Valve's Source Engine Coming To Linux

gav616 · 2008-05-24 01:49:45

old, but

Small extract:

There is certainly a viable Linux market for Valve games with their Orange Box being ranked number 9 on the top 25 voted applications for CodeWeavers -- it's just behind Microsoft Office 2007 and Outlook 2003 and ahead of the other software programs like Quicken 2008 and QuickBooks. Valve's Orange Box collection is made up of Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2: Episode One, Half-Life 2: Episode Two, Portal, and Team Fortress 2. Once the Source Engine is running on Linux, we would expect that the Orange Box will be available on Linux.

Full article:
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=a … inux&num=1

thoughts?

Aaron · 2008-05-24 01:55:51

I had no idea valve was being serious about linux ports.

This is good news, as porting the source engine doesn't just give us one game, it gives us quite a few, as well as mods!

Maybe now I'll finally get to try out Team Fortress 2 and Portal.

Last edited by Aaron (2008-05-24 01:56:43)

kiwisaotome · 2008-05-26 05:11:18

I already have Crossover Games, but once actual ports from Valve start poppin' up... I'll certainly utilize 'em.

Sp4rkR4t · 2008-05-26 05:24:44

Yeah this is good from Valve especially since Source is used do extensively not just by Valve but other developers as well.

jb · 2008-05-26 05:29:13

I'm reading 33 Kilocoldfusions on my Skept-o-mometer on this on, but it's been on the fritz ever since the AMD/ATi open documentation movement.

I'll still say not going to happen, but that could be an ominous sign that it will.

Sp4rkR4t · 2008-05-26 06:08:24

http://www.valvesoftware.com/job-SenSoftEngineer.html

I quite believe it if you will read the 4th bullet point in the responsibilities section.

Port Windows-based games to the Linux platform.

Redroar · 2008-05-26 15:04:21

And with this, I drop windoze for good. I love Valve's stuff, and Steam is a major reason I keep a windoze partition.

But once this materializes, I will no longer have any reason to use windoze. Yesssss.

Kane · 2008-05-26 16:07:48

Redroar, do you have problems with wine?

counterstrike was the only reason i kept my windows install, but now wine support is pretty good i've been windows free for about 6 months

Cant wait until a native version is released though

moljac024 · 2008-05-26 17:17:35

You're still not windows free if you use wine....in my opinion it's a tainted linux system

Kane · 2008-05-26 22:14:21

True, but until the alternative comes along, its the only option as Wine > Windows

moljac024 · 2008-05-26 22:25:17

I still use windows on my desktop PC however, as i'm not the only one in the house using the computer but on my laptop there is nothing except Arch linux!

Oh, and i've been waiting for the release of "Spore" PC game, it's been announced so long ago.....

Statix · 2008-05-26 22:32:43

My Source games don't run well enough on Wine, so I'm forced to use Windows from time to time. This is just one step closer to freedom.

I swear, Linux is taking over. We just need Windows 7 to be another Vista!

moljac024 · 2008-05-26 23:03:43

Linux is totally taking over, and I see more and more good open-source games (the only front still left to win on against windows)

z0phi3l · 2008-05-27 00:02:08

IF Blizzard were to release any of their new games for Linux, it would be essentially game over for Windows and gaming

I know in the WoW forums there's a constant din over a native Linux port of the game, we can only hope they come through since they already release their games for Mac on the same disks

Redroar · 2008-05-27 02:13:09

Yeah, Wine + Steam = Frustration for me. Actually, about 20% of the time Wine + anything = frustration for me...but honestly Win XP doesn't bother me enough to put myself through hell to try to make it work, but if there's a native Linux port of Source and Steam....well, I know what OS I won't need anymore.

iphitus · 2008-05-27 09:18:26

Port Windows-based games to the Linux platform.

Still vague, could easily just mean porting the dedicated servers to Linux.

Although Phoronix do speak in that article with great confidence, and hint that they have more information than that. Who knows.

Still skeptical.

Sp4rkR4t · 2008-05-27 09:58:43

There was another post I saw about this with a quote from the steam dev team which backed this up as well but I can't find it atm.

Another thing I've noticed is that the steampowered site used to have a faq page regarding Valves policy on porting steam to other platforms, namely that they had no plans to do so. That page has now dissapearred.

