Is id Abandoning Linux? 339
edv writes "In a news posting dated 10th of September, Beyond3D is reporting of an article in a German publication in which id Software CEO Todd Hollenshead discusses the upcoming id title Rage and the engine it runs on, codenamed 'id Tech 5'. Amongst other things Todd mentions that no Linux version of the game is planned at the moment, and that it will run on Direct3D on Windows platform. OpenGL version is planned for the Mac however. If true, this would be a serious blow for Linux gaming (insert jokes here) as id and Carmack have been strong proponents of OpenGL and openness in the past."
Hmm... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
When you get right down to it, having everyone in the world know the greatness of your company is entirely due to one man who is not you has got to suck
Erik
Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Funny)
I doubt anyone on slashdot can truly understand that feeling though
Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Informative)
Incidentally some years later the bought out Adrian to get him out of the company - no one knew this until he sued them for it.
Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
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You know if I had a dollar for every time... (Score:5, Insightful)
1) Id abstracts the hell out of everything. OpenGL isn't ON X-Box, now is it? But there's Id titles on that platform. There's a hint there- it's easier to abstract things and produces portable code. It's also very MUCH worth mentioning that DirectX is only available on ONE of the dominant consoles, and on only ONE of the dominant OS platforms. This is about making as much or more money on ENGINE SALES as the game itself. Making a DirectX only engine is limiting as hell for that prospect (No PS3. No Wii. No MacOS.).
2) It's NOT all that difficult to make a port from DirectX to OpenGL. It's been done. I had a hand in one of them. The damn game that I had a hand in porting would have shipped about 12-14 months earlier if the other two team members hadn't boggled on us and we ended up having a few 11th hour bugs that had NOTHING to do with the porting effort from DirectX to OpenGL.
3) Id has NEVER, to the best of my recollection, announced anything other than Windows versions of ANY of their titles or engines that are currently in development. Suppositions about whether they're ditching Linux or not is just rattling to hear one's own voice at this point.
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I like id's decisions in the past to port their games, and think it's a great way to show some love to the fans, but you seriously overplay the damage they'd do to themselves by excluding Mac OS and Linux.
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MacOS
Linux
Playstation 3
Anything else under the sun with enough muscle that follows on.
Just because Windows is the dominant platform, leaving 15-25% of the rest of the market on the floor
is a bad business decision, especially if you're in the market to sell game engines. Besides, John's
already indicated that there will be a MacOS and a PS3 version of the title anyhow- this is all a moot
discussion because they've already MADE the design choices to allow al
Re:You know if I had a dollar for every time... (Score:5, Informative)
With even the 10th console game outselling [gamedaily.com] the two top PC games combined, I can't help but wonder how (if) the smaller PC game studios turn a profit.
Re:You know if I had a dollar for every time... (Score:4, Informative)
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A) These numbers do not include online sales. The Steam servers were overloaded when Bioshock was released, and Direct2Drive also had good sales.
B) These numbers are for US only. In many European countries for instance PC sales have a much larger market share.
With even the 10th console game outselling the two top PC games combined, I can't help but wonder
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It's NOT all that difficult to make a port from DirectX to OpenGL
I'd like to clarify this point by saying that it's highly dependent on your other point:
Id abstracts the hell out of everything
Porting from Direct3D to OpenGL is very hard if you have DirectX code scattered all through your program, but much easier if you have all of the drawing handled through a middleware layer. This is true of all code, not just games. Cross-platform APIs are great, until you find you want to use a platform-specific feature they don't support, or port to a platform where they don't run. Then your abstraction is the thing
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The minute the PS3 supports DirectX, that'll become a possibility. Until then, any serious game engine will need both an OpenGL and a DirectX render path.
Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Funny)
Let's see if that's true... From Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]:
"The "Serious Engine" can render through both Direct3D or OpenGL"
Well there you have it.
