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Games Entertainment

Ports vs. WineX, What's Best For Linux Gamers? 211

Posted by timothy from the conflicting-visions dept.
James Hills writes: "Recently there has been much discussion about what is better for the future of Linux, to continue the process of native ports or embrace WineX so you can run all the Windows games you want on your favorite OS. Unfortunately, this debate also has tremendous repercussions for the future of companies such as Loki, Tribsoft and Hyperion. Read more for how the heads of Transgaming, TuxGames, Loki, Tribsoft, and Hyperion see the issue."
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Ports vs. WineX, What's Best For Linux Gamers? More

Ports vs. WineX, What's Best For Linux Gamers?

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  • And be broke for life... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Sorry, but this type of game would be released on the Win32 platform because if it really WAS that big of a 'wow' game, you'd certainly get more copies sold on a platform where 2 billion people exist over a platform where a few hundred thousand exist.

    If the game is being sold, then it was made for money. Any game that has such a huge wow factor would definately be exploited for money if it wasn't intended to be at first.

    Basically, what you're asking for wont ever happen over a single app.

  • My feelings exactly (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Personally, I will continue to support Loki and any other quality Linux game publishers by buying one of every damn game they make (that's worth owning).

    I feel exactly the same way. That's why I've never bought any Linux games at all.

  • If you can get DirectX ported well to Linux (and Mac OS X), then there is a decent percentage of the gaming public that becomes dependant on an available version of DirectX. When MS releases a new version of DirectX (or a secret hidden version, whatever), most companies will be compatible with older ones rather than losing a chunk of sales.

    That would be an ideal solution if it weren't for the fact that gamers are now used to needing to upgrade to the latest version of DirectX every time they buy a new game. Game companies have no problem requiring this upgrade because they know that much of the gaming market is driven by whomever can release the first game with some bleeding-edge feature. Besides, if the project meetings for games in the design/coding stage are anything like the project meetings that I have at my work, these games probably suffer from near-terminal feature-creep. I would be surprised if any manager would accept old technology.

    Add on top of that the rate at which Microsoft releases new versions of DirectX (which they've actually slowed down recently!) and you have about one year to produce a fully functional DirectX API for *nix.

  • Hey, been away a while and glad to be back.

    I have to agree with the original poster on this thread and the one I'm replying to also.

    You have to get into the mind of the consumer and the supplier of software.

    The consumer wants great stuff for low prices with little difficulty. If he can buy one copy of software and run it on any computer that is a good thing, if it's stable then he/she can spend more time having fun and less time rebooting, if it's easy to install and trivial to configure more the better.

    The supplier wants customers to buy goods that can be produced for the least expense. Writing games for many operating systems is expensive. Support becomes an issue.

    Now let us examine the average LINUX user. Competant with computers, not liking flacky and unstable software, adventurous. Most are do-it-yourselfers. And, while we all want the great games, we must make it worth the effort of the game developers to provide product.

    Critical mass will be reached when it becomes attractive to consumers and suppliers alike. Consumers spend money; suppliers want that money. Consumers will not buy something if they can't get it, find it, afford it, or percieve that it is worth something; suppliers wont provide something unless the percieve that it will be bought. We must work on the suppliers by providing attractive incentives for them to provide products; when the products are there, the consumers will begin to buy.

    This brings me to my point. We must make it EASY for suppliers of software to supply it and show that the market is there. We are a growing market of savvy folks aren't we?

    Wine is just an attempt at embracing Microsoft's world... ever here of "If you can't beat em... embrace and extend em?" Hehe
  • Why am I suggesting taking away freedom?

    I'm saying if you want to sell Linux as being better, then you need developers who write software for Linux which is really cool and different then what you can get elsewhere.

    That's no coercion, that's incentive.

  • The answer: neither (Score:3)

    by sheldon ( 2322 ) on Tuesday May 08, 2001 @08:54AM (#237439)
    What's best for the platform is original games that are cool and don't exist elsewhere. Only this will attract new users.

    Ports are next best because they make the platform look respectible. But usually ports suck compared to the original game.

    Emulation will absolutely kill the platform.

    Any time someone decides that to succeed they need to emulate another platform, they admit defeat.

  • Loki, Tribsoft, and Hyperion will never be able to release at the same time as the Windows version. Well, maybe not never, but not until there is a history of games selling for Linux

    As I understand it, the recently released Tribes 2 was released pretty much simultaneously for Linux and Windows. But in general, this doesn't happen, and in the highest profile case, Q3A, it really hurt sales of the Linux version.

  • It's not us that is the problem; well, not per se. Say there's a spiffy new game that you wantt o play that is due to release on June 10th for Windows. Loki has the rights, and has been working in semi-parallel, but won't have the Linux version out until August 20th due to new uses fo the T&L engine that need ported, for example. Are you going to wait 7 weeks to but the Linux native version while all of your friends (beat the first 30 boards|progress through 50 levels|beat the game completely), or are you going to fire up your Winelib-enabled version and play it emulated?

    Loki, Tribsoft, and Hyperion will never be able to release at the same time as the Windows version. Well, maybe not never, but not until there is a history of games selling for Linux and the publishers support a multi-platform development staff. If people buy the Windows version to play on Linux, then there's no reason to buy the Linux version, and no push to let Loki/Tribsoft/Hyperion do ports in the first place.

  • Then you don't know enough Mac gamers - they hate that they don't get all the cool games. Buying the Windows versions is the only way they get to play many games, and the reason is, there's not enough people buying Mac versions to justify a Mac version

    Which is exactly what will happen to the Linux versions if people can play the Windows version on both their Linux compter and their friend's Windows computer.

  • I would to but I don't feel like holding out for 3 years...Especially for an online game. The servers have come and gone by the time the game hit the Light of the Linux Day.
  • Not to flame anyone or anything but I agree with the AC here...I run Solaris and RH all day at work but find very little reason to go to them at home...no EQ, no UT, no Tribes, and even Heretic2 runs better under windows :(

  • I disagree... (Score:3)

    by Archfeld ( 6757 ) <treboreel@live.com> on Tuesday May 08, 2001 @10:56AM (#237445) Journal
    The ONLY reason I keep a M$ OS around is to play games. I have a RH LINUX system but use it less and less as time goes by. Rebooting is time consuming and not aesthetically(sp?) appealing.
    If I could play my games under RH or another distro I'd do away with M$ anytime. I think folks under-estimate the number of people who have KICK-ASS rigs just to play games. Try going to a LAN party, they are getting huge. I can see the point about developing for an emulator hurting native apps though, but LINUX needs greater home acceptence more than anything.
  • I think I can break that whole damn article down as follows:

    1) Companies whose bottom line is positively affected by wine are pro-wine

    2) Companies whose bottom line is negatively affected by wine are not pro-wine

    3) Slow day at /.

    The only nugget I saw was from the dude at tribesoft:

    In our experience of porting games to Linux, we found that much of the time is spent on having C++ or assembly to compile with the gnu tools. Implementing X API calls instead doesn't represent a lot of time in a port for us.

    The assembly doesn't suprise me (intel vs at&t syntax.. tho you'd think the company would have written a translator by now) but I didn't know that vc++ and g++ had diverged so wildly in their interpretation of a supposedly-standard language. I'm genuinely curious as to how they differ (no experience with vc++) .. Anyone have any guesses/examples?

  • thx for the info!

    I would even say win32 threads contain most of the *important* functionality of pthreads (which itself is a least-common-denominator deal) except cleanup handlers.

  • If I hear that Loki is going to port a game to Linux I'd rather hold out and buy it from them. Why would I want a hack? I would hope that game companies would choose to write their games in a semi-portable fashion so it makes it easier to sell more copies to Mac OSX and Linux users. They would probably have to worry less about copyright infringement on Linux. It seems to me that many Linux people I talk to are very much against piracy (it usually helps the Linux/GPL/BSD position).

  • That's exactly it [newsforge.com]. If TransGaming can attract 20,000 monthly subscribers, it'll be a big sign to game publishers. "There are enough people out there who want to play your game on their own platform that they've paid extra money to make it possible."

    I can't see how this is bad for Linux gaming in general. Maybe Loki and Tribsoft have publishers beating down their doors, saying "Please port my game so we can sell a few thousand more copies in three months!" That's probably not happening.

    TransGaming's subscriber base could really legitimise Linux gaming in the near future. I wouldn't be surprised if that helps the porters in the long term.