Last edited by Sp4rkR4t (2008-05-27 10:16:40)

Barrucadu · 2008-05-27 10:31:54

I really hope this happens, I haven't had any luck with WINE and anything more advanced than notepad... My CPU just isn't fast enough for WINE to run things at Windows speed, so a native port is all I can hope for/

z0phi3l · 2008-05-27 16:28:13

iphitus wrote:

Port Windows-based games to the Linux platform.
Still vague, could easily just mean porting the dedicated servers to Linux.
Although Phoronix do speak in that article with great confidence, and hint that they have more information than that. Who knows.
Still skeptical.

I thought their servers already ran on Linux?

Misfit138 · 2008-05-27 16:55:16

Barrucadu wrote:

I really hope this happens, I haven't had any luck with WINE and anything more advanced than notepad... My CPU just isn't fast enough for WINE to run things at Windows speed, so a native port is all I can hope for/

Same here. Diablo 2 is the most advanced game that I can get to work...and my hardware is pretty damned new.

jb · 2008-05-27 18:48:13

z0phi3l wrote:

iphitus wrote:
Port Windows-based games to the Linux platform.
Still vague, could easily just mean porting the dedicated servers to Linux.
Although Phoronix do speak in that article with great confidence, and hint that they have more information than that. Who knows.
Still skeptical.
I thought their servers already ran on Linux?

They do, which is why some of us think the intent of the job is for that; to hire on another windows to linux DS programmer.

The odds of them hiring someone on to make CS:S for Linux are near non-existent since they've already made their money on that. The trickle in of added sales they'd get would be dwarfed by the man-hours required to accomplish this feat. Who seriously is waiting for a native Linux client to buy CS:S, HL2, DOD:S, etc? The occasional person may, but the sheer bulk of their Linux players have already bought a them and are playing either through wine or just keep a windows games partition around.

My most optimist prediction would be that the purpose is to make future Source games multi-platform capable.

czar · 2008-05-31 18:06:36

http://blog.sillica.com/2008/05/30/valv … inux-soon/
^someones blog with some info pieced together
which adds:
2. An upcoming game, Postal III is slated to have Windows, Mac and Linux ports. This game is designed using the Valve Source Engine. This is probably one of the strongest points, how are they going to make a Mac and Linux port without OpenGL? Clearly something is afoot.

3. The Orange Box was released on the Playstation 3, a system that isn't known to have any viable Direct3D/DirectX API implementations, on the contrary, it uses an OpenGL ES derivative and some other libraries standardized by the Khronos Group. It also uses Nvidia's Cg shader language, which is also cross-platform (yes, works on ATI too). This means that either Valve already ported their game engine to OpenGL, or they are using an emulation layer such as Wine. Transgaming has been known to license their Cedega (Wine derivative) backend to console game developers, they did so for The Sims on the PS2 and some others too I believe. This by the way is not mentioned on the Phoronix article, and I'm not aware of any other site that has mentioned this (which is what makes my article unique I suppose).

Last edited by czar (2008-05-31 18:13:35)

B-Con · 2008-05-31 23:18:21

I tend to like Valve's games, and I'm one of those who keeps Windows around basically for the purpose of gaming. I'd love to see Valve games run natively on Linux.

jb wrote:

The odds of them hiring someone on to make CS:S for Linux are near non-existent since they've already made their money on that. The trickle in of added sales they'd get would be dwarfed by the man-hours required to accomplish this feat. Who seriously is waiting for a native Linux client to buy CS:S, HL2, DOD:S, etc? The occasional person may, but the sheer bulk of their Linux players have already bought a them and are playing either through wine or just keep a windows games partition around.
My most optimist prediction would be that the purpose is to make future Source games multi-platform capable.

Sounds about right. They're recognizing that a much larger percentage of their customers a few years from now will be relient on Linux, so, as any good business, they're adjusting to their target audience.

iphitus · 2008-06-01 12:19:39

z0phi3l wrote:

iphitus wrote:
Port Windows-based games to the Linux platform.
Still vague, could easily just mean porting the dedicated servers to Linux.
Although Phoronix do speak in that article with great confidence, and hint that they have more information than that. Who knows.
Still skeptical.
I thought their servers already ran on Linux?

So what? They don't develop new software? Someone has to port future software.

z0phi3l · 2008-06-01 15:19:14

iphitus wrote:

z0phi3l wrote:
iphitus wrote:
Still vague, could easily just mean porting the dedicated servers to Linux.
Although Phoronix do speak in that article with great confidence, and hint that they have more information than that. Who knows.
Still skeptical.
I thought their servers already ran on Linux?
So what? They don't develop new software? Someone has to port future software.

Kinda my point, if their game server software already runs on Linux, can't be "that" bad to port the full game over

Arch Linux

#1 2008-05-24 01:49:45

Valve's Source Engine Coming To Linux

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