Humble Bundle Hires Full-Time Linux Game Porter

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Humble Bundle Hires Full-Time Linux Game Porter

The company behind the popular Humble Indie Bundle series has hired a Linux game porting veteran to work on their staff full-time for porting new games to Linux and Mac OS X...

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

[RussianNeuroMancer]

That much better idea than using WINE, like that happen in Limbo case.

[Chewi]

urkle ported Penumbra Overture. I spoke to him while trying to bring it to 64-bit. Nice guy.

[who_me]

That much better idea than using WINE, like that happen in Limbo case.

What's wrong with wine?

[crispy]

What's wrong with wine?

Dont you get a lot lower framerates?

I actually like to play through wine Love how I can have the game in a virtual desktop that can be minimized/maximized unlike native linux games

[schmidtbag]

Dont you get a lot lower framerates?

I actually like to play through wine Love how I can have the game in a virtual desktop that can be minimized/maximized unlike native linux games

True, though there is xephyr. The problem with that tho is the poor refresh rate. Xephyr with MPX makes an awesome dynamic multi seat setup for anyone interested!

[smitty3268]

Dont you get a lot lower framerates?

Not if the game uses OpenGL.

[Hamish Wilson]

Performance may or may not be an issue. The main problem with WINE wrappers is two folds - one, it increases the support burden by adding an extra layer of potential failure, and two, there is often no need for it. Windows is by no means a universal standard in of itself, and it is not that unreasonable to expect people selling games to Linux users to actually support Linux.

In the case of the Bundle it is often vital to demonstrate that you take Linux seriously. Just wrapping a game up in a wrapper does not do that.

Nice to see Rudd getting the credit he deserves - I just hope that he can still also continue to port Frictional Game's titles.

[sulix]

By "full-time", I think they mean he's not allowed to sleep!

In all seriousness, Edward has done and is doing so much for Linux gaming and was practically working on humble stuff full-time already. It's great to see the humble bundle guys acknowledging that.

[benmoran]

I'm kind of torn on this. Nothing against Rudd, of course, as he's done amazing work. What bothers me is that a number of the HIB participants have relied on an outside porter to get their game into the bundle, and then they don't touch it. It feels like their in it for a quick buck, but don't want to properly maintain it or update it in the future. There have been long standing Linux/Mac bugs on a few of the HIB games.

I understand that not every dev has the means to port games to Linux in house, but I wish they wouldn't just abandon the Linux ports after the HIB sale is over. I really don't know what can be done about this, but I suppose the problem will go away as more developers start thinking about portability from the start.