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First Person Shooters (Games) Software Linux

Doom 3 for Linux Released 411

edawg writes Linuxgames reports that "the Linux edition of Doom 3 has been released by ID Software. Although it didn't ship with a Linux version on the install CD, its still nice to see they release Linux binaries around the same time as their first game patch. Here is Information directly from ID Software."
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Doom 3 for Linux Released

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  • questions (Score:4, Insightful)

    by mirko ( 198274 ) on Tuesday October 05, 2004 @08:02AM (#10438358) Journal
    1. does this means this uses OpenGL instead of DirectX ?
    2. has somebody any clue when the osx version will be released ?
    • Re:questions (Score:5, Informative)

      by Dogers ( 446369 ) on Tuesday October 05, 2004 @08:05AM (#10438374)
      id have ALWAYS used OpenGL for the graphics rendering. But they use DirectX for sound on windows, which is what will take time to convert to *nix..
      • Why not use SDL? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Izaak ( 31329 ) on Tuesday October 05, 2004 @08:34AM (#10438568) Homepage Journal
        id have ALWAYS used OpenGL for the graphics rendering. But they use DirectX for sound on windows, which is what will take time to convert to *nix..

        I've heard this said before and wondered why they don't use a combination of SDL/Alsa/OpenGL to keep it cross platform. I've been doing that and have a single code base that compiles to Linux, Windows, and Mac with no nasty piles of #ifdef'ed code.
        • by Dogers ( 446369 ) on Tuesday October 05, 2004 @08:50AM (#10438678)
          Not knowing much (read: anything) about SDL and ALSA on windows, my guess is they dont want to be stuck supporting that if theres any problems with it. Why bother with that hassle when the numbers of people donwloading and actually USING the linux version are so small compared with that of windows?
        • <pedantic>I think you mean OpenAL instead of Alsa</pedantic>
          Aside from that, I agree with you wholeheartily
        • Re:Why not use SDL? (Score:5, Interesting)

          by Watcher ( 15643 ) on Tuesday October 05, 2004 @08:52AM (#10438692)
          id has always had a healthy NIH (not invented here) syndrome that they learned from mess with the original Doom sound library they used. The thing never quite worked right, and caused no end of troubles. Even though SDL is open source, id has their own debugged code laying around that has been used for years that does the same thing-there really is no gain for them to throw out code they know and trust for someone else's work.

          I've tried out SDL a few times, and although I've found it pretty workable, when you bring multithreading in it has troubles, especially if you don't want to render in your main thread.
          • Re:Why not use SDL? (Score:3, Interesting)

            by Izaak ( 31329 )
            id has always had a healthy NIH (not invented here) syndrome that they learned from mess with the original Doom sound library they used. The thing never quite worked right, and caused no end of troubles. Even though SDL is open source, id has their own debugged code laying around that has been used for years that does the same thing-there really is no gain for them to throw out code they know and trust for someone else's work.

            I assumed it was something along those lines, as ID actually has a longer histo
        • Re:Why not use SDL? (Score:3, Interesting)

          by Cereal Box ( 4286 )
          I've heard this said before and wondered why they don't use a combination of SDL/Alsa/OpenGL to keep it cross platform.

          Perhaps -- and I know this may be shocking to some -- iD doesn't find SDL to be as advanced as DirectX when it comes to sound and input.

          Besides which, since SDL sits on top of DirectX (note that this does not necessarily mean that SDL can do everything that DirectX does), that means they've got to deal with one extra level of abstraction, which hinders speed, if even slightly.
    • Re:questions (Score:3, Informative)

      by Evangelion ( 2145 )
      Since GLQuake, id has always used OpenGL instead of Direct3D.

      But on Windows, it might perfectly well use other parts of DirectX that aren't Direct3D.
    • Re:questions (Score:3, Informative)

      by Xetrov ( 267777 )
      It uses OpenGL in windows.
      OpenGL and DirectX aren't equivalent anyway, you must be thinking of Direct3D, which is the graphics library.
      • Re:questions (Score:3, Informative)

        by julesh ( 229690 )
        OpenGL and DirectX aren't equivalent anyway, you must be thinking of Direct3D, which is the graphics library.

