There are quite a lot of surprising sales amounts in Indie games that have made their games available to Windows, Mac and Linux. How long can the bigger names ignore that continuously growing potential market area is what I'm waiting to see.
Sometimes i wonder how it would feel living in a world where no Port it to Linux! threads exist. I think your chances increase due to Android in the future.
Yes and no as Android is not your normal GNU/Linux system. They have the kernel sure but everything on top of that is quite custom. Personally I would expect more results on that field via MeeGo if Intel and Nokia get it going nicely. At least the first netbook image showed promise.
Part of the problem is that there does not exist something like a normal Linux distribution, so depending on what technologies you use, you usually better stick with one or a few specific distributions like for instance Ubuntu (Desktop, Netbook). Android on the other side has some hype and steam behind it and it fits well for those upcoming tablets for instance.
Part of the problem is that there does not exist something like a normal Linux distribution, so depending on what technologies you use, you usually better stick with one or a few specific distributions like for instance Ubuntu (Desktop, Netbook).
I agree that supporting a few specific Linux distributions is the best idea. However, unlike the common belief that supporting one distribution will not bring support to others is rather wrong.
Selecting wisely you will support every fresh enough distribution, even Debian. All you need to support is OpenGL graphics (performance varies according to users hardware just like in Windows/OS X) and ALSA will give audio support for Pulseaudio. You can also increase the support by providing the some of the key library files that your software needs to work. Not that different from Windows where some dll's come with games. Just look at the new Sam&Max season which brings:
fmodex.dll - Torque game audio engine
QtCore4.dll
QtGui4.dll
QtNetwork4.dll
QtWebKit4.dll
Personally I find that those persons that use some obscure Linux distribution made by ten buddies and endorsed by couple twenty of their friends are usually that much tech savvy people that they will know themselves how to make desktop links or find the proper libraries for games if they just get a tgz packaged version of the game or optionally can use rpm2cpio/rpm2targz to extract the files from package.
Android on the other side has some hype and steam behind it and it fits well for those upcoming tablets for instance.
Still, Android unfortunately is not a Linux distribution in the traditional way, so building support for it won't bring support to Linux desktops. Don't get me wrong, I think Android is pretty great and has a lot of opportunities to make profit in consumer field. I'd be interested myself to get an Android based device, especially if there was a mp3/ogg/flac/etc supporting competitor to ipod.
It's doable but then again, speaking out of practice, there are a few showstoppers. Quality of the OpenGL drivers, minor but annoying differences in the ditributions, ..., as i said it depends on what you want to do, the technologies you're using and you better make this crystal clear to the end user or primary test it for one or a few distributions you would like to do ongoing support as well.
Afterwards there still is the question how much this increases sales and if it's worth the effort. I wouldn't mind if there would be a Linux version but honestly i also would prefer if things get more optimized on the already supported platforms first.
Linux=server, accepted since a long time.
Linux=desktop, still a problem in many use cases.
Supporting Android on multitouch devices makes sense due to Google, although it seems to take some time until some/more reasonable hardware sees the light of day.
It's doable but then again, speaking out of practice, there are a few showstoppers. Quality of the OpenGL drivers, minor but annoying differences in the ditributions, ..., as i said it depends on what you want to do, the technologies you're using and you better make this crystal clear to the end user or primary test it for one or a few distributions you would like to do ongoing support as well.
I do have to admit that I do not have experience in doing OpenGL+sound+etc programming, so I can't really say in depth how developing games is like on Linux but I do have to say I'm curious as to what kind of minor differences you are referring to?
My understanding of major distribution (I'm deriving my knowledge from Fedora/RHEL, Ubuntu/Linux Mint/Debian, OpenSUSE/SUSE, Gentoo) differences is that there isn't that much. Of course I view this mainly from available software package version per distribution point of view. In which Debian is the only one lagging behind unless you choose the unstable version.
Distribution package management is something that I myself do not think to be a major difference. It's just like providing an installer or packaging the files in a zip/tar/etc but with added scripting support and other handy bits.
Afterwards there still is the question how much this increases sales and if it's worth the effort. I wouldn't mind if there would be a Linux version but honestly i also would prefer if things get more optimized on the already supported platforms first.
I am really interested to see a major name producing a Linux game and how they fare in sales. Of course id Software has made their games available to Linux but haven't heard much how well they sell but only that they will keep on supporting Linux with new titles. Personally I've really enjoyed playing Quake 4, Doom 3, etc. on Linux.
Linux=server, accepted since a long time.
Linux=desktop, still a problem in many use cases.
Supporting Android on multitouch devices makes sense due to Google, although it seems to take some time until some/more reasonable hardware sees the light of day.
Personally having used Linux desktop mainly for over 10 years now, those little annoyances that existed some time ago have quite much gone to history. Of course there can be things that you do in a certain way in Linux desktops that I've gotten used to that Windows/OS X users have to find out from somewhere.
Telltale has been porting games to new platforms like crazy the last few months.
Combined with the rumours of a Steam client for Linux, I'd say our chances are looking better and better.
@jpalko
I'll keep this brief because i don't wanna find myself in a endless Linux vs. XYZ discussion, so:
Just because OpenGL exists for a specific system, doesn't say anything about the reliability and the performance. This depends on the OS, the gfx card vendor, is it the 32bit or the 64bit version, the revision, ...
Some systems work quite fine, others don't work at all. I've never come across a PC where i couldn't install a Windows but where several Linux distribution all had their problems.
We did a sparetime project which was released for Win/OSX and Linux. From the download and usual conversionrate stats i would say that there is a significant amount of Linux machines out there and that there are people who also would like to spend money on Linux but there also exists a large userbase who thinks that everything should be for free. I suspect if TTG supports Linux it will be part of the PC/MAC deal, so you get the platform support more or less for free and they enlarge their userbase to a certain degree.