Not Happening (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not Happening (Score:5, Insightful)
However coming from id I'm taking this with a huge grain of salt. Carmack isn't the kind of guy who likes to have two separate yet redundant render paths where one is probably more optimized than the other. Software vs hardware rendering ala quake2? Sure. But since they're already committed to an opengl path for the Mac, I just can't imagine them going through with creating the Direct3D one.
Though maybe it's a side effect of iD's business of selling engines? If customers are demanding direct3d for whatever reason, they may very well get it.
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Microsoft has been known to bend a few ears in the direction of their proprietary API over open API.
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"Customers" here was referring to game development studios who want to use iD engines in their games. That's a major source of income for iD. They license their engines for $Big.
And another poster gave a plausible reason for why customers would be demanding Direct3D support: The Xbox 360.
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Of course, this is all just idle speculation at this point.
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Why is this comment rated +5 Insightful? Do you not realize that to make a Mac port they have to do it in OpenGL?
Not that hard (Score:2)
At its heart, 3D rendering is 3D rendering, whether the actual function names are IDirect3DDevice9::ExtremelyLongName() or glShortSweet(). As long as you plan from the start for multiplatform support -- in other words, don't hard-code Direct3D vertex type constants or GL mode values into your data files -- it's not that much extra work. It's even easier (more so in the long run, admittedly) if you wrap both Direct3D and OpenGL code in a platform-agnostic layer, like I'm doing; then you can just code to that
Prepare to be Amazed (Score:2)
Well, friend... prepare to be amazed!!!
As CrusadeR [slashdot.org] wisely pointed out [slashdot.org], Carmack has stated that they already have an OpenGL and DX9 renderer [gameinformer.com] in development.
I imagine that it wasn't their first choice to do this, however with their jump to next-gen console development I suppose it was a necessity (it's not like you can have DX9 on the PS3, or OpenGL on the 360).
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Microsoft's OpenGL implementation does use DirectX to complete OpenGL commands. However, no one really uses Microsoft's OpenGL implementation (and definitely not for games).
Every graphic card manufacturer distributes an OpenGL implementation specifically for their hardware. They do the same for Vista. When you run a game that uses OpenGL, it uses this pure implementation of OpenGL.
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Support(Vista, OpenGL) == SLOW_FPS (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Support(Vista, OpenGL) == SLOW_FPS (Score:4, Funny)
Long-term (Score:3, Insightful)
For PC gamers, the future is Vista.
At what price? (Score:2)
Only that Vista vs. XP seems to be more like Windows Me vs. 98. I guess Microsoft can still push Vista to high market share if they actually stop selling XP as announced.
But I strongly suspect that the remaining 25% would finally run off to Apple and Linux. Which would help those out of "niche" status and make them much more viab
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I don't have enough time, energy, staff, or money to deal with Vista and my users as well as upgrade nearly every PC to handle it (along with the outrageous license costs).
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You made me cry in agonizing pain... and reasserted my hatred in MS all in one shot.
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With XP, it was adopted because given the alternative...Windows users were clamoring for the upgrade. People not only wanted XP, they needed XP. Home users, businesses, everywhere.
This time around things are not the same. It is very much like Windows ME. It's not necessary, it has drawbacks, and XP Just Works.
The market MAY end up Vista dominated...but the jury is still very much out on that. Of all the people I know with PC's...dozens anyways, there are TWO using Vista. One that install
Everyone knows to skip an MS generation (Score:4, Insightful)
Windows 3.0 - Meh, a new gui.
Windows 3.1 - Woot, welcome to the 16 bit world.
Windows 95 - Meh, a new gui. And, oh look, winsock.
Windows NT - Finally, a business class desktop OS.
Windows 98 - sloppy, but stuff's starting to work like it should.
Windows 98SE - Hey, it's what they *should* have released 98 as.
Windows ME - ugh, this bites harder than a doberman on a diet.
Windows 2000 - The greatest operating system MS has made to date.
Windows XP - A new gui. Lots of security holes.
Windows MCE - Features the media center features that people were turning to Apple for, with improved (not great) security.