        Direct3D has been renamed "DirectX graphics". Weren't you paying attention to that announcement? :)
  • by drunkennewfiemidget ( 712572 ) on Tuesday October 05, 2004 @08:02AM (#10438362)
    I've always found *nix to be a lot better at properly utilising its hardware than Windows. This is not a Windows flame message(tm) it is what I've found in the past.

    I wonder if Doom 3 can be successfully played on lesser hardware if played in linux...
    • It seems to run about the same, some reports say that it runs a tad slower but from personal experiance it runs a tad better for me

      Just keep the detail level at medium and it runs fine on an Athlon +1600 w/ a Geforce 4 ti 4800 and 382 of (older)DDR memory. But I really could use more memory as I see the game effectivly sucks it all away during play.
    • by Beowulf_Boy ( 239340 ) on Tuesday October 05, 2004 @08:10AM (#10438407)
      Funny, I've played FPS games side by side in linux and windows, and I'd say the windows box was a slight bit faster. I was playing Quake 3 and Soldier of Fortune.

      Not that I'm trashing linux, I use it daily. I have 2 boxes, with Synergy setup between them. One is linux, the other windows. I use the linux box for websurfing, AIM, and as a file server, and the windows box (since it has a bigger monitor) for doing any programming homework and playing games. I just find that linux isn't quite there yet for gaming. Hopefully soon though, its came a long way.
      • by gowen ( 141411 ) <gwowen@gmail.com> on Tuesday October 05, 2004 @08:29AM (#10438537) Homepage Journal
        It's pretty sad that when you say something even slightly critical of linux, you feel the need to defend yourself from the moderators by parading your linux qualifications to prove that your really truly one of the cognoscenti.

        (Beowulf Boy, this isn't a criticism of you, but the mentality of moderators)
        • That's the way the system works. Say nothing critical of Linux, Acknowledge nothing positive in Windows, and you take your chances when making a comment on OSX. That is of course because you never know which moderator you're going to get. It might be the Apple zealot or it might be the guy who's so sick of Apple zealots that he slams you down for daring to mention it.

          At least with Linux and Windows you know where you stand. ..."all your Beowulf clusters in Soviet Russia belong to us for Profit!!!" may b
        • by Karn ( 172441 ) on Tuesday October 05, 2004 @09:39AM (#10439248)
          To be fair, Quake 3 is basically the only platform-independant game that isn't disadvantaged on Linux in some way (pure OpenGL, not a Direct3D port/afterthought), and he was claiming something that is contradicting what benchmarking sites like Tomshardware have shown, that games can run faster in Linux than in Windows. For example, Tom has a benchmark page here [tomshardware.com] that shows Linux outperforming Win2K on Q3. The difference is probably not noticable to a casual gamer, but benchmark junkies who tweak their machine to milk an extra 5fps out of their rig will.

          So basically, it isn't sad that the guy had to put a disclaimer in there, because what he said does in fact contradict popular belief, as well as somewhat recent published benchmarks.

          (Disclaimer: I'm not one of these dillusional people who claim Linux can run Windows games faster than Windows itself under Wine. The only game I recognize as running equal or better in Linux is Quake3.)
      • Copy-pasting my post from under the earlier story about Doom3 Linux release:

        Using the same config (1280x1024, High settings, 8xAF, no AA, all effects on) on Athlon XP 1.4GHz /640mb RAM/GeForce FX 6800, timedemo demo1 precache:
        Win98se/Forceware 61.21: 30.1 fps
        Linux 2.6.7/NVidia drivers 61.11: 28.9 fps

        So perfomance is very close, which probably attributes to slow CPU. One difference is that Windows Doom3 version is 1.0 - I didn't bother to download 1.1 and hack it to work in Win98 (shame on id for yielding
      • According to Linux-Gamers.net [linux-gamers.net], Timothee Besset of ID software said about the linux port, "I'm getting surprisingly good performance compared to the Windows version".

