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Gog.com Now Supports Linux

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Re: Gog.com Now Supports Linux

#51

Post by aidenn0 »

clarry wrote: post #40
laumars wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of the games on GOG are DOS games that have been ported to DOSbox, so they'll continue to run on any platform DOSbox has been ported to and for as long as DOSbox is maintained (which, hopefully, will be many years to come)

Yup, and that's very nice. It still would be better to get the source and native ports with enhancements that make the games more accessible, less buggy, prettier, etc. Also, performance matters. Emulating a bunch of hardware is not cheap.

People bugfix binary releases regularly. The original NES FinalFantasy shipped with dozens of fairly significant bugs, and you can get fixed for all of them now.

Ultima IV Updated graphics, native port:

http://xu4.sourceforge.net/images/shot3.png

Obviously it's harder with binaries; and these games had significant parts written in assembly anyway, so it's easier with games from the 80s than modern games.

Re: Gog.com Now Supports Linux

#52

Post by rogerbinns »

Note that many of GOG's Windows games will work on Linux under Wine too. The good news is you don't have to figure anything out - use PlayOnLinux which will prompt you for the games setup executable and then do everything else. Start at http://www.playonlinux.com/en/supported_apps-1-0.html and scroll down to the ones beginning GOG.com.

Re: Gog.com Now Supports Linux

#53

Post by laumars »

clarry wrote: post #45
laumars wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Performance isn't an issue with the age of many of those games (and the overhead of emulating hardware for DOSbox is pretty negligible given todays grunt). I'd also say having the source doesn't mean it's portable. The code might have a number of legacy dependencies (references to old DOS libraries etc) or even weird code tweaks specific for that platform (eg the Pinball game bundled with earlier versions of Windows…

> Performance isn't an issue with the age of many of those games (and the overhead of emulating hardware for DOSbox is pretty negligible given todays grunt). It's far from negligible, especially if you're not using a platform which supports dynamic translation of x86 code. Even so, you can easily run into performance issues. There are many dosbox games that run like shit on my PC, which is only four years old. > I'd…

Most of that last post is taking sentences I've posted out of the context of the paragraph they were posted in just so you can argue an unrelated point I never made to begin with. Of course I think old games should be preserved and of course I think source code serves greater perpose than just for academic curiosity. I never claimed otherwise and don't appreciate you claiming I did just to win an internet debate.

Also, I have reverse engineered games before. Albeit on a very small scale. I've also ported existing code on a number of occasions. I'm aware of the positives and negatives of both methods. Sometimes though, it's just easier to reimplement something than port old incompatible code to a new platform because the old code might have the graphics calls embedded in with the core game engine, and what not. Thus meaning that huge chunks of the core game engine would need to be rewritten regardless. Or in instances where the core game logic is written in 16bit assembly, so couldn't be ported regardless.

I'm not saying having access to the source isn't an advantage, what I'm saying is that sometimes it's not always as much help to the port as you claim with your generalisations.

Edit, freeing the art and sfx resources would be a massive help in almost all instances though

Re: Gog.com Now Supports Linux

#54

Post by malkia »

clarry wrote: post #16

What hardware platforms are supported? Give it one, three, five, ten or fifteen years. When will these proprietary binaries stop working? I look forward (probably in vain) to the day when game developers want their games to be playable by anyone on any system, any time, even long after release. Played by everyone. I mean, who wouldn't want his work to be loved by everyone and forever? Why? Freeing the code is a first…

Wouldn't the easiest thing be a virtual machine that runs older instance of Linux? (Much like DOSBox, and other emulators). So I guess nothing to worry about.

Re: Gog.com Now Supports Linux

#55

Post by karlgrz »

tormeh wrote: post #36

What's the state of AMD Radeon cards for gaming on Linux right now? I think I'll soon upgrade my desktop computer's graphics card, and I wonder if I'll have to restrict myself to Nvidia only. (Intel's not an option because of performance)

I put together a linux machine around tax return time this year with this video card: http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-det...

It's been working great for me. I haven't tried Crysis or FarCry yet, but I can play Half Life 2 at maxed out settings at 60 fps steady and stable. I play a lot of older games, but Bastion, Shadowrun Returns, Rust, Beatbuddy, Fez, Portal (2), Dust, Civ5 all run beautifully. I realize these aren't latest power games, but considering the topic I think this is ok.

Then again, I am very, very comfortable messing around with drivers and settings. Every time I upgrade the kernel I have to recompile my drivers (using AMDs Catalyst beta 14.6 currently). I don't mind, but you might.

Re: Gog.com Now Supports Linux

#56

Post by throwawaykf05 »

clarry wrote: post #27
pjmlp wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because you know, the baker, the supermarket, the landlord all accept the said BS as payment. It is very easy to wave BS to software developers. Now try to earn a steady income from FOSS desktop software.

