edv writes "In a news posting dated 10th of September, Beyond3D is reporting of an article in a German publication in which id Software CEO Todd Hollenshead discusses the upcoming id title Rage and the engine it runs on, codenamed 'id Tech 5'. Amongst other things Todd mentions that no Linux version of the game is planned at the moment, and that it will run on Direct3D on Windows platform. OpenGL version is planned for the Mac however. If true, this would be a serious blow for Linux gaming (insert jokes here) as id and Carmack have been strong proponents of OpenGL and openness in the past."
Another good point to remember is that ID is not of one mind.... back when they were deciding on their next product (Wolfenstein or Q4 or whatever) Hollenshead fired a few people loyal to Carmack as retribution for losing that argument. It's entirely possible that this guy thinks things are going one way and Carmack is going the other without telling him.
When you get right down to it, having everyone in the world know the greatness of your company is entirely due to one man who is not you has got to suck:)
"When you get right down to it, having everyone in the world know the greatness of your company is entirely due to one man who is not you has got to suck"
I doubt anyone on slashdot can truly understand that feeling though;)
Actually, I remember that.plan update well. John, Paul Steed, and a bunch of others confronted Kevin Cloud and Adrian about their plan to remake Doom, saying that they felt so strongly to either agree to remake it or fire them. Adrian and Kevin were the other two co-owners beside John. Todd is just the business guy, and couldn't fire John if he wanted to.:) Paul Steed, their modeler, got fired in retaliation though for going along with John's mutiny.
Paul Steed, their modeler, got fired in retaliation though for going along with John's mutiny.
It's worth noting that a few years earlier Steed had shot his mouth off several times [gamespy.com] and embarrassed the company, something he never recovered from. Pulling a maneuver like this while working there on borrowed time wasn't the smartest move. Sure, it was retaliation, but it was also the straw that broke the camel's back.
Incidentally some years later the bought out Adrian to get him out of the company - no one knew this until he sued them for it.
Also, everyone should keep in mind that porting of Doom 3 to Linux didn't happen until fairly late in the development process. Just because they haven't planned to port it yet, doesn't mean that they aren't going to.
...anyone makes a remark like that... I'd be filthy stinking rich.
1) Id abstracts the hell out of everything. OpenGL isn't ON X-Box, now is it? But there's Id titles on that platform. There's a hint there- it's easier to abstract things and produces portable code. It's also very MUCH worth mentioning that DirectX is only available on ONE of the dominant consoles, and on only ONE of the dominant OS platforms. This is about making as much or more money on ENGINE SALES as the game itself. Making a DirectX only engine is limiting as hell for that prospect (No PS3. No Wii. No MacOS.).
2) It's NOT all that difficult to make a port from DirectX to OpenGL. It's been done. I had a hand in one of them. The damn game that I had a hand in porting would have shipped about 12-14 months earlier if the other two team members hadn't boggled on us and we ended up having a few 11th hour bugs that had NOTHING to do with the porting effort from DirectX to OpenGL.
3) Id has NEVER, to the best of my recollection, announced anything other than Windows versions of ANY of their titles or engines that are currently in development. Suppositions about whether they're ditching Linux or not is just rattling to hear one's own voice at this point.
While it's true that an Xbox-only game wouldn't be a good move, it wouldn't be a very big deal if id made any of their games Windows-only. Unlike the console market, where there are three actual contenders, in the OS market, there's one contender, and two very distant competitors.
I like id's decisions in the past to port their games, and think it's a great way to show some love to the fans, but you seriously overplay the damage they'd do to themselves by excluding Mac OS and Linux.
Actually, unless the reported
sales numbers for august [ign.com] are way off it wouldn't surprise me if id games one day chose to abandon the
PC platform alltogether:
PC games:
[77,374] Bioshock - 2K Games
[49,126] World Of Warcraft: Burning Crusade Expansion Pack - Vivendi
Consoles:
[896,592] Madden NFL 08 - Xbox 360 - Electronic Arts
[643,617] Madden NFL 08 - Playstation 2 - Electronic Arts
[490,910] BioShock - Xbox 360 - 2K Games
[336,189] Madden NFL 08 - Playstation 3 - Electronic Arts
[256,781] Play With Remote - Wii - Nintendo of America
With even the 10th console game outselling [gamedaily.com] the two top PC games combined, I can't
help but wonder how (if) the smaller PC game studios turn a profit.
Those numbers do not include online retail purchases, Steam purchases (where Bioshock was a big seller) or things like MMO subscriptions. Online purchases, whether from a retailer such as EB Games or Gamestop, orvia digital download, ala Steam or Direct2Drive represent a huge percent of the PC gaming market and are not included in those sales stats. Those stats, while powerful in the industry, don't represent any sort of true depiction of PC sales.
It's NOT all that difficult to make a port from DirectX to OpenGL
I'd like to clarify this point by saying that it's highly dependent on your other point:
Id abstracts the hell out of everything
Porting from Direct3D to OpenGL is very hard if you have DirectX code scattered all through your program, but much easier if you have all of the drawing handled through a middleware layer. This is true of all code, not just games. Cross-platform APIs are great, until you find you want to use a platform-specific feature they don't support, or port to a platform where they don't run. Then your abstraction is the thing
If they truly decide to develop Rage in DirectX, a port would be much harder, requiring lots of rewrites... not something you just spontaneously decide to do around shipping time.
The minute the PS3 supports DirectX, that'll become a possibility. Until then, any serious game engine will need both an OpenGL and a DirectX render path.
I seriously doubt this. That would mean writing 2 full graphical back-ends for the engine. That would be almost double the work. There is no way they would do that. There would be no point since OpenGL is available on Windows. I have no doubt that they are using DirectInput and such (as basically every game on Windows does) but I would be amazed is they wrote a Direct3D renderer in addition to the OpenGL one.
Lots of games have both a direct3d and opengl renderer. wow, ut2k4 spring immediately to mind. Ultimately the two aren't that different, and it isn't that hard to code your engine using a generic wrapper so that there isn't that much work to be done to create the two render paths. Usually one of them is less optimized, and it's usually OpenGL since a lot of companies target Windows/Direct3D primarily and create the OpenGL path for the Mac port.