        This is great timing too. ID release the Linux client only 2 days after my girlfriend gave me Doom 3 for my birthday!
    • by TrancePhreak ( 576593 ) on Tuesday October 05, 2004 @08:15AM (#10438446)
      The earlier article on /. about the Linux 3D performance tests show that you are incorrect. They do, however, show that 3D gaming is nowhere near unbearable in Linux.
    • In respect to games, the OS doesn't have _that_ much to say.
      It's mostly CPU and GPU burning. Quality of the GFX drivers are very important.
    • you can benchmark Doom III ingame:
      open the console: [~]
      type: timedemo demo1
      my results: 2148 frames rendered in 68.2 seconds = 31.5 fps
      system specs:
      AMD XP2000+
      512 MB DDR266
      GeForce3 MSI StarForce 822 ViVo 64MB DDR
      KT400 chipset

      os: Gentoo 2.6.9-rc2/NPTL/Prelinking/gcc 3.4.2
      driver: nvidia 1.0.6111-r2

      obviously my old graphics card is the bottleneck. I don't have a windows box here, but maybe someone who has a dualboot can test this benchmark.
    • There's much easier access to low level resources in Linux than in Windows NT/2k/XP. This makes porting software and updating for major changes (like AMD64) harder but results in better timing and performance in many cases.

      Linux will get a form of HAL layer eventually, but I would imagine this will be bypassable to keep the embedded developers happy.

      As for if Linux performs better, I'd say there's not much in it. While Linux has some better code for various things, GCC doesn't produce the fastest code, so
      • What kind of HAL do you mean? POSIX?
        Linux programs get the same interface in about every architecture as long as you stay away from assembler and accessing io directly (which is the kernels job anyway).... And even if you do program part in assembler its good practice to do it in C first so even then porting won't be a problem.

        Jeroen
  • by Realistic_Dragon ( 655151 ) on Tuesday October 05, 2004 @08:03AM (#10438364) Homepage
    Well, yes, but isn't that what the duct_tape_flashlight mod is for?
  • Errm (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 05, 2004 @08:03AM (#10438366)
    Game patch for WIndows, Linux version. Can someone tell me what the difference is?
  • by will_die ( 586523 ) on Tuesday October 05, 2004 @08:03AM (#10438370) Homepage
    DUP and the really bad thing is that they are posted right after each other as seen here. [slashdot.org]
  • ATI Drivers (Score:5, Informative)

    by kaleco ( 801384 ) <greig.marshall2@btinternet . c om> on Tuesday October 05, 2004 @08:07AM (#10438389)
    The ID release information suggests that ATI might finally get their finger out and are working towards decent Linux drivers. This would surely be a great contribution to Linux, even for non-Doomers ;)
    • Re:ATI Drivers (Score:3, Informative)

      by sundru ( 709023 )
      Yeah i got a ati 9800 pro and the fglrx drivers suck big time , quake 3 comes up with a black screen with something like ascii symbols moving.

      Have a look at
      http://www.petitiononline.com/atipet/petition.html / [petitiononline.com]

      to meet other frustrated people . i even sent a couple of emails to ATI folks
    • Re:ATI Drivers (Score:3, Insightful)

      by wowbagger ( 69688 )
      I will beleive ATI will release decent drivers when I load the driver on my machine and it works.

      X.org V6.8 has been out for how long now, and in pre-release for how long, and yet, ATI does not have a build of their drivers for it. All the major distros have gone to X.org over XFree86, and yet ATI is not supporting the current release of X.org - this would be like them not supporting DirectX 9 for Windows.

      Their drivers do not support the tuner subsystem on their cards, nor is it possible to get the GATOS
  • by Jakhel ( 808204 ) on Tuesday October 05, 2004 @08:09AM (#10438396)
    from XP to linux is the lack of game developers support for linux, the rest of the software (excluding photoshop) that I use is free open sourced. Now both ID and Epic have released linux versions of their games. If valve and others follow suite, I will definately be switching OS sooner.
  • DUP! (Score:5, Informative)

    by JDizzy ( 85499 ) on Tuesday October 05, 2004 @08:09AM (#10438398) Homepage Journal
    I swear! The editors cannot search, and shame on Taco since he knows better!

    http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/10/0 4/ 2122236&tid=127&tid=106
    • Give him a break. Sure they were posted less then 24 hours after each other with no other stories between but look at the headlines...