Windows Visa - Meh, a new gui. They really should have made this 64-bit all around.
If the version you're running now sucks, just wait for the next version. Right?
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I have to agree. I don't remember the last time I got bsod or serious errors. It is very stable and fast, even with all the abuse it has received since I did a clean install a couple of years ago.
Vista, though, has given me problems since first time and I got at least 3 bsod after four months of light use...
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I'd say the same thing about XP, the only time i have gotten BSOD was with hardware problems. and i'm not a casual user.
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It should be noted that if vista fails, it is not the first time a windows has more or less failed due to low user adoption and general a "this version blows, lets stik to the last one" attitude. Windows ME anyone?
Only diff is, Windows ME was followed very rapidly by Windows 2000 (something like 12-18 months, IIRC), and world+dog knew it.
In this case, Vista is a dog, but there ain't no new version coming just around the bend.
If anything, it'd be like the huge group die-hards who waited until Windows 2003 Server to even bother migrating from Windows NT 4.0. Hell, I still remember the big grandiose launch they had for Win2k3 in Salt Lake City... they spent nearly the whole time talking up all the tools they buil
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Which is to say, I agree with you, and I think your post underestimates the willingness of the general user to ignore what Microsoft does. Most people didn't wait on ME because of 2K. They ignored both ME and 2K and o
Re:Support(Vista, OpenGL) == SLOW_FPS (Score:5, Informative)
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I'm wrong that "I was under impression X"? Sounds pretty hard to be wrong when all I said was "I think"
Semantics aside, it seems my impression was incorrect: Windows Vista and OpenGL [opengl.org]
1. Windows Vista fully supports hardware accelerated OpenGL;
2. OpenGL applications can benefit from Window Vistas improved graphics resource management;
3. OpenGL performance on Windows Vista is extremely competitive with the performance
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first post ever, maybe I should cut you some slack, but my gue
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ATI's and NVidia's drivers are talking to a Vista abstraction layer to accomplish what they're doing.
They're only sort of talking directly to the hardware. Everything's about 10-15% slower, even DirectX.
Re:Support(Vista, OpenGL) == SLOW_FPS (Score:5, Informative)
As you can see, all is not as lost as some are making it out to be.
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And to be honest, I think it takes a lot more work to create all the maps, characters, animations, artwork, etc than it does to write an engine (especially when they have so much experience with creating engines, though obviously they will have a lot of experience in modelling and stuff too). They've ported their engine b
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The original plan was to support up to OpenGL 1.3 by converting calls in Vista to DirectX calls, but I believe they decided to drop OpenGL completely in the released version, which means only hardware is supported by callbacks. I haven't tried anything but hardware, so I can't tell you for sure. I do know they deprecated the API for this release, which means all support will soon be dropped, if it isn't already.
From my testing, a windowed OpenGL context in Vista h
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All OpenGL implementations will see this hit.
All DirectX implementations not running fullscreen will see it too- just not as badly.
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That's why there's the Simple DirectMedia Layer [libsdl.org].
And you need OpenGL to work on the PS3. So the big commercial games are doing the multiple render paths anyway.
shame... (Score:3, Interesting)
Wonder if I should go ahead and open that unopened l33t tin edition of Q3 for Linux...
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But forget all that. This isn't NPR, where they can run the whole thing on the generosity of the 10% of listeners who feel compelled to pay. This is a commercial operation, that can't survive without selling enough copies of the software to make back their development and support costs. This relies on there being lots of gamers with Linux boxes, not t
Re:shame... (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't mind binary blob drivers for my nVidia card - its the best hardware at the moment. I'll be happy to pay full retail for Acrobat Professional, the product formerlly known as the Macromedia Dreamweaver Suite (DW, Flash, Fireworks), etc. for Linux, and I won't get bitchy about source access. Heck, I'd pay for the windows version *if* it were packaged with a custom Wine that would let it Just Work. I really don't care - I just want the best tool for the job. Unfortunately for me, Windows isn't one of 'em...
