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Games Entertainment

Games Drive Wider Linux Adoption 143

Posted by Roblimo from the drivers-wanted dept.
Will in Seattle writes "C-Net has a story about how the bundled-in games on newer Linux pre-installed boxen may drive the rapid adoption of Linux in the mainstream. Which, naturally, all the coders fear above all else. Who let in these gamers? (Reminds me of my days at SF and Comix cons back when I was a SMOG and a SMOF - will we ever learn?)" The story also says that Penguin Computing is now building Linux computes specifically for gamers, too. Enjoy!
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Games Drive Wider Linux Adoption More

Games Drive Wider Linux Adoption

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  • Personally I wouldn't like most gamers to use Linux. It would mean that I had to answer a lot more email for the products I'm developing, which of course aren't stable at the first release. There is a solution though - I could enter another OS scene and leave Linux behind. This is probably what most programmers will do. Either scare newbies away (as is the case with a lot of other open source operating systems) -- or leave when it's getting hard to find (really) interested people. Think about it.
  • .... But Linux is taking it while walking within a single pantleg. I like others who have posted see the need for a common access interface to hardware and 3d api's. Without anything of this nature (making rpm's more like installshield would be kind of interesting...) gaming is going to stay in the "experimental" area for programmers, and even worse for gamers. The Linux community is going to have to do something for the first time.. Agree on something (besides listening to LT on what will be their next kernel).... -D.Alphaeus
  • Hi Eugene,

    You raised a good point in your response to my post... I agree that you can build cheap boxes on your own, but the minimal extra cost in having a box built by a VAR like Penguin is, in my experience, is good for people who want a pre-built, pre-installed box, where we at Penguin do the work, shop for parts, burn-in the machines... You also get a lot of cool stuff besides the hardware: If you go to the Penguin Computing homepage, you'll see on the system configurators that a Red Hat Linux box set, cables, a Linux How-To Book, a Penguin Computing Quick Start Guide, a plush toy Tux Penguin that places like Linuxmall charge about $8 USD for, are included with every system we ship. Penguin Computing systems come with a warranty (see website for details) and offers free tech support by phone during our business hours (6AM-6PM Pacific) and 24-hour Tech support with a San Francisco number. We at Penguin also have a toll-free number, 1-888-Penguin... and an online support page where customers and non-customers can post software and hardware support issues... All of our support staff know Red Hat Linux, especially our custom kernel installation, like the backs of their hands... Oh yeah, there's also the thing about employee salaries, and money to stay in business :) Well, take care, and e-mail me if you have any more good ideas/comments/suggestions..

    Best regards,

    Justin "no-K-in-my-name" Cheung

    Founder and Vice-Penguin, Gnuidea Software: Santa Cruz, California
    Gnuidea Software: "well-paid developers, fabulous free software"
    http://www.gnuidea.com (coming soon)

    Penguin Computing Complete Linux Solutions, "because downtime is not an option"
    On the web at:

    http://www.penguincomputing.com
  • OS's are so multifaceted (and personal) that there really isn't (and may never be) any single 'best' OS (even if its name ends in 'x'). 'linux' is just a name, 'Linux Rulez' is just a motto. The real question is: will kernel 3.2 or release 7 of (your choice) be what you hope it will be? Or will you have to wait another year while the needs of a highly demanding, specialized influx of newcomers are met? (be they enterprise centers or gamers)

    The definition of Linux is still plastic - fundamental design decisions may be made to support the gaming market instead of your most demanding use. Would it even be wise for Linus deliberately disregard the needs and wishes of 10% of the market? 30%? 50? There are millions of gamers out ther trying to breath life into old Pentiums or 486's. They could triple our ranks overnight

    In the longer run, gaming is likely to be a boon. Home LANs, video, audio, etc. got a giant boost from games. However, if we're going to look at the long term, we might be better served by a massive gamer focus in late 2000 vs. late 1999.

    Games are widely considered the most demanding and fastidious applications on a typical system. We may enjoy fiddling with the OS (rather a game in itself, no?) but someone who only cares about their 'kill factor' may find themselves pushed to accept all the 'not ready for primetime' PR that is noted here each day, if they have a bad experience.

    Is the linux community aupport up to this influx? Many gamers, downloading from FTP, may find that Linux leaves a bad taste in their mouths, and that's a black eye for us (even if half the problem is just "this ain't how Windows does it" - we're all frustrated by apps/OSs that don't do things as we're used to)

    Maybe your top app isn't that demanding; maybe you dying to build your joystick calluses; maybe the demands (OS/support/discussion) of gamers will fling you out the nearest (X)window; And maybe you'll gnash your teeth to nubs because the driver for some card on your older-tech box gets held up, while the perpetual torrent of new gamer cards gets instant support and constant driver updates.

    [The Linux community is somewhat fad-proofed by volunteer efforts, but that still doesn't necessarily make gaming support more attractive to a typical Linuxer]

    The Lamborghinis don't mean that there's tons of capital available for Linux. Rather they illustrate gaming capital that is not available for Linux. Tell a hotshot game coder you're cutting his perks/pay to go into a OS that he (obviously) doesn't currently use -- he'll wish you luck (and enjoy the fruits of your labor - as a consumer) and hightail it to another outfit,

    Just a few Lamboghinis can cost you enough coders to put you in chapter 11, without doing that much to help your company, the Linux community, or computing in general. What's a million these days?

  • For the record, I doubt you were compiling a kernel & cd-ripping at the same time

    I'm a little confused. On my p2-450 cd-ripping (cdparanoia) only takes about 15% of my cpu time (via the highly accurate :) top). If I do that and compile a kernel I have plenty of free cycles to play even intense games (quake, q2, etc)

    What kind of computer do you have? Just running three apps at once is hardly a test ot Linux's multi-tasking.

    Granted it might be possible inside X, but I'd like to know your configuration so I could update mine

    Why would X matter? wouldn't just using multiple virtual teminals (or running processes in the background)require less memory? If ypou want config help, feel free to email me at mcorde61@maine.edu. I'm always happy to help.

  • It's amazing how this all changes given enough time.I, as a former/current Amiga [amiga.de] user, remember all too well the snide comments from the PC crowd."Get that gaming machine outa here!" & "Come back when you have a real computer, not just some over done console with a keyboard".Well, back then as now, games push the technology farther than any "business" software can ever do.If my machine can run Quake3 @ 100FPS what do you think it can do with Word/Excell/etc.!!

    So, I am happy & excited that games are making thier way to Linux.I have been trying to decide whether or not to install NT on my new BP6, but have decided to go with Slackware.NT is NOT gaming friendly, but it appears that Linux IS gaming friendly.How nice!
    Later...
  • Well there may be two, but there are little internets around.. :)


    There's a whole bunch of operating systems though, so I don't think one could compare phenomena occuring to the internet to linux nor vice versa.
    Linux can gradually die if core developers loose interest. As opposed to the internet, newbies (e.g. companies, blind governments) couldn't help Linux survive.

  • There's tetris for the Linux console.
  • The ggi (general graphics interface) project has some thoughts along the same lines and thinks about security issues too. http://www.ggi-project.org/
  • >>>
    Indeed, that flood *did* destroy the Internet as we knew it - it drove innovation, swelled the Internet's infospace exponentially and led to Internet access becoming a simple matter instead of the complicated mess it was at the time.
    >>>

    If by 'innovation', you largely mean 'dumbing-down and pretty pictures', yes.

    I can think of two benefits of the invasion of the GUM - cheap home dialup access exists at all, and you can buy stuff on-line. The price of this is Eternal September on Usenet, Skript Kiddies rampant, web sites that take hours to download on a modem and are almost totally free of any actual content, banner ads, corporations trying to monopolize the namespace, namespace pollution to try and create 'kewl' URLs ("come.to" et al), search engines that turn up more porn than useful hits of any kind... (unless you're looking for porn, of course)

    The amount of Useful Stuff on the net has increased since the GUM came. The trouble is that the amount of dross has increased many, many times faster, to the point where you're searching for pennies in a mountain of shit.

