What is Digg?64 Comments
- Urusai, on 10/12/2007, -6/+50Wow, it's the '80s all over again.
- nipterink, on 10/12/2007, -8/+36@halleyscomet: have you even used an xbox 360?
- raynar, on 10/12/2007, -13/+39yippee...now I can buy a machine, play some old-ass craptastic games, and know that the market will never develop.
***** that, wheres my Xbox? - Salgat, on 10/12/2007, -6/+32Ive been wondering about this for years. Windows is this huge resource hog that brings down your computer, eliminate that garbage and you have a huge boost to your gaming performance. Hopefully this catches on and the next huge games load by booting your computer into a linux based game, bypassing the desktop etc.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+27"That said, the only thing I don't like about Gamix is the reliance on discs. They get scratched, lost and dirty. Every game I've ever bought has been followed by a trip to http://www.gamecopyworld.com and a nocd crack for that very reason."
Not to mention slow.. games I play off Deamon Tools load a lot faster than games I buy and play on CD - hrhs556x, on 10/12/2007, -4/+23holy ***** a DVD drive.
- evilTak, on 10/12/2007, -0/+16Note that they offer purchases in ISO format too, for $10 cheaper...
- HalFTW, on 10/12/2007, -5/+20"Tomlinson decided that PC gaming was too damn hard."
It's not too hard, it just requies a little thought. Eg -
Does my gfx card suck?
No - Buy new game
Yes - Buy a new card
*Puts cd into drive* ... *auto runs*...*Menu pops up*
Chose install
Press next/yes a lot
Click icon to run game
Play
How is this hard? - wendelgee2, on 10/12/2007, -2/+15I remember for windows98 I had a games boot disc that just took me to DOS. This is much friendlier though. Nifty!
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -8/+20"The final specs for Tomlinson’s console came out at 1.8 Ghz, 512 MBs of RAM, 128 MBs of video RAM, a DVD drive, and four USB ports. Sound like your gaming PC?"
yeah, in 2001 - mysticmcj, on 10/12/2007, -4/+15And I see we are back to the 80's again - I remember owning PLENTY of PC games that had to boot off of the floppy drive.
The problem is accounting for drivers and hardware changes in the future. - dkoon, on 10/12/2007, -5/+16Oh okay, so you don't need to install any games, just put in the disc and play crappy open source games?
I would rather spend time installing and play good games. - Yoshi39, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12"Linux may use OpenGL, but most developers won't waste their time making games compatible for such a small market prospect."
Well if you consider 100% of the desktop market a small share then I suppose you're right (OpenGL works on all platforms including windows). - katanaswordfish, on 10/12/2007, -3/+12Now I'm all for open source. And i like the idea behind Linux a lot. BUT... I have to admit that Linux is not good for gamers and this seems like kind of a waste of time. Those games look just plain horrible, and unless I completely missed the point of that article why would anyone bother setting up a Linux-based PC thats sole purpose is to play poorly made knockoff games with the graphics capabilities of a super Nintendo.
Ill take Ubuntu + Emulators over that any day. I see absolutely no reason to make a PC into a pseudo-console. And being a hardcore gamer, i still have little-to-no incentive to switch to linux on my primary machine until it becomes mainstream enough to earn its place in the gaming market. Until then, I'm forced to have windows installed for my online gaming needs. - JonLatane, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10I've often thought it would be cool if computers shipped with a "gaming" partition that could be periodically updated. It would only include a basic implementation of a kernel with enough support to enable video drivers, sound drivers, network, and the mounting of hard disks and removable media for game saves. The drivers would adhere to strict standards, and perhaps even have performance ratings so the games could automatically pick resolution and LOD. The user could then just pop in a game disc like on a console and play without all the performance issues of having an full-on operating system in the background.