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I too would consider games -- if they were packaged with WINE, or a compatibility sticker, or ports for the systems I actually use. Commercial software as well.
The systems I use? Linux x86 and Solaris x86.
Linux is used because it *is* compatible with standards (POSIX, C99, NIS, NFS, etc.). It is also the "first support" platform for TeX, LyX, OpenOffice, Apache, Postgresql, Oracle, Gnumeric, etc. (Cygwin under Windows is actually PAINFUL - forking is so damn slow).
I find it incredible that so ma
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Re:shame... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd be willing to pay double the Windows version for a native version of SimCity 4 (or even SimCity3 or SimCity2k). No, Wine emulation doesn't count.
Just because we use linux doesn't mean we're not willing to put our money where our mouths are. My library holds almost 200 programming books, and the last I checked, books aren't cheap. Yes, its nice that linux is free (in both senses), but do you really believe that we use linux only because its free? Maybe we also like the lack of vendor lockin, the lack of viruses, etc.
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Just because it's not specifically mentioned... (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, I would think that if id went through the effort of making an OpenGL version of the engine, they might as well port it to Linux, particularly if they're also going to port it to Playstation 3 and XBox 360. I don't think there's anything to be worried about here.
the relevant part (Score:3, Interesting)
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meh, let me know when the engine is licensed (Score:3)
The rendering quality looks great but seriously, when was the last time id released a game and not a tech demo? I'm looking forward to seeing the games the licensees make, those I bet will rawk.
Gaming on Linux has always been number #39 on list (Score:5, Insightful)
The best candidates to convert are people who actually really do understand how computers and operating systems work, or people that want a computer that "just works". Not people that get pissed off because there's no control panel. I come across this all the time. Windows users that I feel are scared they will look stupid and put Linux and OSX down as inferior. I'll ask them, "have you ever tried it?". Most have never tried it or made an attempt to figure out how it works. The thing that will bring about the most adoption of Linux and OSX is an entire generation being raised off Windows.
Re:Gaming on Linux has always been number #39 on l (Score:4, Insightful)
To which, I replied: "By that metric, McDonald's is the finest restaurant on Earth."
Re:Gaming on Linux has always been number #39 on l (Score:5, Insightful)
Gamers game.
They are not technical hobbyists as the Geek understands it. The Windows OS is simply another platform like the PS3 - The basics of Windows is all they need to know and all they want to know.
Re:Gaming on Linux has always been number #39 on l (Score:2)
All that being said, Windows is my gaming platform of choice. I always have a good gaming rig running the latest stable version of Windows. I run games on Linux occasion
Re:Gaming on Linux has always been number #39 on l (Score:2)
I do not agree with this. I think Tycho of Penny Arcade said it best:
Gamers don't care about Windows. They just care about getting the maximum experience from their games. If this happens to be on Windows, so be it. But there is no allegiance.
I am sorry, WHAT? (Score:4, Funny)
You are talking about ricers, people who put neon-lighting in their PC and call it overclocking. Sorry, no.
These are the kinda people who cut the suspension on their car and think it turns it into a racing machine and if they ever had access to a real race car would put a radio in it, to drown out the engine noise. (If you see a ferrari with a radio, it is legal to shoot the owner in Italy).
A real gamer/overclocker cares about performance, they want their games to run as fast and smooth as possible. The simplest and easiest way to do this is to switch every unneeded bit of Windows OFF and the most unneeded thing is themes. Unless you play your game windowed (The horror) what use is a theme? Samething with wallpapers. Hell most gamers I know don't even want anything on the desktop, every icon shown costs resources.
Same thing with a large unorganized HD. You don't need to be a rocket scientist to realize that the simpler the filetree, the less time spend by the OS looking for a file. SMALL is BETTER!
Now think of this, how would a person obsessed with getting every last FPS out of their latest hardware configure their machine. Oh might they want to keep their windows/gaming box as clean as possible? Not install anything unneeded, not run any programs except the game?
