550 Days Later, UT3 Linux Appears Dead

[phoronix]

Phoronix: 550 Days Later, UT3 Linux Appears Dead

If you follow Phoronix or the Linux gaming scene at all you will know the mess that has become to be known as Unreal Tournament 3. Last month when we asked Epic Games about the status of the Linux game client, they were not even sure. Back in March the developer responsible for porting the UT3 client and server to Linux, Ryan Gordon, claimed to be still working on it and was just optimizing and fixing annoying bugs...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=NzI4Mg

[L33F3R]

sad isnt it. I think its something we have all known for a while whether we had admitted it or not.

[oneman]

I can't believe I bought this game and have never played it, what the fuck. They had no problem with supporting linux in the past, and where even enthusiastic about it at times... what a bunch of jerks, no fucking official statement even.

[izual]

I can't believe I bought this game and have never played it, what the fuck. They had no problem with supporting linux in the past, and where even enthusiastic about it at times... what a bunch of jerks, no fucking official statement even.

Same here...
Yeah I know it was stupid to buy it before there was a client out. That was definately the last game I bought before there is official linux support.

[r0ck]

I can't believe I bought this game and have never played it, what the fuck. They had no problem with supporting linux in the past, and where even enthusiastic about it at times... what a bunch of jerks, no fucking official statement even.

I don't really want to add insult to injury but the only thing stupid about that was you guys buying this before Linux support was confirmed to be working. I wanted to buy UT3 and even pre-ordered it but when I heard they would ship the Linux support as a "patch" afterwards I cancelled and it seems that would have been the right thing to do. I'm still very fond of that whole "someone is paying them to keep it back" conspiracy theory. It works on several consoles and there was even a running build showed off by the dev so what's the problem other than someone doesn't want it to come out. Someone ask icculus about it ... if he doesn't rip your head off maybe we get another excuse to help ourselves over the months until the next article of this kind is posted on phoronix.

[Louise]

I don't understand the hype about games for Linux. So what if ONE game is ported to Linux. That doesn't change anything. Linux will not be a gaming platform, as long as Windows is installed on 90% of all desktops, and the GPU drivers are optimized for Windows.

Solution: Buy Cedega, end of problem :)

[Kano]

The biggest problem is the perfermance drop you have with wine or cedega. As long as this is not resolved a highend gfx cards is as slow as a low budget one with it when you play demanding games. In those cases i would prefer dual boot.

[Louise]

Is that a general rule, that there is a performance drop?

I think I have seen benchmarks that show sometimes the game is a few frames faster on Linux?

[bulletxt]

It's quite obvious they don't want to release the game for Linux. And if they do, they did it on purpose to release it 2 years after the Windows release. In any case, of course I'm not buying this shit. I'de rather boot on Windows and play another game.

[MaestroMaus]

Solution: Buy Cedega, end of problem :)
@ all the new Linux users reading this: check the Cedega forums first and decide then if it is worth your money.


Is that a general rule, that there is a performance drop?

I think I have seen benchmarks that show sometimes the game is a few frames faster on Linux?
I think it is safe to say that is a general rule. I never ever saw a performance increase with a wide variety of games. Feel free to prove me wrong though. :)

[Zhick]

Is that a general rule, that there is a performance drop?

I think I have seen benchmarks that show sometimes the game is a few frames faster on Linux?
Well, in case of opengl-games, the difference in fps might be neglectable, and maybe in some few cases wine might even be faster (I doubt cedega would be, their wine-snapshot is ancient and except for incorporating copy-protection I don't think they ever did much with it... see for example Eve, which was "officialy" supported by Cedega, but in the end even the Eve-guys sayd "heck, we'll just drop official linux(/cedega) support since wine just works better").
But all the "big" titles use direct3d/directx, which will never achieve native speed with wine, so that doesn't really matter. Plus, if the game uses opengl, it's more likely their already is a linux-port around anyway.

