It wasn't literal what I said.... "If this game is so good, why isn't it released for Ubuntu or Linux in general?"

But Really a lot of people can't hardly play games on their windows computers because they are so jacked up. Viruses, stupid security holes, and general bloatware. Windows xp and vista are surprisingly slow. Ubuntu is much more efficient and easy to use. What I ask is for big companies like stardock to help move the masses to Linux. Why support the badly made operating systems. If more companies tried to make games for Linux (opengl) then people might actually start enjoying using their computers more.

If you haven't tried it, you should read this article:WWW Link


(I know there has to be at least some stardock programmers that use Linux on their computers and wish they could make good games for it and get paid)

Ok let's analyze what you've said here. A person (the unwashed masses) that can't correctly run a computer running Windows XP is going to be able to run and use Linux?

LOL

I'll stop there.

Seriously I see people everyday so frustrated with how windows is. Then you show them Linux and it works so much better.

I hear what you're saying, warrenkc. I'm actually very lucky - I make my living as a Linux admin in a big corp and just got my RHCE.

But the cold harsh reality is that Linux isn't viewed seriously as a gaming platform. Heck, the industry doesn't want to view WINDOWS seriously as a gaming platform, many companies would much rather go console.

Linux is fantastic for many uses and does have a collection of reasonably good native and ported games. However, asking a small company to invest serious effort in porting a title such as Sins (which makes very heavy use of Windows specific bits) is a tad idealistic and not likely to get you places.

It doesn't help that some of our more extreme Linux brethren seem to have a serious attitude about paying anything for software or support for that software.

It's not the developer's place to force people to use different operating systems.
Anyone with any brains can keep their windows install running pretty smooth, I feel like you're somehow especially tainted against windows for some reason or another.

Yup.

I'm running Vista Ultimate at work, 64 bit ultimate at home with a dual boot XP 64 bit. No issues whatsoever.

Dunno, with millions in development, Microsoft does put out some good products. Hippies can hate all they want but the fact of the matter is that Microsoft does make some great software that the world depends on to run.

The MAJORITY of the world.

Many Linux users are (edit: meaning tainted against Windows). But it goes both ways. Just look at this thread as an example. All it takes is for someone to mention Linux in most forums and the flames start. I'm not a big fan of Windows, but I know how to run a clean system and I use it for gaming because I pretty much have to. But I'd prefer to do it all on Linux if given the choice. So, I still don't think it hurts to gives the developers of games a heads up that there are people out there that would like to see a Linux port of their games (and yes, they'd pay for them).

To the OP: apologies, but your original post came across as one of those militant Linux/anti-Windows posts. I agree with your sentiment to an extent, but I think your initial delivery came across poorly.

Well said Coelocanth (for both of your posts).

I want to make some kind of ill-fitting satirical argument about Toyota's sensible commercial decision to re-engineer all their excellent land vehicles to offer yellow submarine variants - product lines that would no doubt be hugely popular with the privately-owned coloured-submersible market - but I'll refrain.

My Linux friend actually deleted/corrupted critical Windows files while trying to get the bootloader working on my computer after I installed a Linux partition. Plus my network drivers didn't work with Linux, so I was forced to perform a factory image reset on my computer due to lack of internet support.

Said friend also spent a better part of two months trying to get his laptop wireless card to work.

Sorry for the tangent, but Linux is NOT better because it's easier.

QFT.

I agree completely with the sentiment, but gimme a fucking break.

All you're gonna do is activate the counter-troll 'DirectX > OpenGL' posts (I've already counted one) and otherwise get flamed and do no good at all.

To everyone else, there's no need to say stuff like 'just dual-boot Windows' because that misses the entire point of asking for a Linux-compatible game. The reason they use Linux is to get away from the idiosyncrasies and niggling annoyances of piss-poor quality operating systems like Windows. Someone somewhere has to make games compatible with Linux, or it won't happen as was explained above. Mad props to id for keeping Windows-only material out of their games.

Yes Linux is a great Os and Micro$t could take a few notes on how to make an Os from them but I just cant seeing a game dev makeing a version of this game for and OS not many people use.

I have nothing against Linux at all. I have something against stupidity. And acting like a developer isn't doing its job because hasn't released its software on Linux, is, stupidity.

I'm not sure how that misses the point. Asking for a game won't do anything, because there's little profit in developing a game for a niche community. The real method for obtaining mainstream games on Linux is to advertise Linux, make it easy to use, heavily develop the OS, etc. Linux users can potentially do this thanks to open source coding, but it would be a very difficult long-term prospect.

The simple, easy method to access games is to boot up Windows.

