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Games Entertainment

Interview with Tribsoft 86

Posted by Hemos from the learning-the-new-ways dept.
Christian Schaller wrote to us with an interview running on Linuxpower.org that talks with the folks at TribSoft. Tribsoft is the company responsible for the port of Jagged Alliance 2 to Linux - something that we've referred to before.
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Interview with Tribsoft

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  • Well, it sounds interesting. The interview doesn't actually say that much, but it's good to see another company trying this. I guess Loki is really the first game-porting success story, from which all others will be judged for a while.

    I too, would love to see FF8 for Linux. Or Ultima 9, for that matter. (anyone played it? I know the system requirements are insane...)

    Hopefully, as more shrink-wrapped games and apps for Linux come out, the (often non-existent) Linux section in the local software stores will grow and swell and make people say "What's that penguin?"

    Linux: it's not just for bookstores anymore...
    ---
    pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [152.7.41.11].

  • Yes, I've heard good things about Electronics Boutique, although I haven't been to one in a while.

    CompUSA has gotten better though, and I've even started to see Linux in some Babbage's/Software Etc.'s...

    ---
    pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [152.7.41.11].

  • Hi, Spot!

    Wow, we have an Electronics Bo... We have a mall? Wow, I *do* need to get out more! :)

    Oh man, after I get my new computer next summer, maybe I'll worry about real cool hardcore linux gaming. But not yet...

    later,

    Peter

    ---
    pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [152.7.41.11].
  • Most Unices have a program called "banner" that can create the text-strips. As for the image-to-text stuff, see the previous poster or check out the pbm utilities, at, umm ... acme.com

  • When 80% of the COOL games come out on Linux, THEN I'll switch over to Linux for my gaming OS.

    (Actually, as it is, I'll switch to whatever OS runs the game best that I'm playing right now. I've been known to keep an NT partition around for the Quake series games...)
  • Hey Peter, long time no see. :) You really need to get out more, there's a big 'ol sign in front of the ElBo at Crabtree mall, right here in our own hometown of Raleigh proclaiming their Linux Gaming section. The Penguins are coming, doo bee doo bee doo.
    ~spot
  • I was intrigued by the comments about trying to get games on similar codebases and his thoughts on Open Source Games. I've always thought that producing games has always been akin to making a movie. That is, making a movie where you had to make your own film, camera, lights, productions environment and projector.


    I don't think that Open Source games will be entire titles developed and distributed for free (beer or speech, your choice), but rather Open Source engines (CrystalSpace among others) that will be added to with a couple of libraries and maybe the core executable with the proprietary section being the images, story, characters (actors), audio and so on.


    This would bring down the ROI for people to make games that were more content focused. People could still add on to engines or write there own to produce the Quake III's of the genre.


    I think that this would open up the market, and allow for more experimentation, thus growing the market (hopefully) and allowing larger investments in riskier envelope expanding projects.


    Just a couple of thoughts from an avid gamer

  • Christian: Will you release your games for other Linux versions than Intel, like PowerPC or Sparc?

    Personally I would like to target more processors. However it won't be a simple recompile.

    We will release our games for Intel x86 based processor first. Maybe once JA2 is finished, we will look at the possibilities of making a PowerPC and maybe an Alpha version. The solution would be to have one programmer dedicated to porting games to different processor architectures since we already have enough work.

    Excellent, but for some odd reason having to do wth the number of people who have an Alpha for a PC I don't see that last bit happening...

  • One thing that I noticed was that his programming experience was certainly not involvement with game programming. However, it seems that he has a good understanding of what Linux users want and that they don't seem devoted to simply making a quick buck. It seems that they're here to get involved in having more games for Linux, as that is certainly a key fault with Linux. While there are plenty of games, there aren't so many big-name commercial games that most people know about.

    Chris Hagar

  • You seriously think that it is more likely that we'll see non-Windows Direct3D, than that people will stop using D3D and use another standard? Microsoft will never port DirectX to an OS they don't control, because DirectX is a large part of what keeps Windows the PC gaming OS of choice. And if anyone manages to reverse engineer it, I predict updates plained to create lots of work for the reverse engineers to keep up with official DirectX versions. Particularly seen I'd guess DirectX ties into other Windows specific APIs and features, non-Windows DirectX would probably be a nightmare.

    No, I would hope to see people stop using DirectX for the same reason other proprietry standards have fallen from dominance - other standards with better features and interoperability look more attractive. In this particular case, as Linux and other OSes become more attractive markets for game companies, hopefully companies will realise that OpenGL makes for less development time for non-Windows versions of games, leaving DirectX to slowly die a natural death

  • You want every game to have a linux port before you switch over? I think that's a little unreallistic, I mean windows doesn't have every game there is either.

