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Quake First Person Shooters (Games)

RTCW Single Player Demo & Linux Binaries 254

Posted by michael from the into-the-outdoors-with-penguin-and-chaingun dept.
Ant was fastest on the mouse to report that Id Software has a single-player demo and a set of linux binaries available for Return to Castle Wolfenstein. Blue's News has some more information and a mirror.
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RTCW Single Player Demo & Linux Binaries More

RTCW Single Player Demo & Linux Binaries

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  • Honestly, why spend the money if you already have Halflife? It runs on linux (well), and with the Day Of Defeat Mod [dayofdefeatmod.com], you have a better game then RTCW (although the DOD mod is multiplayer only right now).

    Honestly, I didn't think RTCW is all that, and don't know why people are going nuts about it. Its living on name alone, IMNSHO.

    Most Halflife, Quake, and UT mods have already explored most of the FPS phenomenon if you just check them out...
    • I think its a good game. I like the atmosphere of the SP game. It isn't new or groundbreaking, but it has kept my interest since I got it for x-mas. (flame-throwing a room full of nazis and hearing their screams of agony... well, *I* like it!)
      • Try DOD. Seriously. Play as an Allies, with a big gun and go after those nazi bastards. Play with a sniper rifle, go into a building that's been ripped up with holes in it, and get the feeling from the movie "enemy at the gates". Seriously, I get so much more out of DOD than RTCW.

        The levels, alone, make all the difference...
        • Have to give it a try, then. I haven't had half life installed on my machine for a whil, have to dig it out this weekend and install the mod. I've stayed away from mp games lately because of my sucky connection since @home went under and AT&T threw us onto their sucky network.
    • I have played both DOD and I now own RTCW and I much prefer RTCW. RTCW is not living off the name alone and in reality has very little to do with the original game (iD's original that is). The multiplayer aspect is only half the game experience as the single player game is very good and will draw you in and make you stay up later than normal playing it. As for the multiplayer... it rocks! Its very different from DOD and should be looked upon as such. It offers some serious team based play and a few different game modes that make each map play a little different. Its much faster paced than DOD but doesnt lose its strategy elements and in fact makes things feel more harried (sp?). It runs very well on my system and now that the single player binaries are out I can stop booting into Windows to play that part of it.
    • Yes, but Evenbalance [evenbalance.com] is now supporting Punkbuster for RTCW, and not Half-Life/Conterstrike. All the cheaters made multiplayer Half-Life a waste of time. Also, RTCW multiplayer is better by virtue of its populatrity. With online games, it is often the cluster of people around the game, rather than the game itself that is most important. (Of course, if the game sucked, you'd never good sized group of people in the first place.)
    • If you can get it to run. I have installed it through Wine and am tryng to start it up, but all I get is a screen full of what looks like a random piece of memory dumped to the display. damn.
    • of running a windows game on linux through half-working emulations when there is an excellent game that has native binaries. Besides the half-life engine doesn't look as good as the quake 3 engine.
    • I bought HalfLife the day it went out, loved the single player game but the multiplayer aspect of it was so horribly slow. Waited a few months and it was still laggy as hell so I finally gave up on it.

      Maybe by now they released a few patches to improve the multiplayer experience but it's kinda late I'm already hooked on RTCW.
      • If you haven't played Half-Life with the new netcode you're missing out. It's excellent, best lag-hiding netcode I've ever seen. I can play with a 300ms ping (26k dialup) and usually enjoy myself on a decent server. Unlike RTCW which is unplayable with 300ms lag.

    • Re:For Halflife users... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Gee, Maybe I don't have halflife.

      Not directing this towards you, but this board is very confusing. Do slashdot users want more games for linux or don't they?

      RtCW comes out with native Linux binaries and you people bash it with statements like "Half Life is better, we don't need RtCW".

      The only reason my primary OS is Windows is because of games. I bought RtCW for Windows and was excited when I saw it had linux binaries available. I installed them, copied the data files over from my windows partition and bam! I'm playing RtCW on linux without problems.