I tried Linux several times, first time installing a Unix on my own was BSD on an Amiga, but it sucked every time i tried using it as a desktop, missing the right apps, creepy user interface, hardware components were not recognized, awful driver support&performance. Unix is/was great is OSX, Solaris, Irix and AIX though.
@jpalko
I'll keep this brief because i don't wanna find myself in a endless Linux vs. XYZ discussion, so:
Yup, the Internet is full enough already of threads that go "my os is better than your os". Use what works for you best, for me it's Linux and for someone else it can be OS X or Windows or FreeBSD or OpenBSD or NetBSD or whatever.
Just because OpenGL exists for a specific system, doesn't say anything about the reliability and the performance. This depends on the OS, the gfx card vendor, is it the 32bit or the 64bit version, the revision, ...
Well, that you get with Windows as well, you have DirectX (DX9/DX10/DX11), but is the OS 32bit or 64bit (XP/Vista/7), what is the revision of the users display card driver and is it ati/amd or nvidia. I don't really count much of the others here as gamers tend to have mainly either of these two. nvidia driver at least hasn't gotten autoupdated on any Windows I've used ever if I install the driver I got from their website which has been better than the one Windows provides in Vista/7. Only Steam GUI has notified me to the fact that I should update my display driver while I've started a game.
At the moment with Linux it's mainly OpenGL ES2.0 for mobile devices, OpenGL 2.0 for old graphics cards, OpenGL 3.2/3.3 for new cards with major distributions that are updated frequently enough and OpenGL 4.0 with the latest cards and drivers.
Regarding 64bit, I've found it annoyingly low how much the gaming industry has taken to make 64bit utilizing versions of games. Most Windows games are only 32bit even though 64bit has been available since XP Pro 64bit and with it you got really nice improvements to Far Cry 1 and Valve made their 64bit support already back then to Source Engine.
Some systems work quite fine, others don't work at all. I've never come across a PC where i couldn't install a Windows but where several Linux distribution all had their problems.
This is interesting how different cases I've gotten in regards to this. My experience with machines is quite the reverse. Go figure. I buy almost newest hardware also and not some already flea-bitten parts. Then again I mainly buy components to get better parts and build my machines myself. Never bought a supermarket ready built system.
At work I am happy that my employer uses mainly lenovo/IBM laptops which traditionally have had their small quirks but in general work great with Linux. They do have their quirkier models still too but those can be easily avoided.
We did a sparetime project which was released for Win/OSX and Linux. From the download and usual conversionrate stats i would say that there is a significant amount of Linux machines out there and that there are people who also would like to spend money on Linux but there also exists a large userbase who thinks that everything should be for free. I suspect if TTG supports Linux it will be part of the PC/MAC deal, so you get the platform support more or less for free and they enlarge their userbase to a certain degree.
I have a lot of contacts on Linux side who use that same argument that games should be free. I don't think we are quite yet ready as a civilization for the Star Trek utopian society where every progress is shared but we should consider that idea also sometimes. We are still missing that kick in the behind that forces us to rethink our goals as a galactic civilization.
I tried Linux several times, first time installing a Unix on my own was BSD on an Amiga, but it sucked every time i tried using it as a desktop, missing the right apps, creepy user interface, hardware components were not recognized, awful driver support&performance. Unix is/was great is OSX, Solaris, Irix and AIX though.
Sounds like my Windows use after I'd gotten used to Linux. Everything is just in the wrong place there and I can't get those apps that I'd need installed with the OS, etc.
But in regards to history, loved Amigas, liked Solaris when I still did Unix sys admin work (pity it might die away now with Oracle messing it up, at least a lot of companies are ditching it for Linux/Windows) and I do understand the feeling users have gotten in the past from Linux Window managers. They used to be quite horrendous at one time and I myself loved one that you had to use a text editor to make your own config file, fvwm and fvwm2.
Of course you also get that on Windows, that's why i wrote it depends on the OS, but the overall situation still is better there, assuming manual installs.
Yep, Linux has its problems on older hardware components. Thinkpads were nice until Lenovo took over. If you want some quality and can afford it, i nowadays would primary go with Sony.
I'm all in for this Utopia but people also need to pay their bills, so it needs changes not only on one front.
Yep, it's quite depressing that Solaris ended up with Oracle, i have no idea and couldn't be bothered investigating what they want with it. Oracle is a weird company.
Linux started as a hack and it was quite obvious for many years. What Linux misses is a standad distribution or distributions with standards and a lot more work on the usability front, throwing away everything you don't really need and optimizing the parts which are important.
Technical enhancements as well as a change of mind regarding buying software could breed some standard apps which make the platform a lot more attractive. You don't need this for browsing the web or writing some emails but personally, at least at this point, i couldn't use it in a productive way nor do i want to due to the user interface.
What Linux misses is a standad distribution and a lot more work on the usability front, throwing away everything you don't really need and optimizing the parts which are important.
I think the main problem with a standard distribution is that it cannot come as a commercial product from a commercial vendor due to the nature of Linux/GNU/etc community. The user community wouldn't accept it. The only pretty much standard distributions currently are Fedora, Debian and Ubuntu. However, I would very much like to drop Debian from that list as it lags behind due to it's, well, how to put it politically correct, it's development style and licensing views. I'm all for the openness it's ideals represent but that Utopia is still not here.
On the other hand I think that Intel and Nokia are doing great work in netbook area currently with MeeGo in simplifying the user experience and I'd recommend giving it's netbook liveimage version 1.0 a go if you got a Intel graphics card (except GMA500) laptop to test it with.
Technical enhancements as well as a change of mind regarding buying software could breed some standard apps which make the platform a lot more attractive.