However coming from id I'm taking this with a huge grain of salt. Carmack isn't the kind of guy who likes to have two separate yet redundant render paths where one is probably more optimized than the other. Software vs hardware rendering ala quake2? Sure. But since they're already committed to an opengl path for the Mac, I just can't imagine them going through with creating the Direct3D one.
Though maybe it's a side effect of iD's business of selling engines? If customers are demanding direct3d for whatever reason, they may very well get it.
Microsoft's OpenGL implementation does use DirectX to complete OpenGL commands. However, no one really uses Microsoft's OpenGL implementation (and definitely not for games).
Every graphic card manufacturer distributes an OpenGL implementation specifically for their hardware. They do the same for Vista. When you run a game that uses OpenGL, it uses this pure implementation of OpenGL.
Can't do that. Any new game engine must look to the next two or three years, and Microsoft is not going to let Vista fail. This time next year, Vista will have 25% of the market. In another year, it'll have 75%. Just like XP did, and MS-Win2k before that.
That is not a given. With XP, it was adopted because given the alternative...Windows users were clamoring for the upgrade. People not only wanted XP, they needed XP. Home users, businesses, everywhere.
This time around things are not the same. It is very much like Windows ME. It's not necessary, it has drawbacks, and XP Just Works.
The market MAY end up Vista dominated...but the jury is still very much out on that. Of all the people I know with PC's...dozens anyways, there are TWO using Vista. One that install
Everyone knows that you skip ever other Microsoft OS.
Windows 3.0 - Meh, a new gui. Windows 3.1 - Woot, welcome to the 16 bit world. Windows 95 - Meh, a new gui. And, oh look, winsock. Windows NT - Finally, a business class desktop OS. Windows 98 - sloppy, but stuff's starting to work like it should. Windows 98SE - Hey, it's what they *should* have released 98 as. Windows ME - ugh, this bites harder than a doberman on a diet. Windows 2000 - The greatest operating system MS has made to date. Windows XP - A new gui. Lots of security holes. Windows MCE - Features the media center features that people were turning to Apple for, with improved (not great) security. Windows Visa - Meh, a new gui. They really should have made this 64-bit all around.
If the version you're running now sucks, just wait for the next version. Right?
"I have to agree. I don't remember the last time I got bsod or serious errors. It is very stable and fast, even with all the abuse it has received since I did a clean install a couple of years ago."
I'd say the same thing about XP, the only time i have gotten BSOD was with hardware problems. and i'm not a casual user.
I'll start pirating XP in the workplace before I unleash the monstrosity that Vista is upon my users.
I don't have enough time, energy, staff, or money to deal with Vista and my users as well as upgrade nearly every PC to handle it (along with the outrageous license costs).
I was under the impression that Vista did not support OpenGL in the true sense of "support". I had heard that Vista emulates all OpenGL calls and turns them into DirectX equivalents.
Stop spreading FUD. What you just said is so completely wrong [opengl.org] it's not even funny. Vista brings better OpenGL integration than XP. You're right that Vista does not include an OpenGL ICD in the box, but then again, neither did XP.
Thats only if you do not have proper Video card drivers installed. If you have the proper drivers installed they basically override MS's OpenGL with their own, and then the OpenGL calls run as fast as ATI/Nvidia can make them run.
and the answer is... sorta.
The original plan was to support up to OpenGL 1.3 by converting calls in Vista to DirectX calls, but I believe they decided to drop OpenGL completely in the released version, which means only hardware is supported by callbacks. I haven't tried anything but hardware, so I can't tell you for sure. I do know they deprecated the API for this release, which means all support will soon be dropped, if it isn't already.
From my testing, a windowed OpenGL context in Vista h
Shame... id is one of the companies I've always financially supported buy buying at least one copy (if not 2 or 3) of their games, *especially* with explicit Linux support (or from a Linux friendly retailer).
Wonder if I should go ahead and open that unopened l33t tin edition of Q3 for Linux...
Yeah, I'm a weird one when it comes to that. I like Freedom, and I like free, but I really like a stable OS where standards aren't broken/bastardized.
I don't mind binary blob drivers for my nVidia card - its the best hardware at the moment. I'll be happy to pay full retail for Acrobat Professional, the product formerlly known as the Macromedia Dreamweaver Suite (DW, Flash, Fireworks), etc. for Linux, and I won't get bitchy about source access. Heck, I'd pay for the windows version *if* it were packaged with a custom Wine that would let it Just Work. I really don't care - I just want the best tool for the job. Unfortunately for me, Windows isn't one of 'em...
I'd be willing to pay double the Windows version for a native version of SimCity 4 (or even SimCity3 or SimCity2k). No, Wine emulation doesn't count.
Just because we use linux doesn't mean we're not willing to put our money where our mouths are. My library holds almost 200 programming books, and the last I checked, books aren't cheap. Yes, its nice that linux is free (in both senses), but do you really believe that we use linux only because its free? Maybe we also like the lack of vendor lockin, the lack of viruses, etc.
I read the article with my high-school level German comprehension, and I don't see anywhere where Hollenshead specifically says they won't be supporting Linux. Just because it wasn't mentioned as a target platform doesn't mean it won't be on that platform. It could very well be that Hollenshead didn't mention it because their Linux versions haven't sold very well in comparison with the platforms that he did mention. Also, I would think that if id went through the effort of making an OpenGL version of the engine, they might as well port it to Linux, particularly if they're also going to port it to Playstation 3 and XBox 360. I don't think there's anything to be worried about here.