      Every app that is ported to linux is a step in the right direction. This article wasn't doing a game comparison, it was trying to point out the cool fact that developers are noticing Linux.
    • I've played the RTCW demo on Windows and have been seriously underwhelmed. They've slid downhill ever since the first Quake as far as I'm concerned. I think they really need another Romero to help channel their technical abilities into a more exciting and presentable package. No Id game has creeped me out the way the original Quake did, until Half Life. I really liked the quasi-medieval-sci-fi angle to the whole thing which was entirely original, and eventually panned in favor of a 'safer' alternative.

      Oh well. It ain't my company!
    • This argument could just run and run (and RtCW would still be better, but I digress).


      Basically, I find it helps to realise that Half-Life is effectively the R-Type of the FPS genre. Developers can now go on and make more graphically impressive, complex, realistic, deep and engaging FPS games, but millions of sad pedants will come back with "ah, but it's not the same as Half-Life, now there was a game..."

      Let's let people make their own minds up. There's a place for Half-Life as well as RtCW. Plus scads of other sub-genres of the FPS. It's not such a tragedy that Wolfy doesn't do anything stunningly new, at least it does what it does very well (and for that matter, name another FPS - ack! except HL! - that has stealth, survival-horror, objectives, big big levels and kick-ass multiplayer out of the box?).

      Just my dual helping of minor currency.

  • My kid hates M$oft and so has gladly run RTCW in Linux(Debian).

    My kid can beat your kid at video games!

    • Re:My kid is using these (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      My kid can beat your kid at video games!

      That's interesting. My son's name is Thresh. They should play together sometime

      psxndc

  • Man, I tried this thing on Linux when I first got it. I've never seen my Linux system turn into a smoking mass of Windows wannabe freezage before, but that sure as hell managed to do it. We'll see if the new ones work any better after the link clears up some...
  • I think it is cool that id supports Linux. And I know that everyone on /. loves Linux and the promise of Linux gaming. Not to mention that if Linux did develop into a major gaming platform, many more people would use it in the mainstream.

    However... is this sort of release really going to be downloaded and used a lot (outside of Slashdot)?

    ALL hardcore gamers use Windows for gaming. It is simply a fact. All the games are published for Windows, and even if they make it to other OSes, they make it to Windows first.

    I can see people from /. and other geeks downloading it just to see how it works, but this is as a novelty, IMO. You download it, get it working, say "this is cool I am gaming on Linux" and get back to work never to touch it again.

    Even if they did release for Linux, how many more units would they ship? Is the demand really there? I don't like Windows any more than the next guy but games are developed for Windows, played on Windows, and the AOL using rubes that buy the games all use Windows...

    Mark
    • However... is this sort of release really going to be downloaded and used a lot (outside of Slashdot)?

      If it was used only by the people on slashdot that'd still be a pretty large audience. This site has a big base of regulars, posters, and lurkers. Why do you think that within minutes of a small to mid-size site link being posted here the server ends up going down?

      I can see people from /. and other geeks downloading it just to see how it works, but this is as a novelty, IMO. You download it, get it working, say "this is cool I am gaming on Linux" and get back to work never to touch it again.

      People who would do that weren't really that interested in playing it in the first place. It's the same thing as people who download the PC demo, try it for five minutes, and move on. I'm guessing there's a large segment of Linux users who do a lot of gaming on their Windows machines, but would rather be doing it on their Linux box (I know I fall into this category). For them, it's a godsend. And in terms of appeal, I'm sure the percentage of Linux users who will stick with it is probably proportional to the amount of PC users who will.
    • And things in the computer world never change, and things that are now have always been, will always be. good thing you weren't friends with Christopher Columbus, George Washington, THomas Edison, Abraham Lincoln, Larry Wall, etc. We'd still be living in caves talking about how how wheels will never work, good old fashioned muscle is the only way to travel and work.