    >>>
    ... and with time, those clueless newbies became experienced users...
    >>>

    No. *A few* of those clueless newbies, those who have any interest in learning and are prepared to work at it, become experienced users. The vast majority remain clueless, but because they've been here so long now can make it seem to clueless newbies that cluelessness is the natural and correct state of the net.


    To get back on topic, I do worry that the same could happen to Linux. Imagine Linux newsgroups, web sites and mailing lists being full of the whinings of the people who can't manage to understand the difference between 'left click' and 'right click' under Windows, who now face the possibility of having to *shock* type something. (Those of you who have done tech support will know what I mean).

    No, you shouldn't need a CS degree to run Linux (or to use a computer at all). But like driving a car, you should be prepared to learn a little in order to use it properly.

    Bah, humbug.
    Tim.
  • Linux won't have comparable framerates to Windows even though the underlying architecture is more stable and faster. Windows provides ways for the programmer to pipe data directly into the graphics hardware at the cost of robustness. Linux could do something along these lines but it would be a compromise. I'd see something like that as a package that would need to be optionally installed. I don't want any program to be able to get around the robustness on a server for instance.

    This is part of why Mesa3D is dog slow compared to OpenGL under Windows. (you're also talking through the X server, there are plans to streamline that portion of the operation)

  • We don't need a game API on Linux - we already have enough. SDL, Clanlib, Crystal Space, LibGGI, Mesa. Sorry if I missed anyone out :). They may be specialised in some cases (Mesa only does 3D I believe,) but isn't this the correct approach; to mix & match?

    XFree 4 will be a lot speedier because of the direct video access, is that what you are after?
  • > It seems we just need a better sound API.

    Loki is aiding in the development of the OpenAL project (open source 3D sound API)... and there's also the ALSA open source sound driver project...
  • You mean something like the Direct Rendering Infrastructure from Precision Insight (http://www.precisioninsight.com/piinsights.html), included in the forthcoming XFree86 release 4.0? That's much closer to have the application directly talk to the graphic card (through an OpenGL driver, certainly) than Direct3D.

    Direct3D doesn't talk directly to the graphic card, it is a layered approach just like everything else - the fact that it also sidesteps GDI doesn't make it better, if anything, it shows how badly designed GDI actually is. Direct3D is even more layered than OpenGL, at least earlier versions (you put commands into a buffer and have them executed instead of executing them right when you need them). Later versions look more like OpenGL, for DirectX 8.0 SGI and Microsoft promised to unify OpenGL and Direct3D.

    I mean, how M$-brainwashed can one be to ask for Direct3D on Linux, when top game programmers like John Carmack say "trash Direct3D, take OpenGL" with rage, and even volunteer to make Mesa faster (for G200/G400) than the Windows ICD? M$ is a marketing driven company. They tell you DirectX is the best thing they invented since sliced bread. And rev. 2.0 is a lightyear ahead of 1.0. And now we have rev. 7.0. If it was a honest GNU project, the revision would be very likely 0.7, and the programmers would tell you that it's half-baken and they will add a lot of cool things before it becomes 1.0.
  • I really don't see what's bad about Linux becoming a "gaming box" alognside with being a regular workstation. I mean... it's a lot more fun playing quake ona linux box thatn a windows box isn't it?

    I though that anything that lets Linux gain a wider acceptance would be good



  • Why do we have to worry about games being included in the distributions?

    Games are just another type of applications. If Linux is good enough for other types of applications, Linux should be good enough for games.

    So why worry?

    Instead, we should rejoice that at last the game producers (coders ?) are recognizing the true value of Linux - A stable and robust operating system that is backed up by thousands of volunteers all over the world, as coders, as those who dispense answers, as someone who really cares.


  • I promised I'd wait until I got my next computer to get a 3D-card, a better video card, more RAM, etc., but... ngg! I want that 500Mhz Athlon. :)

    I was very happy to actually see Civ:CTP for Linux in the Linux section at a CompUSA. That section is growing while the Macintosh section is definitely shrinking. Hopefully we'll see more shrinkwrapped apps for Linux, but games are a good start.

    What was wrong with the joystick support? Not developing for 2.2 at the time? And what, was Loki trying to optimize libjpeg, or something? 'Linux' handles jpegs just fine (or doesn't at all, depending on your view ;), so either more detail or no comment at all would have been better.

    Goodnight all, we American boys need our sleep. :)

  • Re:this is bad? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I though that anything that lets Linux gain a wider acceptance would be good

    I'm with you on that. A foot in the door, so to speak. It's another group of people who will be more encouraged to use the os. And when you consider that a large portion of the home computer user is made up of gamers...

    it's a lot more fun playing quake ona linux box thatn a windows box isn't it?

    And a lot more stable, wouldn't you say? Laugh. It'd be nice to not have to worry about rebooting all the damn time when some game crashes. And just think if some company went OS with a top-of-the-line game like Q3 or the like. The potential is, well... I'm sure you get the idea.

  • Re:this is bad? (Score:3)

    by the_tsi ( 19767 ) on Tuesday October 12, 1999 @10:31PM (#1617916)
    And at this point, linux is a BETTER gaming platform. NT and 95/98 have a fractured gaming API base (directx 3 vs directx 7... don't get started about hacking sp5 to allow dx7, that's not the point). 98 supports USB. NT supports SMP. 98 will let you do multihead support with damn near any pair of cards. Under NT, you can do it.. sometimes. Everyone tells us Win2K will be the euphoric combination, but no one tells us when it will arive.

    Linux? SMP, USB, and multi-monitor support. RIGHT NOW. Sure, our sound drivers may cost $20, but beyond the price of the OS media and the game you want, that's about it. Okay, so XF86 pre-4.0 doesn't support your card yet. But it supports the cards gamers have and want to use. And the things that are broken or flakey right now will be acellerated now that money from the gaming industry is flowing into the linux marketshare.

    (What? You don't think the gaming industry is loaded enough? Who's racing lamborghinis and ferraris in Dallas, again, while employees in Redmond are still waiting for their humvees?)

    Eh, whatever. I'll go back to sysadmining now instead of talking out of my ass.

    -Chris

  • No Fear (Score:2)

    by akey ( 29718 )
    "...the bundled-in games on newer Linux pre-installed boxen may drive the rapid adoption of Linux in the mainstream. Which, naturally, all the coders fear above all else."

    What exactly is it that the coders are afraid of? Bundled-in games? Rapid adoption of linux? The article said nothing about coders fearing the adoption of Linux. In case you haven't noticed, most programmers actually *like* it when people use software that they have worked on -- an awful lot of us are proud of the things that we put our time and effort into.
  • I think will_in_seattle made a casual comment about elitist attitudes, and everyone's picking up on it as gospel and the entire point of the piece. Not so.
    Just as SMOFs miss the halcyon days when everyone read every SF book available, so will we soon reach the day when it's no longer possible to buy every Linux game; the rabble will well and truly have crashed the party.
    No-one except those with the most severe case of elitist-assholism thinks this is a Bad Thing.

    Back to the point. Two lines in the article struck me:
    The Penguin Computing gaming machine, which is based on a 500-MHz AMD Athlon chip, comes with a 3Dfx Voodoo 3000 video card and a Sound Blaster PCI128 sound card. It also has a Logitech Wingman Extreme digital joystick.
    What can I say? Cool. Beyond cool.

    Loki also has been working on open-source projects to improve how well Linux handles JPEG graphics files.
    Eh? Can someone explain this one to me?