      Doom 3 for Linux Released
      Posted by CmdrTaco on Tuesday October 05, @09:01AM

      Linux Doom 3 Client Released
      Posted by Zonk on Monday October 04, @06:30PM ... then again maybe the editors get paid based on the number of replies to their stories.
    • Re:DUP! (Score:3, Informative)

      The first one wasn't posted to the Slashdot front page. Since I, for one, don't usually read games.slashdot.org, I this was the first that I saw about it.
    • Enough whining about dupes! Oh, heaven forbid! A story gets on here twice!

      If it's a dupe, just don't read the second one! It's not hurting you, and nobody's forcing you to read it. I know a "DUPE!" post equals an instant +5 for some unfathomable reason, but please resist the urge!

      Slashdot is free for many of us, and cheap for the rest, so really, the fiscal loss, and the emotional pain and agony should be minimum. If you see something is a dupe, save your (and our) time, and just ignore the second posting
  • by Isldeur ( 125133 ) on Tuesday October 05, 2004 @08:09AM (#10438400)


    "the Linux edition of Doom 3 has been released by ID Software."

    Who cares about Doom?! I've been playing Duke Nukem Forever here on GNU Hurd for months!

  • A few special notes (Score:5, Informative)

    by GweeDo ( 127172 ) on Tuesday October 05, 2004 @08:15AM (#10438439) Homepage
    Be sure that your X Server is set to 24 bit mode. 16 bit mode won't workie. Also, it uses OSS for sound output. So all of us ALSA users had better have OSS emulation. Hope those two things help.
    • Isn't OSS emulation an option in the kernel config for ALSA drivers, and hasn't it been for a while now?

      I'm too lazy (read: should be working) to go check.
  • by Faust7 ( 314817 ) on Tuesday October 05, 2004 @08:16AM (#10438450) Homepage
    This ought to go a long way towards legitimizing Linux as a gaming platform. It's Doom 3, for god's sake. Hard to get bigger than that. As long as they're able to standardize installation across some of the most popular distros.
  • oh no, not again... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by nappingcracker ( 700750 ) on Tuesday October 05, 2004 @08:20AM (#10438474)
    once again Linux seems to get the short end. Im was (and am) really pleased that iD was supporting Linux, but it seems that once again Linux is the afterthought. Stereo sound for Doom 3? It was fine for the original quake, throw on some stereo headphones and get scared stiff; stereo sound does not cut it with this game. No 64bit build? cut off Linux's nuts a bit more, why dont you?

    time will tell, and maybe these things will come, but most of the time these things loose steam as the team loses motivation and counts $$$.

    Isnt it easier to develop for Linux, and port to windows? This way everything works in Linux, and if it works in Linux it cant be that hard to tie into windows? Easier said than done, sure, but easier than porting from windows to Linux.

    I hope they take time to polish the Linux release and do not half ass it.
    • by pgrst ( 662201 ) on Tuesday October 05, 2004 @08:34AM (#10438563)
      time will tell, and maybe these things will come, but most of the time these things loose steam as the team loses motivation and counts $$$.

      you say that like it's a bad thing. ID is a business, not a charity. The economics are probably very simple. The Windows version will likely turn a profit several orders of magnitude larger than a linux version.

      If I worked for ID I know which version I would concentrate on.....
  • by a_nonamiss ( 743253 ) on Tuesday October 05, 2004 @08:21AM (#10438477)
    Please forgive my ignorance, but would I have to buy a seperate version for Linux, or does my serial number for the Windows version somehow allow me to download the Linux binary?

    Not that this question isn't entirely academic, because my Linux box isn't capable of running Doom 3 anyways, but I am just curious how they are handling this.
    • by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 05, 2004 @08:28AM (#10438531)
      does my serial number for the Windows version somehow allow me to download the Linux binary?