    • I guess we should all accept the way things are. Stop trying. Stop supporting and developing alternatives. The war has been lost. Just like rape, we have no choice so we might as well sit back and enjoy it.


      Your sentiment here is best captured by the "Resistance is futile" slogan so often associated with Microsoft. I'd like to know what you think differentiates yourself from those you describe as "the AOL using rubes that buy the games [and] all use Windows".

    • Re:Novelty or highly demanded and used? (Score:4, Informative)

      by psavo ( 162634 ) <psavo@iki.fi> on Friday January 18, 2002 @04:20PM (#2864217) Homepage
      Well one reason could be that Linux performs better on P4/2.2GHz than WinXP does [theregister.co.uk]. If more games would perform better. the more people would play on Linux ;)
      • LOL that is the most biased benchmark I've ever read...

        One Intel D850MVSE mobo with Northwood P4; 512M PC800 RDRAM; two Maxtor D740X 20G ATA-133 drives on the mobo's onboard ATA-100 controller, one booting Win-XP Pro on FAT and one booting SuSE 7.3 Pro on ReiserFS and both installed clean and subsequently patched; and a 64M DDR GeForce AGP4.

        Jesus H. Christ. Cut off it's balls why don't you. XP runs best on NTFS. Most likely the author was running XP with all the visual goodies turned on, font smoothing, the spiffy new desktop, etc... (note: you can disable them very easily...) and running console and or IceWM on Linux.

        And I quote:

        It's extremely difficult to compare the performance of a given system on both Linux and Windows.

        Now go recompile your kernel, you zealot.

        • I seriously doubt the fat filesystem had any bearing on *how fast a 3d game ran*. Last time I checked my drives weren't spinning when I was playing RTCW, only when it was initially loading. Visual FX don't make a damn bit of difference when you're gaming either. Go back under the bridge little troll.
    • What we need is people to log in to ID's ftp and download the 8mb file that is required to play the buy version on Linux since the CD does not contain Linux binaires. Will the next game be available on Linux if there is no one getting the binaries needed? hmm I don't know.

      • This is actually an excellent marketing idea, if every gaming company would simply have a few binary files that are free to download to play the retail Windows version of games on Linux. Now if only more compainer would do this i.e, Blizzard
    • I can see people from /. and other geeks downloading it just to see how it works, but this is as a novelty, IMO. You download it, get it working, say "this is cool I am gaming on Linux" and get back to work never to touch it again

      How else is Linux Gaming going to get popular, then? I too am someone who only uses Windows for the games, and would definitely like to see Linux with a stronger video game selection. However, the only way this will ever happen is through support, and part of that support comes from downloading demos, giving feedback to the developers, and passing it on. It will only remain a noveltly as long as people let it.

    • For what it's worth, I'm a Linux gamer (Score:4, Insightful)

      by DG ( 989 ) on Friday January 18, 2002 @04:26PM (#2864263) Homepage Journal
      I live in a Windows-free world, so I guess I'm a Linux gamer.

      The downside is that there's not much in the way of games. The upside is that those that are there are pretty good.

      My "game machine" is a P1-233 with a PCI GF-MX200 in it. Plays Q3 just fine. And I've been making my way through the Loki ouvre and having a ball with it.

      I'm almost finished SOF, and then there's Descent 3 waiting in the wings.

      Am I typical of the bleeding-edge, overclocked, 3000 FPS gamer that Windows seems to attract? Hell no. But I AM using Linux as my gaming OS, and I AM having fun with it, and I'm using a machine that's over 5 years old.

      Which is pretty cool, as far as I'm concerned.

      DG
      • Aha, a machine that is over 5 years old, definitely. But I suspect those games wouldn't be nearly as fun if you didn't have that fairly recent GF video card. ;-)
    • It's true that I do a lot of gaming on Windows but I often buy a linux version of games when available (even if I have the windows version). At work, for example, I have not installed Windows (and yes I do play games at work ;) and even at home I like to be able to quickly go for a few online games when I need a break from my linux coding.