Linux would work extremely well for this, although (and I know I'm going to get bashed for this) DirectX would have some benefits here as well, since more hardware supports it and the best eye-candy always seems to come out of DirectX games. - dkoon, on 10/12/2007, -3/+9wtf you need that 1.8 Ghz, 512 MBs of RAM, 128 MBs of video RAM, a DVD drive, and four USB ports PC to play that stupid penguin game?
- bias, on 10/12/2007, -5/+11"It’s simplicity that’s been missing from this side of the games world for a long time."
LOL, but it's gameplay that missing from your "open source" games world. - krellor, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Personally, I like having an OS in the background as I play. Sometimes I like to play music in the background, let other processes run, pause and do other things like a little work or hop online. That and I use voip more and more, which I can just leave running in the background of any games I play. As far as saving cycles by not having to run windows, yes, without an OS in the background you will free up some system resources. My response to this would be I have my system optimized not to be a resource hog in the first place, disabling services, deleting the reg keys that start programs and services at startup, etc... That and I have a fairly beefy system in the first place. I dunno, I just don't really like not being able to do anything but run the game. It is back to the days of linear computing, one program can run at a time, no multitasking, etc...
- KibibyteBrain, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6@SuckMyDigg Chicken and Egg argument; Digg has been over it a billion times before.
Game companies would move over to this system if they saw any unique opportunity for profit in doing so. The thing is, I think it may exist, although not in this form exactly. What might happen is that gaming PC makers like Alienware will set up deals to have a direct boot to game system using a bootloader or something. This would improve copy-protection which is a pro for the company and improve performance for the user, while also making Alienware and friends very very happy as its something DIY people might not be able to do.
The more and more I hate it, it looks like the era of the set-top-box computer keeps crawling closer and closer... - Cyber_Akuma, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4What about those of us that do not want to reboot their computers every time they want to play a game?
Also, there is bound to be compability problems, especially with newer systems. A console basically only has one hardware configuration (at least for the important stuff like CPU, GPU, amount of ram, etc) so a game can be specifically coded for that hardware, you don't need to worry if the system's hardware will be able to run the game. With this setup all the drivers not only need to be on the disk, you have to hope they will work with your setup. Since its designed to basically be a livecd, downloading patches/driver upgrades would be a hassle, and at that stage you might as well just play PC games the normal way. - ontain, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6well the number 1 show is american idol which is just a starsearch rehash so yeah all things in cycles.
- SuckMyDigg, on 10/12/2007, -9/+12The problem being games and video cards are designed for Direct3D compatibility which is Microsoft's proprietary api. Linux has little if any support for it, and Microsoft will keep it that way.
Linux may use OpenGL, but most developers won't waste their time making games compatible for such a small market prospect. - Ahnteis, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I have a games explorer plugin for BeyondMedia on my HTPC. I believe MS MCE also has a games front end?
- VeganG, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3It does not turn your PC into a console, really. One of the things that make a console a console is that each one is exactly the same, so games will perform exactly the same on every console.
- DynamicLynk, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Yeah..it's that new Open-Un-open source. The open source that cost 9.99 for an ISO download.
- corbs132, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3um... old? i thought livecd's came out years ago.
dugg for linux publicity. - bIuebonics, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2frankly, i'd rather games run off my hard drive. the read times are better :P ... also, with flash memory based hard drives, the read times are turning phenomenal. you'd need access to the hard drive anyways for mods (which is, frankly, why the pc will always be better than a console) and game patches, so why not make everything speedier by putting it all on the hard drive?
- MrFatalistic, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I don't see how this is a good point, anymore hard disk drives are so cheap, installing even a 5 GB game that runs off a HDD (eg, not a slow ass crippled CDROM with a scratched disc that doesn't read 50% of the time) is more efficient. Consoles load data on to disk as well, especially the x-box and likely the PS3, to get "HD" graphics, you pretty much have to. It has to go some place, and if it's always sitting in the video card's memory, that's going to mean more load times, something that consoles have become famous for in the past. Generally in the vast majority, PC games only load once per level, take a game like Supreme Commander that loads a 10x10km map (you know how much data that is right?) in less than a minute on nearly any PC (even my old p4 3.0) which would likely be impossible any console on the market now.