    I think a better, more reallistic goal (in the near future) is 80% or more. The way I see it, the more games that are ported to linux the less likely people are to decide not to use linux based on lack of games. So more people will come, and the user base will grow, more companies will port, more users will come... you get the idea. But I think that until Linux has about 30%+ of the desktop market, companies will not always consider it a neccesity to have a linux version available.

    most games played today are either console games or games on windows

    This is an interesting point... I don't consider console games in normal thought, as I do not own a console system (actually I have a Genesis that I haven't used in years...) I do all of my gaming on PC because of the nifty graphics and because I spend so much money on my PC that I'm not about to go out and buy a console system... but I think consoles will be around for a long time, and will probably hold a large part of the market regardless of linux ports. I don't feel that consoles will detract from linux ports. [[END RANT]]

    --
    linuxisgood:~$ man woman
  • Yes, moderating them down would give them attention... like responding to them. More likely the moderation points are being put toward a good use like moderating up some comments that are good, rather than being wasted on ford spam :-)

    --
    linuxisgood:~$ man woman
  • Come on! Jon Katz may not be Hemingway, but everytime he posts a 'rant' he starts a long /. argument. Arguments are a good thing on a discussion board, so I say let the man be.. Who knows, if you're nice to him, he might not put you in Geeks 2.0: Land of the Troll.
  • Alright my next litle rant is going to be about my experiences about games under linux and as such does not exactly translate to 100% of the total experience that one would usually see in areas like this.
    Whenever I run games on linux (almost any game except extremely simple stuff using standard curses/ncurses combinations) my machine tried to betray me. I have had extremely sluggish preformance for what games that are actually GPLed and such. It seems that the insidious minions of Orthodoxy have decided that some users are worthy of the mantle of playing games and some are not. My question is exactly how are things being made as backwards compatable and streamlined to allow a usable experience for everyone. Another little thing currently on my debian box I have nearly 20+ libraries that are needed by just one program that only serve that program or game. Why do all developers see that developing games to require the use or implimentation of a different set of libraries and a different philosophy about exactly how to code?
    The results of these things have essentially been that you machine's resources are being wasted and wasted hard to run even a cheesy game badly.

    My question is what makes this game so special in terms of it being ported to linux. Not being one of the monied few who has accewss to a NASA JPL mainframe to run these on what is so good about it.
    I remember buying a game about around Christhmas time and it really sucked and didn't hardly offer most of what it promised. That was my most expensive and last purtchess in the game arena (it was called Pyro technica created by Gt Interactive if anyone wants to know).
  • Ofcourse DirectX isn't just about 3D and graphics. It's also about inputs, networking, sound etc.

    OpenGL is hardly a competitor to DirectX as a whole.
  • linuxisgood:~$ man woman No manual entry for woman Even better still, $ man screws woman No manual entry for woman This is horribly offtopic, but I couldn't resist the humor. I'm writing a program for class and I need all the comedy relief I can find.
  • That's why it is called, a dream. If it was reasonable... it wouldn't be a dream. On the other hand, if companies prove that linux is a viable commercial platform, there will be a shift to using more portable libraries.. OpenGl, SDL.
  • The cool thing is, this is starting to happen.

    In the Electronics Botique (mall video game shop) at my local mall (Buffalo, NY), of the wall devoted to computer software, a good 10% of it is devoted to Linux games and distros. The size of that section increases every month. A lot of Loki games, UT and Quake. It's pretty exciting.
  • One thing you have to remember about game companies is that they don't have the same priorities as other software companies. Modern games are a special type of product. They have some interesting characteristics:

    • They often demand high performance, even if that means reengineering the whole thing.
    • They have a relatively short shelf-life in the stores.
    • Due to the previous item, they limit your reasonable amount of development time.
    • The companies making games want to sell to the most common platform. The expected shelf-life makes it hard to justify porting.
    • Games generally don't care about playing nice with other applications.

    So this is good and bad for the Linux platform. DirectX provides a common API for the most popular platform (Win32). It also provides acceptable performance.

    So what does Linux need to get a foothold? Well, simply having more users won't quite do it. Consider how slow developers are in releasing Mac ports of games. And there are quite a few Mac users out there.

    Whatever API that is used for Linux must be usable on Win32 also (at least, as long as Win32 is the dominant platform). Furthermore, it needs to be equal to, or easier to code for than DirectX. If it can get improved performance, even better. Finally, compiling a Linux version vs. a Win32 version must require almost no changes. When this is accomplished, you will see DirectX begin to take a back seat. I expect that XFree86 4.x will help the situation also, especially as more hardware vendors lend support.

    Game developers will jump ship and toss old code out the window as soon as you show them something better. We rewrite code all the time, and we don't usually care about backwards compatibility.

    Best regards,

    SEAL

  • if anyone manages to reverse engineer it, I predict updates plained to create lots of work for the reverse engineers to keep up with official DirectX versions.