Meh, in short: Developers should consider coding their games with platform independence in mind. I can't blame them for not doing so, given the disparity between the gaming adherents of the various operating systems, but doing so would allow them to partner with companies that specialize in those other OSes and get their games to a wider audience. Given that the MacOS marketshare is slowly increasing, that Linux (Ubuntu in particular) has gotten much easier to install and use in recent years, and that Vista has been so poorly received, getting a foothold in other platforms might be a Good Thing in the long run. Particularly if Microsoft doesn't get its act together real soon, when they stop allowing XP to ship with new machines.

Would I love games like this to be on Linux? Hell yeah! I'm a big Linux fan. The only time there's a need to run something other than Linux is when something isn't compatible with it. Unfortunately, in the world of games that tends to happen almost all the time, and it also tends to pop up elsewhere when it comes to deploying certain technologies.

The biggest hurdles to Linux-based games is that there's a lack of advertising, so many different versions of Linux, your average computer user doesn't use Linux, and developing a game that runs on multiple platforms can be a huge pain in the ass. You can pop out a DirectX game rather easily these days and only really have to worry about Windows XP and Vista. When you move to Linux you're going to have to use something else such as OpenGL and there's a lot more distributions to worry about which exponentially complicates things. Linux, as a whole, is not as developer-friendly as it could be, at least in my experience when compared to the mountains of documentation, samples, and support that exists for Windows. Graphics in particular are rather messy to deal with on Linux.

Excuse me? DirectX *did* own OpenGL. And now we have a situation where everyone has to use it, and since they are locked into it games become Windows only. If you are so bothered about trolls how about you don't go around baselessly calling people trolls and we won't call you an asswipe.

So I think the OP has been answered. How about let's be nice and let the thread die before people really start flaming?

-- Retro

First off, Stardock is not a "big" company. They are very small actually.

Second, if there would be any kind of other OS support it would be for the Mac which actually has a decent % of the market.

I like Linux too but it's not even a fraction of the fraction that Mac has of the market. It's just the way it is. If any OS is going to give Windows a run for their money it will be Mac which everyone has heard of. Nobody has heard of Linux. It is what it is.

(1) Sorry, I guess I missed the fight where DirectX really whipped OpenGL. I think John Carmack missed that fight as well.

DirectX capabilities are inferior to OpenGL capabilities. The market doesn't decide things like this. What DirectX has is Microsoft shoving it down every possible throat it can. It also has some ease-of-use advantages since Microsoft has made a lot of their other stuff 'compatible' with it in sort of the same way that Adobe has made all Photoshop/Flash/etc. 'compatible'.

When people ask for a game to be made for Linux, they are basically asking for three things - that the game be able to interact with any filesystem (this isn't a big deal), that it be made in OpenGL, and that it comes with a Linux binary or at least some way to compile the binary. The game will still run on Windows if it has a Windows binary. The Windows and Linux binaries are basically compiled from the same source code. So the only real issue is using OpenGL for your game. (There are other minor things as well.)

The problem OpenGL has is also one of its greatest assets. It doesn't have a huge money-hungry behemoth behind it. OpenGL is owned by no one. It's usable by anyone. You're not forced to use DLL's, you can use any library system you want. It will never be loaded down with DRM or act as a copy protection device. It will never be unusuable because some company scrapped it or died out. You can develop for any platform you want. You can develop for Windows or for Mac or for Linux or for cell phones, etc. etc. or you can make your own platform and develop for that.

There honestly is no reason for people not to use OpenGL besides that, wherever they go, whatever they do, DirectX is blaring in their ears. If you use 3D tools, a lot of them interact conveniently with some Direct3D functions. They're not incompatible with OpenGL, it's just that OpenGL hasn't paid them for advertising. EA believes their own lies these days and practically forces every game to be made in DirectX because the logo is good advertising for the EA-savvy buyer. nVidia and ATI love to buy into it as well, because people associate DirectX with their names. OpenGL what's that? That isn't on my Crysis box.

(2) You have it so bass-ackwards here. DirectX is like Internet Explorer for video games. Microsoft, in trying to kill out all competition, came up with DirectX - a proprietary Windows-only API - so that they could force at least SOME games to stay Windows-only. They've been very successful with this move so far since who's gonna pay billions of dollars to advertise OpenGL?

It's not as if DirectX won some contest, and Microsoft humbly accepted the gold medal.

Also, if you really look back and consider it, it's one of the dumbest things from a third-party perspective. The only thing worse is Microsoft basically inventing their own programming languages so that you could program only in Windows once you've learned them.

Were we asleep during the DX8/9 versus opengl fight?

Opengl has been crap for a long time, at least in computer years.

So is this topic. Linux is for people with no hardware firewalls, who turn to linux for security after their own personal failures making their own pc secure.

It's obvious in the fact anything not connected thru ethernet has serious problems with most linux machines.

Linux is generally used NOW by people who have no clue how to use their pc, and then when they get viruses bash Microsoft.