    --

  • I doubt that the owners of the Harry Potter license would agree to anybody doing a Linux-only game... There's just no evidence of anybody being able make any money from it.
  • a) Low user base - they don't see any evidence that they can make money from selling Linux games.

    b) Tech support - A biggy ... there's several versions of Windows, but to the programmer they're much more similar than Linux. Installing 3d video drivers is much easier, and the amount of hardware that is supported under Windows is much greater. 3D support under Linux is still in its infancy and not well supported by video card manufacturers.

    c) Lack of decent development APIs. DirectX has become very good now (especially DX8) and it's pretty well documented. The only API that is well documented and mature for games on Linux is OpenGL - OpenAL, SDL etc. are a step in the right direction but are only about as mature as DirectX 1.0 or 2.0, and the documentation isn't up to scratch.

    Basically it boils down to this. Microsoft has spent a very large amount of resources getting Windows to be good at gaming. Although there is work being done on Linux in the same direction, it is more fragmented and less well orgranised. A bunch of developers 'scratching an itch' rather than producing a commercial product. Until you can be reasonably sure that you can use one set of APIs to do all the sound, graphics and input on Linux, and that it will work on the majority of computers with a recent version of Linux on them, the developers won't come.

    cheers,

    Tim
  • SDL is LGPL'ed.

    That's all very well and good when you're doing an Open Source project, but there's all kinds of nasty stuff in there if you're a commercial developer.

    Like you can't statically link with the library.

    You have to give 'prominent notice' that the software includes the library and include the LGPL with it. This is particularly galling as the LGPL includes a load of crap at the beginning about how evil closed source and proprietary software is and how it should all be free. Obviously if I'm writing commercial software I don't agree with that. I don't want to disseminate propaganda for an opinion that I'm fundamentally opposed to.

    You don't have to do any of that crap with the Microsoft libraries. You can just use them.

    Don't get me wrong, I think it's admirable that people are doing these open source libraries, but If they really want people to use them, they'd better think about using a slightly less restrictive license, and really, it doesn't have to be much less restrictive.

  • Their? (Score:2)

    by image ( 13487 )
    From the article [gamespy.com] on gamespy:


    Their [Transgaming] solution is to refine and extend Wine, their "development toolkit for porting Windows source code to UNIX systems (Winelib), and program loader which allows Windows .EXE files to run directly on Intel-based UNIX flavors," so that Windows games will work well under Linux.


    Emphasis mine. I thought that Transgaming was adding DirectX APIs to Wine. This makes it sound like Wine itself is their doing. Not to discredit Transgaming, of course (although I do wish they would open it up sooner rather than later). But rather to mentioned where credit is due.
  • Wine Is Not Elm
  • MS can afford to hire lots of people whose sole job in life is to come up with ways to break WINE, so that counting on WINE is agreeing to be perpetually in catch-up, "me too" mode. (You need only look at the history of runnning Windows software under OS/2 to see this.)

    The difference between now and when OS/2 was competing with Windows3.x is that MS' installed base won't upgrade as quickly as they once did. This additional lag time between when a MS OS with "enhancements" is released and when software developers can count on the functionality being available is increasing.
  • .NET could also end up like MSN -- an expensive investment in a also-ran package. I expect many corporate sites to firewall .NET. I expect that it will only penetrate slowly into the home market because people don't buy OS upgrades like they once did. .NET will probably be an also ran for years to come.
  • No. Pine Is Not An Emulator. ;^)

  • I just switched completely last Saturday (Score:3)

    by Wee ( 17189 ) on Tuesday May 08, 2001 @11:50PM (#237464)
    I did two major things last week:
    1. I quit smoking
    2. I quit Windows

    The two have nothing to do with one another, but I can tell you that replacing a machine which had been running Windows for over two years certainly tested my new non-need for nicotine.

    Tribes2 came from tuxgames, and I no longer work at Eudora. I don't really need Windows anymore. So I wiped my big, fast SCSI drive and threw Linux on it. No more using the tinier and slower drive in dual boot when I want Linux. I'm going to have an actual uptime on my main, daily-use machine. And now the only Win32 machines in the house are my wife's.

    I've been using Linux since 1994 (Slack, even) and I'm pretty familiar with it. I have a couple machines at home that run Linux (including a gateway built from the Linux Router Project's stuff that has no hard disk). I'm confident when working with Linux, and I use it at work. I don't really like Windows all that much and I've been wanting to dump it for years. Yet it was a hard decision to leave Windows completely.

    What games will I be giving up? Will there be some new killer app I cannot run? Can I live with Samba for all my non-Linux connectivity? Will all my USB stuff work? Will the latest CVS snapshot Voodoo5 drivers be better than the six month old Win32 ones? Will they work at all? How will I update my BIOS now that they pack them in Win32 self-extracting EXEs? How's WINE doing these days? Can I get drivers for my old Canon laser printer?

    I think things are fine. I've got stunnel doing cool things, and ssh port forwards for my mail. Opera runs like a champ, and I can get pix out of my digital camera. I'm thinking of installing GNUCash. I feel comfortable for the first time in years. It's like being home again. I wrote a shell script that did absolutely nothing, just because I could.

    But if the decision to completely switch was hard for me, it must be really, really hard for the casual user. I can't imagine what a new Linux user would do. ("I have to link a GLU DRI to what .so thingy where? Huh?") I think it would be nearly impossible for the average/new Linux users to make the switch.

    So we need WINE. We also need native ports. It's a very tough question. I can tell you that the people like me won't support Lokigames -- there aren't enough of us. But if we rely on WINE to run all our non-ported apps, MS (or someone) will work on breaking the implementation, just like what happened to AIM and Samba. I'll deal with either WINE or a native port (ports preferred), but if the goal is new Linux users then games aren't where the answer is. Ask anyone with Mac OSX to burn a disc and see what they think of Unix. The interface to the OS needs significant ease-of-use changes.

    -B

  • It's really quite simple. (Score:3)

    by PenguinX ( 18932 ) on Tuesday May 08, 2001 @09:16AM (#237465) Homepage
    Companies like Transgaming must exist so that a large installed user base can exist for companies such as Loki to be able to flourish. The problem lies that not every gaming company will want to spend the money on porting every game to Linux, however if say Sierra, ID, or EA can bundle a piece of software with a Windows game and say that it "works in emulation in Linux" this creates an installed gaming user base in Linux. This also forces companies such as Mandrake, RedHat, and SuSE to listen to what the end users really want and bring them an experience. For those who don't think that there is much potential in this sort of market I would have you check the average computer user (E.g. Mom & Dad) and compare this to the average gamer. Who spends more on computing equipment and software? Other companies will follow where the revenue goes, if it's Microsoft or Linux won't matter as long as they can continue to make the investors happy. WineX is not a long term solution. However I think that it is a needed booster solution for the Linux community. Generally speaking those who are running Linux at the moment will continue running it until it goes away. However those that are gaming and running Windows have no reason to leave that environment.

    Any other ideas?
  • Linux gaming has always been a niche market, not in the last place due to the cumbersome way 3d, sound and other gaming hardware is handled under linux. A few small companies have managed to draw some revenue from porting games to it. However, if games can be run using wine (and contrary to what people have been stating, wine is not an emulator by definition), that would likely kill that market since only an idiot would spent time and money porting games that already run on linux (on top of wine) IMHO.

    That's bad news for those few companies making a living out of porting games to linux but on the other hand why halt progress for a lousy businessplan? Linux might ultimately benefit by attracting new users if new game releases can be run on it. One of the reasons I'm still running windows is games.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • I think short term WineX will help Linux by not making people's current game collections useless.

    Long term, we need to support native apps. I'm not talking 'binaries will be available soon' or 'get the patch' or 'wait for loki' stuff ... I'm talking a hybrid CD that will work on my linux box as well as it does on my win box. When this starts to happen, we'll be better off. Emulation or intercepting of APIs or whatever can only hurt Linux. Remember what happened to OS/2, it ran win3.1 apps better than win3.1/95 ... so people had no incentive to write native apps ...

    From what I've read, Neverwinter Nights will be crossplatform on one disc, I'll be buying it. Hopefully we can convince game companies that cross platform games CAN be successful.
  • So? Where does it say that emulation == a decrease in speed?