Edit: @topic: Well, I'm glad I didn't buy the game. I almost got weak when it was available for only ~20€ for a short time on amazon (not too long after release).
For the reasons: I actually think it's possible that Ryan just wasn't able to pull it off (till now, at least). I mean, porting an AAA-game like UT3 is surely not a simple task, it might have been too much for him even though he's very experienced at it.

[Louise]

I have bought Cedega just to be able to play Hurrican. Screenshots at:

http://www.poke53280.de/gallery/index.php?showcat=1

The game is free, and is the best game I have ever played. It is a remake of Turrican 2.

It isn't listed as working, but it works.

hehe. On the old winehq.com had they some benchmarks, I think it was with Quake 2, where it was faster on Linux.

But then again, Quake 2 is a loooong time ago :) Now everybody is playing www.QuakeLive.com, and before you ask.

Yes, id Software is working on a Linux and MAC version :) See buttom of frontpage.

[azraelthe7th]

Did anybody read the article? It never said anywhere that the port is dead other than on the front page.

That's one of the most complained things about Phoronix: They put titles that say something like "Left 4Dead & Steam client on Linux confirmed!" and then it's an article about a file found in the demo rather than an announcement from Valve or a download link for said client.

It's too bad, really, because the info we get here is still very nice.

[MaestroMaus]

I have bought Cedega just to be able to play Hurrican. Screenshots at:

http://www.poke53280.de/gallery/index.php?showcat=1

The game is free, and is the best game I have ever played. It is a remake of Turrican 2.

It isn't listed as working, but it works.

hehe. On the old winehq.com had they some benchmarks, I think it was with Quake 2, where it was faster on Linux.

But then again, Quake 2 is a loooong time ago :) Now everybody is playing www.QuakeLive.com, and before you ask.

Yes, id Software is working on a Linux and MAC version :) See buttom of frontpage.

:eek:WHY?!

Why don't you use Wine for it? It's free, better then Cedega in my experience and opensource.

[r0ck]

I don't understand the hype about games for Linux. So what if ONE game is ported to Linux. That doesn't change anything. Linux will not be a gaming platform, as long as Windows is installed on 90% of all desktops, and the GPU drivers are optimized for Windows.

Solution: Buy Cedega, end of problem :)

There's not exactly a "hype" only customers that really want to see games on their native platform. If ONE game is ported really successfully to Linux that doesn't change anything rightaway but sets a nice signal for those who want to explore new markets and/or make some more money. Linux won't be a gaming platform not because Windows is installed everywhere but because developers refuse to make games work on it. Imagine you could give someone a free operating system that runs all major games ... Windows would be royally screwed in many places.

Your "solution" is a workaround for desperate people at best. I tried running several games with Cedega and it blows. Wine does a better job most of the time and I won't pay AGAIN to play the games I already own just to find out they won't work properly. Also the performance drop and other problems is just not worth it. Cedega is not a solution. In fact it makes the problem worse ... it gives developers an excuse for not developing "for" Linux and still shipping Linux versions. EVE Online had a so called "Linux client" until a few months ago which was little more than the Windows game packaged together with a version of cedega. It wouldn't even run. That's what I call a lazy solution. I'm still looking forward to seeing the Source engine on Linux hopefully later this year (has been personally confirmed to me) and we'll see how many will install a pirated copy of Windows just to play the Orange Box when any Linux derivative would just work as well.

[ronoverdrive]

Is that a general rule, that there is a performance drop?

I think I have seen benchmarks that show sometimes the game is a few frames faster on Linux?

The only game from my experience to have a better experience under WINE in Linux then in Windows is World of Warcraft. My latency has always been extremely better under linux (no joke its a 200ms difference for me) and frame rate has always been even with Windows until a recent patch (3.0.9) that (according to the WINE appDB) removed the -opengl option.

[r1348]

Try to poke it with a stick.

[dammarin]

UT3 is great and it's a shame if it never makes it to Linux.

