Linux Gaming after Loki 226
mahdi13 writes "Linux Hardware has a great story about the past, present and future of Linux Gaming in 2003. They briefly touch on the commercial games available and what will be available for Linux in the near future. It is a good read and contains excellent information to keep the Linux Gamers satisfied with what is commercially available."
Satisfied? (Score:3, Insightful)
Come on! No Linux gamer with his stuffed penguin would say that it is possible for him to be satisfied with what is commercially available for Linux.
Re:Satisfied? (Score:3, Insightful)
The only thing that is more pathetic than a Mac gamer [redvsblue.com] is someone who claims to be a Linux gamer. Let's face it, if you want to play games then you need to run Windows. Like people in the TiVo thread keep saying... why waste time building a homebrew PVR when you can just buy a TiVo? Use the best product for the job. Windows is the absolute best OS out there for gaming at this point unless you want to play on a console.
Last real area (Score:3, Insightful)
Ask anyone and they will say that the availability of games, and even decent graphics drivers on Linux is really behind that of Windows. So if you have the ocassional home user who want to play a games, even a demo off a cover disk they aren't going to be going for Linux are they? Mind you they could just as easy go for a PS2
rus
The Final Barrier (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Satisfied? (Score:4, Insightful)
I might not be a "real gamer" (used to be though), but I do play a bit and strongly object to "if you want to play games you need to run Windows". Sure, if you absolutely have to get all the latest ones that got 90%+ in game mags, then you need Windows, but the titles that you can purchase for Linux are just fine for someone who does more things than just gaming on his computer.
We've got Heroes3, Kohan, FreeCiv, Alpha Centauri, ASC, Lgeneral - all those games have a huge replay value so I think the strategists are covered.
We continuously get the latest in first person shooters thanks to Epic and ID.
And now, for those who like RPG's, there's NWN which has a great multiplayer, can be written mods for. Shouldn't get old too soon.
Re:The Final Barrier (Score:3, Insightful)
That's not really true. Though I agree games are an extremely attractive feature of Windows, the fact is that it's a decent OS. Lots of apps, easy to use, easy to install, lots of places to get help with it, etc. (Note: I only speak of Windows 2k and even XP, Windows 95, 98, ME, and related are complete garbage. I will not defend those flavors.)
Linux has arguably gained ground in most of those areas, but it's still got its rough areas. It's strength in the home market is not it's CLI or it's automation or remote administration capabilities. Frankly, nobody gives a rat's ass about that. What they do care about is beinng able to do lots of stuff with their computer. They want to go to the store and buy a new game or an app. They want to buy a new doohickey like an MP3 player and connect it all up and make it work. The problem is if you go to CompUSA, there's virtually no mention of Linux.
Linux may be superior in nearly every aspect compared to Windows, but not necessarily in the areas that are important to mass-market audiences. Frankly, I think just getting a few apps on store shelves that are just for Linux would go a long way. You'd be surprised how much perception plays a role in all this. It's not that surprising, though. For people to climb any learning curve, they need to be interested in it.
Re:The Final Barrier (Score:3, Insightful)
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Do you use CS Skins? [games-fusion.net]
Re:Last real area (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't feel that way.
Let's see, OpenOffice is still a dog compared to M$ Office. It takes forever to launch, and many times just doesn't handle things as smoothly (even the positioning of bullets) that M$ Office can. Its nowhere near as robust. Granted, one can see its on track, and M$ has had quite a long time to get where it is in comparison to OpenOffice, but it is still behind.
As well, don't forget that with any windoze program, I double click, and it installs, and finds the libraries it needs (or just installs them itself). One click. I don't have to tar xzvf filename, and then compile it. Or rpm -i filename, or urpmi -prayitfindsfilename, or whatever.
And most linux distros are way behind font-wise. A few lately seem to have "caught up," and I would contend RH 9 is actually better looking than windoze, imho.
Now, these issues don't make linux "behind" for me personally, as I feel that my learning (slowly) Linux has taught me more about my computer itself. But in a commericial/home user sense, Linux still has a way to go.
And yes, games are a big deal. One could successfuly argue that upgrade mania only exists due to games, since a great majority of business apps really could have frozen their features years ago, without the "perty" looks.
