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.WINE is a good idea but really a bridge technology, and many a techie will point out that what Linux REALLY needs is native gaming, and WINE will allow many developers to be lazy (read: Maxis/EAGames). Portable code that uses open standards (OpenGL) is nice, but OpenGL lags pretty significantly behind DirectX, so I have a hard time blaming developers there. It’s not an excuse, however.
The team over at Icculus.org have done a fine job porting games, and Ryan C. Gordon (aka Icculus) has even written an article about making your code portable, which includes “black box” modules (abstractions) so it does not matter if you have DirectX or OpenGL: either would work. Ryan worked at the now defunct Loki Games and did some stuff with a bunch of Linux games. Check out his site. Developers: wake up.
Linux gaming sites abound, such as linuX Gamers.net, Linux Games, and TuxGames, but don’t really offer anything substantial, just some howtos on getting your drivers installed and getting WINE to work. Wrong answer. Yes, I *WILL* pay for games on Linux, so long as they are games I want to play. Sorry, but Frozen Bubble and Tux Racer will never see my crisp greens.
I hate to say it [don flame-retardant suit] but Linux gaming sucks. My modern, fast system at home is running Windows XP, people, and gaming is the reason. Okay, it’s a glorified X-Box, but who cares – games install and they work. 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 did manage to get FlightGear working – once, about a year ago – and that was great. But that’s just it – it works every time on XP but I struggle to get it to work consistently on Linux. TORCS gave me similar problems in Linux. Both games are great, by the way, if you have the time to tinker enough to get them to work.
Let me cut you off at the pass: I know someone, somewhere has gotten the games I’ve listed to work. That’s just my point – just saying “I got it to work” or even letting that thought through your mind means Linux has issues. 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). In Windows, I inserted the CD. Big difference. I can do it in Linux, but I’m just tired of the hassle.
More to the point, I found a list of games and applications that shares similar frustrations with Linux + WINE + games. Most either will not install or install and then won’t work. If they do work, then they require all sorts of hacking. Yes, I’m a hacker and I love to do it, just not all the time for every game I install. When I want to hack, I hack; when I want to play a game, I want to play a game.
Some people would have you believe that you SHOULD go right out and purchase an X-Box or Nintendo for your gaming needs, arguing that they do a better job than a PC. Uh huh. I can still get mileage out of my 8 year old PC but my Nintento 64’s lifespan was much shorter (let’s face it – it’s pretty much dead). I disagree with this assertion, but that’s an article for a different day.
To be fair, network gaming has improved on consoles. Honestly, though, my performance PC has one raison de vive – gaming. Take that away and Linux will always be second-seat in my house, and for many of the avid gamers that really drive a lot of the PC market.
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. ATi, which is my current fave, has been woefully behind the ball with Linux. Intel onboard graphics – don’t cringe, they are #1 in market share – frequently have problems, just won’t work, or don’t stay up to date (Xorg comes to mind).
Is your PC best not used for gaming? Am I wrong to want to play native games and forget about WINE? Am I wrong to keep XP around as a crutch? Where do I go from here? Do I stay with a Linux system for everything sans gaming and an XP system for gaming? Do I ditch one or the other? Does the Linux community wake up to their hardcore users (I’d be very willing to venture a guess that most Linux geeks are also gamers, but not vice versa)? Perhaps I’ll revisit this in a year.
About the author
Steve Husted is a long-time computer geek, currently doing anything but the technical support he was hired to do in Sacramento, CA. He tries to sneak in some Slack time between work, a bachelor’s degree, and family.
If you would like to see your thoughts or experiences with technology published, please consider writing an article for OSNews.
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
http://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.
http://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
http://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 [email protected].
… 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.