However, what might really make a difference would be someone with money and influence (think Mark Shuttleworth) lobbying a few big game developers/publishers to make or get someone to make (like LGP) Linux ports of some big games. Blizzard with WoW would be great, Bethesda with Fallout/Elder Scrolls would be cool as well. Not to mention Valve with Steam and Source.

This would propel the creation of stable and usable game-making tools on Linux (easier porting - remember what the guy who made Braid said about Linux and it seems he really tried), as well as establish a certain credibility for the platform.

LGP have been wasting their time with games few will want to play; they really should be given the chance to work (preferably alongside the development of the Windows version) on some really blockbuster games, I think.

[unix_epoch]

@ all the new Linux users reading this: check the Cedega forums first and decide then if it is worth your money.

I think it is safe to say that is a general rule. I never ever saw a performance increase with a wide variety of games. Feel free to prove me wrong though. :)

As someone else suggested, the Windows version of Quake 2 ran much faster in Wine (IIRC ~20fps faster), back when I had a 3dfx Voodoo 3. It even ran faster than the native Linux version on my PC.

[L33F3R]

Solution: Buy Cedega, end of problem :)

Dont mind me voicing my opinion but that is some of the most stupid shit i have ever heard (please mind the harsh language). Cedega, when it rarely ever works builds its foundation on wine code and doesn't support back. I have not even bothered to look at the wine licence (i belive it was MIT at the time) but from a morality point of view the cedega team needs a good beating.

I dont often advocate the theft of software and for cedega i dont either, infact i recommend no one use it.

If Linux isn't a gaming platform then I suppose windows is? I believe the Xbox3Shitty and Playnation3 are considered "gaming platforms" but please correct me.

[oneman]

I don't really want to add insult to injury but the only thing stupid about that was you guys buying this before Linux support was confirmed to be working. I wanted to buy UT3 and even pre-ordered it but when I heard they would ship the Linux support as a "patch" afterwards I cancelled and it seems that would have been the right thing to do. I'm still very fond of that whole "someone is paying them to keep it back" conspiracy theory. It works on several consoles and there was even a running build showed off by the dev so what's the problem other than someone doesn't want it to come out. Someone ask icculus about it ... if he doesn't rip your head off maybe we get another excuse to help ourselves over the months until the next article of this kind is posted on phoronix.

Yeap, I bought it in good faith there would be a linux version since there track record was fine. Its prolly a shit game, from what I've seen of it anyway. The powers that be not even saying anything official about the linux version are really a bunch of dicks. If you have created a community of some kind you should at least respond to it a little. Icculus, bless his little heart, is just a mercenary for hire. He seems to enjoy his work, and is quite good at it. He is either unable (the only reason could be profit here), or unwilling to comment on these work in progress things. So it just comes off as a whole go away and fuck yourself, well let you know when we have something to say.

Also phoronix fills a niche that no other web site has been competent to fill as of yet, I wouldn't mind seeing some competition to it. Of course there are slow news days and weeks so they fill it up with non-stories like this one. I really don't even mind so much because when there is news in the linux-gaming/graphics front they cover it fairly well. However the guy is obviously trying to make a living here and the more flame bait stories he does like this get more people coming to the forums and linking to the site and clicking on ads. Wham, bam, thank you ma`am.

I do like phoronix and will continue to frequent it, however I doubt anyone gives a crap about solaris or gtk combobox benchmarks, I do cringe when I see these 9 page stories about 75% of which is menial benchmark graphs that arn't doing anyone any good that isn't a developer.

cheers :D

[Kano]

OpenGL based games can run very fast with wine, even before the Doom 3 Linux binary was out wine was able to run it - and not even slow. But games like UT3 don't have go a OpenGL renderer anymore - if it would have got one, it could run MUCH faster than using the D3D renderer using wine. To port a game without OpenGL render path is certainly more demanding than when it is already there. Not sure if they needed that already for a PS3 port, if so they could add it to an update too...

