Savage to Support Linux 259
focitrixilous P writes "Gamespot writes about the upcoming hybrid strategy game Savage: The Battle for Neweth, which will provide a full Linux edition on the same disk as the Windows version. The title blends real time strategy with action titles, along one player to act as a general while others do the actual fighting."
What a good idea! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:What a good idea! (Score:3, Informative)
Other's have though of it before. I bought a copy of Terminus a couple of years ago that had linux, windows, and mac binaries on them.
Dinivin
Re:What a good idea! (Score:3, Interesting)
believe it when you see it (Score:4, Insightful)
"the upcoming hybrid strategy game"
they've had the balls to announce it and we've heard it all before
Re:believe it when you see it (Score:2)
Re:What a good idea! (Score:3, Informative)
Mark
Re:What a good idea! (Score:2, Interesting)
As for the company and them having the balls to do it, I'm not surprised at all... a small company with a quality product like this... with technically inclined people is a perfect type of company to do this.
Re:What a good idea! (Score:4, Insightful)
And Windows users like to get all their games from their favorite warez iso source. Any other stereotypes you would like to bandy about?
I would pay for good Linux games!!! (Score:3, Insightful)
I want to buy UT2003 to be supportive and to send in my registration card stating it's playing under Linux, but I can't bring myself to do so because all the "improvements" made to UT2K3 have ruined gameplay. I can't bring myself to buying a gam
Re:I would pay for good Linux games!!! (Score:2)
Re:What a good idea! (Score:2)
Yes it is a stereotype. You can point to a very sizeable group of people who won't pay for games in the Windows market too. That's not the issue.
And yes "piracy" has been going on for awhile. Far longer than 5 years. I could provide examples from personal observation going back 20 years. And there are examples that date far back to the very dawn of personal computing (Gate's lett
Re:What a good idea! (Score:5, Insightful)
I figure if just this once, Slashdot put its money where its mouth is and bought the game, the gaming companies might realize what kind of a market there is. Linux is getting more desktop users every day. Keeping software portable isn't difficult if you keep your code multi-tiered and that relatively small effort gets income from Windows, Linux, XBox, etc... this seems to be a trend.
I thought this game sounded good, much like Allegiance or even Battlezone II. The graphics look nice, and I could use a new game. But normally I'd just wait until it hit shelves and take a look then.
But Linux support? Hell yeah. I just preordered this game from EB.
$39.99. That's $10 off, you get access to the ongoing beta when your order is confirmed (which Linux is a part of, per the article), a free comic about the game and Linux support in what looks to be a good game.
Not bad.
Publicity (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Publicity (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm quite glad for companies which do this, though. We already do this for other open source and proprietary products, but we've neglected games. If a company we support wants to get a bit of free publicity by submitting a story to Slashdot, they're free to do so. And if more people start hearing about games for Linux, that's one of the trifedecta of reasons for staying with Windows eliminated (the other two being a perceived lack of hardware support and legacy Windows applications). This can really only be a good thing; I can't see anything negative about it, especially considering how many adverts Slashdot already has.
Re:Publicity (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Multimedia support. Xine and Mplayer are great, if you can get them to work. I've had little trouble on SuSE but it's awfully flaky on Slackware, through my experience. Additionally, there's really precious little to compare to Premiere for video editing.
2. Games. I do play a lot of them. Thankfully, ZSNES and a lot of other emulators are available on Linux. This alleviates that tremendously. Unfortunately, Tux Racer isn't my idea of immersive entertainment.
3. Consistency. Red Hat/Mandrake's attempts to unify the desktops with Bluecurve/Galaxy, respectively, are one step in the right direction; now, if GTK+ would only fix that file picker dialog
With Wolfenstein, Neverwinter Nights, and now Savage, we're headed in the right direction. 1 down, 2 to go.
Re:Publicity (Score:3, Interesting)
Xine is t3h suck.
Mplayer is great, it's managed to play everything I've ever thrown at it.
