linux since 1997 when I set up various systems for several clients. I've been programming on different systems since 1984 when I was 12 and Linux since 1997 when I first picked it up. I've written dozens of applications in all manner of "Linux languages" including some very esoteric ones. Now that I've answered your question, how about we get back to the point of my post which is to evaluate how attractive the current game programming situation is on Linux?
Also OOP is not neccesary for some games and sometimes trying to fit OOP into a game will destroy it's structure instead of making it better. Horses for courses! You should always try to fit the solution to the problem not the problem to the solution.
OOP is not necessary for some games and nobody said it was. With that said, when you write projects as huge as games are nowadays, the only way to make it manageable is by adopting an OOP paradigm. If game programming meant counting from 1 to 10, heck, I might even use assembly language. But writing games means keeping track of potentially hundreds of game objects and OOP becomes extremely attractive. If I were commissioned to, I'd still probably write tic-tac-toe in C. Chess, I'd probably put up a small fight. Neverwinter Nights? Hell, no!
Take the case of Obsidian. They are now doing the work on Neverwinter Nights 2 and they've decided to move things from OpenGL to Direct3D. Think about it. They have the codebase of NWN to work on which is already OpenGL and is cross-platform. Whatever possessed them to choose DirectX? Was it some conspiracy involving Microsoft? Was it because that was their area of expertise? Or was it because they found it easier to do so? We may or may not know the answer to the question, but it's still useful to speculate if there's something to be gained by doing so.
Maybe this would help http://www.transitive.com/news_quicktransit.htm
When a cutting edge OS designed specificly for gaming is created, the users will come.
It already exists. Its name is videogame console. Current distros are Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft to name a few.
Vital in any list of Linux gaming sites! (-:
http://www.happypenguin.org/
Steve Husted, why do you think your article was worth publishing? Do you feel it somehow brings up some unique points? In the same lines as the previous articles i've read here i haven't been able to detect anything new. Its just the same.
My wild take is that if you'd have mailed the authors of the NWN client feedback or so you'd have contributed more to the "Linux gaming community" than by writing this.
And no, my opinion ain't Linux gaming is perfect. There *is* some good documentation available though (even for WINE / WineX), Loki did awesome work, and Icculus.org writes easy and user-friendly clients which simply require a legitimate CD of the Windows copy. Not perfect, but: it lowers piracy while it is easy for legitimate users.
Icculus.org even has a(n incomplete) gaming list available (a FOSS and proprietary/commercial one). Check Icculus.org, click Linux gaming FAQ, and click on the relevant question. Quite impressive if you ask me, but indeed, not as large as say Windows. Also, that FAQ might learn you something new.
...most MS Windows programs run roughly twice as fast under Win4Lin on the same machine (the exceptions are highly compute-bound rather than display- or disk-bound).
Remember that this is working through X and a layer of emulation. Twice as fast.
The only machine I have in my home with flakey X drivers is a SiS-based box, and SiS won't release the information needed for the FOSS developers to build a reliable one. The SiS flakiness shows when you close X - about half the time, it powers down the box. Also, no 3D acceleration. I solve that by not running 3D apps (the machine's a dual-CPU server anyway, and you actually get about 6FPS out of TuxRacer sans acceleration), and not shutting it down (as I said, it's a server).
I also have two ATI-based desktop machines and one Intel-based laptop. The Intel is not lightning (big surprise there), but they are all dead stable. The now-ATI machines running NVidia cards were "mostly stable", that is, they locked up about once or twice a week, still well ahead of MS Windows 9X, but not acceptable for me.
One very nice game I am involved in is 'Battle for Wesnoth'.
This is an original game(not a clone of some commercial game) and has just now picked up enough steam in the sense of the engine making it EASY for anyone
(does not need to know C++) to write scenaria or campaigns
As a result you now have an explosion of campaigns and as usual it's free. The only bad thing about it:
It also works for Windows!!
blixel:
You sound like M$ as hired you to say this... but it is double morrel.
(sorry my spellings)
My primary Desktop is more or less unusable. < Then swtich over to Windows.
All i have seen you do, is critisise and complain, if Linux is realy that bad, then switch.
I currently just switched to linux on my desktop 3 months ago, this has helped me with many problems (related to hardware and etc.)
I play Mohaa with Cedega, i get about 25% increesement in gameplay, even with higher graphics.