This is the relevent part: "Auf die Frage danach, ob denn Rage bzw. die zu Grunde liegende id-Tech-5-Engine neben Mac, Windows-PC, PlayStation 3 und Xbox 360 auch Linux-PCs unterstützen werden, antwortete Hollenshead, dass dazu noch nichts geplant oder angekündigt worden sei. Technisch möglich wäre es, zumal auch mit MacOS X ein Unix-System unterstützt würde. Hollenshead zufolge ist John Carmack mittlerweile nicht mehr so an Linux interessiert wie zuvor, auch wenn es noch einig
The rendering quality looks great but seriously, when was the last time id released a game and not a tech demo? I'm looking forward to seeing the games the licensees make, those I bet will rawk.
I hate to say it, but I don't think gaming on Linux is going to be a huge deal breaker for most people anyway. Most gamers I know are "Windows experts". They've got their Windows desktop super customized with skins and slick themes etc etc. They are probably the worst candidate for adopters of Linux. I've found Windows power users to be the most stubborn in switching. They think they understand something about computers and operating systems, but it comes down to they kinda understand how Windows works on the front end, and it's a HUGE blow to them when they have to start over. A lot of it is an ego thing. Instead of admitting they know less about computers than they thought, they pass it off as inferior. They do the same thing to Macs.
The best candidates to convert are people who actually really do understand how computers and operating systems work, or people that want a computer that "just works". Not people that get pissed off because there's no control panel. I come across this all the time. Windows users that I feel are scared they will look stupid and put Linux and OSX down as inferior. I'll ask them, "have you ever tried it?". Most have never tried it or made an attempt to figure out how it works. The thing that will bring about the most adoption of Linux and OSX is an entire generation being raised off Windows.
by Anonymous Coward
on Wednesday September 19 2007, @09:47AM (#20667565)
I got into an argument with a user such as you describe. At a certain point in the discussion, he fell back onto the old rhetoric: "Well, the ubiquity of Windows is one measure of its quality."
To which, I replied: "By that metric, McDonald's is the finest restaurant on Earth."
Most gamers I know are "Windows experts". They've got their Windows desktop super customized with skins and slick themes etc etc. They are probably the worst candidate for adopters of Linux. They think they understand something about computers and operating systems, but it comes down to they kinda understand how Windows works on the front end, and it's a HUGE blow to them when they have to start over.
Gamers game.
They are not technical hobbyists as the Geek understands it.
The Windows OS is simply another platform like the PS3 - The basics of Windows is all they need to know and all they want to know.
You are talking about ricers, people who put neon-lighting in their PC and call it overclocking. Sorry, no.
These are the kinda people who cut the suspension on their car and think it turns it into a racing machine and if they ever had access to a real race car would put a radio in it, to drown out the engine noise. (If you see a ferrari with a radio, it is legal to shoot the owner in Italy).
A real gamer/overclocker cares about performance, they want their games to run as fast and smooth as possible. The simplest and easiest way to do this is to switch every unneeded bit of Windows OFF and the most unneeded thing is themes. Unless you play your game windowed (The horror) what use is a theme? Samething with wallpapers. Hell most gamers I know don't even want anything on the desktop, every icon shown costs resources.
Same thing with a large unorganized HD. You don't need to be a rocket scientist to realize that the simpler the filetree, the less time spend by the OS looking for a file. SMALL is BETTER!
Now think of this, how would a person obsessed with getting every last FPS out of their latest hardware configure their machine. Oh might they want to keep their windows/gaming box as clean as possible? Not install anything unneeded, not run any programs except the game?
But where to browse and download and look at porn eh trailers? Why, we are talking about gamers, owners of lots of obsolete hardware. Hardware that could easily be put together to run a second PC?
But what oh what to run on that second machine? Not linux you say because gamers don't know nothing about that? Where and how do you think all those linux counterstrike and other FPS servers come from?
In fact, as you spend time overclocking and tuning your windows machine you are FAR more likely then an average windows to get totally dissatisfied with windows, and to anyone who has managed to tame the beast from redmond and actually make it run stable and fast, linux holds very few secrets. If you think compiling a kernel is hard you never had to clean out a copyprotection driver from XP.
No, their are people like you describe, who know just enough of windows to press the right button, as long as it in request for the dialog (press any key) and fear having to learn anything new.
But their are also plenty of gamers to whom linux holds no fear, they long since embraced it as their salvation from having to mess up their gaming machines and use it to run their game servers, host their guild sites and use it as their main desktop while gaming.
I almost find it insulting that you say that people who mod closed source, no documentation games, can't make their way around an opensource open-documented OS. Not all gamers as the same.
The question is not how many Linux users can play games on Linux, but how many Linux users will actually insist that it must be on Linux. I bet that most would-be Linux gamers are dual-booting, and until there reaches a critical mass of people who insist on not having to dual-boot, companies will have a business case for not supporting Linux.
Regarding id Tech 5 and Rage, id titles are usually ported to Linux relatively late in the development process when the programmer has the time, but they've always been ported. There were also these statements from Carmack at QuakeCon last month:
Carmack: No, not currently. We're not expecting to. We're not sure if we're going to be a Vista title or not. There will be some support benefits by being Vista only. It depends when we get the game done what the adoption has been. But it's a OpenGL title on the PC and Mac right now, obviously D3D on the 360, and the PS3 it's kind of an in between where it's Open GLES but we do a lot of direct command buffer writing there. If necessary we can move the PC version over to DX10, but there's not much strong pull for us to do that. All of the toolset is in OpenGL, I wouldn't want to convert everything over.
Q: I wanted to say thank you for open-sourcing the Quake 3 engine, it's made a huge difference to the community. I wanted to ask your opinion about the future of Linux and open source gaming.
A: I do take a great deal of personal pride and satisfaction with what I've been able to do with getting so much of the stuff out. Sometimes I think about it, and while I know it's not something I'm generally considered for, I may be one of the most prolific open source authors considering all the code that I've written over the last 15 years that I've made open source, or have made open source there. I do think it's very valuable. I'm very happy when I see both user gaming community stuff, or research universities, or people doing simulation tests, or bringing up things. Every new piece of hardware ends up having Doom or Quake titles used as an early form of test application. So I'm very happy to have done that. It's certainly going to continue. I mean I won't commit to a date, but the Doom 3 stuff will be open source. We still make those decisions even today when we're doing the Rage code when we have decisions about "do we want to integrate some other vendor's solution, some proprietary code into this". And the answer's usually no, because eventually id Tech 5 is going to be open source also. This is still the law of the land at id, that the policy is that we're not going to integrate stuff that's going to make it impossible for us to do an eventual open source release. We can argue the exact pros and cons from a pure business standpoint on it, and I can at least make some, perhaps somewhat, contrived cases that I think it's good for the business, but as a personal conviction it's still pretty important to me and I'm standing by that.
