Quoting: rea987Microsoft has to re-release Heretic II!

I dream that Hyperion Entertainment will come back to releasing games for Linux, and then they will port Heretic II to our system. They did it with Heretic II for AmigaOS in 2024.

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Thank you for your response.

Quoting: HamishSure, and it runs just the same, as it is in software mode on the CPU.

I start to wonder if Quake: The Offering works with GeForce 3, which is better in many ways than even the GeForce 4 MX 440 (but not the Ti version). You probably know that Cold War doesn't work with GeForce 4 MX 440, but you can play it with GeForce 3.

Quoting: HamishSurprisingly, more modern GeForce cards had issues with Quake: The Offering for Linux. Can you elaborate on this? Was it an issue with the GeForce cards specifically or was it a conflict with using a later distro for the newer cards?

Yes. I didn't spend too much time trying to solve these issues, but I've included some details below that I remember:

SuSe 9.0
GeForce 7600GS 512MB
NVIDIA drivers: 1.0 8874
squake - graphical glitches (unplayable)
quake.x11 - works
glquake.glx - it doesn't start

Red Hat 7.3
GeForce4 MX 440
NVIDIA drivers: 1.0 6XXX

I had a black screen when I tried to install drivers 1.0 4XXX or 1.0 5XXX.

I'm not sure, but I think only squake worked well. I have an issue with the buffer in probably two other versions. I read that I had to make a change in one of the files and rebuild it. Of course, I couldn't do it with binary files from this game. I can't find this post on one of the forums anymore.

The GeForce4 MX 440 is a budget-friendly card, and you may want to experiment with binary drivers. When you see a black screen, you can always switch to nv if your system doesn't start. You can also transfer drivers to your computer with a flash drive and a Live CD with more modern versions of Linux.

Does Terroid work on your computer?

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Quoting: HamishYep, it runs just the same as with the Rage 128 Pro, you are limited to the glquake.glx binary for 3D acceleration.

Thank you for your response.

Can you play Quake: The Offering using quake.x11 or squake with GeForce2 MX 400?

Quoting: dubigrasuWell, at the ridiculous (as we see it now) resolution of 640x480 it wasn't that bad. Probably the framerate wasn't also that great, but something like 30 fps was so sweet for a PS1 player like me, accustomed with 24 fps or less, add some overclocking, some graphical tweaking, the TV placed 2 meters away (less sensitive to low fov and fps)...it was great! 😄

The screen resolution or low settings weren't a problem for me. I think 32-bit processors aren't great for playing these two games. I do not doubt you did a lot to improve the performance of Doom 3. Sadly, I remember Doom 3/Quake 4 started to slow down when I got closer to the doors in buildings. I saw videos with more powerful computers that had the same issue.

Quoting: dubigrasuFrom what I understand, Quake 4 was more graphically intensive than Doom 3, but I did played it with the same card (...I think?), both awesome games. Apparently these Linux versions had some features disabled, which would explain them running better on Linux, but my eyeballmeter couldn't see a difference back then. It still was a blast.

They were awesome games, but graphically, they were much ahead of their time, which was problematic for owners of older computers. I can't make any comparisons because I didn't play any of them on Windows.

I remember that Gnome in 2004/2005 required 256 MB of RAM to run smoothly. In this case, I used twm when I wanted to play Doom 3 or Quake 4.

When I first started out though, the received wisdom was that if you were serious about gaming on Linux, you needed to get yourself a Nvidia card and use their proprietary drivers.

I think GeForce and Sound Blaster Live! (the OSS emulation in games) was a nice combo of hardware to avoid many issues on Linux back then. Surprisingly, more modern GeForce cards had issues with Quake: The Offering for Linux.

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@Hamish

Thank you for the article.

Can you play Quake: The Offering for Linux with GeForce2 MX 400?

Quoting: dubigrasuThat Nvidia white splash brings back sweet memories, the first "serious" card that I used for gaming on Linux was a Geforce4 MX, and it was the card I used to play Doom 3 with.

You reminded me of how painful it was to play Quake 4 on Linux with this graphics card back in 2005. I remember that Doom 3 didn't have a better performance, but it was a long time ago. I started to enjoy playing both games when I had a more modern computer with an Intel 2 Core Duo.

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Quoting: Technopeasant

It's an interesting opinion from a person who created SDL, and we didn't have most of these games for Linux without his project. Everyone can agree or disagree.