UT2K4 runs so i can play it on my system, with the highest settings.
My System has crashed 2 times.
Once becuase i installed unsupported drivers for an ATI card and when it went in Powersave mode, it could not wake up.
2. time was when i by an mistake made an everlasting Loop.
Any system would crash in this situation, so why Blame Linux for instability.
>As if my system is always 1 second behind me<
Maybe you are just sooooo microsoft poisened, that you realy think its lagging.
N.B
Sorry my spellings.
"For example, I found an 1100 word document describing how to get SimCity 4 working in Linux (with WINE). In Windows, I inserted the CD. Big difference."
I tried to install an rpm package on Windows and it just didn't work, I didn't even find any "1100 word document" describing how to do it, but it worked like a charm on Linux... Quite odd, don't you think?
The few native games that do come out for Linux is important and shows that it is possible to make games for the Linux platform. Hopefully more developers will follow this.
"Don't even get me started on graphics cards in Linux. Nvidia has done some excellent installer work but I've still had some nagging problems, and no, the forums couldn't help me."
And it's all the Linux users that choose nVidia cards that force nVidia to actually bother making drivers for the platform. Now they have to improve them and they do that, but drivers should be provided by the vendor. A lot of obstacles that has been put in place by Microsoft has been undone, like vendors exclusivly providing support for the Windows platform and not for anyone else.
The Linux community has been fighting an uphill battle and is slowly getting there, there's still a lot of things missing and a lot of things aren't perfect, but it's getting there. It's good that people are pointing out what's missing, but try to be encouraging also.
I belive, that there will be no significant advance in
acceptance of Linux Desktop without all the top games
running natively on Linux. In the very beggining, the
games were the software that made small computers popular.
Without gaming, the world would still run mainframes only.
How to achieve this ? Well, games are not free, in general.
So, it would be possible to develop instalation system, addon,that will prepare Linux PC for easy instalation and running the games. That system will have to take in account all major distributions and 3D cards manufacturers.
It is not possible to develop such system for free, but there is no reason for it to be free, since the games are not free, as I said before.
Of course, game manufacturers should respond to that initiative, and port software to Linux. With good, smooth,
and easy installation and execution of the software, they
could hope to gain profit from that in the future.
DG
DG
Keeps me informed and moreso than happy penguin
www.linux-gamers.net
Great Linux gaming resource and I learned about RO through them.
WTG
I agree that Linux needs more native GOOD games, but I believe that day is not far off, I have seen a surge of Linux native games over the past 2 years, and I think you see more and more as time goes by. I know many programs who are working on Linux based native games, and I am talking about good quality 3D games, some FPS some turn based.
It has taken a lot to get Linux to this point, but once teh major players in the gaming world see what Linux is, and how it can incease their market share. more and more will join the band wagon.
just my 0.02.
BaVinic
Anonymous coward, what about your post is constructive? You slam me for expressing my Linux gaming opinion and not contributing to a solution but then you do the same thing. Normally I ignore trolls but I decided to make an exception for you.
www.m-w.com, look up "hypocrite"
Apparently OSNews thought my article was good enough to post. Writing articles and talking about this IS contributing because it brings up a constructive dialog. Well, mostly constructive. Otherwise, what's the point of OSNews at all? They don't actually "contribute" by your definition at all yet thousands of people come here to read articles.
If you read my article, I did reference Icculus - well, actually, Ryan C. Gordon. He does impressive stuff and I visit that site quite a bit (his "finger" updates are actually what I look at).
But what you are saying about researching supports my claims: I'm tired of spending hours getting my games to work. Like I said in my article, when I want to hack, I hack; when I want to game, I game. Ne'er the twain shall meet.
Maybe I didn't make this clear: I want NATIVE games. Publishers should hire people like Icculus to put the extra Linux code ON THE CD when it ships, not after the fact. I know this costs extra so I reference my previous point about selling hardware and/or services.
OH, and I have an example: Microsoft. I doubt their gaming studios are cash-cows (no, I haven't fact-checked this, but yes, I do know more about the gaming industry than I've been given credit for), but they make their money elsewhere and spur interest/upgrades by pumping money into gaming. Intel does something similar: they pump money into low-margin, integrated graphics products to spur sales of something else (guess what?); along with this Intel does a lot of enabling work with gaming studios for their cheapo graphics. All of this costs money but the game studios are going about it all wrong - change the paradigm and look at the profitable companies like Intel and Microsoft.