- Gizza, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2The funny thing is, consoles are going the opposite way. While this guys trying to make PCs more like consoles, consoles have been becoming more like PCs. Isn't the PS3 suppose to support installing games on the hard drive if you want to, to speed up load times?
- fourcylthrill, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Since Gamix is built on open source software, shouldn't he be required to release his source? I'm kind of confused there.
- StarManta, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4Or if you have a Mac:
Put in CD
Drag app file to /Applications (usually) or run the installer program (sometimes).
Of course you forgot the "find drivers, cross fingers that your computer still works" stage.
And I forgot the "find a game that's less than 9 months old" stage for the Mac side. :-/ - Ahnteis, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Unless you get something like Dark Messiah which for a lot of people (like myself) won't run even on NEW hardware. But that's the developer/publisher's fault.
- riccohasdug, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I had an Enemy Territory LiveCD and an America's Army LiveCD a few years ago. Both ran pretty well, but the startup times weren't the best.
- Sirocco, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2>> How is this hard?
It's not hard, when it WORKS.
Try going to just about any developer's support board and peruse the endless pages of technical issues and troubleshooting guides. Some people get lucky and have hardware/software configurations that allow for extremely high game compatibility. Others are not so lucky and struggle to get games to run (or stay running). Saying "Buy new hardware" is not an acceptable answer, especially when problems can still arise with hardware that is beyond what the developer specs for the game. - grumbel, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1The main issue with PC games is that they require an explicit install and not so much that they use the harddisk. Would they just use the HD for caching everything would be fine, but as it is today you often have to install gigabytes of data before you can even see the first in-game menu screen, let alone the first level and this sucks a lot when you just want to have a quick look at a game that you already deleted from the drive, since the install procedure simply takes a lot of time.
- ubuwalker31, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3Having the OS run in the background is a complete hindrance to the gaming experience, IMHO. I think it should be an option, but I think that games would be faster without having to worry about the OS in the background. Remember the days when you had to run your games on DOS, even if you had windows?
If I was a gaming developer, I wouldn't want my game to be tied down to any one OS. I would want people to play it on a Mac, a PC, or a Sparc Station. That way, I could sell more copies. The industries reliance on DirectX is a hindrance, IMHO. Games could be faster and more detailed if each game was its own independent environment. - ferggo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2This is by no means "new" like the title says, but still something very cool.
Some people seem to be missing the point that this is "easier" in that you don't need to have Windows installed at all.
You don't even need to have Linux installed!
It just runs immediately when your computer turns on with the DVD in the drive.
If you would rather play these games on top of a running operating system, fine; You can do that already.
This offers an option for people who DON'T want to do that.
This is way better than Windows gaming in that all your computing resources are devoted to the game, which helps a lot for higher-end games.
Also, any idiot can figure out how to do it; no installation required at all.
Disk slowness isn't that big of a deal, since it's going to load it into RAM anyway, and most gamers have plenty of RAM for this task anyway.
Won't be any worse than the 360's "loading" times at any rate.
Only problem is game support, and there aren't too many technical reasons that good games (including DirectX games) can't be ported to this system using winex or something like that. - steven401, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2@StarManta
You missed out the part where you find games?
Don't even say Prey / Quake 4 ect.
8-) - LegalizeMutiny, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@ImTheDarkcyde
I was just thinking the same thing. I don't think a PC with less than a gigabyte of RAM can be considered a gaming system these days. - DynamicLynk, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I have to admit those games are not worth 10 bucks or even 1 buck, considering you can get free games like those and much better from Google ( Written in AJax) or even Flash games from http://www.wiicade.com for free.