It would be an interesting opinion for him, but unfortunately I meant Scott Draeker. I got my S names mixed up.

https://web.archive.org/web/20020202221402/http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=02/01/24/2118235 [External Link]

Thank you for your response.

I know that LGP also planned to publish the original game for Linux, but they have never finished it. I wish to see a screenshot of it one day.

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Thank you for your response.

Quoting: TechnopeasantThe main issue is that Linux has never really had any exclusives. For most of our history we have been a very small fish in a large pond, so the majority of our commercial titles have been ports or developed cross-platform.

We didn’t have too many exclusive titles for Linux, but we had some commercial games developed on Linux and ported to other systems.

I switched to Linux because I noticed that I can play commercial games on this system, and I didn’t have many games from Windows that I wanted to play. I didn’t have these issues because I couldn’t be an experienced Windows gamer after more than a year of using it.

In 2004, I noticed that I could play Serious Sam, SOF, Heroes of Might and Magic III, Majesty and many companies were releasing new games for Linux every year. Many source ports for AVP, Duke Nukem 3D, Hexen, and others were available for Linux. It wasn’t a system for users playing the very specific genre of games, including World War 2 first-person shooters, because we had a few of them. I had to be less picky and choose between different genres of games if I wanted to have a better experience with Linux. Next, it wasn’t a system for users interested in playing AAA games every month. Rather, some of them + indie games.

Sadly, we didn’t have the online store with more than 40 games because everything was fragmented, and the majority of companies had their own online store with 1-3 games. Desura and USC partially fixed this problem, but they didn’t survive.

Quoting: TechnopeasantMeanwhile, our independent games have largely been free and open source (Tux Racer, SuperTux, Tux games in general), which is objectively great, but it does mean that most of these also saw releases on Windows, Mac OS X, BeOS, and your toaster.

Indie games are a very interesting topic when it comes to commercial games for Linux.

Let’s focus on Linux without looking at Windows, Mac, AmigaOS, Morph OS, AIX, or even HP-UX with two commercial games (SimCity and Dominions). We had some well-known titles released for Linux between 1994 and 2000, with some rare releases of indie games. I only focus on comparing games released for Linux, including triple-A titles and indie games, released every year.

In 2001, indie games had become more noticeable on Linux with Mobility, Bunnies, Odyssey By Car, Absolute Patience, and many others. From now on, small companies have started releasing more indie games than commercial triple-A titles for Linux. Back then, every company released one or two indie games for Linux. Meanwhile, the popular games had been published mostly by LGP, Runesoft, ID, etc., and some of them were frequently ported to Linux by Ryan Gordon. They gradually became a minority among indie games.

Companies like GarageGames and Absolutist were among those with the highest number of indie games published for Linux. The general growth of commercial games continued to 2010-2011. In 2010, we didn’t have any triple-A titles for Linux, but just indie games, and we had many more of these.

For example, Kristanix Games released 11 games for Linux, which was incredible.
Many new companies joined, including Blendo Games, Kot-in-Action, Lost Luggage Studios, and Red27 Studios, among others. The success of HIB and the availability of Desura and USC probably motivated Valve to release Steam for Linux.

Quoting: TechnopeasantThe only ones that didn't were either games that were never popular enough to begin with (and so were forgotten regardless), or titles that were directly tied to Linux/Unix only libraries such as the early X11 games (which were mostly clones of arcade games anyway). Simply put, there has never been a reason by and large where you HAD to run Linux in order to experience a given game.

What was more important for me was whether Linux had more or fewer commercial games released every year. For example, Voltley, which was exclusively available for Linux, was an interesting tidbit. However, we had some games developed on Linux, including Inner Worlds, Professor Fizzwizzle, and, less popular, The Last Sorcerer. Maybe, more.

Quoting: TechnopeasantMeanwhile, Mac OS had a shareware scene even during the darkest of times for that platform, through the likes of Ambrosia Software and similar (most notably early Bungie), not to mention all the amateur games made in Hypercard. The Amiga meanwhile had developers that adopted it when it was genuinely a leading game platform (and had many releases where the Amiga version was considered the superior version to the DOS release), and even in its twilight its attempts to keep up with the PC were still unique, such as Doom-clones like Gloom and Alien Breed 3D.

I don't think it's necessary constantly look back at other systems. Many users are unfamiliar with commercial titles released for Linux in the past. In this discussion, you found a game, Last Defender, which I never heard of during 22 years of using Linux.