The id-produced title coming out at the end of the month, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, will have a Linux dedicated server and client as well:
When it's done. We have beta testers, they are doing a great job, you don't need to apply. There is still some work to be done before it matches id quality standards, and we won't commit to any dates.
For Tremulous [tremulous.net] (incidentally, based on Quake^H^H^H^H^Hid tech 3), the OS breakdown is as follows:
Windows: 78%
x86 Linux: 16%
ppc OS X: 4%
x86 OS X: 1%
x86_64 Linux: less than 1%
Freebsd: much less than 1%
This is based on approximately 370000 clients. Admittedly the figures are a bit skewed in favour of Windows and Linux as the OS X build is only available from apple.com [apple.com]. The same is true of x86_64 and Freebsd -- those are built manually by whoever is running them (I assume). There are other issues as well as it could be argued that the Linux version is potentially easier to get than the other versions since it has made its way into various packaging systems.
Even if you take this data with a pinch of salt, I think it does reinforce that there is a demand for gaming on Linux. What it doesn't indicate (and I'm not convinced exists) is a demand to pay for gaming on Linux.
I was a game developer [mobygames.com] almost 8 years ago (no where near my full C.V. but just to prove I'm not blowing smoke).
Further... until recently I ran two Gentoo boxes and on Debian box at my house, set up more than one IT shop on Linux and Samba and was the black sheep at my last job in a Windows/.NET shop. I've been running at least one critical system on Linux since about 1998. I know and love Linux.
With that said... there is not a chance in hell that I, as a game developer, would ever release a game for Linux (in it's current state).
What platform are you running on?
What distribution are you running?
What build?
Is 32 or 64-bit?
What video card are you using?
Are you using the vendors drivers or open source drivers?
What sound driver are you using?
What front end are you using (KDE or Gnome)?
Have you updated to this version of libc?
Have you enabled/disabled this option in your kernel (you can see where it goes downhill from here).
The problem is that Linux is a victim of it's own success. You can do anything with it... and, as a consequence... expose developers and support technicians to a version of hell worse than they ever imagined.
The support costs for Linux systems are substantial. And just not worth it. Besides the requirements are now substantially different. By a 360/PS3/Wii to fulfill your gaming needs and buy a lower powered PC rigged for power saving for your 24/7 needs.
There is certainly no plans for a commercially supported linux version of Rage, but there will very likely be a linux executable made available. It isn't running at the moment, but we have had it compiled in the past. Running on additional platforms usually provides some code quality advantages, and it really only takes one interested programmer to make it happen.
The PC version is still OpenGL, but it is possible that could change before release. The actual API code is not very large, and the vertex / fragment code can be easily translated between cg/hlsl/glsl as necessary. I am going to at least consider OpenGL 3.0 as a target, if Nvidia, ATI, and Intel all have decent support. There really won't be any performance difference between GL 2.0 / GL 3.0 / D3D, so the api decision will be based on secondary factors, of which inertia is one.
This is the epitome of FUD keeping people from switching to Linux. You COMPLETELY don't understand how software works apparently. First of all, there is a standard library for writing 3d games. It's called OpenGL. Second, what Desktop Environment you run is completely irrelevant to anything. I'm currently running Gnome on this computer. At home I have Fluxbox. At my parents they have KDE. Guess what? We can all run the exact same programs. People write programs for a certain toolkit, but in no way, shape, or form does this mean you can't run it in a different desktop environment. What desktop environment you are running has nothing, 0, none, zilch, to do with what programs you can run. The Windows world is no different in this respect. There are at least 10 different GUI toolkits floating around in the Windows world. For programs to work, all you need to do is include the proper libraries. The reason there is a low rate of Linux adoption in part is because of idiotic propaganda like this being spread around. It has zero basis of truth and I think anyone propagating this garbage should be called out for what they are.
Until there's a more standardized desktop environment such that developers can target one one platform and know that they'll have broad Linux market reach, why would any company bother?
Um... there already is [libsdl.org]. OpenGL + SDL covers basically everything DirectX does (yes, DirectInput and all that). If you need environmental audio, you can use OpenAL [openal.org], or roll your own as I gather Id did for Doom3 (and not just on Linux, on Windows as well - you need a patch for hardware audio [soundblaster.com]). As a bonus, SDL apps run on Windows and OSX (along with several other platforms) as well.
Games don't care about the desktop, except for installing a menu item and/or an icon to run the game. And, well, there's a standard for that, too [freedesktop.org]. Once they're running, they take over the screen anyway.
The issues with Linux gaming is entirely a chicken-egg market-share problem. There is just not any kind of technical barrier. Anyone doing a PS3 version is already doing an OpenGL version anyway [wikipedia.org], so a Linux port is actually quite easy at that point.
That depends. If you're making an exclusive game for the PS3, and you are confident that every single PS3 owner in the world will want to buy your game, sure. However, I think for your middle-of-the-bell-curve studio, writing in OpenGL and DirectX makes better business sense. If I were the bean counter in charge and someone said, "Hey, let's write super-special optimized code for the PS3, which is already a pain because of those eight cores, thereby increasing our development costs, so that we can increase
Carmack has always been a long time supporter of OpenGL, because afaik OpenGL has always been regarded as a more sophisticated and feature-rich graphics driver as opposed to Direct3D.
For many years Direct3D has had a substantial lead with respect to features and driver support.
Long ago and with respect to a very old Direct3D version Carmack really did rip into Direct3D. OpenGL advocates like to refer to this but the truth is that in recent years Carmack has pointed out that these criticisms are obsolete, that Direct3D has improved greatly and is now good.
