What I hate about windows games ported to linux

[clearer]

The games I am talking about are games like Doom3, Nevewinter Nights and Quake 4. Games where owning one license is good enough for all platforms. The problem with these games are that you have to download a huge linux specific file to play it in linux. Usually this file is available a week or two after the initial release, and it might even be possible to get a physical media set with the files on, from the original destributor (although it's never possible in Denmark because the shops don't get that they aren't loosing anything by pedling the linux enabled media over the non-linux enabled media). The physical media usually have to be shipped for you as a special order.

Since hardly all games for Linux are avialable in Denmark (where I live, if you haven't figured that out), I resort to buying the non-linux enabled media and then download the linux-enabling files. Right now I am redownloading neverwinter nights - which is a woobing 1.5 GB download + the things on the expansion cds.

This, is the one thing I truly hate about linux ports other than the fact that most linux ports are also handicapped - having several features removed - such as Doom 3 not support EAX 4.0 on linux, neverwinter nights not having an autoupdater or an ingame movie player for the videos (I know there is a hack, but it's not perfect and it's not supported by Bioware or Atari).

[The_Jester]

I've never had that much of a problem. Either way 1.5GB isn't a huge file nowadays, unless your on dial up or a slow ISDN connection. Btw, Doom 3 DOES support EAX. It was enabled in the earlier engines but the updated ones had it disabled. You don't even have to download the linux specific files. OpenGL games for windows run just as good under wine. It doesn't have to do any realtime DX to OpenGL transcoding so it can just use the linux librarys.

[Jongi]

Jester - Don't assume the whole world has cheap fast internet readily available

[sej7278]

1.5gb isn't much?! you got a t3 in your house or something?

i don't bother with games on linux just because they are always a hack, like having to install the windows version and copy the map files across, or download a linux loader or install cedega or something stupid.

why can't they just put an extra dvd in the box, or the linux installer on the same disc as the windows one?

until companies do as good a job as windows, i will stick to my xbox for games, not linux.

[Legomax]

until companies do as good a job as windows, i will stick to my xbox for games, not linux.
lolz, windows isnt doing a good job! they have the majority so publishers make games for them. simple as that. windows is no where near as efficient as linux.

[sej7278]

lolz, windows isnt doing a good job! they have the majority so publishers make games for them. simple as that. windows is no where near as efficient as linux.

i wasn't talking about windows being any good, i meant the games installation method on windows is great, compared to the hacky manual crap for linux.

[Flounder]

I don't know yum install <package name> works pretty well.

[Legomax]

oh, you meant that! i luv the GUI on windows for installing games =)

[3006828]

you dont have to download the 1.5gig program ...

there is a 400kb linux installer for never winter nights that uses the media you have.

its available here

http://www.icculus.org/~ravage/nwn/


edit.. sorry.. make that 20m :P

[sej7278]

I don't know yum install <package name> works pretty well.

damn, i didn't know i could yum install doom3 and quake4, so they've gone open-source now?

[3006828]

..sorta.. the binaries have been released under a GPL. you still have to pay for the .pak files

[clearer]

if the binaries have been released under the GPL, then it must also mean that I can force Id Software to give me the source -- Not likely. I think you are refering to the source of older Id engines being released under the GPL -- which is not really the same.

Anyhow, today the majority of linux distro have package managers and programmes similar to yum -- apt-get or otherwise. If these guys could come up with a common format for repositories, it would mean that game makers no-longer has a good reason to not using them to distribute patches and what material. In theory this could mean that all you had to do is yum install <game-name> and type in your cd-key.

[starstatras]

The biggest file for installing a game on linux I have ever seen is the 250mb binary file thing to install quake 4 which takes less than 10 minutes on my 8mb adsl

[eXDee]

Thats why i like the UT series.
UT2004 comes with a linux installer on disc.
UT99/GOTY has a small installer to download.
And you can get a dedicated server package for linux free.
UT3 will support linux also.