    :looks up:

    Re: Native is MUCH Faster

    You might want to change the subject. Or at the very least, read it. ;^)

    The real point isn't semantic quibblings over a single dictionary definition of emulation that clearly hasn't been thought through (since it defines as emulators many things that would generally be agreed not to be emulators, including drivers, Linux and Bruce Willis). The real point is whether native code is necessarily faster than Wine, and because Wine does not emulate every aspect of the target system, this is not the case.

  • API - Application Programming Interface, (as you all know) point being, you don't emulate an interface, you implement it.

    Naturally this is all shemantics and quite useless. The point is, WINE doesn't have to be slower than running it natively on windows. (I'm not saying it has to be faster either. ;-)
  • Why do we have to "choose" one or the other? It doesn't make sense. We can easily have BOTH. Games written for Linux don't preclude Windows compatability, and Wine's existance doesn't stop any company from writing for a fast-growing user base.

    Choice is a good thing in the computer industry, and the more ways my OS allows me to do What I Want To(tm) the better. This just seems like a flamebait article to me.

  • Re:As long as I have hack I'll be alright... (Score:3)

    by costas ( 38724 ) on Tuesday May 08, 2001 @12:06PM (#237476) Homepage
    I know I will be flamed to death, but I think the Unix/Linux community has to take off a couple of blindfolds: I like Unix and I want it to stay competitive.

    With the exception of free programming tools, I think Windows has the edge on Unix on the rest as well:
    * Scripting and text tools? windows scripting host exposes to any WSH-capable language (including Python and Perl) the entire system including components. Unix doesn't (technically OSX does and KDE is trying). Python, Perl, awk, sed, sort, head/tail, uniq, cut are all available on windows and work just as well there as they do on unix.
    * Powerful and logical system management functions? It's true that Unix let's you customize a server to your heart's content, but I for one prefer Event Log over /var, Administrative Tools over /etc and Services Control panel over rc.d. And *anything* over linuxconf. Yes, the Windows *implementation* may leave a few things to be desired (fewer and fewer with every iteration of NT) but the design is sound. Unix may be powerful but it's far from logical.

    Before the inevitable flames and downmods start, let me just say that I started using Unix before I touched DOS, never mind Windows. My hands type vi commands in Word to this day. I am at home in /etc. But the new generations of coders (never mind users) deserve something better than /etc, something cleaner than /var. Microsoft's answer may not be perfect, but at least MS (and Apple, thank god for Apple...) are trying. The Linux crowd is grabbing its security blanket and claims superiority even on areas that our favorite OS is clearly losing ground.

  • Intentional naming? (Score:4)

    by interiot ( 50685 ) on Tuesday May 08, 2001 @08:45AM (#237479) Homepage
    I thought Port was a type of Wine, not an alternative to it.
    --
  • WINE is not an emulator as much as GNU's not Unix (i.e. it is).

    It's a semi-inside joke that you seem to take seriously. Lighten up! :-)
    ------
    I'm an assembly guru ... What's a stack?

  • Re:I disagree... (Score:3)

    by Dwonis ( 52652 ) on Tuesday May 08, 2001 @04:52PM (#237481)
    Yeah, right. I know a few gamers with "KICK-ASS" game boxes, and they are constantly complaining about the frustrations of having Windows crash more often than is convenient. I think if Linux ran the games 100% as well as Windows did, they would run Linux simply for the underlying stability.
    ------
    I'm an assembly guru ... What's a stack?
  • Some _might_, most will be running Windows 98 though, which is still behind the times in Microsofts eyes. The point still holds that not everyone upgrades overnight, and some people will even downgrade if the replacement isnt as good. I know many gamers who tried 2000 or me and dropped back to 98 for better performance. Same thing when 98 first came out. Some people still do run 95 to play current games because not all of them need high powered machines running the latest wizbang os. The Sims ( a fairly current and popular game) even runs on NT 4.0. The most gamer unfriendly OS I can think of besides DOS.
  • You can get Myth II for Linux for $9.99 now from ebworld.

  • Porting == Better Software (Score:5)

    by runswithd6s ( 65165 ) on Tuesday May 08, 2001 @09:03AM (#237485) Homepage
    How does that equate? Let's say you've got a Windows-centric software company that feels they've got a great product. It's well designed, fairly robust, and the gameplay is such that people will flock to buy the game for the primary target OS: Windows. The beta testers rave about it, the press is salivating.

    The game releases, and as predicted it's a great success. Linux users are envious, but dislike having to dual boot their boxes. Emulation is not quite there for this new game, as it uses a bunch of Windows-centric, bleeding-edge DirectX calls, and was never ported to OpenGL. In addition, the game uses DirectSound, and other Direct(insert extension) calls. IOW, it's a purely Windows game.

    Now the company begins to receive requests like, "Can't you make this OpenGL?" "Have you heard of OpenAL?" "I want to run this awesome game on Linux, and I refuse to buy Windows. I know a dozen friends who'd love to play, but they have the same requirements!"

    Our software company is now in a dilemma. What to do? Let's call Loki and see if they can help us. Loki agrees, seeing the potential for an infusion in sales, and begins to port the game to OpenGL, OpenAL, and the SDL libraries. As they work on the code, they find a lot of logic problems, some really nasty bugs, and basic structural problems with the program. They fix these and send it back to the originating software company.

    The company is floored. How could we have missed so much? It worked well on Windows, but when we use these standards-based API, it breaks! Let's incorporate these changes and see if we can't make a better Windows product as well.

    And thus, the cycle of software improvement continues. The original software company learns some valuable lessons about standards-compliant programming, Loki (or other porters) make some money for the consulting and marketing, and the players, both Linux AND Windows win by getting better software.

    No. I don't see porters being in any type of immediate danger. Marketing and business decisions aren't solely based on the Windows phenomenon, they're based on demand. People will continue to demand Linux ports for software because they KNOW that the WineX libs will always be playing catchup with Direct(insert extension). They KNOW that OpenGL, OpenAL, and SDL afford game developers the flexibility of cross-platform compatibility and standards-compliant design. They KNOW that a better product will be the result.

    WineX is a good short-term solution, contrary to the author of the article we're replying to. It is not a long-term solution in the eyes of game designers or the consumers in general.


    --

  • Win32 as a cross platform API? (Score:3)

    by SirSlud ( 67381 ) on Tuesday May 08, 2001 @09:30AM (#237486) Homepage
    Personally, I would prefer ports, since Wine, though not an emulator, does keep the Win32 API 'alive', at least in a development sense. I think most here would agree that Microsoft already has enough trouble cleaning its slate and ridding itself of old messy APIs .. imagine what would happen if the Win32 API became the standard cross platform gaming API? More market clout, more reasons to keep legacy outdated APIs around, and new innovative gaming APIs may never come around; at least until Microsoft gives it to us, and then Wine catches up to it. Yuck. At least if its ports, that keeps the possibility of the dominant gaming platform shifting to some other platform than Windows. :)

  • Are we going to need a sommelier [dictionary.com] for Slashdot?

    Ports, Wine, Brandies, Whiskeys, ... oh.

    Nevermind.

  • All I ever play is Rocket Arena to turn my brain off in the evening (though I might diversify to Tribes 2). My little celeron 300A with the hand-me-down GeForce 2 gets 80fps and looks ab-so-lut-ely sweet.
  • With the advent of extremely high quality video cards, sound cards, and control devices for PCs over the past decade, it would be reasonable to assume that customers might choose to purchase a PC (which can now be priced competitively wihth some game consoles - as amazing as that is, in and of itself)

    The PS2 is ~$300. Let's pop that up to $500 considering the still-high demand. $500 will not buy a very high-end gaming rig. I just spec'ed (at mwave.com) a box which cost about $450 (w/o keyboard, mouse, monitor, modem, NIC, etc). The best I could do was a GeForce MX, a 750 Mhz Duron, 128 Mb RAM, SB Live Value, and a 15 Gb disk. That's a decent box (better than I have right now, actually), but not that great, IMHO.

    Also, PCs have problems with multiplayer games - and I'm not talking about brining half a dozen PCs somewhere for a LAN party, I mean you have a few friends over and you can just say "Hey, how about a round of Smash Brothers?" and not worry about it.

    I maintain that this is because the gaming customer seeks simplicity and ease of use that (as much as it pains me to say) linux doesn't yet provide at this point

    Neither does Windows. I'm not trying to be flamebait here, but the simple fact is that a system - hardware, firmware, and software - designed exclusively for playing games, is going to be easier to use - for games, than a general purpose OS, end of story. Try to do anything else, and you're SOL, of course, but that's not the point here.