"Carmack: No, because the DX9 stuff--actually, DX9 is really quite a good API [application programming interface] level. Even with the D3D [Direct3D] side of things, where I know I have a long history of people thinking I'm antagonistic against it. Microsoft has done a very, very good job of sensibly evolving it at each step--they're not worried about breaking backwards compatibility--and it's a pretty clean API. I especially like the work I'm doing on the 360, and it's probably the best graphics API as far as a sensibly designed thing that I've worked with." http://www.gameinformer.com/News/Story/200701/N07.0109.1737.15034.htm [gameinformer.com]
It'll be interesting to see if other developers decide to take this precedent and remove support for OpenGL from future games to speed up development time.
Support for OpenGL is not being removed, the Mac version will use it. This is not about OpenGL, this is about Linux gaming. Years ago id made an infamous comment in a Game Developer magazine interview, sorry no link - read the hard copy at the time. They said that there is no business justifcation for their Linux clients, that they merely do them because they think it is cool to do so. Perhaps they don't have enough time for this "hobby" anymore.
Keep in mind that the Linux game market is far smaller than most people think. It is not the number of people who buy the Linux version of the game. Given that most Linux gamers are willing to buy the Win32 version of a game and dual boot or emulate, a Linux sale is cannibalism. It replaces a Win32 sale with a Linux sale, it does not generate new income. The only new income is a sale to those who refuse to dual boot or emulate, who will only play native Linux versions. This native group is considered by many developers to be too small to justify the expenses related to porting, testing, and support.
That said, Linux based servers are an entirely different story. These make financial sense.
Future solution: either using virtualization or crafty API emulation, make Linux be able to transparently run Windows games and software.
Nope, that's a trap [wikipedia.org]. OS/2 was essentially 100% Windows 3.1 compatible, and what happened? Developers thought, "Why bother writing an OS/2 native app when I can just write a Windows app and be compatible?" So OS/2 never got any apps to speak of.
Linux needs a better, cross-platform gaming API. Fortunately, it has one [libsdl.org].
However, if you really have your heart set on compatibility, check out WINE [winehq.org]. I'm running a few older Windows games (Alice, Freedom Force, Tomb Raider III) flawlessly with that. Many of 'em don't work, but I'm surprised how many are playable.
Direct3D is more consistent, no matter what the feature is, because it was completely redesigned with release 8 and 10. The 8 redesign was necessary, the 10 understandable (but debatable). OpenGL is very elegant with primitive stuff, the kind of things the first NeHe tutorials show. But once you start entering the world of complex, modern effects, huge datasets, and today's game art, OpenGL becomes messy.
The API is inconsistent, because there are several extensions for the same goal, which tends to confuse people. Also, newer extensions follow different design paradigms than older ones. The driver gets not enough information, which is vital for optimal performance. Good example are textures; you can actually change them completely, at any time; their entire structure is mutable. This is not good for the driver, which does not know whether or not you will ever do this (and in 99% of all cases you don't). Using PBOs you can give the driver a hint (because the PBO becomes the storage space for texture, and the PBO cannot change its size), but its messy.
The solution is called OpenGL 3, and specs are available in a couple of weeks.
Management reasons:
Years ago, OpenGL was a much better choice than D3D. This got reversed in D3D8 era, because of the ARB being extremely slow and not implementing features everybody wanted (shaders, render-to-texture...). The ARB pace was also one of the main reasons Microsoft created Direct3D in the first place (remember, they were on the OpenGL bandwagon).
Now, there is just no gain in porting all those codebases using D3D9. Oh yes, OSX uses OpenGL. But OSX is an isolated platform, they have custom OpenGL extensions, and an absolutely excellent OpenGL toolchain. Nothing Windows or Linux GL developers have comes even close to this. OSX as a gaming platform is actually more interesting than Linux, because for example Blizzard supports it already, it is a platform for common users, support is far easier, and Apple is growing fast right now. Thus, osx may become a gaming market. A Linux gaming market is far less likely, and much more expensive. id and Epic ports are an unsupported bonus. And we all remember the Loki fiasco. Valve seems to be toying with the idea about supporting Linux, but thats just speculation right now (though they have the money to try it).
So the usual setup for games is this: Windows: D3D9 OSX: OpenGL Consoles: Custom
Linux is an afterthought, and maybe gets the OSX OpenGL code.
Hmm... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
When you get right down to it, having everyone in the world know the greatness of your company is entirely due to one man who is not you has got to suck
Erik
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Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Funny)
I doubt anyone on slashdot can truly understand that feeling though
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Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Informative)
Incidentally some years later the bought out Adrian to get him out of the company - no one knew this until he sued them for it.
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Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
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You know if I had a dollar for every time... (Score:5, Insightful)
1) Id abstracts the hell out of everything. OpenGL isn't ON X-Box, now is it? But there's Id titles on that platform. There's a hint there- it's easier to abstract things and produces portable code. It's also very MUCH worth mentioning that DirectX is only available on ONE of the dominant consoles, and on only ONE of the dominant OS platforms. This is about making as much or more money on ENGINE SALES as the game itself. Making a DirectX only engine is limiting as hell for that prospect (No PS3. No Wii. No MacOS.).
2) It's NOT all that difficult to make a port from DirectX to OpenGL. It's been done. I had a hand in one of them. The damn game that I had a hand in porting would have shipped about 12-14 months earlier if the other two team members hadn't boggled on us and we ended up having a few 11th hour bugs that had NOTHING to do with the porting effort from DirectX to OpenGL.
3) Id has NEVER, to the best of my recollection, announced anything other than Windows versions of ANY of their titles or engines that are currently in development. Suppositions about whether they're ditching Linux or not is just rattling to hear one's own voice at this point.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I like id's decisions in the past to port their games, and think it's a great way to show some love to the fans, but you seriously overplay the damage they'd do to themselves by excluding Mac OS and Linux.