Personally I can do my home digital photography improvements with a Linux native commercial software called Bibble 5 Pro and burn my CD's and DVD's with Nero Linux 4 and I've got my codecs and DVD player from Fluendo. Not to mention a whole bunch of commercial games I've bought over the years for Linux.
Personally I think that the Linux user base is quite ready and willing to buy commercial software as long as we get quality software and not a second class citizen versions for the same amount of cash that Windows or Mac users pay. In my personal opinion doing crossplatform software from the start is the best choice nowadays. Like the way Unigine is doing their gaming engine in such a way that it supports the features of all the target environments.
You don't need this for browsing the web or writing some emails but personally, at least at this point, i couldn't use it in a productive way nor do i want to due to the user interface.
I do understand this feeling quite well since I have it with Windows, I just can't be productive nor creative there. Every time I start Windows up and would have to do work on it, I end up shutting it down and booting up Linux instead because I can't get the GUI to match the way I like things to be nor the apps to behave in the way I like. I guess I've just grown accustomed to the way things work in Linux having used it at work and home for more than 10 years now.
The best chances Linux has is that one distribution is just doing whatever is needed to get a reasonable OS out. Ubunutu looks like there is some driving force behind and it's the big chance that Android has with Google.
Actually i try to avoid Intel gfx wherever i can. :O)
Crossplatformengines often lower the amount of work for porting to additional platforms but at least with the ones i have used so far, there still is additional platform specific work being involved and i found porting from Windows to Linux more cumbersome, due to reasons we've already talked about, than porting from Windows to OSX or the other way around.
But i agree that it's very important that the offered apps should work just fine instead of coming around like some second hand class software but then again it's often harder to achieve as well.
The best chances Linux has is that one distribution is just doing whatever is needed to get a reasonable OS out. Ubuntu looks like there is some driving force behind and it's the big chance that Android has with Google.
I think that Ubuntu has the best possibilities from Linux distributions at the moment to achieve widespread adoption especially with the fact that they have been adding things to the distribution that enable certain commercial codecs/etc also.
Android's main problem still is that it is not compatible with Linux distributions whereas MeeGo has the Linux base libraries also. Android software runs on top of a modified Linux kernel and the software on it are Java software that run on their Dalvik virtual machine and the graphics are OpenGL ES 2.0.
Still a) it runs on a Linux kernel, b) as we discussed before there does not exist something like a out of the box Linux feeling and c) i don't see that Android suffers from it's current architecture, which, if at all, makes it more a problem for Linux and less for Android. ;O)
You should also know the fact that Google's support for Android's Linux kernel contributions is a little shaky as their kernel contributions are quite poorly maintained and have been in threat of removal from the kernel due to that.
b) as we discussed before there does not exist something like a out of the box Linux feeling
b) That is because there has not been a window manager that everyone would have felt comfortable with and thus they have made multiple ones. Everone, including you, are welcome to contribute in improving existing ones or making your/their own.
Having these different window managers does not make it impossible to run some piece of software on any of these because all you need are the proper libraries present on your system which can always be installed or provided with the software.
c) i don't see that Android suffers from it's current architecture, which, if at all, makes it more a problem for Linux and less for Android. ;O)
I'm all for Android and I find it a great operating system for portable devices but that's just it. I wouldn't want an Android laptop nor desktop because it doesn't have any real desktop software available for it because it lacks the libraries that normal desktop software needs. It's a gadget OS at the moment only. Perhaps that will change sometime in the future but that's the way it's now.
Almost no end user, beside of a large part of the Linux users, cares about what's going on under the hood. Things have to work in a convincing way on the top.
Different people, different needs but i'm sure that if one would try inventing a great user interface without historical restrictions and some reasonable ressources it also would please the majority of the people. Linux had its chances here but they preferd inventing a pack of half baked ones and bitching at each other.
Those portable devices will be a major and increasing chunk of the computing devices in the future. Again, you should trying to see things more from an end users point of view.
Almost no end user, beside of a large part of the Linux users, cares about what's going on under the hood. Things have to work in a convincing way on the top.
Basic endusers won't care and I'm not disagreeing with that at all.
What I'm getting at is that I'm happy that Google chose Linux kernel for the Android kernel. That shows how great the Linux kernel is at excelling in different uses. They did not do a service to Linux distributions by building a completely custom operating system on top of the kernel that's not compatible with anything else out there.
So, I for example cannot take my Bibble 5 Pro and run it on Android to process digital images, I cannot take the Nero Linux 4 and run it on Android to burn those images onto a DVD nor can I take the games that I have and play them on Android. Android simply put lacks those parts that regular software for Linux needs and there are a quite a lot of software for Linux available.
Google has to do a lot of convincing with Android before those companies that do make Linux software already are willing to port to Android as well.
Different people, different needs but i'm sure that if one would try inventing a great user interface without historical restrictions it also would please the majority of the people. Linux had a great chance here but they preferd inventing a pack of half baked ones and bitching at each other.
Well, this is just human nature. Give the people a chance to develop something freely and they will argue what color the wheel should be.
Remind you of emacs vs vi vs etc. wars in Unix land?
Those portable devices will be an increasing chunk of the computing devices in the future. Again, you should try to see things from an end users point of view.
I am and the problem with those more and more portable devices is that the majority of the games we are getting now would not be playable on portable devices.
Take for example Half-life 2/Portal from Valve or Dragon Age: Origins from "Bioware"/EA or Fallout 3 from Bethesda. No way those games would be as nice on those portable devices to play as on a real desktop with 2/2.1/5.1/7.1/whatever sound and real keyboard+mouse with a screen resolution of 1680x1080 or higher.
