MiKom

Probably that from the very begging game was written in very DirectX-centric way, and game logics are mixed with rendering part. Now, creating an OpenGL renderer would probably mean need to rewrite the whole codebase. I don't know why so many game developers write only DirectX games. Is it so great? If so, than why John Carmack still uses openGL? And why DirectX architecture is constantly heading towards OpenGL way of doing things (going away from COM model towards OpenGL style). And haven't you read good old papas Kerninghan and Ritche who said that programs should be portable? Wouldn't you like to wake up one day and find that porting game for PowerPC or amd64 is just a matter of mere recompilation?

Look to my past thread: Linux Thread Even the lead programmer spoke out.

I would also like to see future BiS games available for linux. I'm running Gentoo system for 3 years and now I'm so used to it that working on Windows annoys me a lot. Unfortuneatly i still have to dualboot because of games :/ ID software and Epic realised that linux gamers community is getting stronger. They make these ports as a future investment. Even now they got all the money they invested on ports back and soon it will start to make profit as community grows. And again, say you are a game developer. You start a new project of stunning game. Now, you have two ways: 1. You can make game on DirectX and have the target limited only for Windows users. 2. You can make game on OpenGL, OpenAL, libSDL (you name it) with the same quality (eye candys, performance) and with the wider target of Windows, linux, Mac, BSD users When you start developing a new game the cost of both ways is exactly the same (implying microsoft is not paying for choosing DirectX or giving you something for free (Xbox SDK??) what for me is unfair and seems like immoral usage of monopoly) but the target is wider. The only thing you have to do is recompiling the game under target platform (and maybe some minor changes in the code). If you are thinking, you choose the second way which means higher profits now, and in the future. And please, think about libSDL (Simple DirectMedia Layer). And don't get fooled with this "Simple" in the name. The library is complex enough to run games like Quake IV, Doom 3, Unreal Tournament and Neverwinter Nigths under linux as well as on Windows. It provides acces to controllers similar to DirectInput and has sound layer like DirectSound with diffrent outputs.

I do not know. It is certainly not paying us. Heh, just kidding, maybe they even don't know where the Czech Republic is (just look what they did with Poland on the world map in clock settings in windows XP). ...that there will be no linux client. Now my hope is lying dead on the floor. So, I'm now officialy sad because of this information and I still need this Microsoft's crap errr. Maybe at least Cedega will be able to handle the game.

Because I couldn't find any topic about this issue I start it here. What with linux client and server for the game? As I mentioned before on AA forum, releasing only server fot linux is unfair for linux users and is just leeching on linux stability and performance. I think that if game's engine is well written it will not be too hard to make a OpenGL renderer. Many games have options which allow to switch between DirectX and OpenGL renderers (Neverwinter Nights for example). You can even sacrifice some DirectX eye-candys just to make the game runable on linux (what I think would not be necessary because OpenGL handles all sophisticated effects). If the graphic rendering part of the engine is separated enough from the rest of the game it should be quite simple to create linux client. There is also a group of programmers which can rewrite the code to run it on linux for some amount of money (this group is icculus.org). Among others they ported UT2004 using OpenGL and SDL library (for other than graphic aspects of DirectX like DirectInput and DirectSound). I know that linux players are just a small percent of all but amount of linux users is constantly growing, some big game development studios (ID software, Epic Games, Bioware) noticed that and they create linux ports of their famous games. What is more, linux communities are very creative because of nature of this system and you can probably expect more mods and add-ons when the game is ported. Or maybe Microsoft pays people for making the game portless in nature?

Eee, what do you mean? Sorry, I'm not a pr0 user of english language and i don't clearly understand your post.

I don't like situations when PC developers release game only for windows and make Unix/Linux server. For me it's just leeching on linux stability and higher perfomance. If you make linux server than create also linux client. I know that if graphic engine is separated from the rest of the game it is not so hard to make it work on OpenGL (wich from 2.0 version is as good as Direct3D). For audio and input related matters the SDL library can do the job. For example : Unreal Tournamet is based on DirectX on windows and on SDL/OpenGL on linux. There are also groups that can rewrite the code to make it linux friendy for some amount of money (like icculus.org, they had rewritten quite a bunch of games).