Gaming on Linux 116
LinuxWorld's Nick Petrely latest column is about
Linux and gaming. Excellent arguements as to why this is an important market-and it's one of the weakest areas for Linux right now. I think recent moves have been good-but, darnit, I don't wanna sit down in front of the Playstation anymore. And I still haven't gotten my beta test copy of Civ: Call To Power. Harumph.
linux games (Score:1)
In conclusion i agree with this article, gamers will look at linux if it gives them the edge in internet games, and i believe it does. Linux users and developers need to rethink their attitude to games as a valid application (if some of the comments ive seen here are anything to go by) because here we have the perfect environment to beat MS to death with. Im not MS bashing here its almost a question of defeating the FUD, sys admins who use NT know how bad it is, the average user doesnt capturing these users will give MS nightmares and may help linux survive.
Thing
Golgotha Forever! (Score:3)
Check us out at www.golgotha.org [golgotha.org]
System Crashes, and other observations (Score:1)
Computer games, on any operating system, require the most amount of planning and programming. They incorporate not just graphics, but sound, input, user interface, even artificial intelligence for most games; while most software out there, such as *that* company's stuff, and more, don't even have any code that needs to rely on 3D APIs or system level input routines (at least, I *hope* MS Word doesn't need that stuff...).
But, as I was stating, my experience has been on the contrary.. Half-Life, Starcraft, and Quake 2 are absolutely the most stable programs running on my system. Most of the time, it's Windows itself or some other program that crashes on my system.
I really have to salute those game programmers out there who take the time to come up with the best code in the industry. Now if only someone like John Carmack would program business applications for a living, both worlds would be stable...
- Shaheen Gandhi
CTP Beta (Score:1)
Also www.linuxgames.com (Score:1)
MesaGL is something like DirectX? (Score:1)
But this requires a somehow cool graphics card, ken?
How about something like DirectX? (Score:1)
Guess none of these are open source... How much do these cost?
How about something like DirectX? (Score:1)
I know the difference between 3d and 2d graphics. The point is, XFree86 is too slow . Take any computer with any graphics card (that is - any card I've been out for) and compare them. The difference is sometimes small, usually large enough to spot quite immediately and always in Windoze's favor.
Problem is - if I can't get both vi,sed,awk and the rest and fast graphics, I'll rather choose the Junics (as a customer wrote it once)
Options-wise however, it stinks. (Score:1)
I just switched back to XFree(after upgrading to RH 5.2) from Accel-X.
Originally I bought Accel-X because at the time, it looked as if there would be no free support for the i740(RedHat did an excellent job of keeping XBF under wraps).
However, all that Accel-X has going for it is speed and ease of install. And based on the stuff I was doing last night, it doesn't seem that XFree/XBF_i740 lacks much in the speed department.
Plus XiG apparently can't be bothered to take a look around; either the MIT-SHM extension is broken or their hardware cursor implementation, and I never found a patch to fix it(chunks drop out around the mouse using Blender or the Gimp). And for some reason, XiG doesn't seem to think you need to drop your resolution to something below 640x480, which prevents full-screen on SNES9x, as well as rendering WINE's usage of Win95 games useless.
If you're after speed, yes, Accel-X can provide it, but I'd rather have some more options.
Whatever you want. (Score:1)
If you want a "longterm business roadmap" talk to Micros~1. Just don't plan around it except for buying Intel.
If you want to do anything you want, use Linux. On an Alpha. Or a Strongarm. Or a Mac. Or a PalmPilot.
How about something like DirectX? (Score:2)
How about creating something like M$'s DirectX? One can say a lot about M$ but DirectX's still fast! Is there any really fast graphics libraries for Linux? Is it possible to run X while not waiting for the Word Perfect screen update for a second or more during a normal scroll? After a diskchrash, I installed Linux instead of Windoze and the graphics speed really sucks (IBM ThinkPad 380ED P166MMX 48MB RAM)
More than just games... (Score:1)
On the other hand, there is absolutely no life when it comes to "Edutainment" and "Infotainment", i.e. such software as Educational software, Encyclopedias, Lexicons...