    You will have my N64 (and my Gamecube, soon enough) when you pry them from my cold dead fingers.
  • While I acknowledge the value of comparing one system's technical merits to the other, particularly in a forum of people who (I hope) won't turn into mindless bigots who support system X or system Y of doing things, I also see how presenting this as something we need to "choose" is a bad thing.
    We should focus on inter-operation, compatibility, and when reviewing the qualities of other systems, to do so in an open-minded fashion -- to learn from others' triumphs as well as mistakes.

    "good" competition is important, but bickering about who's better isn't competition.

  • Freedom is too important to mess with in this way. It's a dirty tactic to use, and isn't even remotely in line with general free software ideals, which is to give freedom to the user. Tring to force someone to use your software is a commercial tactic employed by companies who want to retain a chokehold on their customers.

    If you want to attract users to a particular platform, let it be on merit alone, not through cohersion.

  • I agree - which is why, for now, I will buy games for Windows 98SE and boot to that OS to play. Really. It's the ONLY reason right now to have Windows installed - games.

    So, you might say "let's encourage native ports." I really want to do this. But let's take a look at the game market.

    • Game comes out for Windows for $39.95
    • Loki gets rights to port game.
    • After several months, game available for $29.95, Loki still working on port. That's OK, I'm very patient, I'll even wait a year. Most gamers won't, but that's not the point - I will.
    • Loki releases Linux port of game (for $39.95), which now can be bought in bargain bins for Windows for $19.95.
    • I have to decide: buy Myth II Soulblighter from Loki for Linux for $34.95 + S/H, or from local store for $19.95 - or even Myth: The Total Codex (includes Myth, Myth II, and more) for $19.95 + S/H direct from Bungie.
    Now, I want to support Loki, I really do. And the truth is, I haven't purchased it from either. I love games, but don't have a lot of time to play. I will make this my next purchase, though. The last game I bought for PC was Total Annihilation - after it was voted game of the year. I got TA and the expansion for half the cost of the new game. I will support commercial software, but I am cheap. So I know I want Myth (and Myth II), but what makes more sense?

    I mean, I can't get rid of windows, because there's no childrens software (my two year old has lots of good games). So, while I could say it'll be cheaper to dump windows and support only native apps, I can't do that right now - and it seems most people are in the same boat.

    I'm a decent programmer. I suppose I could write some childrens games. But if I want to be a good parent, do I write the games, or spend more time with my child (soon to be childREN)?

    So, yeah, give us native apps - but we're not going to get the kind of selection Windows has for quite some time. What to do, what to do...

    Sorry, seems I'm jumping back and forth, but the truth is, as many have pointed out, it only makes sense to have both ports and emulators. However, allowing emulation only encourages developers not to port. It's a difficult situation. I'd prefer native, and not emulation. I'd like a time when I could get what I wanted for Linux. I'd prefer there be no emulation in exchange for, say in four or five years, to have a good native selection for Linux.

    But...there has to be parity. I'm not going to buy Myth II from Loki when I get a complete package with Myth II and several other things for half the price from Bungie.

  • Wine is an emulator. It just provides winelib, which is an API wrapper. To use winelib rather than wine, you have to recompile, which is something some companies still won't do.

    And winelib still isn't as fast as "really" native code - since it's an API wrapper, a lot of structures etc. winelib has to handle are all but optimal for typical Linux usage.

  • No problem (Score:3)

    by Ravagin ( 100668 ) on Tuesday May 08, 2001 @11:19AM (#237502)

    so you can run all the Windows games you want on your favorite OS

    But I already do! 8-)

    (sorry, couldn't help it)



    -J

  • Authors FUDing Windows, not getting it (Score:4)

    by alexhmit01 ( 104757 ) on Tuesday May 08, 2001 @09:05AM (#237503)
    Okay, we all know that WINELIB lets Win32 become a native Linux API. Okay, Win32 is ugly and disgusting. However, if game programmers want to code for Win32 and they can compile on both systems, more power to you. I don't have a problem with Using Winelib IF the authors would release a Win32 AND Linux binary on the same CD. I'd rather not have emulation mode used (although for older, less resource-intensive games, its fine... old games are still fun).

    However, the belief that MS can change the APIs isn't QUITE true. Keep in mind, many installations are still running Win95, a 6 year old OS, and will be doing so for a number of years. Until companies eliminate the last vestiges of their DOS past, Win95 isn't dying.

    While MS can release new APIs, why would a company limit their market. By using the older APIs (and if necessary, DirectX), then they can support a wider market within the Wintel world. If Linux can support DirectX, then you can release a Linux binary on the CD.

    Are their better APIs than DirectX? For somethings, sure. Why not encourage OpenGL instead of Direct3D, which makes porting to the Macintosh easier.

    However, DirectX has created a world where we have more games than we did in the DOS world, and it's apparently not as bad as DirectX 2.0 or 3.0 that Carmack hated. Let's me real, if people LIKE the DirectX calls (or tools to develop them) why can't we implement DirectX on every OS? I mean, how you implement the calls is entirely up to you. DirectX abstracts you from the hardware and Win32 on the PC, why not use DirectX on other platforms.

    If you can get DirectX ported well to Linux (and Mac OS X), then there is a decent percentage of the gaming public that becomes dependant on an available version of DirectX. When MS releases a new version of DirectX (or a secret hidden version, whatever), most companies will be compatible with older ones rather than losing a chunk of sales.

    Contrary to popular belief, MS is not a supernatural company. They are a monopolist that abuses their power, but they are as mortal as the rest of us. Remember, for the first few YEARS of Win32 (NT 3.1, NT 3.5, NT 3.51, beginning on Win95) they had Win32s out, which was a subset that ran on Win3.1. Well guess what, MOST Win32 programs in that era were Win32s programs, that took advantage of the new capability, but were predominately run on Win3.1. The entire reason for Windows 4.0 AKA Chicago AKA Win95 was to try to 1) kill DR-DOs and 2) establish Win32 to replace the Windows API (now known as Win16). It was a LONG transistion to kill off the Win3.1 machines and migrate people to NT, so Win32s remained the limitations of the API for a while. Remember Windows 4.1, 4.2 (98, ME) were marketing decisions because they couldn't get Cairo (NT4, wait NT5, wait Win2K, wait, it's a set of technologies) out the door.

    Embrace and Extend MS's APIs. Offer your own extensions. If developers can release a DirectX game on multiple platforms, they will either stick to the GCD of them (if MS has DirectX 10, but 10% of the marketshare is at DirectX 9 b/c of Linux/MacOS X), then companies will release for DirectX 9.

    By requiring your own APIs, you require a large effort to reach a SMALL market. Remember, a GOOD chunk of the "Linux" crowd are Free Software advocates that won't use non-Free Software, and ANOTHER large portion are the spend-no-money crowd. That doesn't make Linux a terrific platform to try to make money from.

    There already is a popular API with a published spec for writing games. Embrace and Extend. Or at a minimum, Embrace.

  • Native is MUCH Faster (Score:5)

    by ClubStew ( 113954 ) on Tuesday May 08, 2001 @08:44AM (#237506) Homepage

    Not only should we support and embrace companies like Loki for doing such a great job and helping to make SDL a great gaming layer (hopefully more game programmers will then use it instead of DirectX for cross-platform games from the get-go), but we should embrace native linux games.

    We all know that Wine is a bit of a resource hog, since it emulates windows on top of another OS, and Windows is a resource hog on its own, so now you've got two hogs and that can only lead to trouble (anyone seen Hannibal?). Running natively makes the games much faster and gives linux the boost that it needs for people and organizations (like PC Mag that claims there's not enough apps for linux when the reverse is actually true).

    • If you want to run your games fast like they should be, go native!
    • If you want to support the linux world, support the companies that do an excellent job porting games to SDL.
    • If you want Tux to kick Borg Gates's ass, support native games.
    • If you want linux to start getting on more desktops - even of home users - let their be software...and it was good.

    We all want linux to succeed, so lets support native linux games (and other programs, as well, like StarOffice and KOffice, etc) and the companies that work hard to get good software for linux that attracts attention!