[deanjo]

OpenGL based games can run very fast with wine, even before the Doom 3 Linux binary was out wine was able to run it - and not even slow. But games like UT3 don't have go a OpenGL renderer anymore - if it would have got one, it could run MUCH faster than using the D3D renderer using wine. To port a game without OpenGL render path is certainly more demanding than when it is already there. Not sure if they needed that already for a PS3 port, if so they could add it to an update too...


IIRC, when it came to the OGL renderers in the UT series it always has been a "add-on" and marked as experimental and unsupported. It's too bad because their OGL renderer was often better then the officially supported D3D renderer, of course that was when OGL stayed in competition with DX and before it decided to take it's long ass break in development allowing DX to strengthen it's position with supporting the latest hardware capabilities.

[Odin]

I don't understand the hype about games for Linux. So what if ONE game is ported to Linux. That doesn't change anything. Linux will not be a gaming platform, as long as Windows is installed on 90% of all desktops, and the GPU drivers are optimized for Windows.

Solution: Buy Cedega, end of problem :)
One game is one game - It's one step.

Cedega is closed source and ATI isn't officially supported...two major disadvantages.

btw. I asked Ryan C. Gordon what the status of the linux and mac port of UT3 is and he answered: "still on its way. Being poked and prodded and optimized and stuff."

https://twitter.com/H3llsp4wn/statuses/1884551211/
https://twitter.com/icculus/status/1887351268

[L33F3R]

unfortunately that means F%$# all after a year and a half :(

[deanjo]

btw. I asked Ryan C. Gordon what the status of the linux and mac port of UT3 is and he answered: "still on its way. Being poked and prodded and optimized and stuff."


Sounds like what they have been saying about Duke Nukem for over a decade now. :p

[MaestroMaus]

...Bethesda with Fallout/Elder Scrolls would be cool as well...

You can forget Fallout, it's signed with the new keep the games @ Windows brand "Games for Windows (LIVE)".

[Tares]

Sounds like what they have been saying about Duke Nukem for over a decade now. :p

yeah ;-) got the same thought :>

too bad my ut3 box wont be used again :/ well i played it for a while on windows, but... i want it on my ubuntu box :)

[dammarin]

You can forget Fallout, it's signed with the new keep the games @ Windows brand "Games for Windows (LIVE)".

Well, it is out on the PS3. Even the expansions, which were X360/Win only in the past, are coming out for the Playstation now.

Does a game being part of the "Games for Windows" initiative preclude it from coming out on other platforms?

[L33F3R]

well lets make a new initiative...

games for systems that dont give you a cerebral haemorrhage.

[Svartalf]

OpenGL based games can run very fast with wine, even before the Doom 3 Linux binary was out wine was able to run it - and not even slow. But games like UT3 don't have go a OpenGL renderer anymore - if it would have got one, it could run MUCH faster than using the D3D renderer using wine. To port a game without OpenGL render path is certainly more demanding than when it is already there. Not sure if they needed that already for a PS3 port, if so they could add it to an update too...

It's, more often than not, only slightly harder than the OpenGL port (which is often largely a matter of plugging in a new video player engine, a new sound subsystem (if they didn't use a supported one with a license or something like OpenAL), and going looking for the oopses that using VC++ will let creep into your code.)- it's not quite as hard as one would think it is.

[L33F3R]

It's, more often than not, only slightly harder than the OpenGL port (which is often largely a matter of plugging in a new video player engine, a new sound subsystem (if they didn't use a supported one with a license or something like OpenAL), and going looking for the oopses that using VC++ will let creep into your code.)- it's not quite as hard as one would think it is.

correct me if im wrong but did you just say it isnt difficult to plug opengl in?

[Remco]

Cedega is shit. Don't buy that crap. Everything Cedega does, Wine does better.

But nothing beats native ports, when they are done around the same time as the Windows port.

UT3 is not a great game. It won't last. It's not played that much anymore. It's sad. I used to look forward to it.

[Svartalf]

correct me if im wrong but did you just say it isnt difficult to plug opengl in?