If tere were some good Lexicons and Dictionaries available for Linux, I would be the first to buy. And in a few years when my kid starts using the computer, Im going to need a whole lot of this stuff...
What strikes me is the fact that this kind of software usually doesnt have to be extremely fast - I suppose one could implement it in Java and sell a version for all the platforms - yet nobody does it.
I'm confused... (Score:1)
Technically, USB works quite well for input devices. It's been adopted slowly in large part because it wasn't possible to upgrade Windows 95 to support it, and really only Windows 98 supports it well. And NT hasn't really supported it at all. PC Magazine found USB to work quite well under 98, with easy connection of multiple devices and all those devices working together. I have a USB scanner and I'm quite happy with it, no hassling with serial ports, etc. Except for Linux not having the support, I'd love to have all my devices USB and connected to a USB hub in my monitor. (But again, the cost of upgrading all those components is sufficient to keep me from doing it anway.)
I think USB support for Linux would be very helpful for several reasons: 1) the possibility of fewer configuration hassles for people who are switching from Windows to Linux; 2) it's needed for all the new Macs, especially the iMac; 3) lots of the new game controllers are going the USB route; and 4) otherwise people can slam Linux for not having USB support.
why windows is to blame for my buggy video driver (Score:1)
You're exatly right, it's a buggy video driver. In my case it's a RIVA 128, and I was using the beta version for OpenGL games because the "production" version was so dark in Quake that I couldn't see. There are several work arounds for this problem, but none of them are very satisfactory.
At this point most people say something like "well, you can't blame your operating system for a buggy video driver" -- but I do. :-)
One of the functions of a modern operating system is to prevent running prosseses from violating the address space of other processes; this would certainly include preventing a flaky video driver from hammering the kernel. By this definition Windows 95 is not a modern operating system, and Windows NT became suspect when they moved the video subsystem into the kernel.
You don't blame 3 year old kids for tearing around a store -- you blame their parents for not keeping them under control. By analogy Windows is a irresponsible parent.
TedC
why windows is to blame for my buggy video driver (Score:1)
That's the problem; Windows is only as stable as the weakest link, which is often the video driver. This explains why some people never have a bit of trouble with Windows, and others like myself have an install-fest every Friday night. :-(
Actually, this turned out to be a good thing for me. I originally installed Linux so that I could port DOOM back to DOS, and in the process I discovered that I really liked Linux. :-)
TedC
How about something like DirectX? (Score:2)
Direct-X and Direct-3D are build around Microsoft's COM object model, so creating a Linux equivalent would be a non-trivial task. I haven't used Direct-X since version 3, but back then it was a bitch to program for. It might be better now, I don't know.
In any case, OpenGL/Mesa is the way to go for Linux IMO. We already have it, it's an industry standard, and it's easy to use and powerful.
Now what to do about sound...
TedC
system crashes (Score:3)
But while IP gaming is getting more compelling than ever, there is one thing that makes the gaming experience frustrating: system crashes.
Nick, you hit the nail on the head that time.
I usually have 3 or 4 system crashes a night playing Quake 2, and after 30 or 40 of these windows is so corrupted that it will no longer run. I have reinstalled Windows so many times that I can do complete sections of the installation with the monitor turned off by counting key presses. I finally gave up about 3 or 4 months ago; I decided that it wasn't worth the hassle anymore. Since I wasn't using Windows for anything but games, I just formatted the partition, and things have worked fine ever since. :-)
TedC
PS. I'm waiting for Quake 3 for Linux with much anticipation.
Bleh to games for both Linux and Windows..... (Score:1)
Games (Score:1)
You just waste a whole lot of valuable time on them. Occationaly I descend into the dungeons of nethack tho. Thats a really really great game.
why windows is to blame for my buggy video driver (Score:1)
Daniel [ also no Windows fan ]
Bleh to games for both Linux and Windows..... (Score:1)
Strategy gamers. The PC might not be too well-suited for Quake, but for..say..CivII it's excellent. I don't even want to imagine playing that with a Nintendo controller, not to mention the save-game mess that consoles have...