You can of course say that "hey, we got consoles for those that want to play at home with more immersion". Those machines tend to get hardware revisions about every 3-5 years whereas a desktop machine gamers can update whenever they like. Most games utilize more and more features that those consoles are quickly too slow to provide you with.
I'm sorry but I can't really see yet that active gamers would be willing to dump those powerful desktops that they have for a portable device that has a fraction of the processing power.
I do agree that portable gaming is a growing area of course but there just isn't a portable solution to gaming as nicely as on a real desktop.
I don't care which OS is driving my tablet as long as it works fine. If being available, crossplatform software should be favoured, otherwise enjoy exploring local solutions or shortcomings. Beside of that you often can't take one app from device A to device B because of their different physical and technical nature. Honestly who cares if companies that make Linux software are beeing convinced of Android?! Sounds like the wrong scope to me.
No question, Emacs because i prefer not breaking my fingers.
As computer history has shown more than once, as soon as there are some pixels being involved (or some way to visualise things), there also will be games. If the market is small, new or uncertain, indies will take their chances. As soon as the market looks promising, the big players will jump on it as well. Of course it depends on a specific game and its implementation if it suits a certain platform. Be assured there will be enough games which fit those platforms just perfectly, as well as a large amout which won't, and hardcore gamers screaming for the edge aren't everyones target.
Honestly who cares if companies that make Linux software are beeing convinced of Android?! Sounds like the wrong scope to me.
Sorry, I don't think you are replying to my previous comment because I didn't say that I would mind if they get them convinced just that they need to work on that.
No question, Emacs because i prefer not breaking my fingers.
Mine is vi because of smaller memory footprint and it's included in base Unix installation but let's not go any further on this bit. There are other forums for that conversation.
As computer history has shown more than once, as soon as there are some pixels being involved (or some way to visualise things), there also will be games. If the market is small, new or uncertain, indies will take their chances. As soon as the market looks promising, the big players will jump on it as well. Of course it depends on a specific game and its implementation if it suits a certain platform. Be assured there will be enough games which fit those platforms just perfectly, as well as a large amout which won't, and hardcore gamers screaming for the edge aren't everyones target.
I can't remember saying that there wasn't potential in portable devices so don't imply that I would have meant that.
There are games for any operating system out there but portable devices need to improve a lot before they are able to deliver what desktops deliver for gaming. At the moment the games are such as those devices are able to deliver and in the style of the device and that's just fine for me.
I think i commented quite well because they don't need them beeing convinced. Speaking of games you don't want the companies who do Linux games, instead you want those who are making good games and as soon as a shop exists and a reasonable amount of devices has been sold, you'll also get them.
From what you've written so far it was pretty obvious that you are more the vi guy. :O)
And it seems that you misunderstand the meaning of what i wrote. I disagree that the devices have to improve a lot until they can deliver convincing content. For instance a Tegra 250 driven device already offers enough performance for a lot of game concepts.
Speaking of games you don't want the companies who did Linux games so far, instead you want those who have done good games for other platforms so far and as soon as a shop exists and a reasonable amount of devices exists, you also get them.
As long as you don't mean me by "you" as I prefer that these games would come for both Android and Linux distributions as that way they will have an even larger userbase.
And it seems that you misunderstand the meaning of what i wrote. I disagree that the devices have to improve a lot until they can deliver convincing content. For instance a Tegra 250 driven device already offers enough performance for a lot of game concepts.
I guess a language barrier struck us a bit with the conversation.
Sure, I'm interested to see as well how those new devices will be capable of in practice once software starts to be more available to them.
Obviously you won't get DX11 packed realtime eye candy running on it, not unless some streaming service kicks in, but this would lead us to another superfluous gfx debatte. The gfx complexity can add to the atmosphere but it also is not this important for a convincing gaming experience per se. If you're using your possibilities wisely, you can always come up with a convincing game.
Obviously the gfx complexity adds to the atmosphere but it also is not this important for a convincing gaming experience per se. If you're using you possibilities wisely, you can always come up with a convincing game.
I just feel that major game companies have not been using the platforms possibilities wisely unlike indie game makers have with their crossplatform games to Windows, Mac and Linux. Large companies make decisions in which they have quite little to lose whereas smaller ones are more willing to take risks. I think you said as well, as far as I understood, that it is more likely that the companies that make software for mobile environments are mainly fresher to the industry and are not that much "stuck" in their earlier solutions.
I sincerely hope that mobile Linux devices graphics support will improve beyond OpenGL ES 2.0. Companies might quite easily at the moment say that not enough features can be implemented on this platform and we prefer to make our game onto a platform that can deliver that experience we are seeking for our customers.
OpenGL ES 2.0 is a stripped down OpenGL 2.0 that does not have those features that OpenGL 3.3 and 4.0 provide on Linux distributions including the similar graphics effects that DX10/11 bring. I'm interested to see what OpenGL ES 2.1 will bring to the plate.
Just one aspect would be that the middleware some of the big boys are using don't scale to such platforms, nor do the game concepts btw. Indies on the other side take a smaller risk as you said and the middleware often suits better. But several technologies like for instance the Unreal Engine 3 or Unity 3, are already heading into this direction or others are already there.
If i would be a big publisher i would try to produce the right mix out of blockbusters and casual type like games for the masses as well as more experimental stuff. In the end no one hinders big publishers getting in contact with Indies but be aware not every Indies game is glod as well.
What i really like with the Indies games is the more experimental focus as well as a gaming depth i am more used to from the Amiga days.
I don't see a reason why mobile devices shouldn't improve but OpenGL ES 2.0 already offers some screws for making games look nicer like for instance fragment shaders but most likely you will be limited on the fillrate/battery side already.