    It would be so worth it for someone in the Linux community to do thism, despite the need to be playing catch up. Many projects commit to a version of DX (Whatever the newest one is at the time) and stick with it. Very rarely does a team change to a new version halfway throught the development cycle. A team won't want to re-code major sections of the engine due to changed interfaces. There are two ways that the interfaces will change.

    The first is a change for the better. A sample of this would be the changes in D3D. Esp. from IDirect3D3 to IDirect3D7 with DX7. Before D3D3 and it's DrawPrimitive function it was a pain in the ass to learn the API. With DX7 it's so simple to get things set up that with 20 lines of code (plus skeleton) you can have a textured lit polygon up using hardware transforming and lighting (if supported).

    The second type of change would be to change just to throw off the OpenSource developers off. Many game developers that I've worked with need to be dragged kicking and screaming when a new version comes out. Each time it means re-learning a whole bunch and a LOT of re-testing just to get some new features to work. I don't know very many people who are going to switch to a new DX interface with no benifit. It's just silly.


    I'd guess DirectX ties into other Windows specific APIs and features, non-Windows DirectX would probably be a nightmare.

    Yes and no... There are a few thing that DirectX and Windows tie into. The one that I'm thinking of is that you can lock a DirectDraw surface and use GDI on it (By grabbing a Device Context). I've only done this to use TextOut to a DD surface to display some debugging info. Nothing that I'd use in production code because it so SLOW. The freakin' docs tell you not to do it. (And D3D now has a method that takes a string parameter so you don't use GDI at all.) What I'm saying is: It's a small subset of the API set that many developers don't use.

    So... I wouldn't hold my breath for DX to die a natural death. MS has actually done quite a good job of evolving it to be useful. D3D going from being a really crappy standard to being, IMHO, as good as OpenGL and MUCH easier to use.

    Yeah yeah... Evil Empire... Not open source... Etc... Who cares? Not too many people care in the real world of Game Development. Game developers are going to do what's in thier own best interests and until it's economically feasable to use other platforms it won't happen. When that does happen expect developers to bail by the boat loads. (As we've all seen happen in the past.)
  • Jagged Alliance was and is cool, will they port any more games? I hope so! ;) moeffju (First Post with my threshold? ;)
  • Is every game ported to linux gonna be posted here? Isn't this really something that is better posted as part of a quickie? Linux games are getting more common. I don't see why they should be listed one at a time here.
  • Don't worry, we won't stop porting after JA2...

    Mathieu Pinard
    Tribsoft Inc.

  • "There is an enormous untapped market here of about 15 million users"

    Unfortunately this number include servers and users that are not buying games. Anyway I don't mind since this job is simply too fun!

    Mathieu Pinard
    Tribsoft Inc.

  • I'm all for games on linux. It is just.. most games played today are either console games or games on windows. It would be great if every game would have a linux version aviable. When that happens, my gaming computer will switch over to linux, but for now it will remain as a windows box.
  • This may sound stupid but I'm actually interested in how you create these images using only text as your photo-mosaic element. It is quite impressive really. Is there some sort of program which I can download that will do this?

    Please provide some info on this, it is really quite amazing.


    Nathaniel P. Wilkerson
    NPS Internet Solutions, LLC
    www.npsis.com [npsis.com]
  • Its the cookies fault they made it show up as my user and not. and i know what you wrote in binary
  • will not happen again
  • Christian: Are there something you really miss in regards to game development on Linux, like support for Force Feedback devices etc.?

    My dream would be that game programmers would stop using Direct3D and DirectPlay.

    My dream, on the other hand, would be that more people begin to understand how hard it is to change standards once they're established. Yes, it's unfortunate that so much code goes in that direction now, but since the trend is set, it is impossibly difficult to switch back. So, with the real world in mind, the only solution is porting the Direct3D, etc, engines rather than the games themselves. Fix the problem, not the solution.

  • I'm glad to see that more and more companies are jumping on the Linux gaming bandwagon. There is an enormous untapped market here of about 15 million users, so if profits are an isue they should have nothing to worry about. Rejoice, geeks can play geeked verisons of their favorite games.
  • As someone who works in the games industry, and is a big proponent of Open Source and Linux, I have to say that you're right in saying that it'll be hard to get people to switch over from DirectX, but I also have to say it's not for the technical reasons you make it sound like. Based on experience, DirectX slows down development, and most game programmers are familiar with libraries and architectures used in Linux - most of the people in my office have a Linux box at home. The real obstacle, even at a fairly good (from an employee perspective) company like the one I work at, is a pervasive corporate culture which has money and marketing people making the creative decisions.

    What's really needed for Linux to become a realistic gaming platform isn't more ports (although I wouldn't discourage them), but more simultaneous development, similar to what is often done for titles which will be released for both console and PC. Without simultaneous development or games written exclusively for Linux, it will suffer the same fate gamers on the Mac have - You make less money porting then writing from scratch, and it's less appealing to the programmers and artists involved as well as management, so you'll never get done nearly as often.

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