  • Essentially, it will all be down to Quality (Score:4)

    by tjwhaynes ( 114792 ) on Tuesday May 08, 2001 @09:18AM (#237507)

    The gaming industry on Linux is still young - we have now, mainly thanks to Loki with kudos to Hyperion and Tribsoft, a fair group of 3D FPS games along with a handful of strategy and sim type games. These are all native ports.

    We also have games which currently run well under Wine - Halflife is the obvious choice here, along with Starcraft and several others.

    Transgamings Direct3D port promises to allow us to run more Windows games under Linux, and for the ardent gamer who does not wish to switch-boot to Windows or even maybe just have a Windows machine, this port is of the utmost importance.

    But looking into the long term view, the most important thing for Linux gaming is the Linux is viewed as a viable gaming platform by the game manufacturers. They have to see dollars in order to think about a port. What most game producers watch are the sales figures. Here we are cursed by the difficulties of separating the figures apart - the highest profile port up until very recently was Quake 3 Arena. Because Linux gamers could buy the Windows release and use the data files with Linux binaries, it is impossible to tell how many people are actually running Quake 3 Arena on Linux from the sales figures. And yet the sales of pure Linux Q3A boxes will be affecting the decision of game producers now considering Linux releases.

    Loki has, for the most part, made sure that you can't use one of it's Linux release with the Windows data files to ensure that a small market is not further eroded. It's not a popular decision but I feel that it was a necessary one.

    Loki should also come in for some serious praise for their commitment to the quality of the ports it does, both at initial release and in continuing to bug fix and improve the original release (for example, adding an OpenGL renderer to Myth II at least 12 months after the original went on sale). And I hope it is quality that will get gamers to use the Linux releases - in the marketplace, people want the best possible game. If the Linux release is smoother, faster, easier to set up a game server, then people will switch.

    While I think that the WineX stuff will help increase the number of games on Linux, I don't view it as making Linux a more important gaming platform in the eyes of the game producers. It may make Direct X ports easier but in an ideal world, we'd all be using crossplatform toolkits from day one.

    Cheers,

    Toby Haynes

  • It's not flamebait at all. MS can afford to hire lots of people whose sole job in life is to come up with ways to break WINE, so that counting on WINE is agreeing to be perpetually in catch-up, "me too" mode. (You need only look at the history of runnning Windows software under OS/2 to see this.) Ultimately the goal has to be to make it possible to do better games under Linux than under Windows.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Why bother porting or emulating when you can write for both platforms natively at the same time? This is what the SDL [libsdl.org] library is for. It allows you to write a program once and be able to compile it natively for each platform (Linux/Windows/Mac/etc). If developers started writing games to be cross platform they could release the game on all platforms simultaniously. Here is a research project on designing cross platform software: http://www.wpi.edu/~mongoose/mqp/latex_doc/mqp.pdf [wpi.edu]

    Designing and writing a cross platform application is not difficult. Actually the main problem that the research found was the companies didn't want to write applications for Linux because they didn't want to have to support Linux. Linux was too hard for companies to support do to all the various distros, writing the code though was the easy part.
  • Serious, Ill pay (and do pay) good money for native games. As other people have pointed out, native == faster and fps (and the like) need to be fast.

    I love being able to play (re: kick their asses) Tribes 2 with my windows "friends". Hope loki [lokigames.com] can keep going.

    -jason m

    BTW: Shamless plug for tux games [tuxgames.com]. They where good about getting me Tribes 2 and SMAC and keeping me updated though the delays.
  • If a developer does a full port, then the game can also be ported to other *NIX OSes with a decent installed base (i.e. Mac OS X) and even other CPU architectures that don't support x86 instructions. That's why you can play MAME on anything, including that wacky digital camera. I say port 'em, folks.
  • I think this one is really up to the developers.

    Unlike with traditional applications where the GUI must really fit into a desktop environment, games do not have this problem. In fact, in games you should get the feeling that you're working with a console. If a good game interface is made it shouldn't be noticable on what platform you run the game.

    This brings us to the game developers, they have a real choice: they can port the game to OpenGL or they can make it compatible with WINE, why should we decide for them? If a game company decides to use Wine then why not? If it runs fast on Linux then why complain about the underlying toolkit? Free software is supposed to be about openess and choice, not about locking vendors in to your platform, leave that to MS, Sony and Nintendo.

    If we support more toolkits than Windows then perhaps most games will be written for Windows but every now and then there's going to be a game that's written for Linux specifically (if only something like Tux Racer, taqfh, etc.), this can be enough to make people consider Linux!

  • We all know that Wine is a bit of a resource hog, since it emulates windows on top of another OS, and Windows is a resource hog on its own, so now you've got two hogs and that can only lead to trouble (anyone seen Hannibal?). Running natively makes the games much faster and gives linux the boost that it needs for people and organizations (like PC Mag that claims there's not enough apps for linux when the reverse is actually true).
    Wine Is Not an Emulator! It doesn't emulate Windows at all, it just reimplements the Windows libraries and runs it *natively*.
  • Transgaming wants to port games and release them under a proprierty license initially and as soon as enough people have subscribed they want to merge the code with the main WINE tree.

    More info on their site [transgaming.com].

  • Just to supplement all the comments from people who say they dual boot -- I have a monitor/kb/mouse switchbox that is connected to my Windows box (used for gaming and graphics apps) and my Solaris x86 box (firewall, nat, mail, code, etc). It's really nice because I don't have to reboot to use apps in the different OSes and I can fileshare between boxes with samba if both OSes need access to the same files. Also, you can switch between OSes with your keyboard with a lot of switchboxes. This makes it friendly to do little tasks like switching out to write an email on the Solaris box without causing Tribes 2 to barf on Windows. It is also not much more expensive than a single dual boot machine because the *NIX box can just be cobbled together out of old parts.
  • I personally have both versions (Windows and Linux) of all of the following games

    You're feeding the hand that bites you. Why should we pay full price just for the privilege of running on another platform?

    id, EDO, Loki, et al. are not charities. They will not survive by marketing to "supporters." The "tightwads" are their bread and butter. They have to put quality, affordable titles on the shelf in a timely manner. I, for one, would love to see them put it all in one box.

    id and Epic got it (mostly) right by letting you download Windows and Linux executables, regardless of which you bought. That, of course, explains why the $10 Quake 3 Linux tin is finally flying off the shelves. What id got wrong was expecting their sales numbers to mean anything. The Windows version came out first and, until recently, cost less. Who knows how many copies of the Windows version are running on Linux (and vice versa)?

  • > the Linux community will need to adopt direct3D

    Bullshit

    Can I quote you on that? How does this sound: "A high-level source at Epic Games promised the Slashdot community that Unreal 2 and Duke Nukem Forever will be released for Linux"? Or, I can just go with "Bullshit."

  • What about getting developers to code for SDL as a way of supporting both Linux and Windows at the
    same time?

    As I understand it, SDL games can be ported to Windows without much trouble, and without using
    any emulation.

    I suspect many game developers whould support a portable gamming API where they could support the
    windows market, and Linux without being beholden to MS APIs.
  • (Linux is an emulator, XFree86 is an emulator, Samba is an emulator, telnet is an emulator, etc.)
    If they meet the definition, then why not call them that?
    Because that definition makes the word meaningless. Traditionally (in the computer world) the word "emulator" implies hardware emulation.
  • 3.Computer Science. To imitate the function of (another system), as by modifications to hardware or software that allow the imitating system to accept the same data, execute the same programs, and achieve the same results as the imitated system.
    That's not a very clear definition. But that's what you get for using the American Heritage Dictionary for technical definitions. Generally in computer science "emulate" is used to mean the emulation of hardware. It also implies the use of a virtual machine or interpreter neither of which WINE has (yet). On the other hand WINE developers sometimes refer to the part of WINE which executes Windows binaries as an emulator. But it's really not. At best it emulates the Windows binary loader.

    WINE is an implementation of the Win32 API. It's no more an emulator than XFree86 is (XFree86 being an implementation of the X server spec and X library APIs).

  • AFAIC only your everyday usage of the word.
  • I saw it. Just because it's in a dictionary doesn't make it right, especially if it's a jargon word in a non-technical dictionary.
  • Then I'm sure you'll accept Merriam-Webster's definition:
    2 : hardware or software that permits programs written for one computer to be run on another usually newer computer
  • So now who's making decisions on whether dicitionaries are wrong?
    Dosemu emulates the hardware access available to DOS. I.e. it simulates hardware IRQs and registers. It is definitely an emulator by that defintion. Clearly you don't understand how these programs work.

