Company Seeks To Boost Linux Game Development With 3D Engine Giveaway

binstream writes "To support Linux game development, Unigine Corp. announced a competition: it will give a free license for its Unigine engine to a seasoned team willing to work on a native Linux game. The company has been Linux-friendly from the very start; it released advanced GPU benchmarks (Heaven, Tropics, Sanctuary) for Linux before and is working on the OilRush strategy game that supports Linux as well."

No Thank You

[goruka]

I'd rather use alternatives such as Ogre3D [ogre3d.org] or Irrlitch [slashdot.org] even if not technologically advanced. I think that's the best way to support Linux-based game development, the same way Blender3D has been doing with their animated short films. Otherwise I feel the community will gain nothing from this. You know, what bugs the the most is that even though Unigine is closed sourced, It has never been used in any important industry title, despite being around for years.

Re:What surprises me...

[hedwards]

It's a catch 22 sort of a situation. Which is why when I buy a game which is available on Mac, PC and Linux that I choose the Linux version or tell them that my main system is Linux.

I have a copy of HoMM3 bought from Loki before they went belly up, unfortunate since the produce was quite well polished and plays just as well as the Windows copy I now own.

More than that though, there's an awful lot of free Linux games out there, and Linux hasn't really drawn enough attention from either games or developers to make it a gaming platform. Crossover Games helps, but it's really not anywhere near good enough. Not to mention that the developer has no way of knowing that it's being played on Linux and that DRM schemes often foil it.

Re:meh

[hedwards]

Actually, that's probably one of Linux's biggest problems in that respect. People are used to getting really good games for free or not being able to have them at all without Wine. It's a tough cycle to break because somebody has to release something in order for it to be bought, and gamers expect to have something to play or they won't ditch Windows.

It's getting a lot better than it used to be, the commercially available Linux games are far better than they used to be in every way.

Re:Not quite as exciting as the headline sounded

[Anonymous Coward]

When I read the headline I thought "why would anyone care?" There are plenty of good, free engines out there already.

ioquake3 [ioquake3.org]
XreaL [xreal-project.net]
Cube 2 [sauerbraten.org]
Irrlicht [sourceforge.net]
OGRE [ogre3d.org]
Crystal Space [crystalspace3d.org]
Blender [blender.org]
Panda3D [panda3d.org]

And if John Carmack doesn't go back on his word, id Tech 4 will soon be free.

Re:wonderbar....

[CyDharttha]

The Unigine tech demos look excellent [unigine.com], and have been used to showcase just what Linux gaming can look like [phoronix.com].

Re:wonderbar....

[walshy007]

Provide a stable binary interface,

This is wrong on so many levels in linux land.

For starters, unlike windows land, in linux drivers tend to have common things that many drivers need put into modules and re-used. For example the mac80211 stack. In this example all the actual card drivers have to do is basically tell the kernel where the registers are and what they do and bam, working wifi.

Bug fixes in used modules fix bugs in all things that use it. Code re-use to the extreme.

It also helps with portability, can you run your nvidia binary driver on mips? Hell no, could you run neauvou which exposes the hardware through gallium and uses GEM etc.

As long as the drivers need to be rewritten every few months because the kernel was changed (often for no other reason than to break compatibility), linux will have crummy drivers.

Linux by far has the most in-built driver support of any operating system that has ever existed. To call it crappy is a bit of a farce.

All hardware vendors need to do is give a kernel dev specs and a driver which will be indefinitely supported is created. I can still use a tv tuner card from 2001 on my machine now, could you do the same with windows 7?

Having a stable ABI limits improvements to the kernel, and loses a great deal of flexibility and usefulness. So really, screw that. If you 'want' a stable ABI, it is a good sign you are doing it wrong anyway.

Re:Not quite as exciting as the headline sounded

[walshy007]

have you even checked out a modern version of cube2?

It may not be up to par with the latest, but to call it 90's is a bit of a stretch.

Re:Bleak future of PC gaming?

[Tromad]

Support for the notion that PC gaming is dying: Civilization V, Spore, Supreme Commander 2, Dragon Age 2 (maybe). All dumbed-down versions of their predecessors. The current selection of PC games at retail stores. The trend of UI for PC games. Mandatory online DRM for single player games. Lack of innovation in the past decade/consolidation of genres. Games run like shit even on modern PCs. "Ship now, patch later". Shift towards netbooks/phones/tablets.

Support against the notion that PC gaming is dying: Steam holiday sales (AAA titles for poverty prices), wide-berth of indie games, probably more AAA titles released per year now more than ever, digital downloads, nearly the entire back catalog of PC games available to play (GOG) on modern hardware. Integrated graphics are good enough to play games from several years ago on minimal settings.

Regardless of where you stand on the issue, one thing is for certain: PC gaming is definitely not like it used to be.