But where to browse and download and look at porn eh trailers? Why, we are talking about gamers, owners of lots of obsolete hardware. Hardware that could easily be put together to run a second PC?
But what oh what to run on that second machine? Not linux you say because gamers don't know nothing about that? Where and how do you think all those linux counterstrike and other FPS servers come from?
In fact, as you spend time overclocking and tuning your windows machine you are FAR more likely then an average windows to get totally dissatisfied with windows, and to anyone who has managed to tame the beast from redmond and actually make it run stable and fast, linux holds very few secrets. If you think compiling a kernel is hard you never had to clean out a copyprotection driver from XP.
No, their are people like you describe, who know just enough of windows to press the right button, as long as it in request for the dialog (press any key) and fear having to learn anything new.
But their are also plenty of gamers to whom linux holds no fear, they long since embraced it as their salvation from having to mess up their gaming machines and use it to run their game servers, host their guild sites and use it as their main desktop while gaming.
I almost find it insulting that you say that people who mod closed source, no documentation games, can't make their way around an opensource open-documented OS. Not all gamers as the same.
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
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Loki was dedicated to porting games to Linux. But Linux gamers didn't buy Loki's games for various reasons, such as:
1. Many Linux users refuse to pay for software, period.
2. Many of the Linux users that are willing to pay for software are unwilling to pay for closed-source software.
Loki, despite making decent ports of many games, had to close down because Linux users refused to pay for the games that Loki provided.
Linux needs Windows emulation (Score:2, Interesting)
Current solution: make clones of existing software (Open Office, GIMPshop).
Future solution: either using virtualization or crafty API emulation, make Linux be able to transparently run Windows games and software.
It's a different approach, but you'd have more people using Linux, because since Windows is the de facto standard, it's the standard the software they need requires.
Re:Linux needs Windows emulation (Score:4, Informative)
Nope, that's a trap [wikipedia.org]. OS/2 was essentially 100% Windows 3.1 compatible, and what happened? Developers thought, "Why bother writing an OS/2 native app when I can just write a Windows app and be compatible?" So OS/2 never got any apps to speak of.
Linux needs a better, cross-platform gaming API. Fortunately, it has one [libsdl.org].
However, if you really have your heart set on compatibility, check out WINE [winehq.org]. I'm running a few older Windows games (Alice, Freedom Force, Tomb Raider III) flawlessly with that. Many of 'em don't work, but I'm surprised how many are playable.
Wine? (Score:2)
Misinformative Article... (Score:5, Informative)
Regarding id Tech 5 and Rage, id titles are usually ported to Linux relatively late in the development process when the programmer has the time, but they've always been ported. There were also these statements from Carmack at QuakeCon last month:
http://www.gameinformer.com/News/Story/200708/N07.0803.1731.12214.htm?Page=1 [gameinformer.com]
http://www.linuxgames.com/news/feedback.php?identiferID=9374&action=flatview [linuxgames.com]
The id-produced title coming out at the end of the month, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, will have a Linux dedicated server and client as well:
http://zerowing.idsoftware.com/linux/etqw/ [idsoftware.com]
In summary: Don't panic.Re: (Score:2)
Also, as far as I can judge his character, Carmack doesn't launch rockets into space because he thinks it's big business but because he loves space and the idea of exploring it. Equally he doesn't code open source because it makes good business sense for iD but because ethically it is the right thing to do. I think he rejects the monopolization of code (such as in closed source operating systems) for the same reasons that other coders who remember the pre-microsoft era do; c
Windows is good with gaming (Score:2)
Whenever it comes to doing work and business, there's no question who that territory belongs to.