Way to miss the point. Now try to read again and understand. Giving users the source so they can help themselves has nothing to do with landlords and supermarkets. It can get you more money though, by increasing the user base and making more happy users. It can make your game sell for much longer. Doom still sells, and people play it on the weirdest of platforms. And if the developers cared enough, they'd learn that…

> It can get you more money though, by increasing the user base and making more happy users. It can make your game sell for much longer.

Does not follow. There is no evidence that you can make more money by simply open sourcing your project. In fact, judging from the number of popular, widely used open source projects reduced to begging for donations, it's precisely the opposite. You may simply be assuming as true the same excuses that pirates use to justify their piracy, saying "Hey, I'm giving you free advertising!", completely overlooking the fact that 1) advertising in itself does not feed the creators, and 2) they're primarily advertising it to people just like them, who'll also simply pirate the product.

Look at the companies making the most money in software. Then look at the companies making money from open source software. Note: not companies that use open source or open up some of their non-core code, but those whose primary product is open source, such as Red Hat. There's a few orders of magnitude of difference in revenues. This despite Linux running the vast majority of servers on the Internet and in data centers. Why is this?

While open source proponents like to live in an ideal world where everybody shares their code and collaborates, the harsh truth is that the vast, vast majority of the world will take what it can and give nothing back. That is not conducive to building a viable business when by open sourcing your code, you're essentially make your product even easier to be taken for free.

Re: Gog.com Now Supports Linux

#57

Post by clarry »

malkia wrote: post #54
clarry wrote: post #16

What hardware platforms are supported? Give it one, three, five, ten or fifteen years. When will these proprietary binaries stop working? I look forward (probably in vain) to the day when game developers want their games to be playable by anyone on any system, any time, even long after release. Played by everyone. I mean, who wouldn't want his work to be loved by everyone and forever? Why? Freeing the code is a first…

Wouldn't the easiest thing be a virtual machine that runs older instance of Linux? (Much like DOSBox, and other emulators). So I guess nothing to worry about.

Emulating hardware takes tons of processing power. If you think our hardware is up for running games for modern OSen in a VM, you're probably assuming paravirtualization with hardware assistance. This works when you are running current hardware with current software designed to make use of these features. As soon as the implementation or hardware changes, you're likely to be out of luck. I would worry that a Linux from 2014 will not run on a 2024 Linux system without full virtualization. Heck, I don't even know if I'm still running amd64 ten years down the line.

Try boot a 2004 Linux in Qemu without using kvm, kqemu or the like. Play a game in it. For the heck of it, try emulate a machine with a different ISA.

Re: Gog.com Now Supports Linux

#58

Post by endemic »

clarry wrote: post #40
laumars wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of the games on GOG are DOS games that have been ported to DOSbox, so they'll continue to run on any platform DOSbox has been ported to and for as long as DOSbox is maintained (which, hopefully, will be many years to come)

Yup, and that's very nice. It still would be better to get the source and native ports with enhancements that make the games more accessible, less buggy, prettier, etc. Also, performance matters. Emulating a bunch of hardware is not cheap.

Isn't the point playing the original game?

Re: Gog.com Now Supports Linux

#59

Post by binarycrusader »

grimgrin wrote: post #29
ekianjo wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Am I the only one who just gave up because of video and sound driver issues? No issues here. I guess you may be running AMD hardware hence the video drivers issues, but I haven't had sound issues in games for years.

Nvidia. Installed System Shock 2 (through Steam) on my Linux machine at work. Ran it, cool, left the game and resolution was stuck at a really weird one (on 1 of 2 monitors) and I had to fix a problem. Same game on Windows, likely no problem to fix. Issues for sure still happen with Linux gaming. Many games are fine though, of course.

That's more likely an issue with the game, the desktop, or some other component than the video driver.

Re: Gog.com Now Supports Linux

#60

Post by clarry »

throwawaykf05 wrote: post #56
clarry wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Way to miss the point. Now try to read again and understand. Giving users the source so they can help themselves has nothing to do with landlords and supermarkets. It can get you more money though, by increasing the user base and making more happy users. It can make your game sell for much longer. Doom still sells, and people play it on the weirdest of platforms. And if the developers cared enough, they'd learn that…

> It can get you more money though, by increasing the user base and making more happy users. It can make your game sell for much longer. Does not follow. There is no evidence that you can make more money by simply open sourcing your project. In fact, judging from the number of popular, widely used open source projects reduced to begging for donations, it's precisely the opposite. You may simply be assuming as true th…

Way to miss the fucking point. Now try to read again and understand. Pay attention to the words I make. Note the example I made.

Freeing the code is a first, inevitable step.

This is what id has done with the Doom and Quake series. These games still sell! And we can play these games on whatever platform, with whatever custom features, because the source was released and people picked it up and made it work and improved it.

You're completely overlooking the fact that freeing a game's source code is completely different from making the entire game free. Business continues as usual: they sell the actual game, which people need to actually play it.

Companies whose source code is their entire core product are completely different. You cannot make a relevant point by talking about their problems.

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