Future of Torque on Linux
by Roque · in Torque Game Engine · 04/24/2007 (4:53 pm) · 97 replies
Future of Torque on Linux
Hi,
:. Please, someone possibly from GG could really tell me what is the future of Torque on Linux? Are there any plans? Can we be confident about using Torque for short and long term projects? The Releases will closely follow Windows ones, differently to what is happening nowdays? TGEA, TSE, etc. will be available without tons of modifications to compile and run on Linux everytime? I am sincerely frustrated for now I have time to use this wonderful tool to learn making games, but Torque project on Linux realm is apparently getting dried and except for the work done by some skilled guys I see no way out of this scenario. Of course it is indeed possible to make many kind of indie games with the actual set of Torque features, but what about professional ones? Would we have to migrate to Windows to accomplish that? Wine is good and it runs many things originally design for Windows, but to be honest it is not a good solution for this case. So, my questions are NOT about immediate use of Torque, but whether we can be sure GG will not abandon us (Linux users of TGE) in near future. Even though it looks like that already happened.
:. I know that a certain amount of work can be done by Linux Community, but the above questions are about the working done by GG itself without Linux in mind and whether that seals the destiny of all TGE Linux users.
Thanks. I did my best with my written English and I hope I can get some answers. I do not intend to find out GG strategies for the market, but It would be precious to hear about that issue.
Roque
Nice reading,
(Back of the bus please)
(TSE)
(Linux Collaboration - Last entry april/2006)
(David's Blog)
Hi,
:. Please, someone possibly from GG could really tell me what is the future of Torque on Linux? Are there any plans? Can we be confident about using Torque for short and long term projects? The Releases will closely follow Windows ones, differently to what is happening nowdays? TGEA, TSE, etc. will be available without tons of modifications to compile and run on Linux everytime? I am sincerely frustrated for now I have time to use this wonderful tool to learn making games, but Torque project on Linux realm is apparently getting dried and except for the work done by some skilled guys I see no way out of this scenario. Of course it is indeed possible to make many kind of indie games with the actual set of Torque features, but what about professional ones? Would we have to migrate to Windows to accomplish that? Wine is good and it runs many things originally design for Windows, but to be honest it is not a good solution for this case. So, my questions are NOT about immediate use of Torque, but whether we can be sure GG will not abandon us (Linux users of TGE) in near future. Even though it looks like that already happened.
:. I know that a certain amount of work can be done by Linux Community, but the above questions are about the working done by GG itself without Linux in mind and whether that seals the destiny of all TGE Linux users.
Thanks. I did my best with my written English and I hope I can get some answers. I do not intend to find out GG strategies for the market, but It would be precious to hear about that issue.
Roque
Nice reading,
(Back of the bus please)
(TSE)
(Linux Collaboration - Last entry april/2006)
(David's Blog)
#62
Sooner or later it's going to be one or two os's that totally dominate the market and most likely they will be unix based. It only makes good financial sense to go that way.
05/10/2007 (1:39 pm)
You could always develop a game that has special linux features to coax people to switch, or at least install it on a partition. Pretty much, since theres very little moola in linux development, AAA companies aren't interested in developing on it. Don't get me wrong here, there is money to be had, just not the kind that windoze rakes in yearly or even apple. It would pretty much take a really popular mmo (any genre really) developed as an indie game with special linux tools or abilities either in game or overall, to really coax the gaming world out of it's financial stranglehold. Even then it won't solidify the market to start offering linux ports.Sooner or later it's going to be one or two os's that totally dominate the market and most likely they will be unix based. It only makes good financial sense to go that way.
#63
- thanks for trying to bring showtools + constructor to Linux - I love you man!
// see jeff that's how you get the love.
// i guess you spend too much time with mac sheeps and get free easy blind love
// but with Linux users you have to get love the old fashion way - you Earn it.
// bring me showtools ( my money from like 2 years ago is still here )
// I need constructor - it's a tool to make games - how will there be linux games if we don't got the tools?
// you need to set the company culture to be: "we code crossplatform the first time"
my theory: it's the tools that make a engine - not the engine.
softimage xsi and maya have linux - come on -> we need constructor ( at least give somebody the source).
05/10/2007 (10:30 pm)
Ron Y - you're alive - I thought the worst - I thank Jesus and tux - thanks for trying to bring showtools + constructor to Linux - I love you man!
// see jeff that's how you get the love.
// i guess you spend too much time with mac sheeps and get free easy blind love
// but with Linux users you have to get love the old fashion way - you Earn it.
