Java Technology Demo Showcases Quake

solarisguy writes "I saw earlier today on JavaGaming.org that Reality Interactive released a non-playable demo of Quake in Windows or Linux flavors, implemented entirely in Java. It runs natively on Linux, 1280x1024 at 60fps on my box with around 65% cpu. Could this be the future of games on Linux?" This ties in neatly to our recent posting on Sun promoting Java for higher-end games development.

Quake is GPL. Where is the source?

[molo]

The Quake engine is GPLed. I imagine they ported it to Java for this 'technology demo' .. So what I want to know is, where is the source?

-molo

Re:Quake is GPL. Where is the source?

[sydlexic]

Does the GPL cover this scenario? A port to a different platform is one thing, but a "translation" to another language is quite another. It's unlikely that it shares any actual source. The algorithms and method/functions are likely very similar, but that's not a GPL issue. In fact, it's the open source people who most frequently argue that algorithms shouldn't be encumbered by patents/licenses.

*Shrug*

[NanoGator]

"Could this be the future of games on Linux?"

Depends. Can Java talk to 3D cards? If not, then the answer is no.

If Java were to develop a cross platform version of DirectX, then the answer would be eventually yes. I'm not just talking 3D here, so spare me the "OpenGL already exists" rebuttals. That's only one piece of the puzzle. There also needs to be the equivalent of DirectSound, DirectPlay, and another Direct component that I'm having difficulty remembering of right now.

That's a really ambitious task. But, on the other hand, it'd be really hard to want to develop using DirectX if the Java equivalent does the job and requires little to no porting in order to support other platforms such as Linux or even Mac.

Re:Not "Implemented entirely in Java"

[rgrzywinski]

This is a very interesting post but I'm glad that you brought up a VERY common misconception. How do you think that Java reads from files or from the network or displays to the screen? It's all JNI (i.e. native methods). There's a reason that there's about 5MB of .dll / .so files in the JRE. So take most any "100% Java" application and turn off native methods and see how far you get.

As for the playable perspective, the only difference between this implementation and a playable implemenation is that input is disabled (and not included in the .jar for obvious reasons).

As for being impressed, you should be. As recently as a few weeks ago there have been news postings on Slashdot that vehemently denies the possibility of gaming at a reasonable speed under Java. Now it seems that the argument has changed from "not possible" to "well it's still slower than native". What happened to the "not possible"? Let's get back to the "not possible" line.

Will there be a retort for everything that comes out with Java? What if I came out with something that was faster? I rue that day I tell you!

DISCLAIMER: I mean all of this light-heartedly in the spirit of open discussion.