Re:What about Transgaming (Score:4, Insightful)
I think you'd have more credibility for this opinion if you didn't obviously have a grudge against TransGaming. If you were a subscriber, you should have clearly known that not all games would work, in fact, probably only the ones they support would work. This is made very clear at every stage.
They are bad open-source citizens, and they blatantly lied to me when they said that after a certain number of subscribers, they would release their source code to Wine. I don't care what excuses anyone makes for Transgaming; the fact is that they said it, and now they don't.
I believe they said they'd release their code when they reached 20,000 subscribers. Gav did set a figure, I think that's what it was, not 100% sure. Clearly they are a long way off that figure at the moment. I'd note that TransGamimg have released large amounts of code back to WineHQ - not all of it no, but quite a bit. A lot of the DirectDraw code, the SHM wineserver (though for various reasons that wasn't merged), DCOM code etc etc.
I can't count the number of people that run Quake 3 Arena in WineX... I've talked to them myself, so I KNOW that it's true. I just don't understand this.
Who cares? APIs are just a set of rules about how to invoke system services. Are you going to crusade against games that don't use SDL next, for not being pure enough? You clearly don't understand the nature of the Win32 APIs if you think MS can "break" them - sure they can introduce new things, and remove things, but so can Wine, and randomly removing or changing interfaces in an OS update would just break all their customers software - they cannot do this, and never have.
If Q3 Arena works great under WineX and they want to use it, why not? For all I know, it's easier than installing it under Linux - if they have the CD next to them, why not use it?
Furthermore, WineX hurts Linux's chances of getting native ports.
Nobody has ever actually proven this, it's merely conjecture. A Tale In The Desert was ported to Linux despite the fact that people were running it in Wine just fine months before the official port was ready.
What definately does hurt Linuxs chances of native ports however are a lack of gamers. Wine can only help that situation.
What happens in a few years from now, when WineX is good enough that it can run a lot of games, and then Microsoft sues Transgaming?
Your paranoia is bizarre. What, pray tell, would Microsoft sue TransGaming for? Reimplementations of other companies technologies is legally established as being just fine. Wine has been around for nearly a decade, the most MS have done is put slightly dubious things in the EULAs of their own software - things that probably wouldn't stand up in court either.
The fact is, you appear to be horrendously ill informed, paranoid and blame the economics of Linux gaming on users being "too fucking cheap". Right.
Let me ask you this. If a game works just fine in Wine what in gods name is the justification for producing a version that uses "native" APIs? Let's conveniently ignore the fact that SDL is cross platform, hardly Linux "native". Microsoft has no control over its own APIs you realise - the most they can do is extend them, in which case new games may use technology Wine doesn't implement for a few months, but for older games they cannot be broken.
You appear to take for granted that "native" ports are better than a version that uses the Win32 API, despite the fact that there are virtually no Linux-specific APIs around. X? Cross platform. SDL? Cross platform. GTK? Cross platform. Even GLIBC is cross platform. Your position makes no sense at all, and your wild fatalism just spreads FUD whether you intend it to or not.
Sorry. (Score:2, Insightful)
Windows is not "the best OS for gaming". It is the worst, and will continue to be the worst for many years to come.
It simply has the most commercial games available. That is important, don't get me wrong. But it's easy to imagine many of those, if not all, having superior stability and/or available resources on anything other than windows. Windows is a bad joke, and I wish you subhuman microsoft groupies would quit telling it.
Come on (Score:3, Insightful)
Games (Score:1, Insightful)
- PC/Windows is currently the most popular non-console platform, I don't know what's the status of the Apple/MacOS platform, but I susptect that it's not as big.
- Linux is an Operating System made for a different purpose then games
Fact is, games, at least the most popular, are hardware hungry, Linux is not dssigned to let user applications have it's way with the hardware, and for good reasons: stability and security, which Windows lacks in comparison, but is better for games. Linux is for long run stability, Windows is for short term performance. Still Windows is crap and is unfortunatly the best solution for non-console games.
I think what we need is a NEW OS, DESIGNED just for games. It should be more stable the Windows, have better hardware access/performance then Linux and of course have decent security. This "gaming OS" should be able to play current Windows based games for compatibility, but should give better performance/stability if they are developped natively for this OS.