      Being able to run the game on linux also allows me to avoid buying more windows licences. Since I don't need to have windows installed on all the machines in a LAN game.

      So RtCW is not only one of the best games of 2001, it's also one that supports alternative operating systems (OsX and linux)!!
    • All the games are published for Windows, and even if they make it to other OSes, they make it to Windows first.

      Gee, I don't know. Our Mac version was first out of the gate popularity-wise (and is still in high demand), and our Linux version was the first one that worked correctly. We've gotten far more compliments for supporting Linux than Windows.

      The difference is that we didn't start with a Windows version and then port to other platforms. We started with a platform-independent version, and released simultaneously. It never even occurred to us to release only for Windows, and I think a lot of games companies think this way.

    • Actually a strong argument can be played for playing on Linux instead of Windows, at least for Quake 3 engine based games. Just today The Register [theregister.co.uk] posted an article [theregister.co.uk] discussing how Quake 3 on Linux (on a p4-2.2) achieved significantly higher (80.2 vs 72.7) framerates with identical hardware (dual boot machine)

      While Windows is still the general platform of choice for gaming because that is where games are, don't knock Linux games when they perform better than the same game on Windows

      -Frums

      • Just so you know, the version of Windows used was Windows XP. Windows XP has been known that it can perform slower than Windows 2000 or 98 in tests.

        (see The Register [theregister.co.uk] for an article discussing Win2k vs XP performance)

        Also, since both OSes achieve framerates higher than 60, its not going to make much difference when actually playing the game.

        A difference of only 7.5 fps is not insignificant, but its not very significant either. I am willing to believe that the same tests can be repeated by others, and get results that show the same, and the opposite from what The Register saw.

        So what can you conclude from the Register article? That both systems play the game well.

        Greg
    • By releasing the single player game so long after the multiplayer-only binaries, I suspect that Id has ensured the existance of lots of players like me, who bought the game for a fun multiplayer experience without the hassle of frequent reboots, but who weren't somehow "morally" above rebooting to Windows for a couple days to play through the single player game a month ago. Also, the RTCW single player game, although it's the best such that I've seen from Id, just doesn't cut it compared to Deus Ex or even Halflife. I could easily imagine busy people buying this for the (most fun shooter I've ever seen) multiplayer experience and ignoring the single player game altogether.

      It takes a whole lot (Deus Ex is the only example I can give you right now) to get me to buy a game without a Linux port at this point. Linux is enough of an improvement over Windows for most of the productive things I do on a computer that my desktop spends most of it's time there; why would I want to have to spend minutes rebooting every time I want to take a break and goof off?
    • All the games are published for Windows,

      Last time I checked there wasn't a windows port of tuxracer ;)

    • Linux can be a BETTER platform for gaming.

      I play Quake 3 regularly on a Geforce2 Pro that
      is nicely supported under linux (Thanks NVIDIA!).

      Here are some differences to make you think
      a little bit (these apply on my system):
      - Linux runs 15-20 % faster. I don't know why.
      It does. As a matter of fact, I am only
      able to use FSAA under linux (due to speed
      difference).
      - Windows XP insists on using 60 Hz refresh rate
      in games (why?). This bothers me most.
      - Linux caches the files MUCH better and the
      loading time is considerably less. The
      difference is astonishing if you are loading
      off a CD.
      - Linux does not crash. You can play Quake
      while doing heavy stuff (e.g. compiling
      the kernel or compressing to mp3, simply
      renice the process)
      - I feel much more comfortable with multiplayer
      gaming when I have a proper firewall setup. Windows 98 (popular gaming platform) will not
      protect you adequately.
      - You don't have to reboot when you take a
      break from work.(imagine having to reboot
      for every short Quake 3 15' break you take)

      Petros
    • "ALL hardcore gamers use Windows for gaming. It is simply a fact."

      Nice attitude, Windows is all there is for gamers please move along nothing to see here folks. Oh and the console is dead? Please.