The trick to installing mplayer is to use an RPM-based distro (RedHat 9 has worked really well for me), then download all the RPMs that their website tells you to. You need the base package, gui, and all the codecs and stuff. Then just 'rpm -i *.rpm' them, and there you go. If you're like me with a radeon card, make sure you're using X 4.3 with the radeon d
Re:Publicity (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Publicity (Score:2, Interesting)
It uses external libraries and codecs just like your player. If you don't like the horrible interface there are frontends for both mplayer and xine available, you can change the priority for any program you want (if you have root access, although its a security risk, still safer than running windows). You can even install a plugin to get mplayer working from your web browser.
Games may be lacking but playing me
Re:Publicity (Score:5, Insightful)
No, the trick is to actually read the docs and have an idea of what you are
doing. And no, rpm -i *.rpm doesn't qualify.
Sorry, I just hate laziness of thought and not too fond of those who advocate
such.
SealBeater
Re:Publicity (Score:2)
On SuSE, everything seemed to work fine. It took a little while to compile on my 500 MHz P3 box, but everything worked.
On Slackware, everything compiled fine, if by "compiled fine" I really mean "when you try to run it, it does absolutely nothing and doesn't even start up," which still doesn't make sense because ho
Re:Publicity (Score:2)
Does it print any messages? Mplayer usually prints tonnes of messages, so if you don't see any, then it's really screwed up. If it prints messages, try reading them. ;-)
Have you tried the -vo (video output) option? I think the default is mga--Direct access to a Matrox video card. Don't ask me why. If you have X set up properly, you probably want xv for the best performance. Otherwise x11 should work, but it's slow.
Re:Publicity (Score:2)
Re:Publicity (Score:2)
Installing Apache, SSL, etc. are completely different issues, but user end programs are meant to be used.
This is why I love Gentoo.
Re:Publicity (Score:3, Insightful)
doing. And no, rpm -i *.rpm doesn't qualify.
Sorry, I just hate laziness of thought and not too fond of those who advocate
such.
Ah, bite me. It's a video player. Would you prefer it if you got your DVD in a box with a hundred pieces that you have to assemble, after you've got a half-dozen other pieces that weren't included? I can compile the program, but the fewer programs I have to download the source and install a dozen developme
Re:Publicity (Score:2)
doing. And no, rpm -i *.rpm doesn't qualify.
I've compiled mplayer from source before, and as far as I'm concerned, it's one of the bigger PITAs out there. 'rpm -i *.rpm' has always been the easiest way to install mplayer.
Re:Publicity (Score:2)
Which driver is that?! According to ATI's site, they only have 4.1.0 and 4.2.0 supported versions of their 3D driver (Which is why I haven't upgraded past Redhat 8.0). Radeons have native 2D support in 4.3, but I'm not aware of any accelerated driver for 4.3.0. If I'm wrong, please correct me!
Re:Publicity (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Publicity (Score:2)
Re:Publicity (Score:2)
Dinivin
Re:Publicity (Score:2)
It's accelerated, in the sense that the 3d opengl screensavers that come with xscreensaver run quickly, but I've never bothered to try playing 3d games with it.
Re:Publicity (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Publicity (Score:2)
yes, my GNU/Linux from Scratch distro is da-bomb at RPM stuff... *cough* (goes away to use xine which was built from source and has no playback problems whatsoever...).
people on this thread are comparing apples and oranges; they are comparing different versions of xine-lib on different platforms and wondering why one is more stable than the other. it is quite obvious that a more recent bug-fixed version will be more stable. if your distro's ins
Re:Publicity (Score:2)
Every time I've ever used it, on any number of distros, it drops frames like a mofo and segfaults every opportunity that it gets... plus, the UI is UGLY. I'll take mplayer over xine anyday.
Re:Publicity (Score:2)
Well, you could try LiVES [xs4all.nl]
Re:Publicity (Score:2)
Thanks for the link.
Re:Publicity (Score:4, Interesting)
1) Linux users are soon to outnumber Mac users. See here [macopinion.com] for a Mac user's take on this.
2) Since OS-X is based on BSD, making a Linux OR Mac version of an app is doing most of the ground work for the other anyway. If you're going to go after one minority market, why put in another 5% effort and go after the other as well?
Re:Publicity (Score:2, Insightful)
This is how Slashdot folklore gets started. You're obviously referring to that ridiculous article posted a while back on Slashdot that said Linux would overtake Apple in the desktop market in a year. Everyone ridiculed that article. Linux will not beat Apple in the desktop market. Not until people get their shit together.