Thanks, i have a rough idea of what OpenGL ES 2.0 is about. :O)
Thanks, i have a rough idea of what OpenGL ES 2.0 is about. :O)
Yes, I just thought that it might be good to mention if other people read our chats too.
Also I thought the bit on OpenGL 3.3 and 4.0 relevant in regards to what DirectX and OpenGL can offer.
Holy cow, you don't know about glod? Okay, we certainly need to some quick excurse here:
The glod is an inhabitant of a small but beautiful planet in the Pleiades. I can't offer more detailed information about the location because the planet is in kind of special situation. Although it is a cilvilised world with a rich culture, for instance they are famous for their impressive swamp poetry, the glods haven't been able to go into space yet, although comparable cultures at least invented technologies which enabled them stellar travels.
The problem the glods are facing isn't that they would be too dumb, actually they know about stellar and interstellar travels from their sky observations as well as from their rare contacts with other cultures from the Pleiades but their planet due to some freak of nature wasn't able to hatch some critical elements like gold.
This grievance, their disability to deal with the situation without bitterness and their almost fanatic eagerness which they are trying to hide already caused many dangerous conflicts and they wouldn't mind betraying a naive tourist, killing him or even lead him into trap so that a tourist for instance has to marry a member of the family in which case the complete property, such as a spaceship, belongs to the eldest in the glod family.
So to shorten things up, using the term glod in the Pleiades is often used when its inhabitants are talking about gold but in a funny and slightly concerned way, as they all know that this is what the glods are missing the most and they better not come into a situation where they have to deal with the glods. Btw there exist quite some dictums which use it as well. I hope this explains things a little bit for you.
I somehow sense that this isn't of interest to someone beside the two of us but hmm let's try an experiment:
Dave Grossman has a big whine drinker nose and wears tasteless shirts!
Now let's wait for some reaction...just in case i was wrong...farewell dude! :O)
I somehow sense that this isn't of interest to someone beside the two of us but hmm let's try an experiment:Dave Grossman has a big whine drinker nose and wears tasteless shirts!
Now let's wait for some reaction...just in case i was wrong...farewell dude! :O)
I somehow sense that this isn't of interest to someone beside the two of us but hmm let's try an experiment:
Dave Grossman has a big whine drinker nose and wears tasteless shirts!
Now let's wait for some reaction...just in case i was wrong...farewell dude! :O)
I've read the entire discussion with interest. I don't know about Dave Grossman's nose, but I see what you mean regarding his shirts.
You can of course say that "hey, we got consoles for those that want to play at home with more immersion". Those machines tend to get hardware revisions about every 3-5 years whereas a desktop machine gamers can update whenever they like. Most games utilize more and more features that those consoles are quickly too slow to provide you with.
Games are now almost always console/PC releases which means they rarely bother with PC-only features. Few gamers really have the top of the line graphics cards and monitors, look at Steam's statistics if you don't believe me. BluRay in every PS3 was actually beyond state of the art for the PC, almost no PC had it.
Graphics has gone very much from a fixed function model to a programmable model where almost all "legacy" functions are done on universal shaders, nVidia from the 8xxx series up and AMD from the R6xx series up. In practice the differences between DX10, 10.1 and 11 aren't that big, mostly improved process technology and a few extras not big functional changes.
The result is that already the current generation of consoles live much longer than the last. And the next generation, with 1080p HD I assume and lots of shaders you can repurpose the way you find smartest, it may last for 10-20 years without looking that outdated. If you look at the latest graphics cards they're rapidly approaching overkill because screen resolutions aren't improving at the same speed as silicon, there's more processing power/pixel each year.
Looks like Vendetta Online for Android is going to be the first Android MMOG coming out. Not my cup of tea though even on it's native Linux 64bit version...
In Finland you can only install the free software but not buy anything. I have read that there is a little bit of software that if you install you will be able to purchase as well here but I don't like that sort of things honestly...
Comments
Here's another one for you: http://machinarium.net/demo/
Yup, got that already but that's a flash based game so it's easily cross-platform. It was a fun game to play through still. Lots of puzzles.
Yes and no as Android is not your normal GNU/Linux system. They have the kernel sure but everything on top of that is quite custom. Personally I would expect more results on that field via MeeGo if Intel and Nokia get it going nicely. At least the first netbook image showed promise.
I agree that supporting a few specific Linux distributions is the best idea. However, unlike the common belief that supporting one distribution will not bring support to others is rather wrong.
Selecting wisely you will support every fresh enough distribution, even Debian. All you need to support is OpenGL graphics (performance varies according to users hardware just like in Windows/OS X) and ALSA will give audio support for Pulseaudio. You can also increase the support by providing the some of the key library files that your software needs to work. Not that different from Windows where some dll's come with games. Just look at the new Sam&Max season which brings:
Personally I find that those persons that use some obscure Linux distribution made by ten buddies and endorsed by couple twenty of their friends are usually that much tech savvy people that they will know themselves how to make desktop links or find the proper libraries for games if they just get a tgz packaged version of the game or optionally can use rpm2cpio/rpm2targz to extract the files from package.
Still, Android unfortunately is not a Linux distribution in the traditional way, so building support for it won't bring support to Linux desktops. Don't get me wrong, I think Android is pretty great and has a lot of opportunities to make profit in consumer field. I'd be interested myself to get an Android based device, especially if there was a mp3/ogg/flac/etc supporting competitor to ipod.
Afterwards there still is the question how much this increases sales and if it's worth the effort. I wouldn't mind if there would be a Linux version but honestly i also would prefer if things get more optimized on the already supported platforms first.
Linux=server, accepted since a long time.
Linux=desktop, still a problem in many use cases.
Supporting Android on multitouch devices makes sense due to Google, although it seems to take some time until some/more reasonable hardware sees the light of day.