      I have a linux box running as my general purpose server at home. I plan to download and run my rtcw server on my linux box.
  • Despite poor sales of their Quake3 linux port, the release of a demo for linux shows the future of commercial gaming on linux platforms is still possible... I recall reading how support for the linux client was a difficult task, I wonder if it will be curtailed for a linux RTCW release?
    • i have no idea why sales were so poor? maybe the fact that you can't find it on the shelves anywhere! i look for linux games every time i'm in best buy, and never see anything. just last week, i saw quake 3 and some railroad tycoon. these were 10$ each. i don't know how long quake 3 for linux has been out, but for 10$.. that's chump change. the game installed easily and is well worth the money. my point is, they'll sell more boxes if they put them on the shelves!
      • Quake 3 for Linux has been out for a long time. Maybe the lackluster sales is the reason it's not on the shelves not the other way around? 95% of gamers are going to have Windows on their machine to play games. Another 4% will use Macs and less than 1% will use open source operating systems for gaming. 76% of all statistics are made up on the spot.
      • I got my Linux version of Quake3 from a retail store, just after it was released. (yes, the actual linux version with tin box and everything...)

        The store clerk said they couldn't keep it on the self. Yup, they were selling like, 5 copies a week.

        And this was at the Mall of America [mallofamerica.com], not a low trafic mall by any means.

        Putting out a retail version of Quake3 was a nice test, obviously it told them that the market wasn't ready yet. But every now and then you do see Loki games on store shelves. MicroCenter had them for awile. I've yet to see newer titles like Tribes 2 show up though.

        Oh well, TuxGames is a great store. :)
        • i love the tin box. mine's a little dented, but i don't care. it's a tin box!

          hardware i can order online and schedule time later to install/play with it, but software? games? i really like to get it at a store so i can take it right home open the new package, and play with it.

      • Re:Thanks ID! (Score:3, Informative)

        by TotallyUseless ( 157895 )
        This is a large reason the mac version didnt sell as well in my opinion. When I went to buy the game, the store had the Mac version, for 49.99 It had the pc version for 29.99. I bought the much cheaper pc version, went home, copied files from cd to my drive, and downloaded the mac binary. I greatly appreciate the fact they released a mac version, and I wish I could have supported it, but I'm no fool, and not was not going to pay 20 dollars more for a game that I would have ended up having to download the binary update for anyway.
        This pricing/availability problem isnt the fault of id tho, if anything it is the retailers, and activision. Activision doesnt buy any shelf space for linux titles, and the retailers can sell the windows version cheaper because they sell a lot more of them (surprise surprise!) This results in greatly skewed results for OS sales for a few games, quake based games in particular it seems. id seems to realize this tho, which I suspect is why they keep releasing versions for other OSs and pushing licensees to do the same despite the 'horrible sales figures.'

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
      Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • RTCW 1.1 Patch for windows Released (Score:5, Informative)

    by DeadBugs ( 546475 ) on Friday January 18, 2002 @04:07PM (#2864132) Homepage
    For those like me who have had problems with RTCW 1.0 you can get the Patch Here [activision.com]
  • For those of us about to ROCK...

    Where's the Mac version?
  • Is it appropriate to have more of this. Castle Worlfenstien picks on Nazi's, fine, I hate nazi's, but when you shoot people, it's decidedly anti-german in practice.

    Would anyone mind if instead of germans screaming "ya" and dying like Quake monsters it was cowboys and digital Coronel Custers screaming "yeeha". I mean, if you know history, there are genocidal forces in most cultures history, maybe they could pick on them a bit for ballance?

    I'm an expert because I played the Original Castle Wolfenstien (still a great game in emulator land)

    • Re:Politics (Score:2, Funny)

      by GypC ( 7592 )

      Yes, I think an Old West game where I could play a rogue Indian brave wasting cowboys would kick ass!

      I'm a white American male and I suspect most of my kind would feel the same. That it would kick ass! Heheheh. I love typing that.