      There's no serial number check - anyone can download the game binary. However it's useless without the game data files which you'll have to copy from a windows install or from the CDs.
      • Which might be a bad mistake for id, not having a serial-check at all. Now all the butt-pirates need to worry about is getting the pak files

        Shouldn't the serial key be required for online play? (I've never played Doom3 online so I don't know)
  • Dumb question (Score:4, Interesting)

    by DrXym ( 126579 ) on Tuesday October 05, 2004 @08:22AM (#10438492)
    But since the Linux version doesn't care about copy protection, shouldn't ID release a patch that also allows the Win32 version to run without the CD? Make it so you have to have the CD and a valid key to apply the patch, but after that it works without it.
    • I feelt hat the protection on the windows copies could be much more of a publisher's descision than the developers.

      thinking about it, mass piracy (like it doesnt happen anyway...) on windows will have a much bigger sales impact than on linux... so obviously they're not as bothered....
      • Re:Dumb question (Score:3, Insightful)

        by DrXym ( 126579 )
        Yes, but in this instance has a CD key in addition to copy protection. What's it matter that I have the disc inserted thereafter, so long as I've fed the thing a validated key.

        If it wants to verify the disc is copy protected it can do it during the key validation. Thereafter it should really make no difference.

        Besides copy protection is a joke. It takes literally a few hours at most for someone to crack a game - I'm sure Doom 3 is already available over P2P in cracked versions - and I know there are cra

        • As I said, Copy protection keeps the execs happy. Anyone who believes that it work's is a pratt. Still, if you wanna stop someone copying it for a friend, it's better than nothing at all...
  • Whither OS X ?? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by blakespot ( 213991 ) on Tuesday October 05, 2004 @08:24AM (#10438507) Homepage
    So where is DOOM 3 for OS X? My new [blakespot.com] dual G5 2.5 is just itching for something to challenge it. Of course...until Apple ships the GeForce 6800 Ultra I ordered as part of the bundle, I'm using the interrim Radeon 9600XT - not sure how well that will push DOOM 3 at high resolution....


    blakespot

    • My 9600XT ran it pretty well. 1024x768 on high detail without noticable stuttering. That's without AF and FSAA turned on, though.
  • by tod_miller ( 792541 ) on Tuesday October 05, 2004 @08:30AM (#10438539) Journal
    until all hell broke loose, then I hit alt-ctrl-~, did a ps -aux and hit kill -9 on everything I could find.

    I think I must have been out of ammo or something, because it kept giving me stick about command not find.

    I tried apt-get and still nothing.

    No seriously, everything works fine, except all the PDAs on the base don't work right, because I guess linux on the PDA is a bit immature for the martian market :-)
  • by yoyhed ( 651244 ) on Tuesday October 05, 2004 @08:32AM (#10438557)
    During the intro level, I get around 45 fps average in Linux, and 60 fps in Windows. My guess would be just that nvidia's Linux geforce driver hasn't had as much time put into it as their Windows one.

    But I did notice it started up faster, and was smoother/faster in the menus in Linux than in Windows. And the whole computer wasn't slow for 30 seconds after I exited out of the game in Linux.

    By the way, this story is a dupe, it was posted in the Games section yesterday (by a different submitter) so if you want more info check that out too.

    WinXP Pro / Slackware 10
    800x600 Medium Quality
    AthlonXP 2800+
    512mb ddr400
    Geforce FX 5700 Ultra
  • Hrmmph (Score:5, Funny)

    by Cirrius ( 304487 ) on Tuesday October 05, 2004 @08:32AM (#10438558)
    Well damn, the linux version of here I can't complain anymore. Oh wait, hey id where's the damn MAC port huh?? There's like 27 people waiting for it, chop chop!
  • by imr ( 106517 ) on Tuesday October 05, 2004 @08:39AM (#10438594)
    -Doom3 Linux binary released. by Timothy.
    -Release of the Doom3 Linux version. by michael.
    -Linux Doom3 finally released. by Cliff.
    -A look at the socio-economics behind the Linux Doom3 release. by JKatz
    -The Doom3 Linux server is included in the Linux Doom3 release. By CowboyNeal.
    - Doom 3 for Linux Released. by CmdrTaco who doesnt even read his own stories.
  • I noticed they are still using OSS instead of Alsa for the meantime and aren't supporting AMD64, so unfortunately we wont be able to say definately how great it runs in linux compared to windows at the moment.. because with OSS, its bound to be slower. The oxygen bar known issue would be pretty annoying too. Hopefully though this will spawn a massive amount of new linux games based on the doom 3 engine. Anyone feel like benchmarking to test at the moment?
  • Where have we heard that before?
  • BitTorrent (Score:2, Insightful)