Comparisons to other systems are important and interesting, but are too well-known topics for many who read these comments. I can give you more examples. However, it's difficult for me criticize companies for just trying to port more games to Linux. Many other systems existed years before Linux.

Sam Lantinga and Loki developed libraries that became more successful for other systems. Linux has survived many difficult situations, including the disappearance of major companies like Loki or LGP, as well as the loss of interest in porting games by notable developers such as ID Software or Runesoft. There were many others, but it's not part of this discussion. I appreciate every one of them for doing what they could and helping me play many great games.

Quoting: TechnopeasantLoki's Sam Latinga even touched upon this when he admitted that if he were to do it all over again he would have developed original Linux games instead of ports. Maybe he was right.

It's an interesting opinion from a person who created SDL, and we didn't have most of these games for Linux without his project. Everyone can agree or disagree.

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I suspect that flash drives will become expensive as the next thing in line because of the AI boom.

Perhaps Blu-ray Discs will become popular, and we will start recording data on them. 128 GB isn't bad for me, but it's better than keeping data on a used HDD/SSD if I don't have a choice to buy a new one.

It's an opportunity for computer stores to make money by refurbishing hardware and selling it. I hope people will stop throwing away old computers or broken hardware because it doesn't improve this situation.

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Quoting: Eike

Quoting: Hamish1999 (my fifth birthday)

None of my business of course, but as I see this...

All those games and systems are not your own good olde times? What made you investigate them so deeply?

Well, Hamish answered it.

I started using Linux in 2004, which means more than a year after I got my first computer at home. Loki and many other games for Linux aren't part of my childhood, too. Hamish is really making something amazing by publishing these articles, and I can learn more about the history of games for Linux.

The commercial games helped many of us keep using this system, and I wish it were a much bigger community. You can see huge communities of retro users constantly talking about games for Windows, Mac, Amiga, and Atari. etc. So many incredible companies sacrifice their time and risk their money to help Linux users play commercial games.

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Thank you for your response.

Quoting: HamishOur federal institutions are obligated to provide services in French, and commercial packaging bears both French and English labels (what I like to call "cereal box French"), but beyond that you would be hard pressed to ever need to learn or use French in Alberta where I live.

That's interesting. I always thought that people learn foreign languages because they want to read books, watch movies, or browse websites in those languages.

I have to admit that I don't know the regional language called Kashubian from Poland, but it's even smaller in population than the Francophone minority in Canada:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kashubian_language [External Link]

Quoting: HamishThe MS DOS version of Inner Worlds was made explicitly freeware, and the Linux version has been found and distributed on the Internet Archive, but I do intend to try and get in touch with Sleepless Software at some point to clarify the legal status of this before I would cover the game for an article.

The DOS version is still on Steam, which is weird. I know that some parts of this game aren't freeware, like the editor, even for DOS users. It's great to hear that you plan to do it, and I hope you receive a positive response from Sleepless Software.

Quoting: HamishLoading up the binary distributed from old SunSITE archives displays the following message:
"LinCycles v2.1unreg by Oliver Richman.
(C) Copyright 1996 Five Wheel Horse Software.

This program is Shareware! The trial period is 30 days.
If you like LinCycles, then please register it. For only $5,
we will send you the registered version of LinCycles, plus our
nifty FWH software catalogue! Source code for all programs are
available. (see the read.me file for more information).
PLEASE REGISTER LINCYCLES! ALSO ASK ABOUT OUR REALLY COOL PDSOFTWARE CATALOG!"

We have probably lost the commercial game for Linux, and I didn't find any information about this game on his old website:

https://web.archive.org/web/20010104235100/http://www.pathcom.com/~simex/opr/index.html [External Link]

I also noticed that YiJing was a commercial application rather than a game created by Oliver Richman:

YiJing ::
Thousands of years ago in Ancient China, wise men discovered the oracle
bones. These bones were used to tell the future and gain advice into
the nature of humanity itself. The wisdom and poetry of China, and more!
Featuring chinese (ZW/HZ) support, and many useful command line options.

YiJing 0.5beta binaries .............................. $29.99 CAN.

None of these games or applications is actively developed, which is terrible.

Quoting: Purple Library GuyWell, overall, it kind of is. But French speaking in Canada is really quite geographically concentrated--masses in Quebec which has a large population, a couple of other enclaves like the Acadians, pretty much none everywhere else. That said, in British Columbia where I live, school programs offering French immersion are quite popular . . . but North American language teaching just doesn't seem to be as effective as, say, European language teaching. I don't think most of those French immersion kids end up fluent in French once they've been out of school a few years.