    • What about grand theft auto 3 where you get points for killing cops?

      You're bringing up a troll we haven't seen in a while. If you can't handle the reallife-like killing, you shouldn't play the game (and stop watching the news). FPS games are for people that know how to identify "real" with "imagination".
    • Actually a game where you could shoot jews would be so controversial it'd never get released, but it's ok to shoot germans and americans 'in context'. Remember, this is WWII stuff, not modern day events. Strange how there are a whole slew of these games all of a sudden huh?
    • Is a 'Coronel Custer' anything like a Beowulf Cluster?

  • Tux Games (Score:5, Informative)

    by BadBlood ( 134525 ) on Friday January 18, 2002 @04:09PM (#2864147)
    While not yet posted on their website as of 15:07 Eastern Time, www.tuxgames.com will sell RTCW with a linux-based installer.

    This is for those folks who want to show their allegience to Linux gaming by purchasing from a company dedicated to bringing it mainstream and properly tallying Linux sales.

    I have no affiliation, just a friendly notice. :)
    • They should have shipped RtCW already. The multiplayer binaries have been out for a while (late November if I recall). So they've been waiting on the single player binaries. Meanwhile, people that aren't absolute Linux fanatics have become pissed off, bought the win32 version and downloaded the Linux MP binaries.

      While I can appreciate Tuxgames' wanting to package a complete game, I (like many other people) primarily want to play the MP version. And I assumed that when I ordered it early last Decemeber that it would ship as soon as they had packaged it. But that wasn't the case. I wrote tuxgames and asked them what they were waiting on, and they told me to join the mailing list so I could find out when it was going to ship. Not especially helpful.

      If you make it hard to show support then only diehards will. If you make it easy, then id gets to see plenty of Linux gamers. For example, everyone at work has been bugging me to set up a server on our game machine. I've been telling them to wait until I get my copy. Now many of them are beyond the game, having played it for the last two months straight. So I'll get my copy, put it on our game machine and it won't get played very much because everyone's moved on. At least I'll have shown my Linux support. If they would have shipped with MP only and then emailed me a download link to the SP binaries when they becamse available, I'd have been very happy I bought from Tuxgames. I would have been playing on Linux with my Win32 friends damn near after the game went GM. As it is, I'm just grumpy that I paid for a game over two months ago and am just now going to get it.

      I almost bought a Win32 copy a couple weeks ago, and maybe I should have. It just seems to me that waiting two and a half months is asking a lot simply to show "support" for a single-player portion of a primarily multiplayer game (how many of you still play Quake2 or Q3A in single player mode?). Besides, id ought to be able to gauge Linux support from their ftp logs, right?

      I guess sometimes I feel left out enough as a Linux gamer without having to tell people why I'm waiting to set up a RtCW server...

      -B

  • I have been playing the full multiplayer version on RH 7.2 for some time and it runs like a breeze.
    Once you get the proper display drivers installed for OpenGL. I realized that I was lucky that NVIDIA provide Linux drivers that enables me to take proper advantage of the card. Note that the default install of RH won't utilize the Geforce chip properly so that you can play games on it.
    I have a "old" Geforce 1 and have been looking at the ATI 8500DV. But I have just switched from Windooze to Linux this week so I was checking ATI's site for Linux drivers and it quickly shows that it is not a choice if you want to play games. Their site says that they do not support Linux and then direct you to some sourceforge pages. Pheew good thing I checked that out. Now I am going for a Geforce 3 istead.
    Anyway RCTW works great with the .10 kernel that ships with RH. Only "problem" I have is that I'd like to run a lower resolution(1024x768) in the game than on my desktop(1280x1024), but when you choose full-screen and a lower resolution than the desktop, the games sits in the lower left corner of the screen and the rest is garbage. But that goes for all the games I have tried, like Tux Racer.

