Gaming on Linux? Without Emulators

dookiesmack · Post by **dookiesmack** » Fri Mar 10, 2006 5:24 pm

For those of you, who like me, are avid gamers. Trying to find a way to get your fav FPS to work under Linux is quite a daunting task. Yea I can get UT2004, Quake, and some other games to work but we all find ourselves back on a windows box to play our other fav games. To see the open source community doing work like this just makes it all worth while. If you get a chance, head over to http://sauerbraten.org/ and check out this FPS. It seems real promising. I'm going to try to get my FPS of the day, DOD:Source, to work under Cedega. I will keep you all up to date on my progress. From time to time I think I might post my finding on Gaming on Linux here since I’m too noob to do a podcast or blog. But I think this is a major area where Linux could shine with a little more awareness of the possibilities of Gaming on Linux.

Also if you get a chance, We have a DOD:Source server up and running. So stop by, say Hi, join in, and get fragged by Dookie_Smack......(I'm on every night)Then you can tell your friends you got Smacked by Dookie

Gaming server info here http://www.dod.greatwizard.net/

Ryochan7 · Post by **Ryochan7** » Fri Mar 10, 2006 6:45 pm

It looks like the site is currently experiencing the digg effect. I saw that site mentioned on digg ealier but I haven't bothered to check Sauerbraten out yet. Maybe I will check it out later when there isn't so much traffic on that site so that the site will actually load.

As for a Linux gaming podcast, I really wish that there was one. I have been looking every once and a while for a Linux gaming podcast and it seems that nobody has decided to take advantage of an untapped audience. GAMERadio does talk about Linux gaming sometimes. It's too bad that the hosts decided not to take up Dann's proposal to do a whole episode on Linux gaming. I was even thinking about making a Linux gaming podcast myself but I still don't have much expertise in using Linux so I might end up sounding like a n00b. Plus I am a really boring guy with a horrible voice.

Tsuroerusu · Post by **Tsuroerusu** » Fri Mar 10, 2006 7:02 pm

I just use consoles for gaming, that makes me OS independant.

I think with the next generation of consoles, both visual addicts and people like me who don't give a shit about graphics but want good gameplay is gonna be very satisfied.

Post by **dann** » Fri Mar 10, 2006 7:35 pm

Ryochan7 wrote:I was even thinking about making a Linux gaming podcast myself but I still don't have much expertise in using Linux so I might end up sounding like a n00b. Plus I am a really boring guy with a horrible voice.

At first I thought this would be really tough. I mean, on the Windows side there are so many games coming out on a regular basis that any gaming podcast must have a terrible time trying to keep up. There is so much to pick from. The linux side is quite the opposite. While there are a few games that might come out one month, the quantitiy is not there. Plus there are so many games that are essentially variations on the same theme - How many mahjongs are there? Another tetris clone? It might make a linux podcast difficult.

But then I thought, hey look at Distrowatch. That's a short podcast that focuses on new distros, and there is a lot of replication in new distros. But the content is interspersed with some commentary and reviews.

I do think a montly Linux game podcasts could be done using information from sources like Linux Game Tomb to talk about updates and additions.

Ryochan, if you are interested in doing such a podcast on a semi-regular (monthly or bi-weekly at the most), I'd gladly do one with you.

We have asterisk, skype and other technologies at our disposal!

Tsuroerusu · Post by **Tsuroerusu** » Fri Mar 10, 2006 7:55 pm

dann wrote:
Ryochan7 wrote:I was even thinking about making a Linux gaming podcast myself but I still don't have much expertise in using Linux so I might end up sounding like a n00b. Plus I am a really boring guy with a horrible voice.
At first I thought this would be really tough. I mean, on the Windows side there are so many games coming out on a regular basis that any gaming podcast must have a terrible time trying to keep up. There is so much to pick from. The linux side is quite the opposite. While there are a few games that might come out one month, the quantitiy is not there. Plus there are so many games that are essentially variations on the same theme - How many mahjongs are there? Another tetris clone? It might make a linux podcast difficult.

But then I thought, hey look at Distrowatch. That's a short podcast that focuses on new distros, and there is a lot of replication in new distros. But the content is interspersed with some commentary and reviews.

I do think a montly Linux game podcasts could be done using information from sources like Linux Game Tomb to talk about updates and additions.

Ryochan, if you are interested in doing such a podcast on a semi-regular (monthly or bi-weekly at the most), I'd gladly do one with you.

We have asterisk, skype and other technologies at our disposal!