It's not simple- it's just not as difficult as people repeatedly keep making it out to be. ;)

There's some translation of behaviors to do (because there's not always a 1:1 mapping of what DirectX does to what OpenGL does- it's close, but not 1:1 in about 1/3rd the cases...) but it's not this herculean effort in most cases to move one in over the other and many game engines abstract out the rendering/input/sound/etc. stages so you end up pulling the plug on portions. The only really, really annoying as hell, can't get it good enough to satisfy people, part of DirectX isn't the 3D part- it's the network play part. And it's not so much the code itself- they're doing reasonably easy to replace things (I know, I've done it twice so far...), but you can't reproduce the wireline if they use DirectPlay. Hence the incompatibility in multiplayer with Ballistics, the hopefully soon to be arriving Bandits: Phoenix Rising, and many of the other recent ports. Only if they roll their own or use something like RakNet or (ugh...ugh...ugh...) GameSpy, can they have wireline compatibility with Linux and Windows.

[Svartalf]

UT3 is not a great game. It won't last. It's not played that much anymore. It's sad. I used to look forward to it.


It's sad, really. This all is being made to reflect poorly on Ryan's work. I'm pretty sure he's got it "done" much like Prey was done for a LONG time (I can't say HOW long- covered by NDA...) and was held back for non technical reasons. The game was largely ready- but something, probably like with UT3, was holding it back. In the case of Prey, it's "okay" it came out later. In the case of UT3...I'd stick a fork in it, it's done.

[Remco]

[...]but you can't reproduce the wireline if they use DirectPlay. Hence the incompatibility in multiplayer with Ballistics, the hopefully soon to be arriving Bandits: Phoenix Rising, and many of the other recent ports. Only if they roll their own or use something like RakNet or (ugh...ugh...ugh...) GameSpy, can they have wireline compatibility with Linux and Windows.
Maybe it would be worthwhile then to use (and improve) Wine's implementation of DirectPlay.

[danboid]

Louise:

I agree with you in that Hurrican is probably the best freeware game ever made (for Windows) and is without doubt the best ever freeware (Turrican) remake I've ever seen. However, Hurrican has worked 100% under normal wine for some time so theres no need for Cedega if thats all you really want to play. Additionally, the Hurrican developer is very keen to see it get ported to Linux but he doesn't have the time or know-how to do it himself. I brought this up on the openpandora forums and a few people expressed interest in porting it but I don't know if such work is really under way now or not.

You know what I'm absolutely f$%kin sick of all these totally dumb "Year of Desktop Linux- Never gonna happen - there are no games" articles- multiple new ones appear on the tech news sites every bloody day. I would love to see the editors of tech news sites ban "Year of Desktop Linux" because they should realise that cannot, will not happen. In another 10 or 15 years we'll be able to look back and go "Ah yes- 2007 through to 2017 (or whatever period) was the 'Decade of desktop Linux'". We all know the many reasons why Linux is technically and ethically superior to proprietary OSs but it isn't these issues that stop a large scale conversion happening, instead its legacy windows apps, hardware that was never supported under any OS other than Windows, people liking what they know, laziness, Redmonds' dodgy business practices etc etc.

As for Linux games- I'm very encouraged to see stuff like Unigine and gallium3d popping over the horizon and it certainly helps that AMD/ATi take Linux a lot more seriously than they did a few years ago, what with AMD including Linux drivers in the box on day of release for their latest and greatest cards now, open hardware docs etc.

People often cite game development as an important area of software that isn't going to flourish using the Linux dev model- big games require equally big funding to pay all the artists,designers and programmers required to work full time to produce. A lot of the best FOSS games are based upon tweaked commercial engines that became open sourced, hence very few commercial quality games (if any) have been produced from scratch using the FLOSS dev model.

As Linux ever increases in popularity, there is of course a steadily increasing demand for Linux native games. We can see from the Phoronix forums that there are indeed a considerable number of Linux users interested in and willing to pay for good, Linux-native games. Most Linux users do NOT expect every single piece of software to be free and most do not share Stallmans views on closed-source, non-free software being totally evil and to be avoided like the plague.