But, there are those who refer to it as truth long enough, and now it's morphed into "Linux users are soon to outnumber Mac users." This
Re:Publicity (Score:2)
This is not entirely surprising, although it depends on how IDG measured what a "Linux desktop" user is (what if they dual boot etc). Linux generally has a very low barrier to entry, whereas Macs have a very high barrier to entry.
Now, instead of flaming the article and anybody who dares comment on it, why don't y
Re:Publicity (Score:3, Informative)
This much is true.
But, unless you're running the X server for OSX, that's about were it stops. The entire graphics, sound and control systems are completely different if you're building an Aqua application (native OSX). Unless you're using some crossplatform GUI like wxPyhton or QT or something, or openGL (which OSX uses) you're going to have a hell of time making that game fully compatible
Re:Publicity (Score:3, Interesting)
And a lot of those are using SDL for input/screen handling etc.
For most games, the window system is irrelevant, because they just need input + accelerated fullscreen graphics.
Sound is still pretty platform specific, but OpenAL is getting there.
Eventually windows devs are going to realise that using COM from C++ is a complete nightmare, when all you want to do is actually *use* a library. Hopefully they'll start using SDL/OpenGL/OpenAL etc when that happens. Not ho
Re:Publicity (Score:2)
Don't see what's so hard about compiling a game for multiple targets, especially if you used Qt or something to hide all of the OS personality issues.
Targeting Linux might just lure a purchase out of me, for all first-person and real-time games don't byte my naughty bits...
Re:Publicity (Score:2)
knoppix (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:knoppix (Score:2)
Re:knoppix (Score:2, Funny)
2. Include knoppix cd
3. Answer billion support calls
4. ?
5. Bankruptcy!
Graphics Drivers (Score:3, Interesting)
its the drivers silly (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Graphics Drivers (Score:3, Informative)
On a side note, I recently read an article about some programmers that said it was actually unbelievably easy to port their program to *nix from Windows. It was however an application/design program and not a game, but hell if Winex wo
Re:Graphics Drivers (Score:2)
There used to be patent reasons why UT2k3 wouldn't work on DRI drivers, but now that was solved. But then there were technical reasons why UT2k3 didn't work on DRI drivers, and those are sort of solved. The game is just fine in DRI (but there are a few glitches and such).
And the ATI binary only DRI drivers do them just fine as well.
Sunny Dubey
Portability in Linux (Score:5, Insightful)
I do get a bit pessimistic, and should probably RTFA
Re:Portability in Linux (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Portability in Linux (Score:3, Interesting)
Seeing as they'd never ship source for their game, I'm sure it's x86 binaries.
I guess that kills my plans of firing it up on my DEC Alpha...
Re:Portability in Linux (Score:2)
Gotta love these guys even without the PPC port, the programmer responsible for the GNU/Linux port posting on the LG comment threads for Savage and very much feeling like he's "with us". And this one really seems like an original game
PowerPC Linux and Games... (Score:2)
It may be x86 only, but it's probably more because the developer doesn't know about what all Linux and GCC can do for them. I'll bet they're compiling on a specific distribution and linking against specific libs from the same.
Whi
Java games (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Java games (Score:2)
My beef with Java is the fact most implementations (which are mostly Sun's) use JIT compilers instead of compiling it at install time. JIT is good for small programs which are only run once, but for everyday programs, it is a PITA. Not only does the thing take forever to start up, but it will often load a class while I am running the program. Select menu item....wait thirty seconds....get dialog box, make choices.....wait thirty seconds....returns to program. It sucks bigtime.
I don't know why Sun is so ob
Re:Portability in Linux (Score:2)
Re:Portability in Linux (Score:2)
I doubt a port to another processor would be just a recompile. I'm sure they wrote much of it in C, but many games use assembly for the critical sections. If the developers know the target processor, a port may not be a huge amount of work, but it will take time and resources the company may not be willing to spend. However, if they are working on a Mac port (I think they are), they'll have to translate the assembly anyway, so whatever processor current Macs run (PPC?) will probably get support in Linux...
Re:Portability in Linux (Score:2)
Red Hat is a Linux on x86 [redhat.com] distribution; it would hardly be fair to hold game manufacturers to a higher standard than their largest commercial target.