Re:You know if I had a dollar for every time... (Score:5, Informative)
With even the 10th console game outselling [gamedaily.com] the two top PC games combined, I can't help but wonder how (if) the smaller PC game studios turn a profit.
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Re:You know if I had a dollar for every time... (Score:4, Informative)
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It's NOT all that difficult to make a port from DirectX to OpenGL
I'd like to clarify this point by saying that it's highly dependent on your other point:
Id abstracts the hell out of everything
Porting from Direct3D to OpenGL is very hard if you have DirectX code scattered all through your program, but much easier if you have all of the drawing handled through a middleware layer. This is true of all code, not just games. Cross-platform APIs are great, until you find you want to use a platform-specific feature they don't support, or port to a platform where they don't run. Then your abstraction is the thing
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The minute the PS3 supports DirectX, that'll become a possibility. Until then, any serious game engine will need both an OpenGL and a DirectX render path.
Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Funny)
Let's see if that's true... From Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]:
"The "Serious Engine" can render through both Direct3D or OpenGL"
Well there you have it.
Parent
Not Happening (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not Happening (Score:5, Insightful)
However coming from id I'm taking this with a huge grain of salt. Carmack isn't the kind of guy who likes to have two separate yet redundant render paths where one is probably more optimized than the other. Software vs hardware rendering ala quake2? Sure. But since they're already committed to an opengl path for the Mac, I just can't imagine them going through with creating the Direct3D one.
Though maybe it's a side effect of iD's business of selling engines? If customers are demanding direct3d for whatever reason, they may very well get it.
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Microsoft's OpenGL implementation does use DirectX to complete OpenGL commands. However, no one really uses Microsoft's OpenGL implementation (and definitely not for games).
Every graphic card manufacturer distributes an OpenGL implementation specifically for their hardware. They do the same for Vista. When you run a game that uses OpenGL, it uses this pure implementation of OpenGL.
Re:Support(Vista, OpenGL) == SLOW_FPS (Score:4, Funny)
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Long-term (Score:3, Insightful)
For PC gamers, the future is Vista.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
With XP, it was adopted because given the alternative...Windows users were clamoring for the upgrade. People not only wanted XP, they needed XP. Home users, businesses, everywhere.
This time around things are not the same. It is very much like Windows ME. It's not necessary, it has drawbacks, and XP Just Works.
The market MAY end up Vista dominated...but the jury is still very much out on that. Of all the people I know with PC's...dozens anyways, there are TWO using Vista. One that install
Everyone knows to skip an MS generation (Score:4, Insightful)
Windows 3.0 - Meh, a new gui.
Windows 3.1 - Woot, welcome to the 16 bit world.
Windows 95 - Meh, a new gui. And, oh look, winsock.
Windows NT - Finally, a business class desktop OS.
Windows 98 - sloppy, but stuff's starting to work like it should.
Windows 98SE - Hey, it's what they *should* have released 98 as.
Windows ME - ugh, this bites harder than a doberman on a diet.
Windows 2000 - The greatest operating system MS has made to date.
Windows XP - A new gui. Lots of security holes.
Windows MCE - Features the media center features that people were turning to Apple for, with improved (not great) security.
Windows Visa - Meh, a new gui. They really should have made this 64-bit all around.
If the version you're running now sucks, just wait for the next version. Right?
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I'd say the same thing about XP, the only time i have gotten BSOD was with hardware problems. and i'm not a casual user.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't have enough time, energy, staff, or money to deal with Vista and my users as well as upgrade nearly every PC to handle it (along with the outrageous license costs).
Re:Support(Vista, OpenGL) == SLOW_FPS (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Support(Vista, OpenGL) == SLOW_FPS (Score:5, Informative)
As you can see, all is not as lost as some are making it out to be.
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The original plan was to support up to OpenGL 1.3 by converting calls in Vista to DirectX calls, but I believe they decided to drop OpenGL completely in the released version, which means only hardware is supported by callbacks. I haven't tried anything but hardware, so I can't tell you for sure. I do know they deprecated the API for this release, which means all support will soon be dropped, if it isn't already.
From my testing, a windowed OpenGL context in Vista h
shame... (Score:3, Interesting)
Wonder if I should go ahead and open that unopened l33t tin edition of Q3 for Linux...
Re:shame... (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't mind binary blob drivers for my nVidia card - its the best hardware at the moment. I'll be happy to pay full retail for Acrobat Professional, the product formerlly known as the Macromedia Dreamweaver Suite (DW, Flash, Fireworks), etc. for Linux, and I won't get bitchy about source access. Heck, I'd pay for the windows version *if* it were packaged with a custom Wine that would let it Just Work. I really don't care - I just want the best tool for the job. Unfortunately for me, Windows isn't one of 'em...
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Re:shame... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd be willing to pay double the Windows version for a native version of SimCity 4 (or even SimCity3 or SimCity2k). No, Wine emulation doesn't count.
Just because we use linux doesn't mean we're not willing to put our money where our mouths are. My library holds almost 200 programming books, and the last I checked, books aren't cheap. Yes, its nice that linux is free (in both senses), but do you really believe that we use linux only because its free? Maybe we also like the lack of vendor lockin, the lack of viruses, etc.
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Just because it's not specifically mentioned... (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, I would think that if id went through the effort of making an OpenGL version of the engine, they might as well port it to Linux, particularly if they're also going to port it to Playstation 3 and XBox 360. I don't think there's anything to be worried about here.
the relevant part (Score:3, Interesting)
meh, let me know when the engine is licensed (Score:3)
The rendering quality looks great but seriously, when was the last time id released a game and not a tech demo? I'm looking forward to seeing the games the licensees make, those I bet will rawk.
Gaming on Linux has always been number #39 on list (Score:5, Insightful)
The best candidates to convert are people who actually really do understand how computers and operating systems work, or people that want a computer that "just works". Not people that get pissed off because there's no control panel. I come across this all the time. Windows users that I feel are scared they will look stupid and put Linux and OSX down as inferior. I'll ask them, "have you ever tried it?". Most have never tried it or made an attempt to figure out how it works. The thing that will bring about the most adoption of Linux and OSX is an entire generation being raised off Windows.
