Open Source 3D Games

[Jason Clinton]

On Tuesday 09 August 2005 13:30, Jack wrote:
> So is the linux kernel playing catch up with some
> other kernel/os? I thought that Linux was pretty much
> a frontrunner. Also, I've noticed that certain GUI
> aspects of certain OSS window managers were finding
> their way into other places like the Windows desktop.
> Also, if games need to stop supporting such big and
> powerful cards as Radeon 8500s and 9700s then you
> might want to take a look at what is wrong with the
> game software and not the hardware or OSS drivers.
> Sloppy coding is after all sloppy coding. GIGO. But
> hey what do I know. I don't play 3D games they give me

It's not a matter of sloppy code but merely advances in hardware capabilities. 
The newer video cards feature pixel and vertex shaders and hardware transform 
and lighting -- all of the capabilities make for more realistic scenes; 
attaining the same result in software would require nothing short of a small 
supercomputering cluster. For all intents and purposes, the OSS drivers for 
ATI and NV cannot be used to play anything newer than Quake 3 Arena (a game 
that is now around 6 years old). That's a serious limitation. The proprietary 
drivers from ATI are half-asked, token implementations of their Windows 
equivalents. They have long-standing bugs which ATI seems rather 
un-interested in fixing.

Anyone doing any serious gaming or 3D modeling and design in Linux is using 
NVidia's high-end consumer cards or their Quatro workstation cards (very 
expensive).

All is not bad on ATI's side though: the OSS driver writers will probably have 
the best Composite/Xgl implementation, first, when its ready.

I have an NVidia 5700 thats starting to show its age but can still play some 
damn sweet games from its era.

-- 
I use digital signatures and encryption. My key is stored at pgp.mit.edu key
ID code: "0x8DB3BF09". F: F628 D9D3 E57A C281 5EFE  7DF7 B52A A393 8DB3 BF09
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://kclug.org/pipermail/kclug/attachments/20050809/db9c9a35/attachment.pgp