Okay, okay, here's another example that hits close to home: Linspire. They partnered with Transgaming to improve WineX. Gaming is neither their forte nor their primary focus, but they know damned well that gaming is keeping a lot of people away from Linux, or at least it's important to people (work with me here). So they pump money into a companion product that enables them to sell more of their core product, which, of course, is Linspire. Kudos to Michael Robertson for his incredible business savvy. I didn't personally like Linspire when I tried it (a year ago, when it was still Lindows) but I think the business sense of the CEO will keep the company viable/profitable for a long time.
NWN, by the way, wasn't worth enough to me to spend the effort. No offense to the NWN fans out there, but I played Baldur's Gate to death and I was kind of burned out on the genre. It was also, admittedly, when the NWN for Linux info had just come out; I'm sure it's much easier nowadays.
well... first off i'm on the latest slackware. everything runs great. without a doubt this desktop *is* faster than windows. maybe i've just been lucky not to get errors. i guess my real point in writing is to say that- i play and have more games for linux right now than i do windows. wierd- huh? ..and i just keep finding more. i've ran NWN on both windows and linux- and honestly i get better preformance out of linux than i do windows ME. i guess if you want to do your basic stuff- tetris, cards or whatever... you can get thoses games for linux by the boat load. small stuff like that. and bigger better this are coming. linux is really in rapid devolpment right now... si i imagine more are coming. but instead of talking the talk... i'll walk the walk... here a list of stuff you should look up on google. p.s. i have wine.... i've never bothered using it to play games with yet ;|
lincity -simcity clone
freeciv - civilization
NWN
quake 3
open quartz- quake 1 clone for free- needs a bit of work- q3 really blows it out of the water... but hell... it's free!
gemrb: infinity engine emulator- the planescape/icewinddale/ b. gate engine
freedroidrpg- oringinal role playing game for linux
freedroid- classic video game
ianout- fallout engine... windows right now- though it sounds like it's coming to a linux desktop soon
frozen bubble- you know....lol
doom1, doom2, ultimate doom
www.liberatedgames.com -website with games open sourced to the public... mostly older stuff... some linux.. some not.. a number of things out there.
lbreakout2- remake of classic breakout
well... you get the picture... i'm sure i'll find more.. and most of these games i didn't even have to pay for! nada- zip!
point being- games are coming folks....
judging by the number of posts this subject is very important to even such oss/software related geeks as those visiting this site ; i hope hope computer games vendors will soon realize that the linux community is eager to play games as well as the W$ users (or even more - just for the fun of beeing able to play state of the art titles on their favourite linux box) and influence on game developers to make OpenGL products ; as for me it doesn't really matters if the game has support for 5+1 speakers (and think most of the gamers don't either)
(Obviously you felt offended by my post. I'm just gonna ignore the first paragraphs because i find these arguments either laughable or ad hominem. Especially the one that since OSnews posts your article, it somehow is unique or constructive. OSnews has posted a lot articles which were argued as being crap and/or more of the same. It just happens.)
Maybe I didn't make this clear: I want NATIVE games. Publishers should hire people like Icculus to put the extra Linux code ON THE CD when it ships, not after the fact. I know this costs extra so I reference my previous point about selling hardware and/or services.
(If you want native, popular games then why not use a platform which currently allows you to play the native, currently popular games you want?)
Did you say the same when you jumped from the C64 to Amiga? From MSDOS to Windows? From Amiga to Windows? Or whatever? Its a different architecture and a different platform which means complications. So, regarding old games, you couldn't be futher away from realism. The only solution is a client written later which uses the art from e.g. CD, or an emulator, freely downloadable ex-proprietary cq. new art (Quake I/II comes to mind). This is necessary because of this thing called (temporarily) backwards compatibility. WINE and Cedega (formerly known as WineX) contribute to this. Cedega is easier than WINE because it has default profiles for certain games which neither WineX-CVS nor WINE have. You haven't addressed this in your article though. Regarding new games, i agree. However...