Thank you for sharing it. It's always great to learn something new about a different country. In my view, students decide what they are going to do with the basics of any language taught in schools.

Quoting: TechnopeasantPage mentions a shareware arcade game called Last Defender by Wouter Scholten, but this old LSM listing says it was first listed in November 1996 so close but no cigar.

https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/docs/LSM/LSM.1999-08-30#:~:text=Last%20Defender%20demo%20Version:%201.0.5%20Entered%2Ddate:%2019NOV96%20Description [External Link]

https://web.archive.org/web/19990218154129/http://www.spinne.com/x/games/ldefender/ [External Link]

Unfortunately ibiblio does not seem to still preserve the demo, so hopefully its on an old CD somewhere.

Thank you so much for finding this game.

I found a demo version, and I have to try it:

http://ibiblio.org/pub/linux/games/arcade/ldef1210.lsm [External Link]
http://ibiblio.org/pub/linux/games/arcade/ldef1210.tgz [External Link]

Quoting: TechnopeasantSo according to MobyGames the game Terroid was released for DOS in 1996 but ported to Windows and Linux in 1997, if that counts (which since you counted SimCity, it should). Game was shareware.

Thank you for finding it!

I know about this game because I found it two years ago, but I still haven't played it. It's so cool that someone is mentioning this game for Linux. The Linux binary dates back to 1998, and I hope the older version is still available.

I disagree about SimCity for Linux because it was a different story.
SimCity was a commercial title for Linux and many other Unix systems, including HP-UX, IRIX, and other systems. It was a commercial game for over a decade for Linux, and I couldn't run the demo version back then in 2005, when I found out about it. I have never bought it. I read it had a very restrictive copy protection, which made your keys useless on a different machine.

Quoting: TechnopeasantThe final complication is that the Linux version of Terroid appears to have been freeware ("Download the full game for Linux"), so one could argue that game was not commercial when it comes to our platform. Nevertheless, Terroid seems the best candidate for our list in 1997.

It's still a Freeware game, but only for Linux, which happened a few times with other games.

1994 Doom, Doom 2
1995 Abuse, SimCity, Maelstrom (a Freeware game only for Linux)
1996 Inner Worlds, Quake, LinCycles, Last Defender
1997 Terroid (a Freeware game only for Linux)
1998 Quake 2, Ultima Online

It looks much better now.
I suspect that we have more of these games, but it would be difficult to find them. I guess 1996 was the best year for Linux users because companies released four commercial games.

Quoting: TechnopeasantSimilar to Maelstrom which started out as shareware for Mac OS in 1992 but was brought to Linux for free in 1995 by Sam Latinga when he was given the source code, and later became fully free and open source.

Thank you for mentioning it

I wonder if the old website for the Linux version from 1995 still exists at archive.org

@Hamish

Do you plan to write articles about Terroid, Maelstrom, and older versions of LinCycles?

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Thank you for your response.

Quoting: HamishDo you learn French in schools in Canada?
It varies based on which province you are in, but not as a general rule no, although it is often offered. The irony of my household is that the only person who has a working understanding of French is my father, who was born and raised in New Zealand.

That's interesting.
I thought French was more popular in Canada because many native French-speaking people live there.

Quoting: HamishMy understanding is that the Linux version was only ever available through mail order from them directly or through a few select vendors, which is part of the reason it is so difficult to find on the second hand market.

The list of vendors for the Linux version of Hopkins FBI was long, but I don't know the exact situation with this game. The Linux version was much shorter because the 3D levels similar to Doom aren't part of this game.

Quoting: HamishSame with Abuse and Inner Worlds.

You are probably right because it's hard to find information about the Linux version of Abuse.

I don't understand the situation with Inner Worlds because people played this game in the 90's, and the Linux version should be on the CD. I don't have it, and I only saw a version without the Linux binaries on one of the auctions.

Maybe you should contact Sleepless and ask about the Linux version of Inner Worlds. I don't think they have a CD, but maybe they could help you obtain the archive for your article. I didn't ask them about it.

That Freeware go-cart game was available on a CD with source code, but I didn't find any information about it on archive.org

Can you share your opinion on the license for LinCycles for Linux?

The README file mentions payments and the availability of the source code for an old version. I'm not sure if it was a commercial title that was re-released as freeware because one of the comments from an author is odd.

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