  • Don't fear the newbies (Score:4)

    by Ratface ( 21117 ) on Tuesday October 12, 1999 @10:46PM (#1617919) Homepage Journal
    I can see why many long term Linux users would fear an announcement of this sort. Linux is being dragged kicking and screaming in the the realm of consumer O/S and with that comes the threat of even more clueless newbies.

    However, I would point out that exactly the same thing happened 4-5 years ago with the Internet. I remember the cries of horror and the constant allegations that the influx of newbies would destroy the fabric of the Internet as we knew it.

    Indeed, that flood *did* destroy the Internet as we knew it - it drove innovation, swelled the Internet's infospace exponentially and led to Internet access becoming a simple matter instead of the complicated mess it was at the time.

    ... and with time, those clueless newbies became experienced users, the effects of the newbies were distributed around the expanded infospace and those of use who use the Internet as a serious tool created our own communities and areas where we can get on with using the Internet in the way we want to.

    IMHO, anything which drives Linux development is a "Good Thing"(tm), in time Linux will spawn more new distributions that make it easier of the newbies to get on their feet, while those of use who use Linux because it is the best tool for the job at hand will still have the option to hand-install and tweak to our hearts content. And in those rare moments of relaxation, we'll also have the option to kick back with a round of whatever game of the moment has just reached shipping :-)

  • It is more than a faster X-Windows, it is about being able to create sprites and scrolling using the hardware, allocating memory buffers in the off-display video memory, accessing directly the Z-buffer or outputing hardware accelerated audio streams... a completely different goals and ways of programming compared to a spreadsheet with Corba objects !
  • ----------------------------
    If by 'innovation', you largely mean 'dumbing-down and pretty pictures', yes.
    ----------------------------

    No, by innovation I mean converting the Internet from a grey hell, to a place bursting with colour, packed with free tools, free advice and free information. Bearing in mind of course that if you *want* to revert to a text-based Gopher / HTML 1.0 info space you are more than welcome to. Ther's nothing stopping you at all, it's all a part of the whole.

    ----------------------------
    The amount of Useful Stuff on the net has increased since the GUM came. The trouble is that the amount of dross has increased many, many times faster, to the point where you're searching for pennies in a mountain of shit.
    ----------------------------

    Sure - this is true, but the information is still there. Personally I don't feel I have as much trouble finding info I want these days, as I did 5 years ago where the info just plain wasn't there!

    ----------------------------
    No. *A few* of those clueless newbies, those who have any interest in learning and are prepared to work at it, become experienced users. The vast majority remain clueless, but because they've been here so long now can make it seem to clueless newbies that cluelessness is the natural and correct state of the net.
    ----------------------------

    Also true, but the Internet is ephemeral. I've been following web-design information on the Web for years. At first the newsgroups were the place for discussion, nowadays, it's best to find a solid mailing list. Be prepared to change every now and again. Not ideal perhaps, but it works - I currently am on a list with fantastic signal to noise.

    ----------------------------
    To get back on topic, I do worry that the same could happen to Linux. Imagine Linux newsgroups, web sites and mailing lists being full of the whinings of the people who can't manage to understand the difference between 'left click' and 'right click' under Windows, who now face the possibility of having to *shock* type something. (Those of you who have done tech support will know what I mean).
    ----------------------------

    What are you talking about? They *are*! This is how things are now. What will happen? Those who value talking about in-depth matters will create their own lists and perhaps more importantly, thos who have the patience to listen and give advice will stay there and try to thin-out the crowds. This is evolution in action and it's the way the net works.

    As regards how this will affect Linux - it's true that many developers may choose to move on to new projects. And many more developers will be (and are being) attracted to Linux and to Open Source / GNU principles. Who do you think has been behind the huge expansion of the Internet? Developers is who! And they were atracted to it by the critical mass.

    I think you raised some interesting points in your post - but I would suggest that while newbie influx may be responsible for the death of small localised pockets of information/netspace/call-it-what-you-will, overall it benefits all of us and drives innovation.

  • XFree86 [xfree86.org] 4.0 will have Precision Insight's [precisioninsight.com] Direct Rendering Interface which will bring Linux 3D framerates on par with Windows. Precision Insight has even hired Mesa's [mesa3d.org] Brian Paul to bring his experience to the project. The day is coming when Linux will achieve gaming parity with Windows...
  • Would somebody please explain to me why this attitude is good for Linux? It is not the first time I have seen such sentiments. Kind of reminds me of a couple of friends I had back in my college days with regards to their favorite bands. As soon as one of the tunes got some airtime on the radio, the group quickly fell of their list never to be listened to again -- not even the old, "unpopular" stuff. I guess you can only like a group if nobody else knows about them!? Sure makes it difficult for them to continue producing music if nobody ever buys their CDs. People have to eat... Newbies are not newbies forever -- just think, Smoke, you were once a newbie too. It's only natural to believe that the more people who run Linux on their machines, the more chances you will have to be able to find "really" interested people in your software products. In order to have popular software that is of excellent quality, you must have users first!
  • F*ck DirectX, get OpenGl working properly, with support for all the major cards, and the games will come. It's not the coders you have to worry about, it's the distributers, publishers, and development managers.

    Work those IHVs!
  • > If my memory serves me correctly Linux has been adopted as the development platform for the Playstation II.

    ...and as the OS for a future PS2 based workstation. I mean, why would Sony want to write an OS?

    Think embedded!
  • (wildly off topic)

    >No, by innovation I mean converting the Internet
    >from a grey hell, to a place bursting with
    >colour, packed with free tools, free advice and
    >free information.

    Pfft. There were lots of free tools, info and advice on the 'net before the massive influx of AOL/webtv lusers, Shockwave, Javascript, animated GIFs, Adobe Acrobat, HTML newsreaders/email clients, and assorted other festering abombinations.

    You might enjoy color, I much prefer ASCII. It's hard to grep an animated GIF.

    >Bearing in mind of course that if you *want* to
    >revert to a text-based Gopher / HTML 1.0 info
    >space you are more than welcome to. Ther's
    >nothing stopping you at all, it's all a part of
    >the whole.

    Actually, no I can't, because a lot of sites who have useful information are illegible with old browsers.

    >Also true, but the Internet is ephemeral. I've
    >been following web-design information on the Web
    >for years. At first the newsgroups were the
    >place for discussion, nowadays, it's best to
    >find a solid mailing list. Be prepared to change
    >every now and again. Not ideal perhaps, but it
    >works - I currently am on a list with fantastic
    >signal to noise.

    Untill the lusing hordes overwhelm it again, and you have to find another forum.

    You seem like a very tolerant and good natured fellow, congrats. I'm a grumpy bastard who doesn't see that the increased popularity of the internet has really benefited me in any substantial way, but does inconvenience me almost daily.

    I keep hearing about Usenet 2, I'll have to check that out sometime.

  • The driving factor for PC/Windows/DOS home PCs may have been games, but the real money flowing into Redmond is from the business community. Many home PCs came into existence simply because mom/dad had one at work, became comfortable with it, and bought one for home. Better gaming support (i.e. solid API's) is only a small part of the solution if the goal is to make Linux more mainstream.

    One of the main reasons console platforms are as popular as they are today is the fact that they don't act like computers, such as having a file system that needs to be maintained or having to install drivers to get your hardware to work, etc. Until Linux PC admin becomes as easy as it is in Windows, it will likely not be adopted by the 'masses', and will stay in the 'techie' world. I'm afraid enough when my father calls and asks for some Windows help ... I can't imagine him calling and asking for Linux help...

  • Not a day, not an hour and not one minute goes by without me wanting to develop this game [sierrastudios.com] for another platform. Preferably Linux, but I would settle for most anything BUT this dreadful Microsoftism [microsfot.com] that we game developers need to handle in order to gain any kind of marketshare.