At one time, it was used by techies. That went the way of pretty graphics and people who hate Microsoft from their own stupidity.

At one point, linux was software you had to make yourself. True techies don't care about ease of use, pretty colors like Beryl that crash continusly, or anything like that.

Now the Linux forums are generally full of self righteous bastards who hate Microsoft and love pretty colors.

Personally, the people who use Linux either need to come out that they aren't techies, or Linux needs to go back the way it was. Spending 3 weeks to program something superior to Windows was fun I admit, but now it's pretty much gone.

I do realize their is still Slackware and Redhat, but the popular linux distros now are pretty, easy to use things like Ubuntu, and to a small degree, Suse.

I'm sorry if the truth hurts, but it gets annoying to hear new Linux users talk about how much Microsoft sucks, and how much better linux is, and how they programmed stuff, when all they do is download Ubuntu and spend a few hours setting up graphics effects.

Makes me wonder what would happen if Microsoft poured on tons of graphics effects...

Seriously, I would drop windows in a heart beat if there were truely great games that were native to Linux. The only reason I own windows is for the games and if consoles had a keyboard/mouse for an interface with more complex titles like Sins I wouldn't even own a PC.

You sir, are an idiot. I have a hardware firewall, but I also run a software firewall on my Linux boxes. The fact that you don't see security as important makes you even more of a fool.



You should go to your local university and tell them that then. My school uses Linux as the primary OS, with windows being used only for the first year students who don't know any better yet.



A true techie would know that ease of use it more important. The fact that you are too stupid, or incompetent, to know what true ease of use is is disturbing.



I think you're confusing Macintosh forums for Linux forums with regards to the pretty colours part, but I'll agree that there are an unfortunate number of... unhelpful, people on some boards.



I'm not a new user. I have, in fact, been using various distributions for the past 12 years. I don't use Ubuntu, and quite frankly the distribution really doesn't matter - what matters is that I can do more with my system with one line on the console than you can do in ten minutes using Windows. The fact that you attack people who say they "programmed stuff" makes me think that you tried to learn, but failed. This is unfortunate, but not a reason to lash out at people who are capable of doing useful things with their computers.



You mean Vista isn't enough for you? Sure it's prettier, but what use is the 'pretty' if the usability has been degraded?

/troll-feeding

Edit:
On the point of this thread: While I'd like to see a native Linux version released, I highly doubt that there would be enough return on investment to make it worthwhile. What the devs/publishers *could* do is get in touch with the Wine/Cedega people and offer some small bits of help with getting the game to run (better) under Linux. *That* would be really cool, because then IC/SD don't have to support their Linux users (much), and the Linux users get a really great 4XRTS to play!

In summary, let the Wine/Cedega devs do the work, but be prepared to help them if they run into problems - that's all the Linux users should be asking for.

I'm guessing you were too busy calling me an idiot to actually read. Maybe the holier then thou shit they feed you on linux forums went to your head, and you don't understand basic english.

It's simple. Linux has become what people use to make themselves feel secure.



Bullshit. If it's true give us the name of the school. Show me proof.



Good job arguing any of my points. I guess your the typical loser.



Nice reference to me, while you ignore my points and act like the normal typical conceited new linux user.

Go hide in your Ubuntu. Real techies will use Slackware.




But your going to school? Now you have 12 years of experience eh?

Somehow I don't buy it.

And all your tough talk does nothing IF you joined the computer field in 1996. Try playing with dos on a 286 and then you'll know what true programming is.

Hell, play with dos on 5 1/2 floppies on a 8086 or a 8088. Try using a Commodore 64, or a Vic 20.



If your gonna tell me Vista is as pretty as some of the new Linux distros, then please go look again at your Ubuntu.

In fact, go hide with your Ubuntu. Go hug it. Go have sex with it. You obviously can't respond to any of my comments.

If you can, then please do. Explain the side of the new Linux users.

And you are a new linux user, because any old one would agree with me that the new users are mainly after graphics. Why do you think Ubuntu is causing segmentation?

That is entirely my point. There's a backlash from old linux users on things like Ubuntu.

People no longer want Linux. They just want a pretty OS.

Linux is quickly becoming Windows lite, and alot don't like it.

Where does this come from? Have you ever coded in either?

The biggest difference between the two APIs is who they care about supporting most. DirectX is targetted primarily toward games, while OpenGL is targetted toward tools and research. However, in the end they're just graphics APIs, with hardly little true difference. One big reason why I don't use DirectX in research is that they don't support a true stereo mode - which is necessary for a large portion of virtual reality rendering. Also from a graphics card point of view, Nvidia still takes the time to support OpenGL well, as they also care about more than just the gaming industry.

Another fun fact - Did you know that OpenGL can utilize the "DirectX 10 functionality" on graphics cards and do it on Windows XP, and not have to settle for Vista?