- Gizza, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"Having the OS run in the background is a complete hindrance to the gaming experience"
What exactly are you trying to do while playing games? Run Defrag and a virus scan? With todays computers what an OS is doing in the background while gaming is negligible. You would probably lose more performance playing games this way running them off the CD. - Wytefang, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I'm not one of the crowd that's horribly upset by the fact that you have to pop in a disc and install the game to my hard drive. I prefer the faster access speeds provided by a HD installation. Console kiddies are the ones who need everything in its rawest, most-simple form...some of us prefer more control over the process. It can't hurt PC gaming but I'm happy with my favorite platform as it is now. I can't even remember the last time I had a gaming-related hassle with drivers or Windows being stupid...for the most part, for me anyway, it just works - and I own over 100 games, easily. Some of these concerns that the PC isn't as smooth of a system as it could be are starting to sound more and more like urban legends, as of late, where you hear about problems but don't know a single person who has ever really had any significant ones. I'm not saying that there aren't problem PCs out there with shoddy hardware or ignorant owners, but simply that I'm strongly suspicious that they are NOT the norm, as some would have us all believe.
- launchpadtt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Commercial game developers should ship their games like this. That way their game wouldn't need any OS to run on.
- krellor, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2The problem with being able to get games to run on all the systems out there is the hardware support. Not as much of a problem now with apple moving over to 8086 architecture, but you will still be limited by hardware. As it is windows and linux provide an API to the hardware. This solution is still running linux, albeit a stripped down one. You are still not running directly against the hardware, you are running against an operating system, so you will still have one running in the background, you just can't do anything but play the game on it. To get around having an operating system you would have to write your own hard ware interfaces, including different instruction sets for different processors (low level asm programming is not something game companies will want to spend money on), and interfaces for all of the hardware. It even says in the article that you would have to use hardware that is supported, hence the little gamix ready sticker he wants retailers to have on the machines.
As to directX being a hinderence to the game industry, I'm going on a limb here and assuming you've never done any graphics intensive programming? I for one like DirectX and OpenGL because they are both (imo) great API's. OpenGL is a little easier to start on, but not a lot. I don't know what you would propose instead of a graphics API, I mean, assembly interface? No matter what game developers will need API's to work with, and gamix is no exception. The only difference is what OS and API you use.
Edit: To clarify my API comment, I meant to say that game companies will not want to develop their own graphics solution. It is faster and cheaper to use an existing API. - launchpadtt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1of course if they did that, then games would haveto ship on DVDs or HD DVDs since they'd have to hold all those uncompressed game files. Of course there's nothing that says they wouldn't be installable in addition to that.
- ferggo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1That's why it boots to a flash drive manager.
The architecture allows for that kind of thing if you want it and the games are installed in such a way that it is supported. - LordAndrew, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1This sounds an awful lot like how people played computer games in the 80s.
- chingy1788, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1I think its a great Idea
Unfortunately there aren't many games designed for Linux or games that are free
and most of said games aren't very good
If a large company starts selling this Idea, Eg Asus(or motherboard manufacturer or chipset designer such has nvidia/amd/intel) makes a motherboard that allows you to play games on your PC without loading into Windows and Asus gets developers in then this idea could really take off, Asus already has a motherboard where the system automatically plays Music CDs
With decent games on such an idea, we can then see the consoles vs PCs gaming really ramp up
If said manufacturer develops a controller for the system, or allows 3rd party USB controllers, then PCs can pretty much take over the console market, though they are smashed with the high costs of the hardware - inactive, on 08/03/2008, -0/+0This was already tried years ago, it was called the TuxBox.
- TimTheGreat, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1This is what PC gaming needs. Even if Microsoft used this idea, I think PC gaming would be very much improved. Getting your game to be friendly with Windows, Linux, or whatever you have can be hard sometimes, and if someone came up with a standard disk to pop in, it'd work great. There are ways to get around the future hardware support though.
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