    Most of you probably have NO idea just how often Windows 98 [microsoft.com] becomes unstable, crashes or spontaneously reboots when you are running a games application in development. Glide, OpenGL, Direct3D, Directsound and the Windows system itself are ALL crash- and corruption-prone in this platform.

    How would you like trying your modifications in runtime and know that you will probably have to restart the computer if your change was a bad idea?

    I'm just glad I still have most of my hair!

    / per

  • Didn't it occur to you that Dad probably won't need as much help with Linux? I know my mom doesn't need nearly as much help with her Linux system as she did with the Windows box it replaced.

    Doug Loss

  • Yes very much so the case. and I did distinguish from the home market and the corporate market.

    However:

    Once reason Windows is used in the corporate market is that the users already have experience of it from home and hence there is little retraining required. And I am well aware of the cost of training especially in businesses where staff turnover is quite high.

    This is where I base my premise that by infiltrating the games market you will make the "L" word more acceptable for the desktop in the corporate market. I'm not saying Linux is ready for the desktop and after having spent months on this I'm pretty sure it isn't, but isn't that on of the directions that we want to be heading in?

  • What about buying a computer for porno?

  • Mesa only does 3D I believe

    Aarrrggghhh!!!! No!. Mesa is an implementation of OpenGL (although it's not officially OpenGL compliant). OpenGL is a generic graphics language, which works fine in 2D. It just happens to excel at 3D as well.

  • That's probally true, but most of them use Windows now with its, IMHO, much easier install program. And then there are the new gamers, who have very little idea what DOS is, and never really messed around with it.

    The future:
    Gamers using linux, with easy install programs. The oldies remember windows which was just as easy, but the machine crashed now and then. A few gamers become linux hackers out of curiosity - none out of necessity.
  • > If my machine can run Quake3 @ 100FPS what do you think it can do with Word/Excell/etc.!!

    Wow. Didn't know MS Office used OpenGL. Thanks for the info ;)

    --
  • So what does a game developer want on the Linux platform to make it easier to develop for?
  • I want one too! :) I'm generally stoked about compUSA's linux policy ... At the Concord CA store where I used to work, they initially set up a "linux games" display in the front of the games section, but somewhat disappointingly moved all the games into the operating systems section next to the nifty Red Hat Linux box sets... Can anyone tell me if Turbolinux is sold at compUSA? It would be a shame if worthless over-hyped distributions like suse and mandrake got sold at compUSA and the elegant and newbie-friendly distributions, e.g. Red Hat and Turbolinux got set behind... If it hadn't been for compUSA carrying the official Red Hat Linux box sets (i bought 5.2 back in the day), I might have turned out different...Luckily the Red Hat boxes have been sold at compUSA for a long time... (and thankfully without a whopping 5 CDs full of packages I'll never use, e.g. suse, or so-called "mandrake enhancements"... enhancements? yeah right... it's basically Red Hat, with a newer kernel, widely available updates, and KDE crammed down your throat by default.) Wow i digress!! Anyways, i hope to soon have that Penguin 3DFX Athlon sitting on my desk! Does anyone know if Loki will port Interstate 76 to Linux? I'd rather have a Linux-native I-76 than dual-boot or run it through the ever-impressive VMware. Take it easy and tell me when you get that Penguin Athlon system... We'll have to do some kind of internet game when we're both equipped! :) Best regards, Justin (justin@nospam.penguincomputing.com)
  • OK, first let me say I'm one of those "clueless newbies" you all seem to hate so much. Sorry, I'm not going away (though I will be evolving...stay tuned).

    I thought, (and perhaps I was wrong) that one of the common Linux-developer/user sentiments was a dislike of MSoft's stranglehold on the personal computing world.

    But here I'm reading that you really don't want linux to grow and possibly offer i386 owners a viable alternative to Windows.

    I'm really getting mixed signals here. Can anyone clarify?


    BTW, if Windows users ARE going to flock to linux, you could do a LOT worse than have the invasion led by the gamers. We gamers tend to know a lot more about the innards of our systems than the average user (not more than you developers! I'm not saying that). If you'd ever done any significant DOS/Windows gaming, you'd know that. Half the games that come out now have a patch available within days of release, and we're always messing with drivers for our soundcards and graphics cards, tweaking ini files or the registry, and so on. Yeah, these are trivial tasks to you (and to us) but they're WAY BEYOND the average non-gamer computer users. Y'know, the ones who can't figure out how to download a file, let alone decompress it.

    And I don't think you have to worry about this latter group coming to linux any time soon. They cling to the tried and true.
  • I agree on some points about Direct3D, but DirectX is not only Direct3D. DirectDraw allows you to control directly the graphic chipset and the video memory (onscreen and offscreen). You can control every operation of the 2D graphic accelerator directly. John Carmark is right about OpenGL and Direct3D, but 3D is not everything.
  • I also expect many gamers to migrate over to Linux without too much difficulty - Remember many gamers are used to the DOS days and messing about with all of DOS's annoyances.

    Personally, I find DOS games a lot easier to install and play than Windows games. They are easier to 'contain' -- you can install them in one directory and know they are not going to touch any other parts of your system. Sort of like /usr/local on unix. Also, if a DOS game crashes under Windows usually it doesn't do any harm, but if a Windows game crashes under Windows it can easily take down Windows with it. It seems all the games are being made for Windows these days though :-(

  • making rpm's more like installshield would be kind of interesting...

    This is a horrendous idea. Package distributions, like RPM, .deb, and SysV's packages are far superior to self installing executables like the ones installshield produces. They're easily verifyable with digital signatures, for a start. You can easily list which packages are installed, uninstall or upgrade packages with a single command, none of which are available with the installshield method. The route we should be going down is the one used by the GNOME (and probably KDE) people -- double click on a package in your file manager to bring up a user friendly GUI to install that package.

  • Great.
    We can have all the software support we like.
    What about hardware support?
    Whee...Quake3 installed, but still only 15fps because of poor drivers!
    Linux has a way to go yet before it gets seriously considered as a gaming platform.
  • To start, comparing with music is way off; it has nothing to do with what is popular. Second, I'm not against ALL gamers, I just don't like the idea of annoying gamers to flood me with useless messages on how to get something running. When I was a newbie, I read books and asked gently. A lot of computer users nowadays just yell at you without patience. It's hard to keep motivated to work for that crowd.
  • I should have made clear that I didn't mean ALL gamers. Just the uninterested bunch (the ones who yell that "windoze is broken", not the ones who really want to know what's wrong). Sorry for that.
  • What, specifically is it that the coders fear in the rapid adoption of Linux in the mainstream? Good question, but I remember the reactions of the Net community to the worldwide exponential growth of the Net and the countless newbies who didn't know about the underlying protocols (and didn't care). Similar to the reaction of radio hobbyists when both commercial radio and then, eventually, CB radio, became popularized.

    Personally, I agree with you: we should be glad that people use our code and that we make a real difference in this world.

    But then, you've never had a letter (or a few thousand) from an irate (and newbie) gamer who wants you to fix his game and won't give you enough details for you to figure out what's wrong in the first place.

  • The Unreal engine already HAS been ported!

    In fact, last I heard, the chances are 50-50 that there will be a Linux client version on one of the UT CDs - and if not, it will been released very soon after.

    There's already a server port which you can download.

    Just waiting until a Linux client version is available for the demo - of course, with my puny K6-200 / Voodoo 1, it probably won't run very well :).
  • $2200-$2500 for a gaming box? I thought Linux was supposed to *reduce* hardware costs! Their PC's are a goor 25-30% more expensive than a comparable Dell or Gateway (which themselves are a good bit more expensive than home-built PCs).