And since they all run on unreal engine, that means than UE3 based games should run better on linux due to epic games' optimization.

[Thetargos]

I don't mind downloading the data, however in the case of NWN, they had to do it that way as the original files were into .cab files instead of .zip, the expansions are on .zip and you only need the binaries (in a patch). Now you can always go grab the installer (http://icculus.org/~ravage/nwn/), and only download a 30Mb file instead of 1.5Gb ;)

[v00d00]

If all you needed was to extract the files from the cab files, why not just use winrar on wine, or the extract utility you get on any win98 disk to get the files out. There are many ways to extract cab files, you just need to search for them.

No need for downloading 1.5GB of stuff.

Originally i thought you meant you were downloading the game from torrent or something, and was gonna lol a bit.

Biggest game installer ive come across is Eneny Territory at 260MB, but thats a full game. Doom3 is really small, and Quake 4 isnt that much worse.

[Thetargos]

Or you can use one of the installers which do have a cab extractor utility sandboxed into the installer, plus the binaries for version 1.29

[starstatras]

A bit off topic but does anyone have a link for the unreal tournament (original version) installer? as i cant find it anywhere on google.
Cheers, Lee.

[Thetargos]

Try the new http://lokifiles.tuxgames.com Loki repository.

[ryptyde]

Thats why i like the UT series.
UT2004 comes with a linux installer on disc.
UT99/GOTY has a small installer to download.
And you can get a dedicated server package for linux free.
UT3 will support linux also.

And since they all run on unreal engine, that means than UE3 based games should run better on linux due to epic games' optimization.

I have UT2004 on DVD and our little buddy Tux sitting on his a** on the back cover of the case and he doesn't like F7 for some reason. The Linux installer may work on an earlier Fedora but not F7 for me anyway.

Oh well back to my "freecell" game! :rolleyes:

[Thetargos]

I have UT2004 on DVD and our little buddy Tux sitting on his a** on the back cover of the case and he doesn't like F7 for some reason. The Linux installer may work on an earlier Fedora but not F7 for me anyway.

Oh well back to my "freecell" game! :rolleyes:
Do you have all that's needed for the loki installer to work? I *think* that the loki installer for UT2004 still uses GTK+ 1.2, maybe that's the problem? What do you get in the console? Please, it'd be wise to create a separate thread and investigate this further than simply complain about it and do nothing ;)

[ryptyde]

Do you have all that's needed for the loki installer to work? I *think* that the loki installer for UT2004 still uses GTK+ 1.2, maybe that's the problem? What do you get in the console? Please, it'd be wise to create a separate thread and investigate this further than simply complain about it and do nothing ;)

Why create a separate thread? Read the subject line of this one!
"What I hate about windows games ported to linux"

Not a big complaint as gaming isn't as important to me as let's say getting wireless working or printing. Would like to get it going for when the nephew visits though. I'll probably give it another try soon and see what happens.

[brunson]

I have UT2004 on DVD and our little buddy Tux sitting on his a** on the back cover of the case and he doesn't like F7 for some reason. The Linux installer may work on an earlier Fedora but not F7 for me anyway.

Oh well back to my "freecell" game! :rolleyes:
And, strangely, my Mac OS 6 games don't seem to run on OS X. And my Win 3.1 games don't run under Vista. Why can't they keep backwards compatibility for eternity?

(P.S. that was sarcasm)

[Murrquan]

I dunno, I think it's great that they ported Neverwinter Nights to Linux (http://nwn.bioware.com/downloads/linuxclient.html). It's a great game, with tons of replayability and fan-generated content, plus an online mode. Maybe there are a few extra steps required to get it to run, but hey, it's not like we're not used to that. ^.^ And this level of support is still better than none!

Of course, I have to play it on my XP partition, on account of my SiS graphics chipset is not supported by Linux ... but still!