This is not to say that supporting many available hardware platforms is not a good thing to do. Only that many of the distribution organizations are incapable or unwilling to provide the suppo
Re:Portability in Linux (Score:2)
Linux gaming is synonymous with Linux on x86 gaming, yes. If you're waiting for it to take off on the Alpha platform, regardless of OS, you're going to be waiting a long time.
Re:Portability in Linux (Score:2)
All the people with Alphas as desktop PCs who are gaming fanatics and use their Alphas to play all the latest games, please put your hand up.
Right. I've finished counting you. I counted half a hand, but I think that was just a guy with a broken arm who couldn't put it all the way down.
Seriously, you must be some kind of weirdo if you think people are going to support all the platforms that run Linux. Think yourself lucky that decided to support ANY linux platform.
I bet you also start up that "
Where have i heard this again.. hmm.. (Score:2)
Can you Say NeverWinter Nights? (Well at least they DID release a Linux client)
I don't see why this is so difficult. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I don't see why this is so difficult. (Score:5, Insightful)
Smart designers plan for multi-platform use early on. Quake 3 was written portably, and its engine is in use on platforms as exotic as Sega Dreamcast and Playstation 2! And probably many more non-PC type computers. And it's used by a lot of other games too! (Nevermind the fact that those games play almost exactly like Quake 3. I'd like to see an RPG based on the Q3 engine, huh?)
BTW, it must be incredibly painful for anyone who writes a complex 3d graphics engine to hear you say that it's "minor work".
Re:I don't see why this is so difficult. (Score:3, Insightful)
I meant that it was relatively minor work compared to the rest of the game -- I have undertaken many simpler engine-building tasks and can say how daunting things like memory management can be in a game that needs to track hundreds or thousands of obj
Re:I don't see why this is so difficult. (Score:3, Insightful)
The design, artwork, and programming all go to some degree in parallel. And it is very true that many aspects of the process can be brought across platforms. But programming and debugging, once you hit the optimization phase, becomes problematic. Optimizations can cause problems on one console but not another, and fixes for such problems can break the first one. Keeping t
Re:I don't see why this is so difficult. (Score:2)
Re:I don't see why this is so difficult. (Score:5, Informative)
This is not to intimate that there are renderware or gamebryo platform licences available. I'll put it another way, until a signifigant number of gamers say "I will pay 50$ for a game only when it hits linux natively (not transgaming or others)" then is when you will see linux reach parity with the Mac or windows. Currently, our research shows that hard core gamers that use linux are not loathe to reboot into windows or use an emulation technology. Until that changes, the state of linux gaming won't change either.
Also, describing the engine as minor shows you don't understand the state of AAA gaming. The engine would comprise a scenegraph, an interface to the video hardware (either via opengl, directx, console video, or a software renderer like pixomatic), the positional sound or mappings to other libraries like miles, AI connectors, physics or physics tie-ins to havoc, networking, matchmaking, and a variety of other components. Keep in mind that you can make most of this cross platform, but it's not like it just happens magically.
Chris DiBona
Chris Resists Smacking with a +1 short bus helmet (Score:3, Informative)
Suppose you decide to use Crystal Space, for instance, I can't really find out if there is any real tool support for max or maya that you'd get with a renderware or ndl licence. Those plugins are really kind of important to a number of studios.
All I'm saying with my post is that cross
wrong rationale methinks (Score:2)
LINUX GAMING MODE (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:LINUX GAMING MODE (Score:2)
Now if hardware allowed running multiple OSes then you could run wild with your imagination... but that's an x86 flaw.
Re:LINUX GAMING MODE (Score:3, Insightful)
This approach should be nothing new to hardcore gamers, or even
Re:LINUX GAMING MODE (Score:2)
Why not include the option with linux to boot it into a special "Gaming Mode" that loads only what is needed to play games and nothing else? Would this make them run faster than on Windows that forces 100's of MB of crap to load no matter what.
You mean like using the different run levels?
Linux and Windows on the same CD? (Score:3, Funny)
Someone has done this before (Score:3, Informative)
Unreal Tournament 2003 [unrealtournament2003.com] runs fine under Linux. You have to watch out for the installer bug and the supermount bugs but those problems and their work-arounds are well documented [ina-community.com]
Good on them, but how about this? (Score:3, Interesting)
No Single Player? (Score:2, Interesting)
As for playing "General" let's be realistic here. The chances of getting that seat is slim since you can only have one general per team.