Daniel
When Games Run on NT (Win2000) (Score:1)
I hate to be a heretic but, if the biggest problem for gamers right now is the instability of Windows (and from my friends' experiences, I don't doubt that it is), then if Micros~1 gets their act together for Windows 2000 Professional (and from what I've seen of the Beta 3 RC, it looks like they have a good chance), most Windows gamers will simply switch to Win2000. The only gamers demanding Linux game support will be those already using Linux for other reasons.
So, if we can assume that by this time next year, Microsoft will have released Windows 2000 Pro, and it runs all of the hot games with great DirectX support, and it doesn't crash, then won't most of the wind go out of the sails of the Linux game movement?
CTP Beta (Score:1)
Initializing Tile Engine...goals/glovertime.cpp:156: 0.0 m_utility
BUG! Assertion failed, cleaning up.
Please send the text of the failed assertion,
along with the contents of auto1.sav to: beta@lokigames.com
Killed
You'll have more fun with it when the fatal bugs are eliminated. Pisses me off when the game keeps dying in the same spot and I have to start over...
Awesome game though. Kicks Alpha Centauri's ass as far as fun features and replay value. The clerics, lawyers, and corporate franchise units are a real kick in the pants.
--
As long as each individual is facing the TV tube alone, formal freedom poses no threat to privilege.
MesaGL is something like DirectX. (Score:1)
--
As long as each individual is facing the TV tube alone, formal freedom poses no threat to privilege.
MesaGL is something like DirectX? (Score:1)
--
As long as each individual is facing the TV tube alone, formal freedom poses no threat to privilege.
CTP Beta (Score:1)
And dammit, I had those arrogant Americans by the throat!
*sigh*
time to start over.
--
As long as each individual is facing the TV tube alone, formal freedom poses no threat to privilege.
what? (Score:1)
--
As long as each individual is facing the TV tube alone, formal freedom poses no threat to privilege.
The food unit is NOT broken. (Score:1)
What you term "waste disposal" is really no such thing. What you are doing is making a system backup in the event something in the overall system becomes corrupt. Don't ask about the restore process, it's ugly.
Someday you need to check out the ammount of crap you have sitting around in
--
As long as each individual is facing the TV tube alone, formal freedom poses no threat to privilege.
Warlords III Clone, Any Interest? (Score:1)
It wouldn't be an exact copy (like freeciv to civ2) but it would have very similar gameplay. I have some artistic skills, so I think I could actually get it to look pretty good (but maybe without the animation found in W3).
-Eric
Kudos to HappyPenguin (Score:2)
-Eric
humor (Score:1)
All of his comment was humor. Try reading it again, keeping that in mind. ;-)
(The compiler part of it isa bit obscure, but I thought it was fairly inspired, too.)
Forced absence from the computer && linux games (Score:1)
I agree in principle, but CACM went to pieces a good decade ago, and is barely ever worth reading anymore. Try e.g. IEEE Computer instead (with all that money you saved from not buying a Playstation, it'll be easily affordable ;-)
Forced absence from the computer && linux games (Score:1)
You got me, I do subscribe to that, and hence get CACM as an unavoidable side effect, sigh.
SDL already killer game api? (Score:2)
Here is a great place to start! (Score:1)
Also, download the source code to Maelstrom [devolution.com] (a cool Asteroids-like game) and study carefully the source file x11_framebuf.cpp.
I've found these resources to be very helpful in my current effort to convert my own [mindspring.com] DirectX game project to Linux/X11. Give them a try, and let's get busy making games for Linux!
DirectX not really bad, but Linux/X11 is better (Score:1)
Granted, I've only used DirectDraw, DirectInput, and DirectSound. I wouldn't touch Direct3D with a ten-foot pole. :-) Instead, I'd use OpenGL with DirectSound, like idSoftware did with Quake.