I don't see how you put forth a constructive solution to the problem. Hence stating the obvious like the previous articles did. Its like <doh> most penguin gamers want good performance + easy install/flawless usage, don't want to get locked in on e.g. x86-32, and want THE games (the popular ones). I doubt many care wether its native or not though. Native Linux/x86-32... how are you gonna realize it? Apparantly it doesn't happen. Not much, that is. Why not? Loki tried, but Loki failed. Icculus is one of the most active people in this business i know, but i don't know many more. Would the Linux gaming world (specially popular games) be better of when Loki still existed? Certainly, but it doesn't exist anymore. In contrast, some new games do work on Linux. You can order a CD on e.g. TuxGames.
And no, i still don't see why your article is so different from the other ones. naming Icculus.org is indeed a unique aspect but i see a lot of similarities, one being: they all tend to view it from their own (negative) view. Why not include some positive ingredients too? The Icculus.org game list is pretty impressive IMO, more important it is both informative AND objective. "Terrible", "but don't really offer anything substantial" is what i see as non-constructive heavy weighted opinions which don't really hold up much water. Hard to see that as 'constructive' given the FACT there are a lot of games for Linux and Linux/x86-32. What you want is popular games, and you want them native. Mail the publishers and owners of the IP, become Icculus its spokesperson, start a petition, or do something -- but an article like this doesn't contribute to the problem IMO.
PS: You claimed the article described how to get SimCity 4 working using WINE: "I should just be able to download, install, and play! For example, I found an 1100 word document describing how to get SimCity 4 working in Linux (with WINE)" the article you refer to talks about using WineX 3.1 or WineX CVS though (seems an article from 2003 btw). In fact, you failed to note Cedega/WineX altogether _in_your_article_. And your compare of DirectX with OpenGL while you claim you know a lot about the games industry is a "lil' bit" contradicting. I'm sure e.g. Ian Mapleson, from gamers.net, would know the difference which would raise his credibility.
PPS: If i were to make a constructive article about Linux gaming i'd do it on a wiki, trying to get it as objective and informative as it could be. My wiki-style is to include links to other resources such as you did in your article. If you're interested in giving this a go, i'm interested in doing so, but without any of your/my/whoever's opinion. Because they don't matter, in the end. Reality does.
Anonymous coward, your comments are noted. Please reference the first word of my article: OPINION. Nobody forced you to read my opinion. Choice: it's not just for breakfast anymore.
i think linux is the best os running. i am having problems with cedega but it is only an annoyance. what linux gamers have to do is get the operating system out to the masses. the masses dont care if the operating system is linux or windows as long as it works. we wsit here and complain that games arent written for linux well what are we going to do about it. well i have a suggestion get off your sorry ass and promote linux to the masses and give the lazy windows people education
so they can make the switch then they will make games for linux or at least linux installers for their games
I read about all the ole timers of Linux. And sometimes you people seem to forget the "newbs" to Linux think like Windows. I just started using Linux about 2 weeks ago. I started off dual booting with Win Xp/Mandrake 10. Ditched Mandrake because it has many many bugs. Tried a Debian based Linux not my taste. Then found a wonderful os called SuSE 9.1. This os beats Windows hands down. And no longer dual boot. BUT the main problems of a "newb" I see with Linux. Installing things are more difficult then it should. Windows double click and there I go. Yes, I know .exe files are a viruses dream. There are .run files. but why can't I double click them? I have to go to the console type sh xxxxxxx just to start an install. Then come the dependices. Ok those are some bullshit. But YaST in SuSE does a great job with those. But most of the time the software is out dated.And .tar files suck. ./compile, make, su, make install. Thats if you don't get stuck at ./compile for not having dependices(sp?) Ok now that I got my gripes out about Linux lets have some fun about Windows. As a long time Windows user I learned quite a few things about it. For one very easy to use. Two... Um ok just one thing. Windows is very unstable. Yes even Xp. Although better than the other Windows. But have you looked at it phoning home lately? There are 23 service that phone home every hour. Can't find them? Thats becuase they are hiding in the soruce code. O, you can't change that can you. TO bad for you. Windows is envolving SLOWLY. Look how far it has came for the home user compared to Linux. Right now it better for home use. But Linux is catching up quickly. Also for the old wise tell about more viruse/trogan/spyware for windows. Is do to more users of the home. You couldn't be more wrong. The majority of servers