I do have to admit that I do not have experience in doing OpenGL+sound+etc programming, so I can't really say in depth how developing games is like on Linux but I do have to say I'm curious as to what kind of minor differences you are referring to?
My understanding of major distribution (I'm deriving my knowledge from Fedora/RHEL, Ubuntu/Linux Mint/Debian, OpenSUSE/SUSE, Gentoo) differences is that there isn't that much. Of course I view this mainly from available software package version per distribution point of view. In which Debian is the only one lagging behind unless you choose the unstable version.
Distribution package management is something that I myself do not think to be a major difference. It's just like providing an installer or packaging the files in a zip/tar/etc but with added scripting support and other handy bits.
I am really interested to see a major name producing a Linux game and how they fare in sales. Of course id Software has made their games available to Linux but haven't heard much how well they sell but only that they will keep on supporting Linux with new titles. Personally I've really enjoyed playing Quake 4, Doom 3, etc. on Linux.
Personally having used Linux desktop mainly for over 10 years now, those little annoyances that existed some time ago have quite much gone to history. Of course there can be things that you do in a certain way in Linux desktops that I've gotten used to that Windows/OS X users have to find out from somewhere.
Combined with the rumours of a Steam client for Linux, I'd say our chances are looking better and better.
I'll keep this brief because i don't wanna find myself in a endless Linux vs. XYZ discussion, so:
Just because OpenGL exists for a specific system, doesn't say anything about the reliability and the performance. This depends on the OS, the gfx card vendor, is it the 32bit or the 64bit version, the revision, ...
Some systems work quite fine, others don't work at all. I've never come across a PC where i couldn't install a Windows but where several Linux distribution all had their problems.
We did a sparetime project which was released for Win/OSX and Linux. From the download and usual conversionrate stats i would say that there is a significant amount of Linux machines out there and that there are people who also would like to spend money on Linux but there also exists a large userbase who thinks that everything should be for free. I suspect if TTG supports Linux it will be part of the PC/MAC deal, so you get the platform support more or less for free and they enlarge their userbase to a certain degree.
I tried Linux several times, first time installing a Unix on my own was BSD on an Amiga, but it sucked every time i tried using it as a desktop, missing the right apps, creepy user interface, hardware components were not recognized, awful driver support&performance. Unix is/was great is OSX, Solaris, Irix and AIX though.
Yup, the Internet is full enough already of threads that go "my os is better than your os".
Well, that you get with Windows as well, you have DirectX (DX9/DX10/DX11), but is the OS 32bit or 64bit (XP/Vista/7), what is the revision of the users display card driver and is it ati/amd or nvidia. I don't really count much of the others here as gamers tend to have mainly either of these two. nvidia driver at least hasn't gotten autoupdated on any Windows I've used ever if I install the driver I got from their website which has been better than the one Windows provides in Vista/7. Only Steam GUI has notified me to the fact that I should update my display driver while I've started a game.
At the moment with Linux it's mainly OpenGL ES2.0 for mobile devices, OpenGL 2.0 for old graphics cards, OpenGL 3.2/3.3 for new cards with major distributions that are updated frequently enough and OpenGL 4.0 with the latest cards and drivers.
Regarding 64bit, I've found it annoyingly low how much the gaming industry has taken to make 64bit utilizing versions of games. Most Windows games are only 32bit even though 64bit has been available since XP Pro 64bit and with it you got really nice improvements to Far Cry 1 and Valve made their 64bit support already back then to Source Engine.
This is interesting how different cases I've gotten in regards to this. My experience with machines is quite the reverse.
At work I am happy that my employer uses mainly lenovo/IBM laptops which traditionally have had their small quirks but in general work great with Linux. They do have their quirkier models still too but those can be easily avoided.
I have a lot of contacts on Linux side who use that same argument that games should be free. I don't think we are quite yet ready as a civilization for the Star Trek utopian society where every progress is shared but we should consider that idea also sometimes. We are still missing that kick in the behind that forces us to rethink our goals as a galactic civilization.
Sounds like my Windows use after I'd gotten used to Linux.
But in regards to history, loved Amigas, liked Solaris when I still did Unix sys admin work (pity it might die away now with Oracle messing it up, at least a lot of companies are ditching it for Linux/Windows) and I do understand the feeling users have gotten in the past from Linux Window managers. They used to be quite horrendous at one time and I myself loved one that you had to use a text editor to make your own config file, fvwm and fvwm2.
Yep, Linux has its problems on older hardware components. Thinkpads were nice until Lenovo took over. If you want some quality and can afford it, i nowadays would primary go with Sony.
I'm all in for this Utopia but people also need to pay their bills, so it needs changes not only on one front.
Yep, it's quite depressing that Solaris ended up with Oracle, i have no idea and couldn't be bothered investigating what they want with it. Oracle is a weird company.
Linux started as a hack and it was quite obvious for many years. What Linux misses is a standad distribution or distributions with standards and a lot more work on the usability front, throwing away everything you don't really need and optimizing the parts which are important.
Technical enhancements as well as a change of mind regarding buying software could breed some standard apps which make the platform a lot more attractive. You don't need this for browsing the web or writing some emails but personally, at least at this point, i couldn't use it in a productive way nor do i want to due to the user interface.
The perfect OS is still missing.
I agree.
I think the main problem with a standard distribution is that it cannot come as a commercial product from a commercial vendor due to the nature of Linux/GNU/etc community. The user community wouldn't accept it. The only pretty much standard distributions currently are Fedora, Debian and Ubuntu. However, I would very much like to drop Debian from that list as it lags behind due to it's, well, how to put it politically correct, it's development style and licensing views.