Potentially interesting data (Score:4, Informative)
For Tremulous [tremulous.net] (incidentally, based on Quake^H^H^H^H^Hid tech 3), the OS breakdown is as follows:
Windows: 78%
x86 Linux: 16%
ppc OS X: 4%
x86 OS X: 1%
x86_64 Linux: less than 1%
Freebsd: much less than 1%
This is based on approximately 370000 clients. Admittedly the figures are a bit skewed in favour of Windows and Linux as the OS X build is only available from apple.com [apple.com]. The same is true of x86_64 and Freebsd -- those are built manually by whoever is running them (I assume). There are other issues as well as it could be argued that the Linux version is potentially easier to get than the other versions since it has made its way into various packaging systems.
Even if you take this data with a pinch of salt, I think it does reinforce that there is a demand for gaming on Linux. What it doesn't indicate (and I'm not convinced exists) is a demand to pay for gaming on Linux.
Not suporting Linux is the right thing to do (Score:3, Insightful)
Further... until recently I ran two Gentoo boxes and on Debian box at my house, set up more than one IT shop on Linux and Samba and was the black sheep at my last job in a Windows/.NET shop. I've been running at least one critical system on Linux since about 1998. I know and love Linux.
With that said... there is not a chance in hell that I, as a game developer, would ever release a game for Linux (in it's current state).
What platform are you running on?
What distribution are you running?
What build?
Is 32 or 64-bit?
What video card are you using?
Are you using the vendors drivers or open source drivers?
What sound driver are you using?
What front end are you using (KDE or Gnome)?
Have you updated to this version of libc?
Have you enabled/disabled this option in your kernel (you can see where it goes downhill from here).
The problem is that Linux is a victim of it's own success. You can do anything with it... and, as a consequence... expose developers and support technicians to a version of hell worse than they ever imagined.
The support costs for Linux systems are substantial. And just not worth it. Besides the requirements are now substantially different. By a 360/PS3/Wii to fulfill your gaming needs and buy a lower powered PC rigged for power saving for your 24/7 needs.
A direct response (Score:5, Informative)
The PC version is still OpenGL, but it is possible that could change before release. The actual API code is not very large, and the vertex / fragment code can be easily translated between cg/hlsl/glsl as necessary. I am going to at least consider OpenGL 3.0 as a target, if Nvidia, ATI, and Intel all have decent support. There really won't be any performance difference between GL 2.0 / GL 3.0 / D3D, so the api decision will be based on secondary factors, of which inertia is one.
John Carmack
Re:A direct response (Score:5, Funny)
Thanks for ruining it, spoilsport.
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Re:Linux is the biggest Linux gaming obstacle (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Linux is the biggest Linux gaming obstacle (Score:5, Insightful)
Um... there already is [libsdl.org]. OpenGL + SDL covers basically everything DirectX does (yes, DirectInput and all that). If you need environmental audio, you can use OpenAL [openal.org], or roll your own as I gather Id did for Doom3 (and not just on Linux, on Windows as well - you need a patch for hardware audio [soundblaster.com]). As a bonus, SDL apps run on Windows and OSX (along with several other platforms) as well.
Games don't care about the desktop, except for installing a menu item and/or an icon to run the game. And, well, there's a standard for that, too [freedesktop.org]. Once they're running, they take over the screen anyway.
The issues with Linux gaming is entirely a chicken-egg market-share problem. There is just not any kind of technical barrier. Anyone doing a PS3 version is already doing an OpenGL version anyway [wikipedia.org], so a Linux port is actually quite easy at that point.
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Anyone doing a project for the XBox 360 gets the Windows market as a bonus.
Why do you need EAX when the lowliest entry-level motherboard has multichannel digital audio output as standard?
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That depends. If you're making an exclusive game for the PS3, and you are confident that every single PS3 owner in the world will want to buy your game, sure. However, I think for your middle-of-the-bell-curve studio, writing in OpenGL and DirectX makes better business sense. If I were the bean counter in charge and someone said, "Hey, let's write super-special optimized code for the PS3, which is already a pain because of those eight cores, thereby increasing our development costs, so that we can increase
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JC's D3D criticisms are dated, likes modern D3D (Score:5, Informative)
For many years Direct3D has had a substantial lead with respect to features and driver support.