    A final hurdle is that you cannot make a Linux install from the CD, which gave me a lot of problems. You have to copy the data files from a INSTALLED version on a windooze setup which was impossibe for me since I had deleted the Windooze. I had a second drive in my PC with a FAT32 partition with my old data. So I had to install windooze again just to get the files.
    Please, PLEASE, make a Linux program that can extract the data from the Windooze installer. I don't need no fancy GUI, just a command line tool that will let you extract the files from the CD that you need.

    • Re:Using Linux (Score:2, Informative)

      by Afrosheen ( 42464 )
      The problems with your games running at a lower res and taking up a corner of the desktop is your XF86Config file. You need to define more (smaller) resolutions that it can switch to.

      Also they clearly state in the installer (you know, that readme that you clicked through without reading) that wine can be used to extract the game from the cd. Sheesh.
    • Thanks for the replies :-)
      I know that I have not set other resolutions than the one that my desktop uses, So it sound like that is the solution. Going to test it right away thanks.
      Dang. there goes my excuse for having to buy a new graphics card that can handle the resolution. :-)

    • Re:Using Linux (Score:2, Informative)

      by puetzk ( 98046 )
      ati provides driver docs instead, which is better. ATI's cards work out-of-box on linux, instead of needing new drivers from nVidia. they direct you to the sourceforge page, because they support the standard XFree86 DRI interface, which is maintained on sourceforge. But really, all you need is a recent enough version of XFree (4.1.0 for Radeon DDR, 4.1.99.x/released-as-4.2.0 really soon for 7500).

      Now, I'll have to admit in fairness that the 8500 isn't supported yet (for 3d). But my 7500 is kickin' ass and takin' names in linux, and (unlike nVidia's cards) actually runs 2d well too :-)

      I found a crash about 3 days back - now it's already fixed in X CVS, and I have a new build :-) Try that with nVidia's closed drivers.
      • I have been looking for a solid confirmation of the 7500.

        I don't care to buy hardware from a company that might oprhan me or DRM me, when their priorities change(only a fool would argue that Microsoft dosn't carry a big club in their xbox deal). GPL is required for software infrastructure in my book.

        Do you know what the highest Linux card that works with video capture and 3d is? Is it the 32meg Radeon AIW? Is there a 7500 aiw type tv card?

    • Its pretty intereting to note that in the last few months a few sources have been getting osme pretty good results when benchmarking Linux against Windows for gaming - specifically Quake 3 on GeForces. Hover a proper installer would be great. The CD uses Wise installer archives. There is a free Unix Wise archive extractor (sorry, lost the URL :( )but it needs to be updated for the latest archive format.

      * This months Atomic (a well known Australian overlocking / hardware geek mag)

      * The Register [theregister.co.uk]

      It was inevitable, but I'm glad its happening. Onward penguin soldiers.

      Now if Slashdot would post the news that Tuxracer 1.0 is avaliable for ordering [tuxracer.com] I'd be a happy man.
    • http://web.mit.edu/installers/www/installer-faq.ht ml

      Common Features of the Windows installers:

      The installers are created using the WISE 5.0 installation software. Installation programs created by WISE offer three command line options. These options are:

      1. /M Manual Mode The /M option runs the installation in manual mode. You will be prompted for the locations of your Windows, System, and Temp directories. You can specify any directories, if they do not exist they will be created. Any changes to INI files will be saved into the Windows directory that you specify. With this option you can have the installtion file run without installing any files into your real Windows and System directory. You can then manually copy the files to their proper destination. This option can also be useful for clients that have unique Windows installations.
      2. /X Extract Mode If you run the installation executable with the /X option, list of the files contained will be displayed. You can select some of the files to extract them from the installation. If you place a directory name after the /X option all of the files in the installation will be extracted into the specified directory.
      3. /Z Extract Mode The /Z option performs the same function as the /X option except that Windows is exited after the extraction.

  • Awesome. but....MP has been out a while... (Score:3, Informative)

    by CDWert ( 450988 ) on Friday January 18, 2002 @04:24PM (#2864246) Homepage
    The MP has been out a while and the SP ran fin under wine, transgamings, winex, and plain vainlla CVS , all except sound lag on SP under wine.