On the other hand I think that Intel and Nokia are doing great work in netbook area currently with MeeGo in simplifying the user experience and I'd recommend giving it's netbook liveimage version 1.0 a go if you got a Intel graphics card (except GMA500) laptop to test it with.
Personally I can do my home digital photography improvements with a Linux native commercial software called Bibble 5 Pro and burn my CD's and DVD's with Nero Linux 4 and I've got my codecs and DVD player from Fluendo. Not to mention a whole bunch of commercial games I've bought over the years for Linux.
Personally I think that the Linux user base is quite ready and willing to buy commercial software as long as we get quality software and not a second class citizen versions for the same amount of cash that Windows or Mac users pay. In my personal opinion doing crossplatform software from the start is the best choice nowadays. Like the way Unigine is doing their gaming engine in such a way that it supports the features of all the target environments.
I do understand this feeling quite well since I have it with Windows, I just can't be productive nor creative there. Every time I start Windows up and would have to do work on it, I end up shutting it down and booting up Linux instead because I can't get the GUI to match the way I like things to be nor the apps to behave in the way I like. I guess I've just grown accustomed to the way things work in Linux having used it at work and home for more than 10 years now.
A friend of mine usually says "every os sucks" and he's quite right. Everyone of our current OS's suck in some way still.
Actually i try to avoid Intel gfx wherever i can. :O)
Crossplatformengines often lower the amount of work for porting to additional platforms but at least with the ones i have used so far, there still is additional platform specific work being involved and i found porting from Windows to Linux more cumbersome, due to reasons we've already talked about, than porting from Windows to OSX or the other way around.
But i agree that it's very important that the offered apps should work just fine instead of coming around like some second hand class software but then again it's often harder to achieve as well.
I think that Ubuntu has the best possibilities from Linux distributions at the moment to achieve widespread adoption especially with the fact that they have been adding things to the distribution that enable certain commercial codecs/etc also.
Android's main problem still is that it is not compatible with Linux distributions whereas MeeGo has the Linux base libraries also. Android software runs on top of a modified Linux kernel and the software on it are Java software that run on their Dalvik virtual machine and the graphics are OpenGL ES 2.0.
Me too, they are not good for anything except 2D desktop at this time.
Certainly but Android's problem is that support for it doesn't mean support to Linux.
a) It does run a modified Linux kernel, yes.
You should also know the fact that Google's support for Android's Linux kernel contributions is a little shaky as their kernel contributions are quite poorly maintained and have been in threat of removal from the kernel due to that.
b) That is because there has not been a window manager that everyone would have felt comfortable with and thus they have made multiple ones. Everone, including you, are welcome to contribute in improving existing ones or making your/their own.
Having these different window managers does not make it impossible to run some piece of software on any of these because all you need are the proper libraries present on your system which can always be installed or provided with the software.
I'm all for Android and I find it a great operating system for portable devices but that's just it. I wouldn't want an Android laptop nor desktop because it doesn't have any real desktop software available for it because it lacks the libraries that normal desktop software needs. It's a gadget OS at the moment only. Perhaps that will change sometime in the future but that's the way it's now.
Different people, different needs but i'm sure that if one would try inventing a great user interface without historical restrictions and some reasonable ressources it also would please the majority of the people. Linux had its chances here but they preferd inventing a pack of half baked ones and bitching at each other.
Those portable devices will be a major and increasing chunk of the computing devices in the future. Again, you should trying to see things more from an end users point of view.
Basic endusers won't care and I'm not disagreeing with that at all.
What I'm getting at is that I'm happy that Google chose Linux kernel for the Android kernel. That shows how great the Linux kernel is at excelling in different uses. They did not do a service to Linux distributions by building a completely custom operating system on top of the kernel that's not compatible with anything else out there.
So, I for example cannot take my Bibble 5 Pro and run it on Android to process digital images, I cannot take the Nero Linux 4 and run it on Android to burn those images onto a DVD nor can I take the games that I have and play them on Android. Android simply put lacks those parts that regular software for Linux needs and there are a quite a lot of software for Linux available.
Google has to do a lot of convincing with Android before those companies that do make Linux software already are willing to port to Android as well.
Well, this is just human nature. Give the people a chance to develop something freely and they will argue what color the wheel should be.
Remind you of emacs vs vi vs etc. wars in Unix land?
I am and the problem with those more and more portable devices is that the majority of the games we are getting now would not be playable on portable devices.
Take for example Half-life 2/Portal from Valve or Dragon Age: Origins from "Bioware"/EA or Fallout 3 from Bethesda. No way those games would be as nice on those portable devices to play as on a real desktop with 2/2.1/5.1/7.1/whatever sound and real keyboard+mouse with a screen resolution of 1680x1080 or higher.
You can of course say that "hey, we got consoles for those that want to play at home with more immersion". Those machines tend to get hardware revisions about every 3-5 years whereas a desktop machine gamers can update whenever they like. Most games utilize more and more features that those consoles are quickly too slow to provide you with.
I'm sorry but I can't really see yet that active gamers would be willing to dump those powerful desktops that they have for a portable device that has a fraction of the processing power.
I do agree that portable gaming is a growing area of course but there just isn't a portable solution to gaming as nicely as on a real desktop.
No question, Emacs because i prefer not breaking my fingers.
As computer history has shown more than once, as soon as there are some pixels being involved (or some way to visualise things), there also will be games. If the market is small, new or uncertain, indies will take their chances. As soon as the market looks promising, the big players will jump on it as well. Of course it depends on a specific game and its implementation if it suits a certain platform. Be assured there will be enough games which fit those platforms just perfectly, as well as a large amout which won't, and hardcore gamers screaming for the edge aren't everyones target.
Sorry, I don't think you are replying to my previous comment because I didn't say that I would mind if they get them convinced just that they need to work on that.