are linux. Hackers and so forth. Rather take down servers than home pc. Does more damaged. Its just far harder to compile a viruse or hack a Linux pc. There are so many "layers" in the Linux os it difficult to break through. Then you would have to be root to do any real damage. Also Mandrake a Linux distro. Set up a pc. Gave out the ip address. No type of firewalls. Anti-virus software. For people to try to attack. It took 2.5 weeks to get inside the pc. Boot a fresh install of Xp/2k. Without firewall. And let the Sasser worm do damage in o about 1 minute. And the memory leaks in Window is horrible. Play games back to back. Gets slower dosen't it? How many times have you rebooted after playing a game? Ok now lets get back on topic about the Linux gaming community. WE NEED PORTS FOR LINUX. And for the people who say games on Linux is slow. Umm ooooooooookkkkkkkkkkkk. Go to the America's Army forum. Check and see the post about Linux averaging about 10 fps better than Windows. My self and a few others have proven this. Using various versions of windows and linux. Except with Gentoo. There seem to be a declined. I'm not out to convert anyone to Linux. If you like Windows fine. Not hurting me none. It just gets old. When Windows user over look the potential of Linux. You seem to think if its not MS it sucks. In a free enterprise government. Competetion makes things better. Aparently Window user settle with what they get because Microsft can give you crap and you'll accept it. I'm off to play some America's Army.
I absolutely agree the state of gaming under Linux is deplorable. I've been using Linux as my primary OS since 1998 and use windows for gaming and tax software only. Wine is a nightmare to configure, even though I lose my sanity every once in a while and think I can get it working consistantly again. It never does. I would be delighted to see either more native Linux games that don't suck, or Windows games ported to Linux. Hopefully we'll get there, it may just take time. I am willing to wait though - Linux is worth it.
u also get the companies like valve who maliciously sabotage support for steam in wine(x)... appalling really.
complain, whine, act like little kids, we'll make arses outta ourselves but eventually there'll be nowhere for lazy developers to run.
i think a lot of peoples opinions come from lack of knowledge
its great for people to say yes linux should support directx or development libraries to port directx for gaming or anything else thats windows that needs supported
but i think we are all forgetting that windows apps are all closed source so its not such an easy thing doing all of those things
I have noticed that different distros of Linux can either be slower or faster than windows
for example i386 distros like fedora most likely to be slower then windows
Fully optimised Gentoo configured properly should be faster
And obviosly you should install the graphics drivers for your graphics card
so on the whole i've found Linux to be faster than Windows but only with the right setup
For example xmame on Linux much faster than when using it on Windows
Ut2004 all graphic options turned on in linux no slowedown and super fast
windows can be very slow with all graphic options
These are my own experiences
so people may or may not agree with them
and after having used linux for around 5 months exclusively without Windows on my system at all i have found that for what it does its excellent
ie work with Open office , Internet with Firefox and various apps, Multimedia with browser plugins and Various media players for me its works great and extremely stable
However there are things that need work on Linux
but all in all Linux isn't really ready yet because there are areas that need to be addressed like gaming and video editing
All in all everything is improving at an extremely fast rate
for example a year back i was testing Redhat 9 with Gnome 2.2 and kde3.1 and today i use Gentoo with Gnome 2.6 and Kde 3.3
The difference between them is astounding
On the other hand Windows xp hasn't changed at all since its release other than security fixes
I look forward to when Linux is ready but until then i'll wait as more companies take advantage of its capabilties
I was thinking today about how windows gamers would want to install Linux to play a really good game. I have a feeling that trying to make a game with the open source community is not as easy as making a compiler or an os. So I reasoned a company has got to pay a team of developers to make a game for Linux. But that is so Micro$oft. How do you pay to make a game, make a profit, and still keep it open source? Then it hit me, give out the source code, sell the executable. Am I reinventing the wheel here or has somebody already come up with this. Any comments? I am at jasau8@aol.com.
... ON THE INTERNET
I'm speechless. Talk about lowering the bar for Internet "articles".
"Apparently OSNews thought my article was good enough to post"
I'm as surprised as anyone.
Doom 3 has the best graphics I've ever seen in a computer game and it uses OpenGL. Please explain how the best graphics are lagging behind DirectX-based games. Additionally, Quake III (another OpenGL game) runs a little better than any DirectX-based FPS I've played.
I find it hard to take you seriously.