However, the real problem is that commercial/closed source games don't sit well upon the ever evolving, ever shifting and changing mass of libraries, programs and APIs that make up the different distros. As an example, my favourite commercial Linux games are Spacetripper and Mutant Storm by pompom games. Although these games were only released a few years ago, they refuse to run on any Linux distro from the past couple of years due to a glibc incompatibility. If I want to play these games under a recent distro then my only option is to play the Windows versions under wine, which is a sad state of affairs.

Seeing as 99.9% of the big, popular Linux apps are 100% FOSS, this constantly moving dev target isn't really a prob because everything just gets recompiled, repackaged and/or patched where necessary. So, unless circumstances drastically change and the whole Linux ecosystem 'stabilises' commercial game developers would seem to have two options:

1) Release packages for all the major distros, updating them for new distro releases AT LEAST for the shelf life of the game. Obviously, this is a lot of extra work for the game devs and we still have the problem of 'bit-rot' stopping these packages working under later revisions of specific OSs, unless everything is statically linked in which case I suppose the game might as well be on its own live CD, chroot install or whatever.

2) Much nicer as it pretty much solves all the probs in 1 but much less likely to happen would be if game studios wanting to support Linux would 'open source' (most likely under a restrictive, non FSF approved license) the game code so that if the provided packages failed to run, the user would at least be able to get the game running by compiling it from scratch. All the data files would of course remain proprietary and copyrighted.

So yes, the lack of games under Linux is certainly not just because of a relatively small market- there are many important obsticles that need to be overcome before Linux gaming can really take off.

[L33F3R]

in response to that. Fallowing the ubuntu strategy of LTS they could keep major compatibility while making it more closed source friendly as developers could target a specific long term kernel version. Let the distros deal with picking what kernel to use as usual.


just my 2 cents.

[deanjo]

Louise:

I agree with you in that Hurrican is probably the best freeware game ever made (for Windows) and is without doubt the best ever freeware (Turrican) remake I've ever seen. However, Hurrican has worked 100% under normal wine for some time so theres no need for Cedega if thats all you really want to play. Additionally, the Hurrican developer is very keen to see it get ported to Linux but he doesn't have the time or know-how to do it himself. I brought this up on the openpandora forums and a few people expressed interest in porting it but I don't know if such work is really under way now or not.

You know what I'm absolutely f$%kin sick of all these totally dumb "Year of Desktop Linux- Never gonna happen - there are no games" articles- multiple new ones appear on the tech news sites every bloody day. I would love to see the editors of tech news sites ban "Year of Desktop Linux" because they should realise that cannot, will not happen. In another 10 or 15 years we'll be able to look back and go "Ah yes- 2007 through to 2017 (or whatever period) was the 'Decade of desktop Linux'". We all know the many reasons why Linux is technically and ethically superior to proprietary OSs but it isn't these issues that stop a large scale conversion happening, instead its legacy windows apps, hardware that was never supported under any OS other than Windows, people liking what they know, laziness, Redmonds' dodgy business practices etc etc.

As for Linux games- I'm very encouraged to see stuff like Unigine and gallium3d popping over the horizon and it certainly helps that AMD/ATi take Linux a lot more seriously than they did a few years ago, what with AMD including Linux drivers in the box on day of release for their latest and greatest cards now, open hardware docs etc.

People often cite game development as an important area of software that isn't going to flourish using the Linux dev model- big games require equally big funding to pay all the artists,designers and programmers required to work full time to produce. A lot of the best FOSS games are based upon tweaked commercial engines that became open sourced, hence very few commercial quality games (if any) have been produced from scratch using the FLOSS dev model.

As Linux ever increases in popularity, there is of course a steadily increasing demand for Linux native games. We can see from the Phoronix forums that there are indeed a considerable number of Linux users interested in and willing to pay for good, Linux-native games. Most Linux users do NOT expect every single piece of software to be free and most do not share Stallmans views on closed-source, non-free software being totally evil and to be avoided like the plague.