But quite frankly, I'm porting my DirectX game to Linux because I'm getting sick of developing it on Windows 95. I'll take FVWM2 with a 3x3 pager over Win95 and the restrictive Visual C++ IDE any day! Plus, X11 programming doesn't seem that much harder than DirectX, and I want to do my part to contribute anything I can to one day make Windows partitions a thing of the past! :-)
Don't be a bigot! :-) (Score:1)
No, there you are wrong, my friend. I have seen enough code comparisons between Direct3D and OpenGL to know that Direct3D is a very poor choice. I will not say the same, however, for the rest of the DirectX API. DirectX may not be the best gaming API (before DirectX, I used Allegro, an excellent DOS-based API built with DJGPP), but it is a good API. You know that, because by your very own admission, you say "The features provided by the DirectX API are very useful, and there is a need for something like this in the industry."
Just because you and I share a dislike for Microsoft, let's not be bigots and say that everything Microsoft has created is bad. Part of the plan for ensuring "world domination" for Linux is recognizing what weaknesses Linux has, and how to make them better.
One API that does look promising is the Simple DirectMedia Layer [devolution.com]. Check it out! I've downloaded the API and looked at it, and it seems very promising. My only problem with it right now is that it doesn't support X, but it at least is off to a very good start.
Roadmap for Linux Gaming Support (Score:1)
[*] having blown up 2 monitors in the same month during 1995, I wish it had been done a long time ago
Linux and games (Score:2)
I'm confused... (USB and Linux Games) (Score:1)
All the NICE hardware will be arriving for USB only - start planning for it if this stuff interests you (adding USB to my PC requires a US $9 cable; my G3 Mac has USB all over).
Apple switched to USB generally because it allows all the things ADB did (hot swapping, daisy-chaining, generic device support and plug and play). The Windows world will be all USB sometime soon so to cut it short Linux will be left behind without it.
That said, I still haven't found a steering wheel for USB
Even if you don't like controllers, lots of people will dismiss Linux without them. This is why USB, which is the future, is so important.
Things just need to settle down. (Score:1)
When Games Run on NT (Win2000) (Score:1)
Ignore DirectX (Score:2)
Ignore DirectX
DirectX is pretty much an unmitigated disaster from an implementation standpoint. Direct3D is especially egregious.
If you look at DirectX, look at it only as a vague source of the kinds of features you'd like to implement in a well-designed API.
Schwab
Roadmap for Linux Gaming Support (Score:5)
Oh dear, you've gotten me started. As an occasional game author myself, I have some perspective on this (with lots of lessons learned the hard way from both sides), and it just happens that I've been thinking about this issue lately. Here are some things I believe Linux needs to improve its appeal to gamers and game developers.
Transparent Access to Full Screen Display Modes
SVGAlib has been an excellent tool for a long time, but it's starting to show its age, and it supports considerably fewer cards than the current release of XFree86. Further, it's silly to have to write a driver for the same card two or more times (once inside XFree86, once inside SVGAlib, etc.). I've read the work of The GGI Project [ggi-project.org], and I suggest interested techies do, too. There are no glaring flaws in the design (though it has odd warts here and there), and with work it could become an excellent foundation for high-performance graphics device control and configuration. SVGAlib and XFree86 could both be built on top of this structure. Thus, drivers would need to be written only once. I've love to see this move forward.
Unlike Windoze display modes (which all come out of a fixed table), Linux should be able to generate any resolution and scan rate the card can physically generate. Multi-monitor support would also be nice, but this is much harder (trust me on this one). Also, you should be able to launch a full-screen app from inside XFree86, and neither XFree nor the app should care (being able to switch back and forth would be nice, too). Ambitious souls may care to emulate BeOS's "Workspaces", where each virtual desktop can be a different resolution, scan rate, and pixel depth.
There also needs to be work done on supporting VESA DDC (Display Data Channel) which allows the system to identify the attached monitor and determine its scanning limits (thus alleviating the need for the dreaded mode table in XFree86config; just ask the monitor what it can do). We may also need to beat up on VESA [vesa.org] to make its standards more readily available.
Expansion of OpenGL Efforts
OpenGL is the future of 3D gaming (just ask John Carmack). While Mesa [mesa3d.org] is an excellent first step (and very complete), its performance is poor compared to OpenGL ICDs available for Windoze. Basically, we need to get the triangle counts up. Part of this can be done by optimizing Mesa. However, a significant portion of the rest has to be done by or in cooperation with the 3D card manufacturers.