// bring me showtools ( my money from like 2 years ago is still here )
// I need constructor - it's a tool to make games - how will there be linux games if we don't got the tools?
// you need to set the company culture to be: "we code crossplatform the first time"
my theory: it's the tools that make a engine - not the engine.
softimage xsi and maya have linux - come on -> we need constructor ( at least give somebody the source).
#64
Hear Hear!
I would _not_ be using Windows today if the game creation tools I needed were available on Linux. I would not be using Torque if it wasn't for the Mission Editor. I couldn't use Torque without map2dif, DTS exporters, etc.
Anywaz, Constructor appears to have possibly been built with GTK. It sure ain't a native MFC app.
Point being, that was presumeably done for a reason.
05/10/2007 (10:41 pm)
Quote:my theory: it's the tools that make a engine - not the engine.
Hear Hear!
I would _not_ be using Windows today if the game creation tools I needed were available on Linux. I would not be using Torque if it wasn't for the Mission Editor. I couldn't use Torque without map2dif, DTS exporters, etc.
Anywaz, Constructor appears to have possibly been built with GTK. It sure ain't a native MFC app.
Point being, that was presumeably done for a reason.
#65
HUH????
Last time I was in the ctor source (been a vry long time) it was just bastardized stock TGE code, think it was a rev behind latest at the time.
I do not have (and have not had one) a linux partition any more :( used to dual boot, until my HDD died. Got a new SATA and never redid the dual boot. Someone sent me a HDD (forget the chaps name), but it still sits in the shipping box :(
Would love to get ctor and showtool pro up and running on linux, just do not have the time right now with all the C# that I have been doing to pay the bills.
Yah, I tried but after my medical issues last year everything went to hell in a hand basket. Fell out of touch with GG while recovering and things just went to hell from there. GG was not the only company to loose faith in me, also fell out of the good graces of MGT :(. Last year just plain sucked for me in the TGE realm, nothing went right.
Trying to right the ship this year, but it's not going very well
05/11/2007 (6:15 am)
Quote:Anywaz, Constructor appears to have possibly been built with GTK
HUH????
Last time I was in the ctor source (been a vry long time) it was just bastardized stock TGE code, think it was a rev behind latest at the time.
I do not have (and have not had one) a linux partition any more :( used to dual boot, until my HDD died. Got a new SATA and never redid the dual boot. Someone sent me a HDD (forget the chaps name), but it still sits in the shipping box :(
Would love to get ctor and showtool pro up and running on linux, just do not have the time right now with all the C# that I have been doing to pay the bills.
Quote:Ron Y - you're alive - I thought the worst - I thank Jesus and tux
- thanks for trying to bring showtools + constructor to Linux - I love you man!
Yah, I tried but after my medical issues last year everything went to hell in a hand basket. Fell out of touch with GG while recovering and things just went to hell from there. GG was not the only company to loose faith in me, also fell out of the good graces of MGT :(. Last year just plain sucked for me in the TGE realm, nothing went right.
Trying to right the ship this year, but it's not going very well
#66
TGE works on linux. Ubuntu + GCC works out of the box, installation may be completed within a hour. If one wish to have nice IDE, it takes additional 30 minutes to install Eclipse + CDT plugin. Applying community patches to TGE source takes maybe an hour. Is it really so hard to ensure that source compiles there?
Don't tell me, that there is additional "linux engineer" needed to remove some extra qualifications from the code. It is very, very annoying.
If primary statistic used is how many ppl downloaded Linux TGE package vs. Win32 - don't believe it. Many downloaded Win32 and then moved source to linux to compile (at least dedicated). Just take a look at download page. There were no 1.5.1 linux packages and there are no 1.5.2 linux packages at the moment. I've asked support about that, but my mail was politely ignored. And then, someone will say - "Look, nobody downloaded linux TGE last month! It's not worth it!".
I've chosen Torque, and I've bought TGE license ONLY because it is cross-platform. That was the reason to not to buy TGE-A too. I'll wait until TGE-A's cross-platform will be more than just a theory. Probably it won't be, because that requires linux programmer, and we know the rest.
Torque is THE GREAT engine. Don't destroy it, keep it portable please.
05/16/2007 (4:14 am)
Sorry GG, I don't want to blame anyone and I really appreciate your great work, but I'm slightly annoyed reading about "hiring linux enginner" for TGE and how much money will it cost, and that possible income is not worth it.TGE works on linux. Ubuntu + GCC works out of the box, installation may be completed within a hour. If one wish to have nice IDE, it takes additional 30 minutes to install Eclipse + CDT plugin. Applying community patches to TGE source takes maybe an hour. Is it really so hard to ensure that source compiles there?