However, the real problem is that commercial/closed source games don't sit well upon the ever evolving, ever shifting and changing mass of libraries, programs and APIs that make up the different distros. As an example, my favourite commercial Linux games are Spacetripper and Mutant Storm by pompom games. Although these games were only released a few years ago, they refuse to run on any Linux distro from the past couple of years due to a glibc incompatibility. If I want to play these games under a recent distro then my only option is to play the Windows versions under wine, which is a sad state of affairs.

Seeing as 99.9% of the big, popular Linux apps are 100% FOSS, this constantly moving dev target isn't really a prob because everything just gets recompiled, repackaged and/or patched where necessary. So, unless circumstances drastically change and the whole Linux ecosystem 'stabilises' commercial game developers would seem to have two options:

1) Release packages for all the major distros, updating them for new distro releases AT LEAST for the shelf life of the game. Obviously, this is a lot of extra work for the game devs and we still have the problem of 'bit-rot' stopping these packages working under later revisions of specific OSs, unless everything is statically linked in which case I suppose the game might as well be on its own live CD, chroot install or whatever.

2) Much nicer as it pretty much solves all the probs in 1 but much less likely to happen would be if game studios wanting to support Linux would 'open source' (most likely under a restrictive, non FSF approved license) the game code so that if the provided packages failed to run, the user would at least be able to get the game running by compiling it from scratch. All the data files would of course remain proprietary and copyrighted.

So yes, the lack of games under Linux is certainly not just because of a relatively small market- there are many important obsticles that need to be overcome before Linux gaming can really take off.

Lets not also forget the other hurdles that linux faces.

1) What schools teach. Lets face it almost every class out there concentrates on DX. Which brings me to my next hurdle.

2) Lack of a single unified API for game development. DX shines there which leads to the next point

3) Good complete documentation that is easy to find. If you download the DX SDK it comes in a nice complete package along with excellent documentation and working examples of the newest features available. Also resources like books are rather skimpy vs the overwhelming flood of DX books available.

[Dragonlord]

@danboid:
Solution is simple: make engines which "use" the Linux development model. All these problems stem from an entire aged view on engine design: one black-box type software hard to change. As long as engines stick to this black-box design it will always yield troubles with Linux. You have a dynamic OS? So make a dynamic engine! That's the only solution in the long run. The rest is temporary fixing symptoms.

[danboid]

Schools? Are we talking primary and secondary education or college/university level here because if its the former then the school at which I work caters quite well for that, but most schools don't have an IT tech hell-bent on going 100% FOSS so its not my school is probably not typical ;)

We are sadly still Windows only on the whole like most schools but to cater for homebrew and a primary/secondary level introduction to games development we have both gamemaker 7 which is proprietary, non-free and Windows only but provides an easy GUI 'modern day click n' play' mode of games dev but on the FOSS side of things we also have installed python, pygame, pyglet which allows you to create simple, cross-platform games very easily. You can see many great examples of what people can achieve with python/pygame/pyglet in only a week on the pyweek site and I would also highly recommend you check out the games of one pymike such as his Adventure Island/ Wonderboy tribute Bubbman or his geometric shooter GeoStrike.

Of course, pygame is certainly no DX/D3D 11 killer quite yet, but thankfully we are seeing a number of good game engines, both free and non-free emerging. I already mentioned Unigine but python fans can already develop modern looking games via panda3d for example IF they can find and understand what documentation that does exist, which is an acknowledged problem with panda3d as it stands. Python uses can also use soya3d engine that was used in slune and balazar brothers.

To paraphase his sweatiness:

DOCUMENTATION DOCUMENTATION DOCUMENTATION! :D

[deanjo]

Schools? Are we talking primary and secondary education or college/university level here because if its the former then the school at which I work caters quite well for that, but most schools don't have an IT tech hell-bent on going 100% FOSS so its not my school is probably not typical ;)


I was referring to universities and game development schools and media arts.