A standard interface needs to be established between Mesa (or whatever OpenGL implementation ends up dominating) and the graphics cards. This will allow for Mesa and the hardware drivers to be evolved and optimized independently of each other. It also allows users to plug in any compliant card and expect it to work. This GL/hardware interface can be established at the driver level; the GGI people probably have suggestions on this.
Finally, everyone reading this article needs to beat up on the 3D card vendors to support Linux. Roughly half of all Quake servers are running on Linux. 3D card vendors live or die based on their Quake frame rates. Why should a server operator have to crash back into Windoze just to test out the latest RA/TF/CTF/LMCTF release? This alone is compelling enough reason for the 3D vendors to formally support Linux.
New Sound Architecture
OSS is functional (it works well for Quake and MikMod), but modern gaming requires much more. Sound has always been my weak point, so I don't have a lot of concrete ideas here. ALSA (Advanced Linux Sound Architecture) [alsa.jcu.cz] looks interesting, but I lack the knowledge to evaluate it properly.
Basically, the goals of the sound API need to include extremely low latency and low overhead. The system shouldn't be eaten alive just mixing and playing back sounds. Also, for applications that do buffer sounds ahead of time, there should be an event system built in such that the application can be informed when a particular sample or sample segment has started playing. This allows the client to synchonize other events (explosion visuals?) with the audio.
Networking
In my view, very little needs to be done here. Linux's socket API is one of the most reliable and complete implementations anywhere. There's no reason a game can't directly use network sockets.
Input Devices
Again, the keynote here is low latency and high sample rate. Most PS/2 mice will run at higher baud rates (if you're running Windoze at the moment, grab a copy of PS/2 Mouse Rate [bluesnews.com] and see for yourself), so the mouse drivers should have the ability to tweak this.
I'm not as convinced that USB is important, but in order to get that to work, you better start beating up on Intel for the specs now. Intel's documentation department can be slow to respond (I'd use the term "glacial," but that conveys an unwarranted sense of haste). USB is a non-trivial beast. Getting all the device types, hubs, and hot-plugging issues down is going to take time.
Anyway, that's pretty much what's on my laundry list. I also have specific ideas on how some of this might get implemented. If I wasn't so darned employed, I'd probably be working on some aspect of this stuff.
Thanks for reading.
Schwab
What is linux soposed to be anyways? (Score:1)
A clone of the UNIX(tm) computer Operating
System, made possible with tools from the Free
Software Foundation...but more generally: "fun".
It comes with a free spell checker, too.
---------------------------------
"The Internet interprets censorship as damage,
Want to play games on Linux? well, try this. (Score:3)
Do y'all remember, back when Sony announced that Playstation 2 development was going to be on Linux? There was rampant speculation about whether a Linux emulator for the Playstation was going to come out. Most people concluded: Well, probably not.
It is here! Cygnus has a complete software emulation of the Playstation 2 that they developed for Sony. Now, I don't know if they are going to release it, and you would probably need a quad Xeon to get good performance, but man, that is exciting.
Here's the quote from Forbes:
Nevertheless, there is a lot of speculation about Sony's ability to
deliver enough games to make this videogame console a
must-have electronics gizmo. But such doubts are mostly
unfounded. Thanks to Cygnus Software, a Sunnyvale,
Calif.-based startup, which developed a software simulation
environment that allows game developers to create and test game
titles prior to the availability of the next generation PlayStation.
The simulation software runs on a Linux-operating system and
basically duplicates the hardware specifications of PlayStation2.
Even though the hardware is unlikely to be delivered until later this
year, it seems that many developers are busy cranking out games
for PlayStation2. The delivery of this simulator will dramatically
accelerate the delivery of titles in what is a hyper-competitive
marketplace.
Sony asked Cygnus to develop the simulator software two years
ago. What Cygnus has delivered is a software replica of
PlayStation2. The virtual hardware platform represents a complete
architectural simulation environment, including 128-bit CPU core,
floating-point coprocessors and DMA channels. This provides a
complete environment that allows a developer to create, test and
debug gaming titles.