Mine is vi because of smaller memory footprint and it's included in base Unix installation but let's not go any further on this bit. There are other forums for that conversation.
I can't remember saying that there wasn't potential in portable devices so don't imply that I would have meant that.
There are games for any operating system out there but portable devices need to improve a lot before they are able to deliver what desktops deliver for gaming. At the moment the games are such as those devices are able to deliver and in the style of the device and that's just fine for me.
From what you've written so far it was pretty obvious that you are more the vi guy. :O)
And it seems that you misunderstand the meaning of what i wrote. I disagree that the devices have to improve a lot until they can deliver convincing content. For instance a Tegra 250 driven device already offers enough performance for a lot of game concepts.
As long as you don't mean me by "you" as I prefer that these games would come for both Android and Linux distributions as that way they will have an even larger userbase.
I guess a language barrier struck us a bit with the conversation.
Sure, I'm interested to see as well how those new devices will be capable of in practice once software starts to be more available to them.
I just feel that major game companies have not been using the platforms possibilities wisely unlike indie game makers have with their crossplatform games to Windows, Mac and Linux. Large companies make decisions in which they have quite little to lose whereas smaller ones are more willing to take risks. I think you said as well, as far as I understood, that it is more likely that the companies that make software for mobile environments are mainly fresher to the industry and are not that much "stuck" in their earlier solutions.
I sincerely hope that mobile Linux devices graphics support will improve beyond OpenGL ES 2.0. Companies might quite easily at the moment say that not enough features can be implemented on this platform and we prefer to make our game onto a platform that can deliver that experience we are seeking for our customers.
OpenGL ES 2.0 is a stripped down OpenGL 2.0 that does not have those features that OpenGL 3.3 and 4.0 provide on Linux distributions including the similar graphics effects that DX10/11 bring. I'm interested to see what OpenGL ES 2.1 will bring to the plate.
Just one aspect would be that the middleware some of the big boys are using don't scale to such platforms, nor do the game concepts btw. Indies on the other side take a smaller risk as you said and the middleware often suits better. But several technologies like for instance the Unreal Engine 3 or Unity 3, are already heading into this direction or others are already there.
If i would be a big publisher i would try to produce the right mix out of blockbusters and casual type like games for the masses as well as more experimental stuff. In the end no one hinders big publishers getting in contact with Indies but be aware not every Indies game is glod as well.
What i really like with the Indies games is the more experimental focus as well as a gaming depth i am more used to from the Amiga days.
I don't see a reason why mobile devices shouldn't improve but OpenGL ES 2.0 already offers some screws for making games look nicer like for instance fragment shaders but most likely you will be limited on the fillrate/battery side already.
Thanks, i have a rough idea of what OpenGL ES 2.0 is about. :O)
Please elaborate what glod is.
Agreed.
Yes, I just thought that it might be good to mention if other people read our chats too.
Also I thought the bit on OpenGL 3.3 and 4.0 relevant in regards to what DirectX and OpenGL can offer.
The glod is an inhabitant of a small but beautiful planet in the Pleiades. I can't offer more detailed information about the location because the planet is in kind of special situation. Although it is a cilvilised world with a rich culture, for instance they are famous for their impressive swamp poetry, the glods haven't been able to go into space yet, although comparable cultures at least invented technologies which enabled them stellar travels.
The problem the glods are facing isn't that they would be too dumb, actually they know about stellar and interstellar travels from their sky observations as well as from their rare contacts with other cultures from the Pleiades but their planet due to some freak of nature wasn't able to hatch some critical elements like gold.
This grievance, their disability to deal with the situation without bitterness and their almost fanatic eagerness which they are trying to hide already caused many dangerous conflicts and they wouldn't mind betraying a naive tourist, killing him or even lead him into trap so that a tourist for instance has to marry a member of the family in which case the complete property, such as a spaceship, belongs to the eldest in the glod family.
So to shorten things up, using the term glod in the Pleiades is often used when its inhabitants are talking about gold but in a funny and slightly concerned way, as they all know that this is what the glods are missing the most and they better not come into a situation where they have to deal with the glods. Btw there exist quite some dictums which use it as well. I hope this explains things a little bit for you.
I somehow sense that this isn't of interest to someone beside the two of us but hmm let's try an experiment:
Dave Grossman has a big whine drinker nose and wears tasteless shirts!
Now let's wait for some reaction...just in case i was wrong...farewell dude! :O)
Nope, doesn't ring a bell at all but it does sound interesting.
Have a good one.
I've read the entire discussion with interest. I don't know about Dave Grossman's nose, but I see what you mean regarding his shirts.
Games are now almost always console/PC releases which means they rarely bother with PC-only features. Few gamers really have the top of the line graphics cards and monitors, look at Steam's statistics if you don't believe me. BluRay in every PS3 was actually beyond state of the art for the PC, almost no PC had it.
Graphics has gone very much from a fixed function model to a programmable model where almost all "legacy" functions are done on universal shaders, nVidia from the 8xxx series up and AMD from the R6xx series up. In practice the differences between DX10, 10.1 and 11 aren't that big, mostly improved process technology and a few extras not big functional changes.
The result is that already the current generation of consoles live much longer than the last. And the next generation, with 1080p HD I assume and lots of shaders you can repurpose the way you find smartest, it may last for 10-20 years without looking that outdated. If you look at the latest graphics cards they're rapidly approaching overkill because screen resolutions aren't improving at the same speed as silicon, there's more processing power/pixel each year.
And once they sell the software globally...
In Finland you can only install the free software but not buy anything. I have read that there is a little bit of software that if you install you will be able to purchase as well here but I don't like that sort of things honestly...
The store is available at the moment in 13 countries.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_Market#Availability_for_users