[Remco]

I was referring to universities and game development schools.
Universities are more open to FOSS. They tend to teach the fundamentals of graphics programming, and then use OpenGL in the practicals. For all its faults, there is nothing wrong with OpenGL in that department. You can learn anything using OpenGL.

Specific game development schools do tend to teach Microsoft technology. But that's reasonable, since they try to teach you the specific tools you need in the business. And currently that's Microsoft, sadly. If the tide ever turns to OpenGL, they will switch to OpenGL in an instant.

[deanjo]

Universities are more open to FOSS. They tend to teach the fundamentals of graphics programming, and then use OpenGL in the practicals. For all its faults, there is nothing wrong with OpenGL in that department. You can learn anything using OpenGL.

Specific game development schools do tend to teach Microsoft technology. But that's reasonable, since they try to teach you the specific tools you need in the business. And currently that's Microsoft, sadly. If the tide ever turns to OpenGL, they will switch to OpenGL in an instant.

openGL is just one part of API's needed to port or develop for linux. Even the minimal teaching they get for OGL is dwarfed in comparison to DX teachings.

[Dragonlord]

But with DX you need to relearn nearly the entire API whenever they bring out a new version. With OpenGL if you learned it once you learned it forever.

[Saist]

worst part is, I'm not sure Epic understands that one of the reasons UT3 did NOT sell is that there WAS no Linux Client nor Linux Tools. Epic basically screwed over a large portion of the content creation base that had upped and moved away from Windows.

[deanjo]

worst part is, I'm not sure Epic understands that one of the reasons UT3 did NOT sell is that there WAS no Linux Client nor Linux Tools. Epic basically screwed over a large portion of the content creation base that had upped and moved away from Windows.

Hardly, the game in it's first incarnation simply sucked. Nothing more, nothing less. Content creators still largely use windows based apps for games. No linux port or tools is a footnote in the reasons why it didn't sell well. The reasons you see older releases being played by a large percentage of linux users is more from the fact that people using windows have simply moved on to other titles where the choice on linux is miniscule and people play what they have available.

[gibanji]

Well, since alot of the Linux users already has bought this game, they have already earned some cash from us, and the sales might not for this very reason be that high.

Aside from that, I am pissed at how much bullshitting a company can get away with, to bad I did'nt kept the recipt so I could fight a little to get my money back.

Anyway, now I don't really want to have anything to do with any games that is made from the Unreal Engine, i believe I already have about 5 games from Tom Clansy on PS 3, and UT 3 on both PS 3 and PC. I just hope the Tom Clansy francais will use another engine in the future, their games are really good.

[deanjo]

I just hope the Tom Clansy francais will use another engine in the future, their games are really good.

We will just forget HAWX ever existed. :p

[Apopas]

To no support Linux is a matter while to fool Linux users is totally a different one. I'm not going to buy this game even IF comes for Linux tomorrow! A shame to Epic for not have the nuts to tell the truth!

[yogi_berra]

Well, it is out on the PS3. Even the expansions, which were X360/Win only in the past, are coming out for the Playstation now.

Hopefully they fix the lack of anti-aliasing and all of the damned freezes. I realize that it wouldn't be a Fallout game without random freezes and crashes, but come on that is a little bit much.

Does a game being part of the "Games for Windows" initiative preclude it from coming out on other platforms?

Depends on the contract that was signed, as always.

@ Phoronix, nice troll for information on UT3, but it doesn't seem very effective.

[hax0r]

Finally it died, who needs crappy performance on GNU/Linux if you're not using nvidia cards and their blob, there's Windows for that where stuff matters, back to drawing triangles!

[dammarin]

Hopefully they fix the lack of anti-aliasing and all of the damned freezes. I realize that it wouldn't be a Fallout game without random freezes and crashes, but come on that is a little bit much.

AA: they won't. The PS3 doesn't do AA very well. The freezes: maybe. I might buy it then.


Depends on the contract that was signed, as always.

Well, I'm sure there are standard rules. Perhaps a few tiers, with MS giving the developer more benefits the more they commit to exclusivity, etc.