Is id Abandoning Linux? 339
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."
Not Happening (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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
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.
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...
Support(Vista, OpenGL) == SLOW_FPS (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
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: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.
Long-term (Score:3, Insightful)
For PC gamers, the future is Vista.
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."
Re:Linux is the biggest Linux gaming obstacle (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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.
"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.
Re:Support(Vista, OpenGL) == SLOW_FPS (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 has about a 2-4x performance hit with Aero enabled (and even without on my laptop - not sure if that's a bug or not). A fullscreen context gets roughly the same framerate as XP or Linux. Using OpenGL with a specific geometry shader in window mode on Vista gives me worse performance than running the same code in a software emulator on the same machine (nvemulate gets 10FPS, Vista gets 9). Note that I have not yet tested that code in fullscreen to see what the "real" framerate should be, which will tell me if it's Vista's fault, or a driver issue. Vista is supposedly just compositing (in layman's terms, cutting the OpenGL window and pasting it into a DirectX window) which in NO WAY be more than a 10-15% performance hit, and I get a hit in the 40-80% range (with very erratic frame rates). This indicates to me that either MS is intentionally crippling OpenGL or the drivers are really bad at the moment (and to be honest, it could be either).
Most games are played in fullscreen, and OpenGL works fine in fullscreen on Vista. The biggest problem with OpenGL right now is that it's 10-15% slower than DirectX. Updates to OpenGL - 3.0 (Long's Peak) due this month, and Mt Evans due in first quarter next year - should help close this gap (however, both are months later than originally expected).
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.
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?
Re:You know if I had a dollar for every time... (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:3, Insightful)
Re:Everyone knows to skip an MS generation (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Who in their right mind... (Score:3, Insightful)
Wrong. They are just frontends for the same thing.
Re:Gaming on Linux has always been number #39 on l (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Re:I think it may go back to what Carmack has said (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Linux is the biggest Linux gaming obstacle (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 sales in our smallest demographic, who have to take out a second mortgage just to buy the console in the first place!" I'd answer with a flat, resounding "No" unless there were incentives, or, to put it more bluntly, bribery from Sony.
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.
Re:A direct response (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't buy games very often, but when I do, usually I buy PC games that are cross-platform, or games for my console (currently Nintendo Wii)
Thanks! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The problem with Id... (Score:2, Insightful)
Ah, the advantage of bundled software on multi-vendor hardware!
Re:How much of a market is there for Linux games? (Score:3, Insightful)
Loki was dedicated to porting games to Linux. But Linux gamers didn't buy Loki's games for various reasons, such as:
1. Many Linux users refuse to pay for software, period.
2. Many of the Linux users that are willing to pay for software are unwilling to pay for closed-source software.
Loki, despite making decent ports of many games, had to close down because Linux users refused to pay for the games that Loki provided.