Epic Games Changes Story, Unsure About UT3 Linux Future

[L33F3R]

It's been hinted at from time to time. You can even get something like that right now for $150 from DigiKey in the form of the BeagleBoard. But it's more akin to the original X-Box in power. It's slightly underpowered for a current generation console machine. Having a machine with a slightly more beefy GPU and clocked at 1-1.5 GHz, you'd have a machine similar to the Wii in performance. To be at parity or better with the current generation of console machines, you'd have to field something like a dual core Atom paired with a mid-end AMD or NVidia GPU or field something like a dual/quad core Cortex-A9 clocked at 1.5GHz with much more credible GPU than the ones they're fielding right at the moment in the mobile SoC's.

i was actually looking at the corex a9 and the TI omap4 platform. 4 cortex a9's could prolly get the job done for any average users needs. Even on the desktop. As far as porting goes (which i'll leave to your expertise) i doubt its a hell of alot different then omap3 or the a8 platform.

Know anyhing about freescales power based chips? I hear they are based on the g4.

Most stupid people dont care how much power a system eats up, if they did, noone would buy a PS3 or 360. That's the particular advantage you would have on a desktop style console vs a handheld.

[Setlec]

Cross-platform.

Pragmatism dictates that Linux is not, nor will it ever be the "only" os for things like games for any time in the reasonable forseeable future. While my preferred OS is Linux, not everyone is going to agree with that preference- and there ARE consoles out there, after all. And, I wouldn't want to deprive the Windows users out there for their choice to not be freed of a bunch of crap that Microsoft has inflicted on them over the years.

Fair enough!

Interesting thought that. Is there a specific engine you're alluding to there?

Well actually i was referring to Valve's Source engine, HL 2, which is an old engine but yet always taken care of... From what we FOSS have is a bunch of forks of various engines... Like AlienArena is based on quake 2 engine, Xreal is based on quake 3 engine. What I really want to see is a unique engine which could have a manpower of all those quake X variants into one fork, maybe it's selfish to say that but we linux user aren't very blessed by the Gaming Industry. I'm a really noob programmer and i started programming not long ago and what i see is that many projects brings "new" but old features. a game engine which is very old is now updated but haven't feature a triple A game has, ie: ETQW. Maybe you are confused by this post but it's also true that that's my feeling about FOSS games on linux. I am confused! why don't we have like a big meeting on IRC and start making a list of what FOSS games currently have and not, and share the information. It would be better, i think. I love FPS games but i hate Deathmatch. I play constantly ETQW, it's an objective game which we can fly helicopter, drive tank and mess with the ennemy's head. We lack also tools to make maps, i mean why the current tools doesn't offer that ETQW map editors or Source sdk have? Reverse engineer isn't the way...

IF we can create a standard for FOSS gaming we can work with Mesa (Nouveau and AMD/ATI opensource) dev teams in order to make good games and get better 3D acceleration drivers, right?

[Setlec]

If you want to make money you must make your engine cross platform, but if you already have a lot of money and seek to make a charity then you should make it for Linux only, since even to force people to move from win to lin is a good action

I don't know why but every time that i read your post i feel like you are trying to make windows users hostage of linux by making the "charity" for linux only. Forcing ppl to switch to linux is the same thing that MS wants to do with linux users, switch them to windows platform... Where does Freedom stands in this situation?

@ Svartalf: I forgot to say this. when i asked you about making i was only referring to PC platform and not consoles... As you work in the gaming industries it's clear that you can't ignore consoles... Sorry for the misunderstanding.

[Svartalf]

i was actually looking at the corex a9 and the TI omap4 platform. 4 cortex a9's could prolly get the job done for any average users needs. Even on the desktop. As far as porting goes (which i'll leave to your expertise) i doubt its a hell of alot different then omap3 or the a8 platform.

Not too different. The main difference on the A9 versus the A8 is the thing is out of order superscalar and there's a bit better pipelining present for the VFP and NEON instructions.

Know anyhing about freescales power based chips? I hear they are based on the g4.

More akin to the G3 than the G4, if memory serves. They'd be "okay" for an embedded chip, but unless they've done a recent re-vamp and licensed POWER5 stuff from IBM, they're only slightly better than the ARM solutions they're licensing from ARM for their new SoC's.

Most stupid people dont care how much power a system eats up, if they did, noone would buy a PS3 or 360. That's the particular advantage you would have on a desktop style console vs a handheld.

In this case, you'd have the ability to express the nextgen consoles' abilities IN a handheld with an A9 SoC. You're able to roughly compare the Pandora with the original X-Box and definitely with the Dreamcast. In the palm of your hand and able to run 10-ish hours on a 13.5 watt-hour battery. With the A9, you could have the next-gen class stuff in a handheld with a similar power profile.

Yeah, most people wouldn't care how much juice something lunches on- but they would care if it were dead quiet or not or a handheld was really, really capable without eating battery charge like candy. With the ARM stuff, you have that. Moreover, in 6 months' time something will check-in that is in the rough class of the current crop of consoles.