Don't tell me, that there is additional "linux engineer" needed to remove some extra qualifications from the code. It is very, very annoying.
If primary statistic used is how many ppl downloaded Linux TGE package vs. Win32 - don't believe it. Many downloaded Win32 and then moved source to linux to compile (at least dedicated). Just take a look at download page. There were no 1.5.1 linux packages and there are no 1.5.2 linux packages at the moment. I've asked support about that, but my mail was politely ignored. And then, someone will say - "Look, nobody downloaded linux TGE last month! It's not worth it!".
I've chosen Torque, and I've bought TGE license ONLY because it is cross-platform. That was the reason to not to buy TGE-A too. I'll wait until TGE-A's cross-platform will be more than just a theory. Probably it won't be, because that requires linux programmer, and we know the rest.
Torque is THE GREAT engine. Don't destroy it, keep it portable please.
#67
05/16/2007 (6:03 am)
:. MILO's law, as usual. "Microsoft In Linux Out". When you see the first one entering you can *certainly* expect the another one leaving. A pity because the inverse is not true. 
#68
05/16/2007 (6:06 am)
Sorry to hear about your issues Ron. I hope you get better.
#69
05/16/2007 (6:10 am)
1.5.2 does compile out of the box now for a couple of us who have tried. All we need now is a .tar.gz file in our downloads section.
#70
05/16/2007 (7:30 am)
Why a .tar.gz when I had an installer working ? Not sure why the maintainer is not generating installers and sending them to GG, it is not rocket science....
#71
05/16/2007 (7:41 am)
I only say that because for 1.5.0, it was a zip file. Installer is just as good too, as it will at least keep the file permissions like the tarball.
#72
Keep up the good work GG! :-)
05/16/2007 (2:23 pm)
I just downloaded 1.5.2 package (win32, of course, there is still no package for linux, do not count me on win32 please ;-). For the first time I've ever compiled TGE it compiled just out of the box on my linux. I'm impressed.Keep up the good work GG! :-)
#73
05/16/2007 (10:10 pm)
I imagine it helps GG claim that no one uses Linux when we all have to download the windows package.
#74
This is GG's major problem with linux support, I'm sure, and also the reason the we won't easily see TGEA on Linux.
08/19/2008 (11:28 am)
OpenGL, unfortunately is dead.This is GG's major problem with linux support, I'm sure, and also the reason the we won't easily see TGEA on Linux.
#75
Better let Apple know so they can start implementing DirectX on desktops right now. Also Sony and anyone else using OpenGL ES. Also you'll save nvidia and ati a lot of time by letting them know that they no longer need to develop drivers for anything other than DirectX [oh, and Vista. Remember that the same naysayers that are whining about OpenGL being dead are the same guys that want features that are only in the vista-supported version of DirectX - they were going to jump to directx sooner or later, whether OpenGL3 turned out to be god's own graphical API or not]
OpenGL is not dead. Khronos may have screwed up to one particular crowd but they didn't outright kill OpenGL. They just released a crappy point upgrade that's a huge disappointment, but they didn't kill OpenGL. All the biggest whiners raise good and interesting points, but OpenGL isn't *worse* for the change, it just isn't any better either. It's also worth noting that OpenGL won't die for the exact same reason that all the most vociferous game developers hate it - because all those CAD applications that are worth massively more than your game will still be just fine.
GG pulled that particular bait and switch years before OpenGL3 was even a glimmer in Khronos' eye. OpenGL3 has nothing to do with the lack of TGEA on OSX or Linux.
Gary (-;
08/19/2008 (6:10 pm)
Holy thread from the past, Batman!Quote:OpenGL, unfortunately is dead.
Better let Apple know so they can start implementing DirectX on desktops right now. Also Sony and anyone else using OpenGL ES. Also you'll save nvidia and ati a lot of time by letting them know that they no longer need to develop drivers for anything other than DirectX [oh, and Vista. Remember that the same naysayers that are whining about OpenGL being dead are the same guys that want features that are only in the vista-supported version of DirectX - they were going to jump to directx sooner or later, whether OpenGL3 turned out to be god's own graphical API or not]
OpenGL is not dead. Khronos may have screwed up to one particular crowd but they didn't outright kill OpenGL. They just released a crappy point upgrade that's a huge disappointment, but they didn't kill OpenGL. All the biggest whiners raise good and interesting points, but OpenGL isn't *worse* for the change, it just isn't any better either. It's also worth noting that OpenGL won't die for the exact same reason that all the most vociferous game developers hate it - because all those CAD applications that are worth massively more than your game will still be just fine.