    What IMPORTANT is they DID it, they said the would and did is also imortant this is the kind of cross plattform movability you get with OpenGL.

    RTCW is a ton of fun, I hadnt bought a game in over 10 years, Im not really the Gaming Type, BUT Me, and my two sons are Hooked on this, since we have Linux workstations at home, It RUNS FAR more stable on Linux than it does on My wifes W2k box, much nicer all the way around.

    Just in case any of you wonder my handle is

    "Major Dick"

    See you at the Happy Penguin Server tonight :)
  • Anyone going to be nice enough to post a mirror of wolf-linux-1.1b.x86.run? idSoftware's FTP is full already.

    Thanks.
  • There's a better article at Blue's about an upcoming Farscape game; it looks moderately OK, and will probably be out before the new eps.

  • I'll be downloading these binaries as soon as I get home from work. Hopefully, they'll run under FreeBSD. Otherwise, I'll have to go into my garage to dig up one of my working Linux boxes. :) Oh well.

  • List of Mirrors (Score:2, Informative)

    by deicide ( 195 )
    A list of mirrors (which may need some time to propagate) is at:

    http://www.fileaholic.com/ [fileaholic.com]

  • Install on windoze first required? (Score:3, Redundant)

    by SCHecklerX ( 229973 ) <greg@gksnetworks.com> on Friday January 18, 2002 @04:46PM (#2864407) Homepage
    I was just about to try the mp demo (now I won't bother :), and noticed you had to have the junk extracted under windoze first.

    Does the new installer for linux require an existing windoze install, or is there a way I can play this thing without having to boot to windoze and install it there first?

  • In case you're wondering... (Score:4, Informative)

    by dnaumov ( 453672 ) on Friday January 18, 2002 @04:50PM (#2864439)
    RCTW wasn't actually developed by ID Software. ID merely "produced" it. RCTW's multiplayer part was developed by Nerve Software and the singleplayer was developed by some other developer who was recently bought by Activision. Can't remember the name though.
  • Thank you Thank you Thank you!

  • RtCW from a Counter-Striker's perspective... (Score:3, Informative)

    by Cynical_Dude ( 548704 ) on Friday January 18, 2002 @05:02PM (#2864537)
    ... or anyone that is reasonably adept at first person shooters.

    While the (full) game is gorgeous, as you will see if you download the demo, it seemed a bit "short" to me.

    I completed the game on hard setting in 4 hours and 50 minutes play time. Sorry, but that's just not the kind of value I was expecting.

    Replay value is IMHO low, since the sluggish handling (as opposed to, say, Counter-Strike) makes it hard to use your carefully honed FPS skills.

    As an example, any long-time Counter-Striker will automatically aim for the head of the enemy. While headshots exist in RtCW, they are not easy to land and generally seem very random, although every shot will go exactly where you aim. Even Counter-Strike's very random firing pattern feels more precise.

    The final boss I managed to kill on my second try. On hard setting. That was disappointing.

    Overall, I'd rate the game B+ for eye candy, coolness and first-time wow factor. After 5 hours though, it drops off fast.
  • I wonder if they fixed the SMP issues -- reportedly, the Windoze side of things will take advantage of two processors, but on linux RtCW can only use a single processor. I haven't been able to get the linux side of things going to actually test this on my SMP system though.
    • can anyone comment on whether RtCW can use >1 processor? Maybe I should just check the Windows side, but I'd rather not reboot. :) I can say with certainty that it doesn't use >1 processor on linux, at least according to "top".

  • Haven't played enought to say anything about gameplay yet, but it certainly looks sweet as hell with all the eye candy jacked up and at high resolution (runs like a champ too - better hope BillyG doesn't see it, he might have a heart attack)

    Just might have to go out and buy a copy - will that make me one of the 50 or so people who've bought Linux games? ;)

    Oh yeah - anyone know how I can get it to display fps? Just idle curiousity...

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