Does anyone know if it supports the full Aurora Engine toolset? I think NWN works under Wine, at any rate, so you could probably use it there at least. Also, you can download a Bink video player (http://www.radgametools.com/bnkdown.htm) to play the cutscenes outside the game, if you don't want to use the hacks.

[Thetargos]

The Aurora Toolset, sadly doesn't work on Linux. I'm not sure if there were plans for it or not, I hope BioWare stays true to their Linux customers and does indeed port Dragon Age (http://dragonage.bioware.com/)to Linux

[Sugi]

I've never used a linux install before? How does it work? Does it go through the package manager or something? Or is it all through the terminal?

I've always used wine for my video gaming needs. I've ran a lot of games through it too. I got warcraft 3, starcraft, linage 2, and diablo 2. I think I got some other games working through wine as well. They all ran pretty well. I even got two copies of diablo 2 to run at the same time within linux. Something I could never do in windows. Is there anyone else as big as a fan as me?

[Thetargos]

I've never used a linux install before? How does it work? Does it go through the package manager or something? Or is it all through the terminal?

I've always used wine for my video gaming needs. I've ran a lot of games through it too. I got warcraft 3, starcraft, linage 2, and diablo 2. I think I got some other games working through wine as well. They all ran pretty well. I even got two copies of diablo 2 to run at the same time within linux. Something I could never do in windows. Is there anyone else as big as a fan as me?
It actually depends from game to game, but in general terms, a Linux installer works in a similar way to a Windows installer. It is simply a program which helps you copy the needed files to your HDD. You can run most of them either from the CLI (as any other pogram) or directly from the GUI with a double click. However the CLI allows you to install system-wide if you use root to copy to a location such as /usr/local/games, to which regular users have no access. Or install to the user's home directory if running the installer as any given user. The UI in most cases is similar to that of InstallShield. They aren't really that hard to use if you're familiar with Windows installers. Most installers do not add the programs to the package manager's database, but depend on uninstaller scripts to remove the programs.

[Sugi]

thetargos, Do you download the linux installer online and have the orginial files on a disc (like in windows format) or the disc image. Then the linux installer installs the files from the disc to the linux format? Or do you have to fine a complete port of all the files to a linux format to install it? Is that how it does? or I am completely confuse here?

[Thetargos]

thetargos, Do you download the linux installer online and have the orginial files on a disc (like in windows format) or the disc image. Then the linux installer installs the files from the disc to the linux format? Or do you have to fine a complete port of all the files to a linux format to install it? Is that how it does? or I am completely confuse here?
Actually you are right in both cases, bottom line: It varies, depending on how the binaries are made available. For example, UT2004 and Doom3/Quake4, some very high profile games, in the case of UT2K4 you had the installer delivered with the game media (CD/DVD) an the installer actually used the supplied media (read off it) to install the game into the system, both program binary files and game content files. In contrast id games traditionally require you to have the "Windows version" of the game, then you can download an installer that will only install the binary files through an installer, but you need to copy over the actual game content files into the appropriate directory of the "installed" game. I don't remember, though if the Doom3 installer also installs from disk, now that I think of it, but it has been that way (install binaries, copy game files manually) for id games for some time now.

[Sugi]

Wow, I've never knew that about the binary files and the game content. I did heard of some guy actually porting over the whole doom 3 game into a linux installer with the game content, but you still need to own the game to play it. Does id games only release the binary files? Like does id games release other games for linux too beside UT and doom? is there other companies that does the same thing? I heard not too many companies release the binary files. :-/

That's sad,
Sugi

[Thetargos]

Yes, id typically releases the Linux binaries-only and you simply purchase the Windows version and install that, since Quake3, not such big a deal, really, it is actually more convenient. No need to purchase a "Linux-specific" version or anything. There is a number of commercial games available for Linux (check www.tuxgames.com), and besides id, BioWare also made available binaries for their Neverwinter Nights game for installation, though their installation instructions are a bit cumbersome, alas, there are installers (see earlier in the thread)