Re:Gaming on Linux has always been number #39 on l (Score:4, Insightful)
To which, I replied: "By that metric, McDonald's is the finest restaurant on Earth."
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Re:Gaming on Linux has always been number #39 on l (Score:5, Insightful)
Gamers game.
They are not technical hobbyists as the Geek understands it. The Windows OS is simply another platform like the PS3 - The basics of Windows is all they need to know and all they want to know.
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I am sorry, WHAT? (Score:4, Funny)
You are talking about ricers, people who put neon-lighting in their PC and call it overclocking. Sorry, no.
These are the kinda people who cut the suspension on their car and think it turns it into a racing machine and if they ever had access to a real race car would put a radio in it, to drown out the engine noise. (If you see a ferrari with a radio, it is legal to shoot the owner in Italy).
A real gamer/overclocker cares about performance, they want their games to run as fast and smooth as possible. The simplest and easiest way to do this is to switch every unneeded bit of Windows OFF and the most unneeded thing is themes. Unless you play your game windowed (The horror) what use is a theme? Samething with wallpapers. Hell most gamers I know don't even want anything on the desktop, every icon shown costs resources.
Same thing with a large unorganized HD. You don't need to be a rocket scientist to realize that the simpler the filetree, the less time spend by the OS looking for a file. SMALL is BETTER!
Now think of this, how would a person obsessed with getting every last FPS out of their latest hardware configure their machine. Oh might they want to keep their windows/gaming box as clean as possible? Not install anything unneeded, not run any programs except the game?
But where to browse and download and look at porn eh trailers? Why, we are talking about gamers, owners of lots of obsolete hardware. Hardware that could easily be put together to run a second PC?
But what oh what to run on that second machine? Not linux you say because gamers don't know nothing about that? Where and how do you think all those linux counterstrike and other FPS servers come from?
In fact, as you spend time overclocking and tuning your windows machine you are FAR more likely then an average windows to get totally dissatisfied with windows, and to anyone who has managed to tame the beast from redmond and actually make it run stable and fast, linux holds very few secrets. If you think compiling a kernel is hard you never had to clean out a copyprotection driver from XP.
No, their are people like you describe, who know just enough of windows to press the right button, as long as it in request for the dialog (press any key) and fear having to learn anything new.
But their are also plenty of gamers to whom linux holds no fear, they long since embraced it as their salvation from having to mess up their gaming machines and use it to run their game servers, host their guild sites and use it as their main desktop while gaming.
I almost find it insulting that you say that people who mod closed source, no documentation games, can't make their way around an opensource open-documented OS. Not all gamers as the same.
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How much of a market is there for Linux games? (Score:3, Interesting)
Misinformative Article... (Score:5, Informative)
Regarding id Tech 5 and Rage, id titles are usually ported to Linux relatively late in the development process when the programmer has the time, but they've always been ported. There were also these statements from Carmack at QuakeCon last month:
http://www.gameinformer.com/News/Story/200708/N07.0803.1731.12214.htm?Page=1 [gameinformer.com]
http://www.linuxgames.com/news/feedback.php?identiferID=9374&action=flatview [linuxgames.com]
The id-produced title coming out at the end of the month, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, will have a Linux dedicated server and client as well:
http://zerowing.idsoftware.com/linux/etqw/ [idsoftware.com]
In summary: Don't panic.Potentially interesting data (Score:4, Informative)
For Tremulous [tremulous.net] (incidentally, based on Quake^H^H^H^H^Hid tech 3), the OS breakdown is as follows:
Windows: 78%
x86 Linux: 16%
ppc OS X: 4%
x86 OS X: 1%
x86_64 Linux: less than 1%
Freebsd: much less than 1%
This is based on approximately 370000 clients. Admittedly the figures are a bit skewed in favour of Windows and Linux as the OS X build is only available from apple.com [apple.com]. The same is true of x86_64 and Freebsd -- those are built manually by whoever is running them (I assume). There are other issues as well as it could be argued that the Linux version is potentially easier to get than the other versions since it has made its way into various packaging systems.
Even if you take this data with a pinch of salt, I think it does reinforce that there is a demand for gaming on Linux. What it doesn't indicate (and I'm not convinced exists) is a demand to pay for gaming on Linux.
Not suporting Linux is the right thing to do (Score:3, Insightful)
Further... until recently I ran two Gentoo boxes and on Debian box at my house, set up more than one IT shop on Linux and Samba and was the black sheep at my last job in a Windows/.NET shop. I've been running at least one critical system on Linux since about 1998. I know and love Linux.
With that said... there is not a chance in hell that I, as a game developer, would ever release a game for Linux (in it's current state).
What platform are you running on?
What distribution are you running?
What build?
Is 32 or 64-bit?
What video card are you using?
Are you using the vendors drivers or open source drivers?
What sound driver are you using?
What front end are you using (KDE or Gnome)?
Have you updated to this version of libc?
Have you enabled/disabled this option in your kernel (you can see where it goes downhill from here).
The problem is that Linux is a victim of it's own success. You can do anything with it... and, as a consequence... expose developers and support technicians to a version of hell worse than they ever imagined.
The support costs for Linux systems are substantial. And just not worth it. Besides the requirements are now substantially different. By a 360/PS3/Wii to fulfill your gaming needs and buy a lower powered PC rigged for power saving for your 24/7 needs.
A direct response (Score:5, Informative)
The PC version is still OpenGL, but it is possible that could change before release. The actual API code is not very large, and the vertex / fragment code can be easily translated between cg/hlsl/glsl as necessary. I am going to at least consider OpenGL 3.0 as a target, if Nvidia, ATI, and Intel all have decent support. There really won't be any performance difference between GL 2.0 / GL 3.0 / D3D, so the api decision will be based on secondary factors, of which inertia is one.
John Carmack
Re:A direct response (Score:5, Funny)
Thanks for ruining it, spoilsport.