See the rest of the article here. [forbes.com] I hope this give Linux a gaming boost.
system crashes (Score:1)
Linux @ Home (Score:1)
make menuconfig
make dep
make zImage
make install
Is it really that easy to rebuild an engine? nd to think that mechanic charged me $1300... grrrrr.
.More games would be nice (Score:1)
games (Score:1)
if those were ported, i would never see another start button in my life.
Just one thing to say -- (Score:1)
How about something like DirectX? (Score:1)
From my understanding, the DirectX components are as such:
~Sentry21~
How about something like DirectX? (Score:1)
Now what to do about sound...
I propose hardware MP3 decompression. Okay, this isn't really Linux-only, but I want it anyway. And support for it incorporated into Winamp/X11Amp/mpg123 too.
~Sentry21~
X11Allegro (Score:1)
However, we really need a good fast low-level graphics API, I hope GGI will provide this.
www.talula.demon.co.uk for details on allegro
Tom
I'm confused... (Score:1)
Things just need to settle down. (Score:1)
Windows happens to be "good enough" for most people. Some games are constantly crashing under windows. Switch windows in KQ:MOE and bye-bye game. But alpha centauri OTOH is damn near bulletproof. Games are the ultimate example of making the underlying OS irrelevant. I despise windows, but when I'm immersed in my game, I really don't care that it's there underneath.
shameless plug (Score:2)
freetrek.linuxgames.com
Open Source RPG's for Linux in development (Score:1)
www.lycadican.dhs.org and
www.altima.org
You can even help too.
*******************************************
Superstition is a word the ignorant use to describe their ignorance. -Sifu
Disagreed (Score:1)
As a matter of fact, many models now make the ashtray an option. Now if only they could give us a nice MP3 player as a factory installed option....
Since When is Linux a Gaming OS? (Score:1)
I'm reading the comments in this article and most are like "more games for linux", "need something directx'ish for linux", etc.
Give it two days and I'll read another article on
Give it two days after THAT, and I'll read an article on slashdot that says "Company Releases Desktop Linux Distro". And guess what the commetns will say? "Linux is ready for the desktop", and a good share of comments why it did/didn't come with gnome or KDE.
I think for linux to take a hold in ANY market, it has to be decided WHAT market to take hold in. Is linux soposed to be the next great server? Is it soposed to be the platform for the truly "next-generation" games? Or is it soposed to be the OS that most people WANT to have pre-installed so they can do taxes, have kids do homework, etc.? Linux can't and won't do it all.
So, could someone tell me what linux is soposed to end up being?
We already have MESA (Score:1)
Sound is a mess. No standard API in site (unless you consider that mess they call OSS). Esound looks promising if they don't screw it up.
PSX2, Linux...what do they mean for each other? (Score:1)
If the PSX2 does end up running on a modified Linux kernel, does that mean we'll see industrious hackers plugging keyboards and hard drives into the USB & Firewire ports and running Linux shell on their PSX2?
Will industrious hackers be able to hack the code for the GPL'd PSX2 simulator to make GPL'd PSX1 simulators (which, needing much less processor power than PSX2, should run on today's machines just fine), thus making Connectix or Bleem! [bleem.com]'s commercial efforts irrelevant?
Can GPL'd development tools legally be used to develop commercial games? Doesn't code written using that code have to be GPL'd too? Or am I missing something?
If anyone can fill me in (or make good guesses) I'd like to hear them...
Open GL could be the answer... (Score:1)
Open GL could be the answer... (Score:1)
Things just need to settle down. (Score:1)
Things just need to settle down. (Score:3)
There's also ClanLib, which is an LGPL'd SDK, just like DirectX. True, it's not quite ready yet, but we need more people to put effort into these things rather than creating a new "standard". It's unfortunate that Loki has resorted to using SciTech's libraries to make their games, but nothing else is ready. Don't make it happen for their next game!
On another note, I saw a message on linuxgames.com that was saying that there are 10m Linux users, 1% of whom would buy a game, so that's 100,000 copies that a developer could sell if they made a Linux game. That's making a lot of assumptions, though, the most important being that all 10m of those machines have monitors and aren't 386s!