[Svartalf]

@ Svartalf: I forgot to say this. when i asked you about making i was only referring to PC platform and not consoles... As you work in the gaming industries it's clear that you can't ignore consoles... Sorry for the misunderstanding.

In this case, you would still make it cross-platform. "PC platform" means precisely what? Personal desktop machines?

That translates into Windows, MacOS, and Linux machines- and the arguments would be the same for just those as it would be from my earlier remarks. Making it Linux only is a nice sentiment from the perspective that we'd all like to see some "killer game" that'd convince people to do Linux titles- but reality kind of intrudes like I imply.

[Svartalf]

Well actually i was referring to Valve's Source engine, HL 2, which is an old engine but yet always taken care of... From what we FOSS have is a bunch of forks of various engines... Like AlienArena is based on quake 2 engine, Xreal is based on quake 3 engine. What I really want to see is a unique engine which could have a manpower of all those quake X variants into one fork, maybe it's selfish to say that but we linux user aren't very blessed by the Gaming Industry. I'm a really noob programmer and i started programming not long ago and what i see is that many projects brings "new" but old features. a game engine which is very old is now updated but haven't feature a triple A game has, ie: ETQW. Maybe you are confused by this post but it's also true that that's my feeling about FOSS games on linux. I am confused! why don't we have like a big meeting on IRC and start making a list of what FOSS games currently have and not, and share the information. It would be better, i think. I love FPS games but i hate Deathmatch. I play constantly ETQW, it's an objective game which we can fly helicopter, drive tank and mess with the ennemy's head. We lack also tools to make maps, i mean why the current tools doesn't offer that ETQW map editors or Source sdk have? Reverse engineer isn't the way...

We've seen some fruits from a similar thing with game ports conducted on this forum...perhaps you could re-start some of the FOSS specific discussions or create some new threads? Some of the problems lie in that it's neither easy, nor glamorous at times, to do game development and the FOSS project stuff falters at those junctures many times.

IF we can create a standard for FOSS gaming we can work with Mesa (Nouveau and AMD/ATI opensource) dev teams in order to make good games and get better 3D acceleration drivers, right?

Well...this implies that the lack of games being available is part of the problem. It might be. It might not. Gallium3D work is moving at a decent enough pace- but it's glacial as far as we're all concerned because they lack the manpower to effectively speed it up. Coming up with a gold-standard engine won't speed that aspect of things up. It'll give them something to aspire to on their work- but it won't speed it up any just because it's there.

[Apopas]

I don't know why but every time that i read your post i feel like you are trying to make windows users hostage of linux by making the "charity" for linux only. Forcing ppl to switch to linux is the same thing that MS wants to do with linux users, switch them to windows platform... Where does Freedom stands in this situation?

Is not the same if you think that everyone can have Linux for free and just dual boot with Windows, while for the opposite you must give your money. Is a very practical but very important reason.

[V!NCENT]

Warsow on the other hand is multiplatform and very popular on Windows, among a huge list of games that are available to Windows.

yeah, you don't know anything. You just have shown it. All three I mentioned above are multiplatform.

You didn't understood my post. Warsow is cross platform, which means available on Windows too, and succesful among Windows gamers. The other games, I never said that they were not corss-platform, are not succesful, while avaible, on Windows. So compared to other games it sucks. That was the entire point. But maybe you need to re-read my post?

But continue with your stupid stuff. The problem is not a lack of projects, the problem is lack of manpower.

But why don't you stop complaining and start doing something?

I believed I already was and with that adressing the lack of manpower problem...

What is your problem with me?

[Apopas]

Hmmm both Warsow and Nexuiz are great games. But I don't understand what Nexuiz lacks in comparison with Warsow?

[V!NCENT]

Hmmm both Warsow and Nexuiz are great games. But I don't understand what Nexuiz lacks in comparison with Warsow?

Gameplay?

From Wikipedia:

The very competitive gameplay of Warsow focuses heavily on movement and trickjumps.[3] Many of the tricks in Warsow, which originate from the Quake series, include circle-jumping, bunny hopping, strafe-jumping, double jumping, ramp-sliding, and rocket jumping. Warsow also gives players the ability to dash, dodge or wall jump, tricks that were originally possible in the Unreal series. It uses a separate button for most of the special movements, making it easier to use them while doing other things at the same time.[4] The various movement tricks combine to add an extra dimension to the gameplay; as the player's proficiency at moving increases, they are able to collect health, armour and weapons more quickly, and to overpower less capable enemies. The variety and flexibility of the physics has spawned an entire community dedicated to competing on the various Race maps that the game offers.[5]
Warsow also has a unique power-up system for weapons. In addition to regular ammunition, ammo boxes found on the map contain strong ammunition. Strong ammo either increases a weapon's power or modifies its behaviour to make it more effective. Weapons are restricted to using strong ammunition until depleted, at which point it would switch back to using regular ammunition. Unlike Unreal, Warsow weapons do not have an "alternate fire" option (pressing a different button to use different attacks with the same weapon).