    I guess that blows a hole in the theory that Microsoft bundling inflates prices...
  • I've been saying this to myself for awhile, that there seems to be two groups of "power users" (as vague a term as that may be: The programmer/sysadmin/linux guru and the hardcore gamer (different from the everyday gamer). Now being a little of both (though more on the gaming side) I have wrestled with the idea of removing linux or removing windows (I dual boot now)...Windows 98 is Ass-Slow (TM), but it has the latest drivers and support for my hardware. Linux is Nice, Quick, and Slick (TM), but it does not support my video card or sound card! Basically i use it now only for emacs for class, but I am waiting impatiently for the next release of XFree86 which will hopefully allow me to run X. To get to the point, IMHO these two groups need to combine in order to fight Microsoft. Either two left on their own, im afraid, just will not be able to do it.
  • >God, what a fscking tiresome attitude.

    Let's not get personal... Oh, I guess I can't get personal with you, coz you're an AC.

    >The internet inconveniences you daily? All this
    >because its tools and ideas and users are
    >evolving?

    Once upon a time, the 'net was a technical place where technical people communicated about things of interest to them. I was there, and I liked it. Those days are gone forever, and of course I can't do anything about that.

    Why did I like the old days better?

    Every time I find another website that I can't navigate because I've disabled flash/shockwave/jscript/java, that's inconvenient.

    Everytime someone sends an HTML email to a mailing list that I'm a member of, that's inconvenient.

    Everytime someone posts HTML to a newsgroup that I read, that's inconvenient.

    Everytime I wait 5 minutes for a page to load because some fsckwit put all the navigation buttons as GIFs and didn't bother with old fashioned ALT tags, that's inconvenient.

    I don't have Win98 on any PC that I control, but I do have to use it on occasion, and I find the "IE everywhere" design to be amazingly annoying, exasperating, and inconvenient.

    Yeah, that's evolution, ain't it. You can't fight progress, can you? It's not "healthy".

    *SNIP a bunch of irrelevant crap*

    >What folks *ought* to focus on (and yes, I said
    >"ought" not "might" or "might want to consider")
    >is how to utilize (or, at least, theorize about)
    >the evolving internet instead of pointing
    >fingers at the "influx of AOL/webTV" users.

    s/users/lusers/

    I've been utilizing the Internet for a long time, sonny. Some of the changes are positive, but I can't think of a single positive thing about either AOL or webTV.

    I remember when spam was a meat by-product sold in cans. I remember Usenet before cancelbots. I remember the first time I ran into a website "optimized for NutScrape 2.01.03 at 400x500 with 42 colors", and I remember how angry I was. The whole point of the Internet is that anyone might want to read your page, no matter how they access it. I suppose you might say that the Internet has the ability to "democratize". What you like to call "evolution" is interfering with that, and offers nothing of value (to me anyway) in return.

    But it's a big 'net, and you and I can co-exist just fine. Me and my kind will thrive on the scaps of bandwidth left over from the real-audio streams, shockwave movies, Outlook Express emails with GIF stationary attached, pr0n downloads, and all that other really really valuable and socially important stuff that I'm too old-fashioned to appreciate.
  • To have an emulator (eg. Playstation) and leverage off that?

    If you work towards an existing standard you already have a large number of games out there and little Johnny at christmas will be happier then he would be if he was looking at a command line (unless Johnnys a geek).

  • Re:Pengiun Computers are *way* overpriced (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Sorry to be anonymous... If I may ask the poster here to to do a science experiement for the rest of us. Go buy the same parts as the Penguin machine and the games from Loki, put it all together and report back how much money was spent first of all and how much time was spent for assembly and software installation. UNfortunately, the price may be quite similar to the low, 2200 as stated on the Penguin web page. It will hit you when you go buy the memory especially. Looking forward to seeing your results. Kevin
  • >Everyone tells us Win2K will be the euphoric
    >combination, but no one tells us when it will
    >arive.

    It's not going to be a combination, actually... They decided to keep NT for one more round in Windows 2000... And have the 98SE kernel go into what they're calling Windows Millenium (which I'm beta testing.. ugh). 2001 may be when they merge... haha... Anyways, Windows 2000 is supposedly coming out very soon (December?) since it's already in its final stages of testing (the last one being when its on store shelves, obviously)...

    Anyhow, offtopic.. I'm gonna go read the other stuff on /. ... :)
  • Like many here I'm not sure I see what the comment about the fear of adopting Linux into the mainstream is all about?

    It would seem every time a mainstream company invests in or starts shipping some Linux distribution everyone cheers, including me.

    People who Game allot (at least the ones like me) have allot of time on their hands and often fill it with games. There is allot of young gamers out there who were born into the windows world and have stayed there to play games (for my games I have too). I think this is a great loyal consumer base that has the time to work with and enjoy Linux.
  • All this time I thought people were joking when they put a (tm) next to "Good Thing". I just did a trademark search, and guess what. The mark is owned by Martha Steward! Why am I not surprised?

    Word Mark GOOD THING
    Owner Name (REGISTRANT) MARTHA STEWART LIVING OMNIMEDIA LLC
    Owner Address 20 West 43rd Street, 25th Floor New York NEW YORK 10036 LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY DELAWARE
    Attorney of Record HOWARD J SHIRE
    Serial Number 75-516347
    Registration Number 2272142
    Filing Date 07/09/1998
    Registration Date 08/24/1999
    Mark Drawing Code (1) TYPED DRAWING
    Register PRINCIPAL
    Published for Opposition 06/01/1999
    Type of Mark SERVICE MARK
  • We (co-)developed a new video format based on motion JPEG compression. It's got a bunch of tradeoffs plus/minus associated with MPEG video, the most important plus being no patent issues. More about MJPEG on our webpage.

    m.
    --
    Programmer, Loki Entertainment Software
  • >>NT is NOT gaming friendly, but it appears that Linux IS gaming friendly. How nice!

    Um, a handful of ports does not a gaming machine make. The Win2000 rc2 has run almost every game I have thrown at it.
  • And with attitudes like that, Linux will *NEVER* gain the mainstream acceptance that Linux geeks so desperately want. I thought that was one of the selling points of the open source community - the users help each other, rather than relying on corporations. Or was I mistaken? Is the main selling point of Linux just snobby elitsim?
  • These people ( gamers, regular home users ) are just sitting there waiting to be burned by linux. No, I don't think it helps to attract users if those users aren't going to like linux, and become vocal anti-linux crusaders after being burnt by linux.

    Linux isn't ready for the average home user, and it's not even close to a viable gaming platform. We don't help the linux movement by pushing it as a platform for things that it's not suited for.

  • And at this point, linux is a BETTER gaming platform. NT and 95/98 have a fractured gaming API base (directx 3 vs directx 7... don't get started about

    At least Windows *has* directx. How many of those directX games are running on linux ? Sure , linux has openGL, but it doesn't help a great deal when there are no OpenGL drivers.

    The only viable hardware acceleration option working on linux now is Glide with one of the older 3dfx cards. The TNT and Matrox drivers do not cut it against Windows.

    While I use and advocate linux, it is just stupid to push it to a market segment for which it's not really suited. You're going to create a lot of vocal linux haters if you do this.