I'm confused... (Score:1)
system crashes (Score:1)
You too? I've done it so often that I remember the Win98 CD key -- 25 alphanums.
Mike
--
MesaGL is something like *part of* DirectX. (Score:1)
However, there are many pieces to DirectX which don't have Linux/Unix equivalents. Off the top of my head, there's DirectDraw, DirectSound, DirectPlay, DirectMusic and DirectInput. PenguinPlay attempts to match DirectX capabilities across the board, but the project is lacking in momentum these days.
linux games (Score:1)
> the average secretary wouldnt know how to use xf86config if her life depended on it
The average secretary calls tech support or runs down the hall to find an engineer for configuration tasks under Windows as well. I know; I used to have to wait on them.
CTP Beta (Score:1)
Linux @ Home (Score:1)
Unfortunately, for drivers to be available off the shelf will take some time due to some issues. I can think of two at the moment. I'm sure there are more.
Linux needs better installable driver support. The current implementation is a hack. One of the reasons for this goes back to having a monolithic kernel, but I won't go into that due to the flame war that would start :)
No definite documentation source for new kernel hacker's to go by. I've started working on Linux drivers at my job, and while O'reilley's Linux Device Drivers and AW's Linux Kernel Internal's books are useful, they lack a lot. Also, they're already somewhat outdated, and it's very hard for someone to find out what changes are between kernel revisions w/o digging through the actual kernel code. You shouldn't have to do this to write a device driver. It should be clearly documented somewhere.
Cheating (Score:1)
"the online mode for most games disables all the cheats that are available to you in single-player mode"
How long do you think the open source version of some game will be out before some jackass decides to make a few simple modifications and blow away everybody else? I'm all for the free exchange of information, but I know that that would really suck to have a gaming environment in which anybody could modify the game to be how they wanted it. How about a compromise? Maybe if open source games were released, then they wouldn't include some kind of authentication so that they couldn't prove they weren't modified. That way you could choose whether to take your chances playing them. That could also give the game companies an incentive to release the source, because if you wanted to be able to play with most of the people you'd still have to buy the game. I don't like it, but I'd rather have that than pointless games where the biggest cheat wins.
I'm confused... (Score:1)
MesaGL is something like *part of* DirectX. (Score:1)
How about something like DirectX? (Score:1)
How about something like DirectX? (Score:1)
Fast? I don't think so. (Score:1)
DirectX relies on fast hardware to appear fast. Nothing surprising, this is Microsoft's general strategy.
No, it really is bad (Score:1)
The features provided by the DirectX API are very useful, and there is a need for something like this in the industry. But let's face it, the DirectX API sucks. Only one company in the world could have gotten away with shoving something so bad down the throats of developers, hardware vendors and consumers. If anyone else had produced it and said "hey, here's an API please come use it", they would have been laughed out of the community.
I am saddened when I think about all the first-time programmers whose first introduction to gaming API's is DirectX. These people are likely to end up thinking "so, this is what gaming API's are like." The standards they expect will forever be lower. Developers should not just accept whatever crud industry giants serve onto their plates; they should be taught to be critical and to demand technical excellence.
System Crashes, and other observations (Score:1)
"Most of the time, it's Windows itself or some other program that crashes on my system."
I think thats what Petreley meant - Windows crashes. I suspect that buggy drivers for hardware are also often to blame. Considering how many hardware drivers are written by Microsoft under exclusive NDA, the blame falls back on MS.
I'm not really much of a game player myself, but I have some friends who are. And they constantly complain about system crashes while they are trying to play games. I've seen it myself, when I sometimes watch them play; sometimes they have to reboot/scandisk several times in just a few hours.
PenguinPlay Games SDK (Score:1)
There is a project similar to what you describe called PenguinPlay.
URL: http://sunsite.auc.dk/penguinplay/ [sunsite.auc.dk].