Long ago and with respect to a very old Direct3D version Carmack really did rip into Direct3D. OpenGL advocates like to refer to this but the truth is that in recent years Carmack has pointed out that these criticisms are obsolete, that Direct3D has improved greatly and is now good.
"Carmack: No, because the DX9 stuff--actually, DX9 is really quite a good API [application programming interface] level. Even with the D3D [Direct3D] side of things, where I know I have a long history of people thinking I'm antagonistic against it. Microsoft has done a very, very good job of sensibly evolving it at each step--they're not worried about breaking backwards compatibility--and it's a pretty clean API. I especially like the work I'm doing on the 360, and it's probably the best graphics API as far as a sensibly designed thing that I've worked with."
http://www.gameinformer.com/News/Story/200701/N07.0109.1737.15034.htm [gameinformer.com]
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"No business justification" for Linux (Score:5, Insightful)
Support for OpenGL is not being removed, the Mac version will use it. This is not about OpenGL, this is about Linux gaming. Years ago id made an infamous comment in a Game Developer magazine interview, sorry no link - read the hard copy at the time. They said that there is no business justifcation for their Linux clients, that they merely do them because they think it is cool to do so. Perhaps they don't have enough time for this "hobby" anymore.
Keep in mind that the Linux game market is far smaller than most people think. It is not the number of people who buy the Linux version of the game. Given that most Linux gamers are willing to buy the Win32 version of a game and dual boot or emulate, a Linux sale is cannibalism. It replaces a Win32 sale with a Linux sale, it does not generate new income. The only new income is a sale to those who refuse to dual boot or emulate, who will only play native Linux versions. This native group is considered by many developers to be too small to justify the expenses related to porting, testing, and support.
That said, Linux based servers are an entirely different story. These make financial sense.
Re:Who in their right mind... (Score:4, Insightful)
Direct3D is more consistent, no matter what the feature is, because it was completely redesigned with release 8 and 10. The 8 redesign was necessary, the 10 understandable (but debatable).
OpenGL is very elegant with primitive stuff, the kind of things the first NeHe tutorials show. But once you start entering the world of complex, modern effects, huge datasets, and today's game art, OpenGL becomes messy.
The API is inconsistent, because there are several extensions for the same goal, which tends to confuse people. Also, newer extensions follow different design paradigms than older ones. The driver gets not enough information, which is vital for optimal performance. Good example are textures; you can actually change them completely, at any time; their entire structure is mutable. This is not good for the driver, which does not know whether or not you will ever do this (and in 99% of all cases you don't). Using PBOs you can give the driver a hint (because the PBO becomes the storage space for texture, and the PBO cannot change its size), but its messy.
The solution is called OpenGL 3, and specs are available in a couple of weeks.
Management reasons:
Years ago, OpenGL was a much better choice than D3D. This got reversed in D3D8 era, because of the ARB being extremely slow and not implementing features everybody wanted (shaders, render-to-texture...). The ARB pace was also one of the main reasons Microsoft created Direct3D in the first place (remember, they were on the OpenGL bandwagon).
Now, there is just no gain in porting all those codebases using D3D9. Oh yes, OSX uses OpenGL. But OSX is an isolated platform, they have custom OpenGL extensions, and an absolutely excellent OpenGL toolchain. Nothing Windows or Linux GL developers have comes even close to this. OSX as a gaming platform is actually more interesting than Linux, because for example Blizzard supports it already, it is a platform for common users, support is far easier, and Apple is growing fast right now. Thus, osx may become a gaming market. A Linux gaming market is far less likely, and much more expensive. id and Epic ports are an unsupported bonus. And we all remember the Loki fiasco. Valve seems to be toying with the idea about supporting Linux, but thats just speculation right now (though they have the money to try it).
So the usual setup for games is this:
Windows: D3D9
OSX: OpenGL
Consoles: Custom
Linux is an afterthought, and maybe gets the OSX OpenGL code.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Wrong. They are just frontends for the same thing.