  • maybe your paying for quality hardware? IOW, no Winmodem, no microsoft keyboard, real IRQs etc. You are guaranteed that x-brand hardware will work with the OS installed (and with windblows, if for whatever ungodly reason you decide to add a partition for it).
  • Given what we've seen about the GeForce256, does anyone think it is possible to embed the X server into a video card's GPU for extra speed? It ought to be possible to do a minimalist version of this, given that a high performance video card has at least 8mb of RAM...
  • Hello... I personally think the price range Penguin proposes is quite fair for what you're getting... all high-quality top-notch Linux-compliant components that are rigorously tested... I believe Penguin was the first of the hardware-software-support "linux solutions providers" to offer a 72-hour burn-in process. And what the previous Slashdot poster said is right... Try putting together a box like Penguin's on your own. First of all, I doubt you can get parts as cheap as a VAR like Penguin... Secondly, you can simply compare Penguin's pricing with say, Dell, and you'll realize that Dell is the one forcing huge (seems like 50!% margins) for less-than-perfect hardware... Penguin prides itself on not only using purely high-performance top-of-the-line components, but it uses the creme de la creme, those kick-ass high-performance components that ritually survive its rigorous 72 hour burn-in process. I think if you objectively compare (1) pricing, and (2) components, between Penguin and other Linux hardware or complete solutions providers, you'll see that Penguin stands better than most when it comes to excellence in performance, reliability, service, and pricing. I'm a firm believer in the saying, "you get what you pay for". When I get my gaming system, I'm going to have Penguin build me a 3DFX Athlon system, one because I love Penguin hardware, Red Hat Linux, Penguin's customization of the Red Hat software, and the service you get when you have any questions about your system... I've known (personally) support staff happy to help Penguin customers, and even some non-customers who visit the Penguin support page, with all sorts of set-up, troubleshooting, upgrading, configuration problems... How do I know all this? I worked for Penguin full-time from early may 1999... now i'm at UC Santa Cruz full-time, and working on an IDG Book for Turbolinux, but I would be honored to be invited back by Penguin to work as a full-time employee after I graduate... I've never worked among a finer staff in all my life... Way to go Penguin!!! You're leading the way for Linux and you're making major strides for Linux desktop computing market share! Woo-hoo! Justin (justin@nospam.mathix.com)
  • It seems that everyone is overenthusiastic to get users at all costs. This is extremely short sighted at best, and outright deceptive marketting at worst.

    Is linux really a viable gaming platform ? How many of the latest games run under linux ? And how many of them run with hardware acceleration ? Are we going to have to wait till tomorrow to get yesterday's games, which will run at the day before yesterdays speeds on tomorrow's hardware ?

    Linux is not viable as a platform for gamers now. It lacks accelerated drivers. The only hardware acceleration that works worth a damn is GLIDE. We're not going to have DirectX any time soon. OpenGL drivers are work in progress, but still don't give the kind of performance that a gamer would hope for.

    Why push linux as a gaming platform ? It's great for a lot of things, but someone who asseses it based on it's use for gaming is going to become a rabid anti-linux envangelist.

  • Uh, there are several Free (as in GPLed) game projects going on right now.

    WorldForge [worldforge.org] - Massively Multiplayer RPGs ala Ultima Online. They've published a proof of concept demo and are working towards a playable Game.

    TimeCity [timecity.org] - not one of my personal favorites of an idea, but they seem to have something going. Just recently published some network code.

    Tux: A Quest for Herring [woodsoup.org] - 3D game ala Mario 64 or Gex. Has a couple of playable levels.

    Crystal Space [linuxgames.com] - Ok, not a game, but a LGPLed 3d game engine.

    And that's just off the top of my head. I'm sure there are several Free (as in GPL) projects out there that are just waiting for you to come running. :)

  • I haven't tried doing what you explain, but maybe, if you are using pthreads you could make sure that the read-ahead (p)thread gets mapped directly into a kernel thread. It could happen that you have two user threads but one kernel thread and pthreads doing the switch at user level.
    Maybe I'm wrong and processes block on I/O but I can't guess why.
  • Playing Unreal makes me sick.

    just had to throw my .02 dollars in
  • NVidia had their flak over the obfuscated driver thing - it just shows that we can't afford to immediately jump down companies' necks and annoy them when they make decisions we don't like

    I could just as easily say "We can't afford not to..."

    NVidia woke up one morning with their house on fire. They set the blaze and the community stoked it. They were not able to ignore it. They had to put the fire out. All the kind words in the world won't bring about such a turnaround as the presence of half a million complaints. You can attract more flies with honey than with vinegar. But if you're trying to attract flies, you should use rotting meat.

    I didn't complain, personally, preferring rather to gently suggest that as a Linux user and a repeat buyer of their products, they might have better results if they cater to the Linux community. I got a nice response, but that's not important. What's important is that a LOT of people voiced their outrage at the actions of NVidia. They could not ignore it. So they changed their policies. I wonder if they fired the guy who thought it was a good idea to obfuscate the code in the first place.
  • "If you look at hot games like Quake3 and Neverwinter Nights(RPG) that are coming out. They are being developed for all 3 platforms. "

    If I remember correctly, it's still like an alpha release, but BeOS has a Quake3 port.

    Bye . . .
  • There are a couple of things that are changing in the way games are handled for Linux.

    The first is perception. As more and more games become available, the Publishers will start to realise that Linux is a viable platform to port software to - the desktop marketshare isn't there yet but more games arriving means a virtuous circle of more gamers making the switch means more games arrive....

    The second is libraries. Loki (amongst others) are doing an admirable job of creating software libraries to support games production. I'm assuming more and more libraries will become available, from handling different video cards to whole 3d engines. I don't think Linux libraries can compete with DirectX yet at least in terms of mindshare, but it's only a matter of time and with the increasing availability of OSS engines the cost of market entry becomes substantially lower for developers. There will be little need to pay six figure sums for a 3d engine.

    With reduced costs, hopefully the publishers will be a little more adventurous in the projects they green light.

  • This is what we need more than anything... (Score:3)

    by Mr. Flibble ( 12943 ) on Tuesday October 12, 1999 @10:56PM (#1617981) Homepage
    It may sound silly that having Linux becoming a bonified gaming OS is one of the most important things that could happen to this little OS.

    Why?

    If my memory serves me correctly 50% (or greater) of all software sold is for entertainment purposes, and the majority of that is games. Linux is stable (duh) and because of its lower overhead may be able to get better framerates. I know I am upgrading to a dual celeron system for Gaming/Linux SMP goodness. (No Athalon duals yet!) NT will do SMP, but its not the best gaming OS.

    What do we need? An easier method of installing games now if we... wait... What was that that Loki just released? Hmm, we seem to be working on that.
    Mesa? Well thats coming soon too! Hmmm.

    It seems we just need a better sound API.

    I also expect many gamers to migrate over to Linux without too much difficulty - Remember many gamers are used to the DOS days and messing about with all of DOS's annoyances.

    You may call me crazy, but I think that an excellent selection of games for Linux will be one of the major driving forces behind Linux.

  • A few weeks back, Linus Torvalds was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Stockholm (the story was right here [slashdot.org]). Before the actual decoration took place, Linus held a one-hour Q&A at the University. While I didn't take notes or anything, I was there and listened hard. At the end of the session, the topic had drifted towards games and gaming, and Linus clearly stated the opinion that games help drive technology, since games tend to place very high demands on the machine they're running on. I tend to agree with this position myself, having written a game or two for other platforms (nothing commercial, though) and working full-time with real-time 3D graphics development under Linux. So, if Linus has realized this about games, I don't see him standing in the way of more games on Linux. After all, they will put higher technical demands on the kernel, at what else does a kernel hacker desire? ;^)
  • I think games are a tremendous vehicle for conversion (like the promise of eternal life). I'm personally looking forward to building a super-powered smp workstation that dual boots both Linux and BeOS. I'll get the best cards available for both operating systems and build around those. The problem with Linux on my laptop is that my laptop's a piece of shit so it makes Linux look bad. People keep saying "that's what you're so excited about?" In short, though not a gamer myself, I have to prove Linux is highly games-capable in order to unpaganize my fellow man (in violation of the advocacy-how-to ;-)).
  • One word: Q3. The fact that ID is making a Linux-version from the start is a good sign for the future. If there is any game that will make linux more accepted among gamers, thats the one.