Quote:This is GG's major problem with linux support, I'm sure
GG pulled that particular bait and switch years before OpenGL3 was even a glimmer in Khronos' eye. OpenGL3 has nothing to do with the lack of TGEA on OSX or Linux.
Gary (-;
#76
My productivity as a Visual C++ windows game programmer was an order of magnitude higher than I recall from the days of fighting with Unix. I really had little to no sympathy while in the game industry with the "3 percenters" ;). We had enough of a fight trying to make money in the small company Windows game world.
I've gone back into the aerospace industry and I'm using Linux now at work, where my company is heavily involved with some really cool Linux-enabled real-time distributed simulation building technology. And there is some cool stuff out there for Linux I'd like to play around with at home. And of course I'll be trying to do some Torque on Linux too, because I'm a masochist and don't intend to make any money with it. That is, if I can find enough drivers to get my Linux installed onto a corner of my Windows quad core, dual boot. (Can't afford to screw up the Windows side. I could make money with it, if I had to ;) )
Oh well, back to reading TCL/Tk manuals to do portable GUI's on Linux. (There is this system that people have spent 20 years inventing to wrap a scripting language (TCL) around C/C++ code functions. Then you can use the platform independent Tk graphics library to do GUIs and stuff to drive the C code.)
pack .frame.menu.$i -side top -anchor w
(As an aside, and of course totally unrelated (because that would be cruel), the last Torque product I hooked together has hundreds of colorful GUI widgets on a dozen screens and only a few here and there code mods to TGE. Otherwise, the GUI and 3D game logic was entirely orchestrated via TorqueScript.)
---
Stone knives and bearskins
08/19/2008 (9:02 pm)
10 years ago I used to have to work on Unix. I was a proud owner of the Unix Haters Manual. My productivity as a Visual C++ windows game programmer was an order of magnitude higher than I recall from the days of fighting with Unix. I really had little to no sympathy while in the game industry with the "3 percenters" ;). We had enough of a fight trying to make money in the small company Windows game world.
I've gone back into the aerospace industry and I'm using Linux now at work, where my company is heavily involved with some really cool Linux-enabled real-time distributed simulation building technology. And there is some cool stuff out there for Linux I'd like to play around with at home. And of course I'll be trying to do some Torque on Linux too, because I'm a masochist and don't intend to make any money with it. That is, if I can find enough drivers to get my Linux installed onto a corner of my Windows quad core, dual boot. (Can't afford to screw up the Windows side. I could make money with it, if I had to ;) )
Oh well, back to reading TCL/Tk manuals to do portable GUI's on Linux. (There is this system that people have spent 20 years inventing to wrap a scripting language (TCL) around C/C++ code functions. Then you can use the platform independent Tk graphics library to do GUIs and stuff to drive the C code.)
pack .frame.menu.$i -side top -anchor w
(As an aside, and of course totally unrelated (because that would be cruel), the last Torque product I hooked together has hundreds of colorful GUI widgets on a dozen screens and only a few here and there code mods to TGE. Otherwise, the GUI and 3D game logic was entirely orchestrated via TorqueScript.)
---
Stone knives and bearskins
#77
Really, this whole opengl argument is pointless now, anyway. All one has to do is say, "but think of the MacIntoshes" which is no longer pathetic but a serious concern to anyone who's properly greedy.
08/19/2008 (9:14 pm)
My old company is moving from MFC to QT tools, and liking it pretty well. Platform independence is not negotiable for them, but they like to use fairly modern tools as well.Really, this whole opengl argument is pointless now, anyway. All one has to do is say, "but think of the MacIntoshes" which is no longer pathetic but a serious concern to anyone who's properly greedy.
#78
08/20/2008 (2:32 pm)
Everything not made by Microsoft uses OpenGL or OpenGL ES. That's quite a number of platforms, including some which people don't even know that they're using. The world is more than just regular desktop and laptop systems. 
#79
08/20/2008 (4:45 pm)
Exactly, I am not sure what is going on with OpenGL support for TGEA, but I believe Juggernaut will keep the OpenGL part of TGE.
Torque Owner Gary "ChunkyKs" Briggs
Yeah, it was called q3test. I can't help but notice that a lot of people still aren't running Linux. I love the idea of Linux releases coming out first, but I strongly don't imagine that it would work out well for the game being released.
Simultaneous releases are a lot better, IMHO. Unreal2k3,4 had linux installers in the box, which was fantastic.
Gary (-;