Dann, question for you, when you think of a "gamer", do you think of a guy who plays Tetris on his cellphone now and then or a guy who lives inside World of Warcraft, F.E.A.R...... ?

dookiesmack · Post by **dookiesmack** » Fri Mar 10, 2006 11:10 pm

Ryochan7 wrote:I was even thinking about making a Linux gaming podcast myself but I still don't have much expertise in using Linux so I might end up sounding like a n00b. Plus I am a really boring guy with a horrible voice.

That's one of the points that i was try to make. The fact that I would like to do a podcast or blog to get more awareness to Gaming on Linux but my experience with linux is still in the noob stages. Maybe with Dann's help you guys could figure out a way to do this. Hope so!!!

Ryochan7 · Post by **Ryochan7** » Sat Mar 11, 2006 4:15 am

That's cool that you would be willing to help out, Dann, but I don't really think that I would want to spend the time that would be necessary to start podcasting again. I did like making my old podcast but it was too much work for me at the time and I don't know how much different things would be now. Making the short 15 minute episodes that I made took like 4-5 hours to record and edit. It didn't help that while recording the audio was basically split into 15-30 second segments because I would keep screwing things up. Also, I could never gain an audience, even though I did get positive feedback from several people, because I only made an episode every 3 months. I did make a post on my blog a couple of weeks ago about possibly getting back into podcasting but I wasn't sure whether I would pursue it or not. For anyone who might want to listen to what my boring personality is like, here is a link to the last episode of my old podcast.

http://bored.homelinux.net/stuff/bgr-ep3_20050905.ogg

I think that I have changed a little bit since September but not by much.

Based on my idea, the first podcast would have been about general Linux links and 3D benchmark utilities.

snarkout · Post by **snarkout** » Sat Mar 11, 2006 2:16 pm

dann wrote: We have asterisk, skype and other technologies at our disposal!

And an endless supply of natural gas to fuel the turbines used to power the jet-engine PCs. One night of cocktail weenies and PBR and you're set for a month, minimum.

Post by **dann** » Sat Mar 11, 2006 6:42 pm

Tsuroerusu wrote: Dann, question for you, when you think of a "gamer", do you think of a guy who plays Tetris on his cellphone now and then or a guy who lives inside World of Warcraft, F.E.A.R...... ?

Well, that depends. What about a person into Role Playing games or board games, are they not gamers? But I do see where you are coming from.

I am very interested in starting a Linux Gaming podcast. I don't in any pretend that the current crop of Linux games is what "Gamers" are accostumed to these days. I do think there is a wealth of Linux games out there that are not only fun, but innovative.

Reminds me of back when I was just hitting Middle School. I had a TI99/4A and a friend had a Commondore 64. We did not always see eye-to-eye, the C64 kid an myself. One day we were in my room, a group of us, sans the C64 kids, playing some very simple game - two ships flying around trying to shoot one another. We played that damn game for hours. Just simple triangles and a dash for a laser. One of my friends chimmed in that this game was a lot more fun than the "graphic opuses on the C64" at the time.

There are a lot of fun games for Linux that most people probably over-look or never heard of. It would be nice to bring a lot of these to light.

I'm in the process of collecting some information for a first show. If anyone is interested in joining me that would be great. Again, I am looking at doing a bi-weekly to a monthly show of about 30 minutes. Notthing like the power episodes of TLLTS.

Tsuroerusu · Post by **Tsuroerusu** » Sat Mar 11, 2006 11:25 pm

dann wrote:
Tsuroerusu wrote: Dann, question for you, when you think of a "gamer", do you think of a guy who plays Tetris on his cellphone now and then or a guy who lives inside World of Warcraft, F.E.A.R...... ?
Well, that depends. What about a person into Role Playing games or board games, are they not gamers? But I do see where you are coming from.

I am very interested in starting a Linux Gaming podcast. I don't in any pretend that the current crop of Linux games is what "Gamers" are accostumed to these days. I do think there is a wealth of Linux games out there that are not only fun, but innovative.

Reminds me of back when I was just hitting Middle School. I had a TI99/4A and a friend had a Commondore 64. We did not always see eye-to-eye, the C64 kid an myself. One day we were in my room, a group of us, sans the C64 kids, playing some very simple game - two ships flying around trying to shoot one another. We played that damn game for hours. Just simple triangles and a dash for a laser. One of my friends chimmed in that this game was a lot more fun than the "graphic opuses on the C64" at the time.

There are a lot of fun games for Linux that most people probably over-look or never heard of. It would be nice to bring a lot of these to light.

I'm in the process of collecting some information for a first show. If anyone is interested in joining me that would be great. Again, I am looking at doing a bi-weekly to a monthly show of about 30 minutes. Notthing like the power episodes of TLLTS.

Fair enough, I see where you're going.