    by chadruva ( 613658 )
    I'm glad they provide a bittorrent for it, their FTP server has been full for a while!
  • by bushboy ( 112290 ) <lttc@lefthandedmonkeys.org> on Tuesday October 05, 2004 @09:03AM (#10438810) Homepage
    Tried it today on slack 10, 2.6.7 kernel, 6111 drivers.

    Got pretty much exactly the same timedemo benchmark as win32 (same box), although I could swear it felt smoother and sharper somehow.
    I think I can coax a bit more out of it - I could with Linux Quake3.

    Pity about the 5.1 sound - I really hope they get a patch for that soon as it's a big part of what makes the game fun.

    For the record, it seems you have to be running X in 24bit mode - unsure if that was the case for quake3 too ?

    Another thing, which would only apply to the small percentage interested - no editor support under linux.
    No idea if this is planned for a future patch, but GTKRadiant now supports Doom 3 (without the render preview in the current build)

    Still, kudos to id software for supporting Linux !
  • by IronChefMorimoto ( 691038 ) on Tuesday October 05, 2004 @09:09AM (#10438881)
    As a nice companion to this Doom3 Linux release, there's also a Linux gaming benchmark article on Anandtech.com this morning:

    http://www.anandtech.com/linux/showdoc.aspx?i=2229 [anandtech.com]

    It's more of an AGP GPU on Linux comparison, but the information on some of the setup was, for a Linux newbie like me, a little informative. I had considered doing a Linux installation on my A64 gaming machine (using a separate hard drive) and installing some of the Linux versions of games that are mentioned in the article.

    I'm curious, though -- do most of the mainstream game Linux versions come on the CD-ROM or have to be downloaded from the developer? Doom3, for example, requires the Windows CD for adding some files to the Linux installation. Enemy Territory is standalone. What about Jedi Knights: Jedi Academy, as mentioned in the Anandtech article? On the CD-ROM? Or a free download without requiring anything from the original Windows CD-ROM?

    Anyway -- a good article. I enjoyed seeing information about gaming on Linux. Now, I just gotta get an Nvidia card so I don't have to struggle as a Linux newbie with the ATI driver installation.

    IronChefMorimoto
  • by d_jedi ( 773213 ) on Tuesday October 05, 2004 @09:13AM (#10438913)
    The Linux version only requires a P3 1.0GHz, while the Windows version needs a P4 1.5GHz (although with the P4's incredibly long pipeline, the difference isn't as big as you might think..)

    But look at the FAQ for a number of gotcha!s..
    - No AMD64 build (this would have been sweet.. but, oh well.. not a showstopper)
    - Won't run on ATI cards using the fglrx driver! I don't know.. is this the driver used by ALL ATI cards for Linux? If so, this is a major issue for anyone wanting to play the game on Linux..
    - No 5.1 sound.. considering that the eerie sounds are a good part of what makes the game..

    In all, I'll be sticking to using the Windows version of the game :->
  • by bernywork ( 57298 ) * <bstapleton.gmail@com> on Tuesday October 05, 2004 @09:52AM (#10439403) Journal
    AWESOME!!!!

    There were some new drivers [ati.com] released the other day.

    I installed these applied the fedora patch [fedorafaq.org] and it runs just fine on a Radeon 9600. Not that fast mind you, but it certainly works.

    BTW, if you are attempting to download, try the Bitorrent network, I pulled down the installer in about 30 seconds.
  • by Bruha ( 412869 ) on Tuesday October 05, 2004 @10:28AM (#10439878) Homepage Journal
    I havent verified it yet but Cedega IIRC did fully support the game. In face full sound worked and all that other jazz that we expected but did not get in the full release for Linux.

It was kinda like stuffing the wrong card in a computer, when you're stickin' those artificial stimulants in your arm. -- Dion, noted computer scientist

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