Mac Gamers! (Score:5, Funny)
Reminds me of that Mac Gamers video... Photoshop.
Linux version runs well (Score:3, Interesting)
Linux and PC version??? (Score:3, Interesting)
Anyway, i believe it's like telling people the difference in "hacker" and "cracker".
Re:Linux and PC version??? (Score:2)
Yeah, one breaks in to computers and the other is a derogatory term for a white person or a dry food served with peanut butter or in soup.
Re:Linux and PC version??? (Score:2)
To all the NWN trolls (Score:5, Informative)
Patches for the beta are released at the same time for linux and windows and linux performances are equal or better than windows (if you run a lightweight WM, or no WM at all and no other proggy, you WILL see a difference).
Every features of the game, even the little graphical details no one would notice are in the Linux version, auto updater included.
So, there, if you dare miss this game cuz of all the FUD you see here, I'm really sorry for you.
Re:To all the NWN trolls (Score:2)
I'm not missing out on NWN because of the FUD. I'm not buying it because I was a very happy little linux gamer when I paid tuxgames my $50 for the game about 2 weeks before it was due out. And then out came the Windows version, and the Linux version was "delayed". And kept being delayed. Finally, SIX MONTHS LATER, I cancelled my order and got my money back. Saying you're going to release the linux client
Re:To all the NWN trolls (Score:2)
There were too many people saying that savage would be the next NWN when everything points to the fact that they are on schedule to release the linux version at the same time as the windows version.
Hell, they could even release the linux version first, but they want one box for both version, and frankly, its the best they can do.
Re:To all the NWN trolls (Score:2)
Still, theres lots of bug reports about crashes on windows... though its not that bad and for most of the windows tester its perfectly stable. It must have something to do with all those Dell, HP and Gateway machines out there...
Disclaimer: this what I have found out so far, I may be totaly wrong. Dont take what I wrote for granted.
...And it's a good game, too! (Score:5, Interesting)
I would recommend Savage to any gamers who run Linux - keep this one on your watch list.
Already there! (Score:2, Funny)
http://www.xfree86.org/4.1.0/savage.4.html
(It's a joke, dang it!)
Sounds Like BS (Score:2)
Demo? (Score:2)
-
Re:Demo? (Score:2)
-
Huh? (Score:3, Interesting)
What? Small? How many recent games ship on one disk or dont consume over a GB of space?
Currently installed:
Medieval Total War - 1.96GB
Vice City - 1.57 GB
Half Life with Mods - 1.1GB
Mafia - 1.87 GB
Midnight Club 2 - 1.49GB
Never Winter shipped on 3, Splinter Cell on 3, etc.
Storage is cheap both CD and HDD, but games are hardly small these days.
They *are* small.... (Score:2)
Actually, I find games quite small nowadays. I still have "The 7th Guest" lying about, which was on 2CDs back when my HDD was 120mb and my CD reader a 1x! My HDD size has increased by three orders of magnitude (10^3), but the size of the biggest games have been at most tripled (Wing Commander IV, Baldurs Gate 2).
Through better compression of both video and sound, and rendering instead of movies, I feel we're getting more and more gam
On same CD - Bad Idea? (Score:2)
Re:Honor the GPL (Score:2)
Return your computer to the store, you paid for it.
Empty your fridge and dump all your food, you paid for it.
Toss your fridge, you or someone paid for THAT.
Move out of your house/apartment, you pay for that.
I think I've made my point...
Re:[redundant?] Ender's WHAT? (Score:3, Informative)
Anyway, this game sounds
Re:[redundant?] Ender's WHAT? (Score:2)
Re:Neverwinter Nights Deja Vu (Score:2)
That'll last up right until the point that the Windows version is ready and there are still problems with the Linux version. Or the point when it's late and they need to commit all of their resources towards getting the Windows version shipped.
Re:Neverwinter Nights Deja Vu (Score:2)
At the beginning, they promised to have Windows, Mac, Linux, AND BeOS support. Be died, so they dropped that, which is logical. I don't know if they ever finished the Mac port...