    I admit I haven't studied linguistics but I do have a couple of degrees in computer science so I am qualified to talk about this stuff.

  • Dos was written for x86. dosemu runs on x86. I don't need dosemu to run dos apps on my computer. Hence, according to this definition, dosemu is *not* an emulator.
    What the hell are you talking about? Where in that definition does it say the apps must be impossible to run on the second machine? Where does it say that the CPUs must be incompatible? A computer is more than just a CPU. Dosemu emulates a PIC and various other support hardware: it emulates a different computer. Another example is VMWare which emulates several pieces of hardware including an AMD Network card and (optionally) a harddrive. Just because they don't emulate the CPU doesn't disqualify them under that definition. WINE however doesn't emulate anything. It simnply provides an implementation of an API.
  • Don't be silly. WINE won't permit a program to run on a computer that it can't already run on. Dosemu will. Understand the difference? I realise you're arguing over what they mean by "another" but your defintion of emulate suffers from that same problem. Essentially you're arguing for a defintion of emulate that is so broad as to be meaningless. As was pointed out at the start of all this. So since we've come full circle on the arguments I'm sure you'll agree it's pointless to continue.
  • Dosemu only runs on x86. In other words, it won't permit a program to run on a computer that it can't already run on. How is this different than wine?
    Since you obviously don't understand I'll explain it despite the thing about not continuing. You're still confusing "computer" with "CPU". They're not the same. Dosemu will let you run programs which require hardware you don't have, e.g. programs requiring sound with a soundcard that is not supported under DOS. Or a PIC that causes problems under DOS (I don't know if such a thing exists, DOS doesn't care that much about the interrupt controller). That's because Dosemu emulates hardware.
  • Only if you could already run it via Windows, yes?
  • Yeah. Well, that is the problem with one line defintions. I think by "another computer" they mean something significantly different (i.e. hardware-wise). But they don't actually say that. Anyway my problem with both those definitions is that they are too broad. The AHD one is very broad, but even the M-W definition lets you define things like the Linux kernel and X as emulators. Sure you can do that if you want and claim that it's well and good, but if you do then you lose the ability to use "emulator" as a label for the class of programs that have traditionally been called emulators. So let's look at that class. UAE, MAME, Dosemu, VMWare, Plex86, Bochs, WINE (arguably). All of these are designed to run programs intended for one platform/environment in another environment. I think that's the basic statement that's missing from the dictionary definitions (and I know why: because they are trying to also cover the historical use of emulator as in "terminal emulator"). So WINE fits on that basis, but there are a few other characteristics that all the other programs share that WINE doesn't:
    1. The others all run (or at least are capable of running) the native OS of the platform they are emulating.
    2. The others all trap CPU instructions in the emulated programs. In the cases which emulate the CPU (UAE, MAME, Bochs) all instructions are trapped. VMware, Dosemu, and Plex86 only trap instructions that cannot be permitted to execute on the real CPU.
    3. The others all emulate other hardware that is expected to be in the emulated platform. PICs, serial ports, hard drives, and sound cards are common.
    Note that this definition elimiates lots of other things that people don't generally consider to be emulators but that fit under both of those dictionary defintions, such as JVMs.

    So, to reiterate, while WINE has a similar purpose to other emulators (as defined above) it doesn't function in the same way that an emulator does. In fact it's much closer to something like XFree86: an implementation of an API.

    You could make a distinction between hardware and software emulators and say that the above is a definition of hardware emulators and that WINE is instead a software emulator. I'd probably agree, although I'd argue that "software emulator" isn't a very good label, as we're really talking about reimplementation rather than emulation, and that generally that sort of thing is refered to as a clone (e.g. people refer to vi clones not vi emulators).

    Anyhow, now I have some work to do.

  • Yep. It's been amusing.

  • not just about running the app (Score:4)

    by vukicevic ( 199951 ) on Tuesday May 08, 2001 @09:21AM (#237559)
    The issue of winex vs. native ports isn't just about getting the game running. Asking any windows game house to add a port to a competely new operating system is asking them to do quite a bit. Thanks to libraries such as SDL, OpenGL, and OpenAL, the actual work involved in porting the code may be quite small. However, the company will have to train their support staff on how to support their games under Linux -- something that is not an easy task. ("Okay, sir, you're running XFree 4.0.2.. do you have the latest NVidia drivers? Oh, you're using the open source drivers and not the binary only ones.. well, the ones that appear to work were from CVS dated Jan 15, can you try rebuilding with those? Oh, you'll have to rebuild X to get those to work, let me tell you how...")

    The other issue is that while winex may be able to get the game going, there are still a number of minor barriers. Many games are (still, pointlessly) using various forms of copy protection that require the OS to jump through hoops to read bad sectors or other such nonsense from the CD-ROM.

    I don't think a large amount of this functionality is supported under wine -- thud you'd have to convince the game company to either redo their copy protection or get rid of it altogether... both not very likely things.

    There are obviously problems with both approaches; on one hand, wine can be extended and patched to allow various forms of copy protection and other such nasty hacks to work, and on the other, perhaps Linux will become such a large market that game companies will plan to support it from the start. Perhaps Linux on the Desktop will become a viable target for application developers -- something that can't happen until the various low-level packages stabilize. And we're a long way from that yet.

  • Running Windows based games on Linux is always going to be an uphill battle and frankly is always going to suck. Except for the geek elite nobody is going to have the game of the century of the week running on Linux and very few developers are going to write for it. Just pray for ports. I wouldn't dual boot windows if I didn't believe it. Before you flame, riddle me this...where do you do your gaming at?
  • I have a whole pile of Loki and Hyperion games for Linux and they do not suck. At worst, they are identical to the Windows version (Heretic II, Quake I/II/III, Heavy Gear II, Descent 3).

    At best, they better than the Windows versions because they're much faster and they don't BSOD or crash on me and I can run them in a window if I choose to do so (Civ:CTP, Heroes III, RT2).

    Have you tried any of the ports?
  • I'm seeing a lot of messages about how we may as well run Windows games under Wine because ports suck cucumber anyway. I've decided to post a message to the root thread of this discussion just to say:

    Try the Loki and Hyperion ports! They're as nice, if not nicer, than the Windows versions. I own 13 of them, and for a number of these, I own the Windows version as well, so I can compare side-by-side.

    Please don't assume that just because it's a port, and just because it's a small company, the Windows version will be better. Loki especially has done a nice job -- they're still releasing updated 3D support and patches for games more than a year or two old! How many Windows gaming companies will do this? None! I can't tell you how many Windows native games I have with that bug that just drives-you-nuts but the game is too old already to be supported any longer by its manufacturer. Meanwhile, Loki is still supporting its first Linux port.

    I'd venture to say that overall, quality and support have been much better for the Linux ports, and they all run beautifully. I'd say for the 3D games that you'll want to be running XFree86 4.0 or better for the [basically first real] 3D support for Linux, but other than that, there's nothing special needed.

    The ports are NICE and they're NATIVE. Try them! You'll like them!

  • I paid less for my GF2 card ($140) new than I did for my Voodoo3 card years ago ($199). GF2-MX cards are now under $100 and use the same drivers.

    How much cheaper do you want a 3D accelerator to be?

  • You chose Linux, didn't you? (Score:3)

    by aussersterne ( 212916 ) on Tuesday May 08, 2001 @09:21AM (#237569) Homepage
    Because too many people will "economize" -- if a Windows version and a Linux version of a $50.00 game exist, and the Windows version will run under both Windows and Linux, but the Linux version will run only under Linux, guess what a lot of tightwads will buy in an effort to maximize their purchase?

    And thus, the Linux porting company (Loki, Hyperion, Tribsoft) goes belly-up because the windows version has outsold the Linux version, even among Linux users.

    I personally don't believe that Linux will ever run a Windows game as well as it would have run the same Linux game, no matter how good emulation gets. People play games for the experience, not out of the kind of necessity that causes them to run Office under Wine. If you can have a better gaming experience in Windows [i.e. framerate, stability, speed...] then you probably find yourself rebooting and running it under Windows, even if it works under Linux emulation.