Please help this project along!!
what? (Score:1)
cat core | h_analyze -verbatim | ffi -english (Score:1)
I think your HUM2x14 coprosessor instruction detector is defect. Usually, it can be fixed by connecting both EAR1x units to a power outlet, and keep the connection until you start to smell burned meat. If that doesn't help, I think your only hope is that "lobotomy" thing. That's pretty dangerous, but a life without a working HUM2x14 is simply not worth living.
Actually, when I think about it, it could be that the whole thing is caused by you FFI beeing low on power. I would check that out before running any inreversible bugfix.
Does mormons have several gods? (Score:1)
It is normally 4 or 5 guys in white. They have name signs with "dr." in front of their names. They act strangely too. When I let them in, one of them runs straight towards the window, blocking my entire view and refuses to move away. He says something like "for my own safety" or something. Guess he means that it's a sin to watch the world from the 4th. floor or something. I don't really understand that one, but the guys are completely nuts after all.
They are drug addicts to. And violent. Normally, all but one of them attack me, and try to hold me while the last one tries to force me to take narcotics, saying that "it will make me feel better".
Fortunately, the "coffee" will work by then. They just run out, throwing up all the way. Some guy even jumped out of the window once.
Forced absence from the computer && linux games (Score:2)
People keeps telling me that I need to get away from my computers sometimes. Unfortunately, they are completely right. I need to get away from the computer to eat, go to the bathroom, and sometimes when I'm tired and don't want to wake up with a face looking even more like a chessboard than it did this morning. It could be worse, though. If the keyboard had been designed so I actually woke up with QUERTY on my face, it would be far more difficult to lie to people, telling them that my face looks so weird because I had a shaving accident.
All this is of course due to major design flaws:
First of all, "tired" is implemented in such a way that it is sometimes impossible to compute the correct time to consume the complete collection of energy drinks. What I want is a hose from the computer right into my weins, so that it can fill me up with caffeine when I stop typing for a long period.
Second, the complete approach of eating is wrong. We go away from the computer, find some food which we insert through a large opening. Some totally inpredictable time later, we just have to move to a unit called the bathroom to get rid of all the unneccesary stuff we accidently pushed in through the hole in our face in the first place. Why do we push unneccesary stuff through that hole? Why do we at all let the body, which is our network connection and firewall, do such work as separating useful stuff from garbage? What we need is a separate external unit, which processes food collected in ways we, as end users, don't want to know about, then inserting the resulting pure fuel into us through some secure channel.
Taking care of that, we don't really need to get away from the computer. Now that that's sorted out, we can work further on the sleeping problem. The problem is that, while the computer can detect sleep and wake us up, it will still not prevent us from spending the time required for this process pressing our faces into the keyboard.
The solution to this problem is quite obvious. To prevent us from pressing our faces into the keyboards, we just need to put something soft between the face and the keyboard. Normally, objects matching the "soft enough" criteria already is there already; Our hands. If we just could prevent them from slipping away when we fall asleep, all our problems would be solved. Those of you that didn't instantly thought "use a binary key system requiring only ten keys, and stapple the fingers to they keys" need to upgrade your brains to at least version 2.14.122.
Wow. When someone fixes that food processing unit, then the most urgent problem in the world is actually solved! Now I just have to convince the university not to force me to move down there and sit in a room in 8 hours several times each year, and convince my cand scient cooperators to meet using IRC or news instead of RL.
About Linux gamesWhat we need is not linux games. What we need is Unix/X11/GLX games. Fixing hardware and GLX support in XFree86 would be the most important step towards linux gaming.
And to you Playstation junkies; I have a computer capable of running games. Why should I use a lot of money getting another unit doing that work, when I could buy some MIT Press books and an Communications of the ACM subscribtion for those money instead?
no linux games are good thing (Score:1)
linux gaming (Score:1)
even the lovely text games are nice, but c'mon, the gaming natively under linux is shit to say the least. When i wanna play, i just boot up a vmware virtual machine and drop into win95.....
works for me.
www.ggi-project.org is the best! (Score:1)
fast and accelerated Linux-Graphics is the
General Graphics Interface (GGI).
I think, it' s worth looking at their website:
www.ggi-project.org
How about something like DirectX? (Score:1)