  • Re:Missing the focus... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Loki wrote a "jpeg player" to show the "movies" between scenes of a game. They released the code for it as well.

    http://www.lokigames.com/press/archive.php3?0908 1099
  • Just as SMOFs miss the halcyon days when everyone read every SF book available, so will we soon reach the day when it's
    no longer possible to buy every Linux game; the rabble will well and truly have crashed the party.
    If Windows stays the main development platform for a while and the Linux game developers only port the games that have proven to be a market success we might have the chance of getting a higher quality level, allthough at the cause of later release dates, for linux games - which could do some good.

    Loki also has been working on open-source projects to improve how well Linux handles JPEG graphics files.
    Eh? Can someone explain this one to me?
    They published an open source installer for Linux and (methinks) also some libraries for showing mpeg films. Check out their website [lokigames.com] for more information.
  • What exactly is it that the coders are afraid of? Bundled-in games? Rapid adoption of linux? The article said nothing about coders fearing the adoption of Linux. In case you haven't noticed, most programmers actually *like* it when people use software that they have worked on -- an awful lot of us are proud of the things that we put our time and effort into.
    Personally, I am glad to see more LINUX games out there - but would be more worried about some of these games coming WITH linux on the game CDs, rather than the other way round. I can imagine the marketing spin on this "We need to standardise the Linux environment this game runs on, and have added to support the latest and greatest " - but what it would come down to is Linux becoming just a bootstrap for the game, and fragmenting as the different games implimentors drag it in different directions to suit their game engines.
    However, this WILL give an incentive for hardware manufacturers to release kernel module drivers for their newest and fastest, rather than the Linux community having to roll their own from unavailable specs and reverse-engineering of Dx6 drivers.....
    --
  • I think they must mean MPEGs - Loki's smpeg works pretty well and far better than xanim. Now if I could just find a DGA wrapper for all my regrettably windowed movies and games -- full-screen stuff always looks better, and Loki's player doesn't do it.
  • The best way to get drivers for Linux is to have a lot of cutting edge games. Companys have a lot of profits on the "gamer's new fancy gadgets" ,market, so it will became commercially sound to port the drivers to Linux in order to get a little more units sold. Also, the "Linux compatible" ckechbox is becoming more common in gamer's hardware reviews.
  • It's in work as we speak and is an improvement over the OSS system while maintaining compatibility with it for old apps.

  • Another dissenting voice (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I'm going to add another voice to the crowd pointing out that this is premature. Not only are games slow on Linux (because of the reasons other people have mentioned--no direct access to the hardware, and having to pipe things through X), but there just aren't a lot of commercial games on Linux yet. It's getting there--I know about XFree86 4.0, Loki producing new ports, etc... but it hasn't gotten there yet. Anyone who buys a Linux "gaming PC" with no previous knowledge of Linux is going to be vastly disappointed when they find that their frame rate is slow and they can play Civilization, Myth II, Doom, and Quake--but nothing else. This might create a few hackers, but it's also going to create large, angry, crowds of people who just assumed that "good for gaming" meant "runs games as fast as Windows, and I can go into a store and have dozens of selections of new games". They'll come away with the impression that Linux is junk, and it'll be a long time before we can recover from that. The only way gaming on Linux is going to popularize Linux is gradually. It does not make sense to buy a Linux PC for gaming, but it does if, say, 5% of what you want the computer for is gaming. As Linux gaming gets better, that number gets larger, bringing in more people on the fringes. By the time you get to 50%, Linux will have already won.
  • Yes you'd better thank Loki and other REAL game coders!

    If you want to win the desktop, the only way is to have games games and again games!


    There are 3 types of desktop buyers:


    -The Norton Virus folks. They won't buy Linux for another 5 years! And, in any case, they don't spend much on software!

    -The gamers. Give them games and they'll get it!
    And they buy a lot of software and hardware!

    -The sohos. The most advanced of them might give a try to Linux, but I doubt it, yet!

    So no desktop for Linux unless we get games, gamers will bring sohos in a few years and then the Norton folks!

    Otherwise, Linux will be a good SERVER, nobody will use it as anything else, and since most users will still be on Win95/98/2000...., they'll want NT on every BOX, and finally Linux like other Uni*s will start loosing ground except in some really invisible places!

    That will not bring money or any world domination to Linux!


    So beat it all of you lousy sys admins ;)

    Ciao
  • I'll add http://www.golgotha.org/ [golgotha.org], which isn't as dead as it looks, and will toot my own horn in a subdued manner *toot*
    Return Of The Son Of Spacewar (ROTSOS) [airwindows.com] is my codename for a collection of GPLed sample programs that do terrain generation, with some very impressive possibilities. There is a lot of information on what the algorithms/hacks are and why, and more to come, and GPLed code (think of it as pseudocode, it's 'REALbasic' Mac code) for everything, and there are pictures and movies there too. I made a special effort to make MPEG video despite not being able to afford the real tools (ASTARTE Mpack) to do it- anyone who was able to view the Phantom Menace trailers will be able to see longer movies in Sorenson Quicktime format. There are pictures illustrating the concept behind the terrain generation, and plots of the distribution of the universe generation algorithms.
    Who else is working on stuff that can be used for GPLed games? Come on, go public, the time is now! The more we can use good bits of each other's ideas, the better the whole field will be, without too much effort on any one developer's part. For instance, it's dead trivial to take the object placement variation on my terrain-gen code and use it to produce a consistent, godawfulhuge 2D map- and you could easily scale down the large dataset I use to produce a fairly large map from a very small datafile. You'd be basing it on tiles and getting specific index numbers for the tiles from the big virtual map- and would set up the distribution so that the result emerged with a style you liked. In some circumstances this could produce a map too large for any person to explore, so you might have a Warcraft-like thing in which network players would explore the world and discover neat clearings or forests or juxtapositions of natural resources and features like rivers or lakes- potential map situations that you the designer did not specifically put there, but which were emergent from the algorithms.
    Put stuff out there! Mix and match :)

  • I think Loki is heading in the right direction, and doing a good job of taking semi-new games and making them linux-playable. However, this is only the first step in getting Linux more gaming-viable (to the MASS market). While Civ:CtP and Heretic II are GREAT games, they are not new, and most gamers look for the "Latest, greatest" game to play, not something that came out months ago.

    I'm seeing more and more games being developed simultaneously for multiple platforms (WinXX/Linux/Macintosh). I feel this is the MOST important thing needed for OS's like Linux (and Macintosh!) to thrive on an equal basis with Microsoft Windows. (Lets face it gang, MS has so much money and so much of an installed user base, that even if we do make Linux out-perform Windows in all aspects, including desktop-usability, they will STILL be around, and software/games will STILL be developed for it).

    If you look at hot games like Quake3 and Neverwinter Nights(RPG) that are coming out. They are being developed for all 3 platforms. When they ship, I can play these exciting games on my linux machine! THIS makes Linux viable for people like me, a huge gamer that doesn't have the patience to wait XX months for the developer, Loki, or some other company to put out a Linux port for the game.

    Again, Linux ports of software thats already released helps a lot. But I wont be able to eliminate my Windows98 system partition til the day I know I can play the newest hottest games can be played on Linux.
    --
    Christopher Warden


  • minesweeper and solitaire don't count...
  • I remember when people began to switch from Amiga/Atari to PC's. Switching to it was a real pain in the ass. Installing onto a harddrive was uncommon (for many), searching for IRC and such was really wierd, editing autoexec.bat and config.sys was considered as black-magic.

    We all hated the new machines and the things we need to do in order to make it run and began to love our old machines even more. But we did it, just because there was a new blazing fast and exiting game waiting for us to be played. We needed it to run. So we accepted the pain.

    We all managed to install most things sooner or later. Installation after installation things were getting more common. First we had to ask friends how to do it, later we introduced other newbies. Now: "What does this mean for linux?"