    Not to mention that I also firmly believe that there will always be a few [dare I say many?] Windows games that don't run under Linux, period, including some major titles. Why? Because Windows is Windows and Linux is Linux and the former is closed, complex and obscure and the latter depends on smaller teams of programmers with fewer corporate resources and fewer lawyers.

    I personally have both versions (Windows and Linux) of all of the following games:

    • Quake: The Offering
    • Quake II: Colossus
    • Quake III Arena
    • Heretic II
    • Heavy Gear II
    • Descent 3
    • Soldier of Fortune

    In each case, I bought the Linux version after the Windows version (after because the Linux versions came later). Why buy two copies of the same game? It's called putting your money where your mouth is. I want games under Linux. The best way to ensure that this will happen is to help existing Linux games to turn a tidy profit for the people working on them.

    Hey, you chose Linux knowing that it didn't run Windows software well. Why hang around waiting for it to run Windows software now that your comfortable enough with Linux to be playing games? Support Linux gaming, not Windows gaming on Linux.

  • You're the second person to swear that Linux game ports are total crap... Have you tried them?

    I have both versions of a number of games and I own a total of 13 "ported" games for Linux that I've purchased, not pirated because I felt that they were worth my hard-earned money. And I don't buy crap.

    These ports are smooth. They are identical to their windows versions and they play nice and fast on my GF2. These games have my LAN party droogs saying "damn, I didn't know Linux could do that!"

    Have you tried any of the Loki or Hyperion ports? Or are you just FUDing Linux gaming?

  • Though I like and use wine for some games, because I have no choice, emulation as a means of using apps is not beneficial. OS/2 had this problem (among others). It had Win-OS2, giving it the ability to run many then extant windoze apps. Then came Windoze 95 and Win-OS2 couldn't deal with those apps.

    IBM then had a choice, update Win-OS2 to support the latest win95 stuff or encourage native apps. By this time, BECAUSE of Win-OS2, there was an extreme lack of native OS/2 apps and support. Why would a software company make OS/2 apps when their Win3.1 apps ran under OS/2 just fine?

    Chaotic "support" from IBM and the existence of Win-OS2 prevented the production of OS/2 apps early on. There was no foothold established for OS/2 apps. When Win95 came along, it was all but over. Apps came out for doze but not for OS/2 and Win-OS2 couldn't handle Win95 apps either - the end.

    The linux community must be careful and learn the OS/2 lesson. Do NOT count exclusively on wine to bring games to linux. It is a tightrope. One false calculation and all linux will be left with are legacy windoze games as M$ changes something so that it is unusable on linux. It is also NOT a good position to be in vis a vis games to ALWAYS play catchup.

  • DirectX and gaming... (Score:3)

    by kstumpf ( 218897 ) on Tuesday May 08, 2001 @09:34AM (#237577)
    It's quite sad that game developers decided to latch onto DirectX. It's certainly a good example of what can happen when the bulk of an industry adopts a proprietary API.

    For sake of argument, relate this to Visual Basic. It only runs on Windows, so if you develop an application in it, its doubtful you will port it (or else you'd write it in C to begin with, like a man). VB apps are arguably easier to write than C apps, so its appealing to developers to shorten development time.

    DirectX is to game development what VB is to software development. A proprietary closed development platform that puts a choke hold on cross-platform development.

    To those thinking "I wish DirectX would go away", don't, because the industry needs an API like DirectX. Games need to be produced rather quickly or they are outdated before they are released, and the reason DirectX caught on is that it accomplishes this.

    So if the world were correct, what open project would replace DirectX for game development? Can anyone possibly have the resources to compete?

  • But there are still a few obstacles in place, mainly the fact that getting 3d to work via DRI is currently a son of a bitch for some people. I'm all for getting more games on Linux, and the SDL is great to work with, but the SDL can only do so much when you're stuck with software rendering because you have to do some serious twiddling with the kernel, then XFree, then DRI, then Mesa, then Glide (maybe the fact that I have a Voodoo card is part of the problem), and this is before you write a single line of game code. If you've never done this before, go on the dri lists and look at some of the things you have to do to diagnose a problem, you'd be amazed. There is no way your average gamer is going to want to put this much effort into dealing with problems that Windows handles (unfortunately) pretty effortlessly and has more games as payoff, to boot.

    Currently, the SDL is working great. No arguments there. But you really have to get your geek on to get DRI to work, and that's unacceptable if you want Linux to be accepted as a gaming platform. I've been spending over three weeks trying to get a game I'm working on to start working faster (limiting factor is currently blitting), and each time it's the same. Yes, I RTFMed (several different ones, actually), and when you RTFM a manual like DRIs FM and you still can't get hardware acceleration, it's heartbreaking.

    Maybe the LSB will help improve things, but it's hard to say.

  • I agree, any specialized system is going to be cheaper to manufacture, and easier to operate. Between, on one end, Game consoles - with their ease of use, cost & performance benefits - and Linux, sits Windows. This is why you don't see game designers writing games for consoles, then Linux, then windows. Because their customer base follows the usage pattern Consoles, Windows, Linux - in that order.
    --
  • Daniel, Man, if your management thinks the way you do on this issue, more power to ya, I just doubt the gaming industry as a whole has as progressive a view on this issue as you seem to.

    --CTH

    --
  • Support of comonly used APIs will contribute to linux native ports of popular games, WineX and other emulation solutions are a step in the right direction.

    Support through an emulation layer isn't the conclusion of any development effort. This is a basic tenet of Open Source. The work of TransGaminga [transgaming.com] is a great contribution twards this goal. Eventually there will be native Linux support for direct3D. This I am certain of.

    As for following Microsoft, implementing their API rather than promoting the potentially vary competitive OpenGL; well, open source operates with an entirely different market model than treditional corporate development. Some market segments such as enterprise IT equally receptive to open source as to treditional software. This allows open source solutions to thrive in that market space. Other market segments such as computer gaming, target a customer base which is generally less technically inclined, and in pursuit of entertainment rather than productivity solutions - I maintain that development of efficient solutions to productivity issues is one of the driving forces behind open source development -, anyway, the gaming customer base is seeking entertainment rather than technical solutions to technical problems. As such, the gaming market will always be dominated by the easiest to use OS, with the simplest setup, and the most readily (as percieved by novice customers) available commerecial support.

    This is why game consoles are still as popular as they are. There was a time when game consoles were themost advanced and highly customized platforms for video game entertainment. With the advent of extremely high quality video cards, sound cards, and control devices for PCs over the past decade, it would be reasonable to assume that customers might choose to purchase a PC (which can now be priced competitively wihth some game consoles - as amazing as that is, in and of itself), which is more flexible, and by every reasonable measure, more useful, but, alas! - game consoles are still extremely popular. I maintain that this is because the gaming customer seeks simplicity and ease of use that (as much as it pains me to say) linux doesn't yet provide at this point, even with the great efforts of Ximian, and the Gnome Project, among others

    The point of this rambling diatribe is that computer game designer will always favor the simplest to use platform, which is inherently, where the majority of gaming customers will be. This means, that regardless of the elogance or superiority OpenGL, the Linux community will need to adopt direct3D because, as others have pointed out, no programmer wants to port code from one platform to another especially when that requires a significant API change.

    --CTH

    --
  • I think companies that are into making the games "linux native" are doing good work.

    Although all games and game developers don't mix well with Linux. So some games and other apps must run on top of Wine or other such emulation tricks. But is that really an answer? I wish I could run Red Alert, but it just doesn't work.

    So my 2 cents is this: We need companies, game companies, to not ignore linux. If gaming houses kept linux in mind when making the games maybe we would have better games. But if they can't do it then hire someone else to provide the codeing for the port. The independent developer would sign what not to make sure they didn't rip off the code and promise not to bug them about open sourcing it all. [this could be a nice market for a company]

    I don't want the source code, nor would I like to run the games through an emulator, but can we get games built for linux like people used to make them for macs?

    Does MS give money to the game developers? Then why is it so hard to get them in our pocket? If they started making games for linux, since it has a nice desktop share, they would only snowball into a huge customer base.

    Maybe we just need 1000 more programing layers like windows has. IDE's for this and that. Maybe bloatware is the answer?

