One Year Later There's No UT3 Client For Linux

[Svartalf]

He for sure would shed is tongue. Opening the mouth could result in some lawyers visiting your very home

Indeed, indeed... NDA's are such nasty beasts... I strongly suspect we'll never find out why it never got out. But from the looks of things, perhaps that may be for the best- it is shaping up to be the worst of the UT series titles to date.

First rule of thumb: If it doesn't have staying power (see UT2k4 and UT99- they've still got quite a few active servers going...UT3 is like a ghost town in comparison...) then there's something to it and it wasn't worth buying.

Second rule of thumb: If it doesn't have an actual native binary available for Linux in a supported or unsupported fashion you probably ought not to buy it. Not even on "promises" to do a version. I got bit myself with NWN doing that. Even though they carried through, it was a flawed result when it came out (No cutscenes...some cross-platform title that was... ). So I told myself no more. You should too, especially if you got bit on this little debacle. If it's not got support for it at the time of purchase, you probably ought not to even consider it unless that purchase seals the deal with <X> prepurchases meaning that it will be actually done in a timely manner (See: Ankh and Jack Keene...).

[deanjo]

Maybe now we can get Jeff Morris to spill on what's really taking a hold on UT3 on Linux. Well, barring NDAs, that is. lol.

It's pretty standard affair for NDA's to extend past a person's employment in software development.

[Thetargos]

It's pretty standard affair for NDA's to extend past a person's employment in software development.

Just like in the music industry...

[deanjo]

Just like in the music industry...

I was thinking more like herpes, the gift that keeps on giving....

[Thetargos]

I was thinking more like herpes, the gift that keeps on giving....

In that case would be more like AIDS, because not only is passed along, but also implies an inability to defend yourself

[Cyvillian]

I've heard that one of the problems with porting the game over was the reliance on the PhysX engine.

That part of the code isn't owned by Epic, and they probably don't have access to the source, so getting that as an ELF library on Linux might have been a problem.

Might be an even bigger problem to port it to Linux now that the code is owned by nVidia.

[Thetargos]

I've heard that one of the problems with porting the game over was the reliance on the PhysX engine.

That part of the code isn't owned by Epic, and they probably don't have access to the source, so getting that as an ELF library on Linux might have been a problem.

Might be an even bigger problem to port it to Linux now that the code is owned by nVidia.

This has already been discussed in the past, and when the PhysX code wasn't owned by nVidia, but rather by Ageia, there was a client-side library for PhysX for Linux directly from them (and an SDK, IIRC), see the other threads regarding this rather large discussion (the conjectures about the possible reasons why it was first delayed, and now clearly not going to make it). We covered a number of topics (PhysX was actually the biggest profile issue, to tell the truth), but until (and if) we get an official statement on the matter, no matter how plausible or fantastic our theories are, they're nothing but conjectures.

[yogi_berra]

On the bright side, those of us that haven't bought it yet will be treated to another $5 game when its released

Of course with the global economy tanking, no one will be able to afford that.

[Dragonlord]

Yeah... thanks to almighty America for cranking up the world once again... which they are fucking good at <.=.<

[yogi_berra]

Hey now, don't blame the country, just blame the paper pushers and the politicians that love writing them $.7 trillion blank checks while not lifting a finger to help an industry that actually produces something.