    Most gaming kids are pretty fast learning, and they bring their own community with them. They got their own friends who help them out and they help out other kids wherever they can.

    It won't be the same as with the internet-newbies. There are many reasons why:

    • The users will be younger and (well, hopefully ;) smarter.
    • They bring thier own (allready mentioned) community.
    • For many internet-newbies it is serious business. So they need to get the knowledge, even if they aren't able to. So they tread the knowledgebases accordingly. Games are used for fun.

    I'm sure there will be more newbies on the mailing list. And the load will be remarkable. But some of those kids will want to learn more of this strange system called "linux". There will be a growth of the newbie programers and hackers too. And it will be something good.

    Linux shouldn't make the same mistake as BSD to consider itself as 'elite', (well, as far as I've heard of it) and shut the doors for a new kind of users.
    I think the linux community should think of themselves as a bunch of people wanting to have fun. A community that is ready to help anyone who is interested to do the same. A community who is proud that it has so many users that they use their own stable and sexy system. Because that's what it is.

  • If nobody pushed Linux as a web server platform before it was suitable, would it ever have become suitable?

    Yes. Apache development would have gone on whether or not linux existed. Linux was adopted as a webserver because it was a reliable free operating system that could run on X86 hardware.

    At one point, Linux wasn't suitable for anything.

    By the time Linus made his famous usenet announcement, Linux was free OS that ran on x86 , and had bash and gcc running on it. That in itself was somewhat exciting from the point of view of the free software movement. So yes, it was suitable even at this stage, as a toy for developers to hack at.

    What you just don't seem to get is that no one needed to push it. It did just fine on its merits , without some marketeers making misleading claims about what it could do.

  • I was playing Doom, Quake, Civ, & Mame while all you fools were recompiling your kernels on your 486 for the weekend. I'd rather have fun with my computer than waste CPU cycles recompiling yet another Kernel from your "blessed leader" to finally get that support for.

    Pardon? I was playing quake/q2/q3-test/ while compiling a kernel and ripping a cd this weekend. I think it is safe to say that if you are not using Linux, Free BSD, you would have a good deal of difficulty doing so.

    It's all about what you like man. I like compiling Kernels and fiddling with modules and struggling with perl and learning c and finding info about servlets. If you enjoy playing games, more power to you.

    Just for the record I'm not sure it is possible to waste cpu cycles, unless you consider an idle state to be a waste of cycles.

  • I have to agree that Penguin's price seems to be
    bloated a little, I went over there and price
    an AMD system, which came out to $1963, which I
    can get around $1400 or so. Probably less then that.

    It really depends on people I guess, some people who know how to build computer and knows their ways around, those people who will not want to buy an off the shelf system. On the other hand, a lot of people who don't want the hassle to build the hardware then setup the software are willing to pay money for the service.
  • Don't get me wrong. I also dislike people who immediately point the finger at you when something doesn't work, of course, without even researching the problem first. Unfortunately, this is the way the world works, and it most definately doesn't just stay confined to software users. I've found in my 10 years of building and supporting software, the most important ability a developer can possess is to have patience. Speaking of patience -- I have run out of it for Microsoft products and would love nothing more than to see Linux rain on Bill's party, but that will never happen unless more and more people use the OS. Even if that means having two annoying users for every good one.
  • What in the world are you talking about?? I'm running q3test on a PII 333 MHz with a VooDoo 3 3000 and 128 MB SDRAM, I can push 60-90 FPS at 1024x768. What HW are you talking about? I've benchmarked Q3Test on both platforms on the same machine and not only does Linux get higher fram rates, it also looks a little different (better in my opinion... You must not be using the right drivers or you have the VERY NEWEST HW..... and you can't tell me that the newest drivers for windows work well with the newest hardware, I'm in tech support, I know better.
  • Linus' opinion of games for pushing the limits of an OS are well known (and imortalized in fortune, with the quote: I've run DOOM more in the last few days than I have the last few
    months. I just love debugging ;-)
    (Linus Torvalds))

    If I remember correctly this was from the, er, days of yore when running DOOM well was a goal for the Linux kernel, and actually playing DOOM was, well the way of debugging. (It's been a while, and some of the facts are in dubitoubly screwy, but I think that is at least a semi-accurate summary.)

    --Akeru
  • An influx of newbies may indeed be a Good Thing(tm), but that doesn't mean we have to like it, nor have patience with people who don't _want_ to learn.

    --The Bogeymeister
  • What they fear is having to support multiple platforms. Remember the old days when a game came out on PC, Amiga, Atari ST, Commodore 64, etc.? This meant extra work for the developers, and usually more bugs introduced with the ports. When you support only windows, you have lower overheads.

    bakes
    --
  • This is way good news. One of the problems of Linux has been that some/much of bleeding edge hardware just wasn't supported. If companies see a gaming scene develop around Linux, then they will realize (much more so than the do already) that ignoring Linux (and thus not getting their hardware supported) will eat into their sales/profits.

    Maybe within a year or so we'll be able to buy PCs with all the modern hardware available and have all of it work without anymore headaches about hardware compatability ... this would be the last step Linux needs to really applicable to the masses ...

  • It seems we just need a better sound API.

    I think you've overestimated the current state of Linux. Without asynchronous I/O support there aren't many benefits in doing multithreading. (I've heard asynchronous I/O is coming in 2.4, though)

    I recently had to create a read-ahead thread system for playing huge MJPEG AVI files (2.5-3.0 MB/s). I was developing on Linux, but the system should ultimately run on IRIX. With the read-ahead thread, the AVI streaming took twice as long as without the read-ahead thread on Linux, but on IRIX the read-ahead thread worked as expected. This is because (and I am just guessing here) when the read-ahead thread called read(), all threads in the process was blocked.

    I expect Linux to have similar shortcomings in a lot of other areas. It is still an immature OS, but an incredibly stable one...

  • Remember this story [slashdot.org] a few weeks back about the Microsoft guy trying to install some Loki game on Linux at work to perform useability studies?

    Microsoft is working this angle already. They know that gaming is an important market in it's own right. The ability to play games well gives also gives the platform a lot of credibility. As others have pointed out, a lot of low-cost-but-high-end graphics development is done to support games too, which in turn benefits the platform in other areas.

  • Remember many gamers are used to the DOS days and messing about with all of DOS's annoyances.

    That's probally true, but most of them use Windows now with its, IMHO, much easier install program. And then there are the new gamers, who have very little idea what DOS is, and never really messed around with it. While DOS might have had it's annoyances, Windows for the most doesn't, so it will actually be like taking a step backwards to them.
  • If my memory serves me correctly Linux has been adopted as the development platform for the Playstation II.

    Looking back at the success of the PC/Windows/DOS etc... it is probably safe to say that games was the driving factor. Consumers purchase PCs for home use and their main reason is for games, they might justify their expenditure, because the PC can be used for Word Processing, Spreadsheets and Internet Access (versatility), but I believe that the main reason is entertainment and that means games.

    So, what can we do to encourage the expansion of development and the production of games titles that will eventually guarantee the adoption of Linux?

    We must make the development of entertainment software for Linux as easy as possible. We have to support the latest dedicated hardware accelerations to keep up with the competition, which will shortly be engulfed by further console releases.

    I think we should also support the entertainment corporations who have already started developing entertainment software for Linux (Loki for instance) perhaps even arrange communication lines between the developers of the games and the developers of system projects within the Linux development teams to ensure that we minimise the use of proprietary routines which could be GPLd and made available to all.

    I still think there is still space for platform emulators, at least going as far back as the 16-bit console era (some of those games were really playable and still are!)

    I hope someone will come forward to manage such projects I have described, and sadly, I wish I had mroe time.

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