  • Re:Native is MUCH Faster (Score:5)

    by Molf ( 265303 ) on Tuesday May 08, 2001 @10:43AM (#237594) Homepage
    That's true, but it's not the point. Wine really *doesn't* emulate Windows at all. It emulates the API, which is an entirely different chestnut. This is why Wine should eventually be able to run Windows apps faster than Windows itself - you *always* need an interface between the app and the OS, this simply acts like the one Windows apps know how to speak to. In theory it should be no different than a `native' API, or running Windows app natively under Windows - except for apps which try to access Windows directly. These won't work properly, because Wine Is Not an Emulator.
    Molf
  • Remember when the OpenGL patch was released for the original Quake? This opened the floodgates wide to Linux-based game development using an open library. This is where we should be leaning our efforts. I certainly plan to buy games that natively support either Linux (2.2 or 2.4) and Win32 simultaneously, no hacks involved. We can always vote with our wallets, right?

    IOW, game developers should be working in languages that are already universally accepted and available for multiple platforms. This isn't to knock the fine work of the WineX folks, but to build hacks into the system ain't a good way to spread the love.

    RW

  • Seriously though, the major complaint I hear amongst people wanting to move over to Linux isn't that there aren't enough games but that their existing game collection would go out the window if they were to switch.

    And they don't want to do that.

    I say go on, get 'em to both projects. We need compatability, and we need a genuine native powerful platform that lets Linux beat the crap out of the competition.
    --

  • they play nice and fast on my GF2

    You mean that Linux games run well on the fastest, most expensive hardware available?

    Wow, that really is amazing!

    Seriously, though, what about those of us who have S3 Savage4 based 3D cards or any one of the trillions of other 3D cards that aren't supported under Linux? What about those of us who have slow 3D cards that just barely run the latest games on Windows? THAT's the kind of hardware Linux games need to run well on to be successful in the mainstream.

  • There are two kinds of emulations possible. The first is complete emulation, in which off-the-shelf Windows games just run on Linux. That is really bad, I think: the vendor doesn't know how large their Linux user community is, and they may easily end up using Windows APIs that trip up Wine. The second is one in which the vendor uses Linux versions of Windows APIs and only makes minor changes to packaging and the installer. That avoids many of the problems. In fact, where Windows's APIs are good, that may even be a good idea and encourage native versions of those APIs.

    But in many cases, I think the Linux APIs are preferable, and a full Linux port seems altogether better. Ports to native Linux will drive the Linux APIs to improve further and get hardened, and that's important: without that kind of real-world usage, Linux multimedia and 3D APIs will just get stale. And native ports will likely have better performance: Windows APIs make all sorts of assumptions about the underlying OS and kernel that just aren't true in Linux.

    But why buy commercial games at all? Have twice the fun: write your own. Yes, getting commercial game quality graphics and sound is hard, but we can make up for that with smarter, more fun games. To me, games like nethack still have better game play than any of the Windows equivalents, which have nice graphics but are much more simplistic.

  • We need a game of our own... on linux... that is a
    killer app' of games. I want everyone to go 'WOW!' And want to run it. I want THEM to have to debate 'should we rewrite, or should we emulate?'. Many people will be enthralled enough to switch platforms.

    The whole point of emulation is to help people ease their transition from one platform to another... As long as the end result is more people using Linux, I would be behind either, or both solutions.
  • Since my workplace offers a loan for PC's, I went in for the power workstation. If Linux ran my games, I'd be there in a heart beat. I might even buy a Mac to run PPC Linux on it. There are a lot of opportunities that Transgaming will take from the Linux community through their software.

    The fact of the matter is that Linux needs support. Benchmarks show that to be true. Case in point, would be a comparison between the Win32 and Linux versions of Quake 3. The framerate on Win32 was about 10 to 20 FPS higher on Windoze. That would most likely be due to driver maturity.

    If my recollection on the framerates is incorrect, please let me know. The last time I saw those benchmarks was about 6 months ago.

    To add to this: I would think that if the Linux community wanted to truly gain steam, the real gearheads would make a more user-friendly version. I know that's bound to bring some flames. But having gone through an installation of Red Hat with a friend of mine, I can tell you that the majority of intermediate Windoze users wouldn't be able to finish without some help, or without spending some time to learn some terminology that they've never seen before. If they will spend the time learning to install Windoze, I'm sure they'd like to learn Linux providing that the install has a more user-friendly mode. The steps that have been taken to make the install easier are steps in the right direction, but they are not enough.

    This is a problem that Microsoft brings to itself and to the rest of the computing community by trying to prevent the user from understanding what the OS is trying to do. By "dumbing down" Windoze, people come to expect that "it should just work." We all know the difference, and we should strive for an OS that is not only stable and robust as is Linux, but one that can be used by both beginners and power-users.

    A previous article on /. highlighted a convention in which the CS field was slammed for making computers that aren't user-friendly. The general consensus was that if PC's are to survive, that they need to be made in a streamlined fashion, and essentially dumbed-down for mainstream use. This included both the Macintosh and x86 sides of computing. As much as I hate to say it, even Windoze and Mac aren't easy for first time users. Being employed in technical support for a major ISP has proven that to me.

    We don't need Internet Appliances. We don't need dumbed down machines. We need a stable OS that has a beginner, intermediate, and advanced versions of installation and use. Most software installs on Windoze (including the OS installation) utilize this kind of feature, why not the install? Even the GUI and command-line could be configured this way.

    And if anyone already knows of an OS like this, then let me know. :)

    Toad of the Yerk

    "Illegitimati Non Carborundum" - Don't let the bastards grind you down.

  • Even though I'm as big a Linux geek as the next guy on Slashdot, I can't help but wonder why people are still pushing the issue of porting games to Linux. As Linux users we must face the fact that we are STILL in the minority. Computers are so cheap these days that it's probably a lot easier to go buy a cheap PC, slap Windows on it, and run your games. Porting software is just too costly and time consuming... and more often than not the ports turn out to be total crap in comparison to the original item. I honestly don't see the need to run games on Linux. I'd love to kick Bill Gates in the arse and send him cyring to his mommy, but right now if I were developing games again (fat chance) I'd probably just stick to Windows. I can understand that there are probably many purists out there who will flame the hell out of me for saying it, but just play your games in Windows already! Or maybe go get yourself a Playstation or something.

  • Re:Native is MUCH Faster (Score:3)

    by dinivin ( 444905 ) on Tuesday May 08, 2001 @09:23AM (#237631)
    Wine Is Not an Emulator! It doesn't emulate Windows at all, it just reimplements the Windows libraries and runs it *natively*

    emulate
    1.To strive to equal or excel, especially through imitation: an older pupil whose accomplishments and style I emulated.
    2.To compete with successfully; approach or attain equality with. See Synonyms at rival.
    3.Computer Science. To imitate the function of (another system), as by modifications to hardware or software that allow the imitating system to accept the same data, execute the same programs, and achieve the same results as the imitated system.



    Sure sounds like an emulator to me.

    Dinivin

  • Hypothetically, if RedHat ran 100% of games 100% as well as Windows did, I'd think you'd find that a vast majority of those KICK-ASS game boxes would still be running Windows for a variety of other minor reasons.

    People have to see Unix as value-add for their primary computing tasks in order to switch to it. For the most part, the good things about Unix have nothing to do with game playing, so it's a wash if gaming is what's important to you.

    I guess what I'm saying is that you don't use your Linux box because you don't really need a Unix, and that's fine.
  • the major complaint I hear amongst people wanting to move over to Linux isn't that there aren't enough games but that their existing game collection would go out the window if they were to switch

    Maybe you are trying to convert the wrong people over to Linux? From a pragmatic standpoint, the operating system has to provide applications that the user wishes to run. It's really a simple checklist to determine who is most likely a potential Unix user and who isn't.

    + AOL (stay with Windows)
    + All the latest games (stay with Windows)
    + Powerful scripting and text manipulation functions (Unix)
    + Free programming tools (Unix)
    + Powerful and logical system management functions (Unix)
    + Basic websurfing and e-mail (Both, either, anything).

    For the most part, games don't bring in the users -- users bring in the games. A vast majority of games are sold to the casual gamer who is doing real work on his/her machine. The bleeding edge 'Wintendo' gamer crowd is essentally subsidized by this broader market.

    Really, Loki has the right idea by trying to sell proven hits to a userbase that wants to relax after a hard day of using 'grep'. Even then, it's a pretty much marginal market, and certainly not large enough to attract someone from the dark side.

    I agree, go build the technical infrastructure for portability if that's what turns your screws. But, even if it's technically possible to port games, that's not going to make it economically possible until there's a larger desktop userbase.

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