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Re:Linux is the biggest Linux gaming obstacle (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Linux is the biggest Linux gaming obstacle (Score:5, Insightful)
Um... there already is [libsdl.org]. OpenGL + SDL covers basically everything DirectX does (yes, DirectInput and all that). If you need environmental audio, you can use OpenAL [openal.org], or roll your own as I gather Id did for Doom3 (and not just on Linux, on Windows as well - you need a patch for hardware audio [soundblaster.com]). As a bonus, SDL apps run on Windows and OSX (along with several other platforms) as well.
Games don't care about the desktop, except for installing a menu item and/or an icon to run the game. And, well, there's a standard for that, too [freedesktop.org]. Once they're running, they take over the screen anyway.
The issues with Linux gaming is entirely a chicken-egg market-share problem. There is just not any kind of technical barrier. Anyone doing a PS3 version is already doing an OpenGL version anyway [wikipedia.org], so a Linux port is actually quite easy at that point.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That depends. If you're making an exclusive game for the PS3, and you are confident that every single PS3 owner in the world will want to buy your game, sure. However, I think for your middle-of-the-bell-curve studio, writing in OpenGL and DirectX makes better business sense. If I were the bean counter in charge and someone said, "Hey, let's write super-special optimized code for the PS3, which is already a pain because of those eight cores, thereby increasing our development costs, so that we can increase
JC's D3D criticisms are dated, likes modern D3D (Score:5, Informative)
For many years Direct3D has had a substantial lead with respect to features and driver support.
Long ago and with respect to a very old Direct3D version Carmack really did rip into Direct3D. OpenGL advocates like to refer to this but the truth is that in recent years Carmack has pointed out that these criticisms are obsolete, that Direct3D has improved greatly and is now good.
"Carmack: No, because the DX9 stuff--actually, DX9 is really quite a good API [application programming interface] level. Even with the D3D [Direct3D] side of things, where I know I have a long history of people thinking I'm antagonistic against it. Microsoft has done a very, very good job of sensibly evolving it at each step--they're not worried about breaking backwards compatibility--and it's a pretty clean API. I especially like the work I'm doing on the 360, and it's probably the best graphics API as far as a sensibly designed thing that I've worked with."
http://www.gameinformer.com/News/Story/200701/N07.0109.1737.15034.htm [gameinformer.com]
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"No business justification" for Linux (Score:5, Insightful)
Support for OpenGL is not being removed, the Mac version will use it. This is not about OpenGL, this is about Linux gaming. Years ago id made an infamous comment in a Game Developer magazine interview, sorry no link - read the hard copy at the time. They said that there is no business justifcation for their Linux clients, that they merely do them because they think it is cool to do so. Perhaps they don't have enough time for this "hobby" anymore.
Keep in mind that the Linux game market is far smaller than most people think. It is not the number of people who buy the Linux version of the game. Given that most Linux gamers are willing to buy the Win32 version of a game and dual boot or emulate, a Linux sale is cannibalism. It replaces a Win32 sale with a Linux sale, it does not generate new income. The only new income is a sale to those who refuse to dual boot or emulate, who will only play native Linux versions. This native group is considered by many developers to be too small to justify the expenses related to porting, testing, and support.
That said, Linux based servers are an entirely different story. These make financial sense.
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Re:Linux needs Windows emulation (Score:4, Informative)
Nope, that's a trap [wikipedia.org]. OS/2 was essentially 100% Windows 3.1 compatible, and what happened? Developers thought, "Why bother writing an OS/2 native app when I can just write a Windows app and be compatible?" So OS/2 never got any apps to speak of.
Linux needs a better, cross-platform gaming API. Fortunately, it has one [libsdl.org].
However, if you really have your heart set on compatibility, check out WINE [winehq.org]. I'm running a few older Windows games (Alice, Freedom Force, Tomb Raider III) flawlessly with that. Many of 'em don't work, but I'm surprised how many are playable.
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Re:Who in their right mind... (Score:4, Insightful)
Direct3D is more consistent, no matter what the feature is, because it was completely redesigned with release 8 and 10. The 8 redesign was necessary, the 10 understandable (but debatable).
OpenGL is very elegant with primitive stuff, the kind of things the first NeHe tutorials show. But once you start entering the world of complex, modern effects, huge datasets, and today's game art, OpenGL becomes messy.
The API is inconsistent, because there are several extensions for the same goal, which tends to confuse people. Also, newer extensions follow different design paradigms than older ones. The driver gets not enough information, which is vital for optimal performance. Good example are textures; you can actually change them completely, at any time; their entire structure is mutable. This is not good for the driver, which does not know whether or not you will ever do this (and in 99% of all cases you don't). Using PBOs you can give the driver a hint (because the PBO becomes the storage space for texture, and the PBO cannot change its size), but its messy.
The solution is called OpenGL 3, and specs are available in a couple of weeks.
Management reasons:
Years ago, OpenGL was a much better choice than D3D. This got reversed in D3D8 era, because of the ARB being extremely slow and not implementing features everybody wanted (shaders, render-to-texture...). The ARB pace was also one of the main reasons Microsoft created Direct3D in the first place (remember, they were on the OpenGL bandwagon).
Now, there is just no gain in porting all those codebases using D3D9. Oh yes, OSX uses OpenGL. But OSX is an isolated platform, they have custom OpenGL extensions, and an absolutely excellent OpenGL toolchain. Nothing Windows or Linux GL developers have comes even close to this. OSX as a gaming platform is actually more interesting than Linux, because for example Blizzard supports it already, it is a platform for common users, support is far easier, and Apple is growing fast right now. Thus, osx may become a gaming market. A Linux gaming market is far less likely, and much more expensive. id and Epic ports are an unsupported bonus. And we all remember the Loki fiasco. Valve seems to be toying with the idea about supporting Linux, but thats just speculation right now (though they have the money to try it).
So the usual setup for games is this:
Windows: D3D9
OSX: OpenGL
Consoles: Custom
Linux is an afterthought, and maybe gets the OSX OpenGL code.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Wrong. They are just frontends for the same thing.