[IceFire]

Gosh Dave, who pissed in your package of caffinated penguin mints?

I believe you've totally misinterpreted the tone of Dave's post.  And gosh, I hope maybe I've just misinterpreted your tone as well.

He is the original programmer for this code (or one of them) and he does know the industry and he does have of wisdom and experience to bestow on us.  He doesn't have to do that...but I think he loves this game as much as we do and he's happy to see that we are trying to do something with it.

Just because he's trying to prove a point or express something doesn't mean that he's trying to bash someone else.  Not at all.

[penguin]

Originally posted by theoddone33
Also, penguin, never use glDrawPixels/glReadPixels.  That is likely why your 2D drawing is slow.  Split your image into textures and draw those instead.  I believe there's a nice document on it in the ZSNES source package.

Mmmph.  OK, thanks for the tip.  I'll be the first to admit that I'm somewhat of an OpenGL n00b.  Once I get things a little more stable, I'll give that a shot...

[WMCoolmon]

theoddone33, there's an old saying that applies here..."Don't bite the hand that feeds you." Considering the only reason we have the source code is because dave released it, your entire post sounds extremely arrogant, especially the part about "giving credit where credit is due. So. Lighten up.

I think dave has a good point. From what I've heard, plenty of people dual-boot between Windows and Linux so they can play games, and the majority of games are for Windows. Thus, there's a larger audience that use Windows than Linux. That's not to say that a Linux port is a bad thing, but making it the sole goal of the entire project won't be as helpful as upgrading the current DirectX code.

Yes, I'm one of those "non technical" people as far as editing the source is concerned

[IceFire]

Yes, I'm one of those "non technical" people as far as editing the source is concerned

But seemingly no less wise either

[theoddone33]

Originally posted by IceFire

I believe you've totally misinterpreted the tone of Dave's post.  And gosh, I hope maybe I've just misinterpreted your tone as well.

I interpreted daveb's posts as saying "Don't waste your time on a Linux or Mac port, it's just not worth it."

If I indeed misinterpreted his point, I apologize.

[Mysterial]

Originally posted by WMCoolmon
...but making it the sole goal of the entire project won't be as helpful as upgrading the current DirectX code.

No one ever said it was the sole goal of the entire project. It is ONE goal of SOME of the people. Thanks to the miracles of CVS, in most cases everyone should be able to work on their own goals simultaneously as long as they do things right, keep good changelogs, and have good communication. Speaking of which, we need to agree on a changelog format, and documentation of any changes which require more than "I added this". Best to get it out of the way ASAP.

Originally posted by theoddone33
Our Linux version of FS2 will be completed shortly. We will include source with our release. Thanks to the magic of Open Source, you guys are free to use anything that helps you out from our tree in your own. We just ask that proper credit be given.

What version? You mean the one penguin was working on or something else? I'll be VERY surprised if it is done "shortly". Although I disagree with dave's apparent pessimism, I still think it'll take a while longer. Perhaps a long while longer. It might be PLAYABLE "shortly", but I have no doubt there'll be plenty of bugs to work out. There always is.

Originally posted by theoddone33

Also, penguin, never use glDrawPixels/glReadPixels.  That is likely why your 2D drawing is slow.  Split your image into textures and draw those instead.  I believe there's a nice document on it in the ZSNES source package.

Extra thanks from me for pointing that out; since penguin mentioned the slow 2d I was trying to grasp that idea at the edge of my memory. Then I saw this, and thought "GAH! That's right! Why couldn't I remember that?!"

[WMCoolmon]

This goal is at odds with what the majority of the people around here really want to accomplish.

No, he's just saying that it's less likely to have as great an effect as the other things that could be done instead.
In one of his previous posts he did advise against people helping the OpenGL/Linux people, but I suspect that's so people don't flock over there just because it seems like the thing to accomplish.

[daveb]

That interpretation is wrong. But I do love how Linux people get so defensive    We could go on and on about Linux games development for profit, but that's not the issue here.

What I'm saying is, a project of the scope this appears to be is very likely the kind of project that overdoes itself and causes all interest to be lost by 95% involved very quickly. I don't consider a straight port of the game using OpenGL as a rasterizer to be the apparent goal. What I see coming of this is some large unwieldy project with self-appointed managers dictating that the game _will_ use X, Y and Z and it _must_ be maintained across 25 platforms simultaneously, with the eventual goal of being made massively multiplayer. Maybe that's an exaggeration, but it gives you the flavor of what I'm talking about. That's what it smells like - I could certainly be wrong.

But at this point, I'm repeating myself. Bottom line, it seems to me the smartest course of action for those who simply wish to add some cool stuff to FS2 is to take the straight code as it exists and run with it. Don't worry about running it on 6 sets of hardware. Make it run for those who can already run it, and you're more likely to get results that _you_ can be proud of.

On that note, I return this thread to its regularly scheduled program.

[theoddone33]

Originally posted by Mysterial
What version? You mean the one penguin was working on or something else? I'll be VERY surprised if it is done "shortly". Although I disagree with dave's apparent pessimism, I still think it'll take a while longer. Perhaps a long while longer. It might be PLAYABLE "shortly", but I have no doubt there'll be plenty of bugs to work out. There always is.

This is not the version penguin was working on, this is a version done completely independantly by some folks at icculus.org.

Here is our status:

- OpenGL renderer is functionaly complete.  There is still a minor bug to fix in this, and when I say minor I mean "does not affect gameplay at all."  The renderer could still use some optimization.
- The only thing not complete input-wise is the joystick code, this needs another 30 or 40 minutes of work.
- Sound support is still being finished.
- We still need to add some Linux-ish features such as config saving in $HOME.
- We need to give netplay a more thorough test.

I'm not going to give you an estimated release date and time, but I don't think I'm far off when I say it will be out "shortly."

[theoddone33]

Originally posted by daveb
That interpretation is wrong. But I do love how Linux people get so defensive    We could go on and on about Linux games development for profit, but that's not the issue here.

I have a lot of insight into how Linux games perform commercially, and you're right, it's "not economically viable" (to quote Falling Down) for a studio or publisher to produce games for Linux.  I just do stuff so that when commercial games are ready for Linux, Linux will be ready for commercial games.

Anyway, I apologize for the misunderstanding.  I now see your point: an open source game project can either go the way of Doom (hundreds of individual projects), or the way of Quake (one or two large-scale projects).  I think the organization provided by the Quake way is beneficial, assuming that project managers aren't power hungry and whatnot.  The benefit of the Quake way is that you only have to download one thing to get every cool feature that's been added.  The benefit of the Doom way is that it's easy to add quick gameplay hacks.

As I see it, people here are trying to get the Quake way's infrastructure in place so that people can add cool features to the conglomerate engine that runs on Windows, Mac, Linux, Beos, PalmPilot, ENIAC, and whatever else.  That way if you want to add your cool feature, it's available to more people, with more people's features added in already to compliment your own.

If you want to wait a couple days before adding your cool hack, use the conglomerate engine and it will be available to more people.  If you don't want to wait, add it to FS2 now and when somebody adds it to the conglomerate tree your work will be overshadowed or ignored.

[EdrickV]

At the moment, a PS2Linux port is just a dream. A working Linux port I can get is needed first. With a little luck, it just might compile without changes, (SDL is available as is Mesa) but to really be playable it will probably need to be optimized for the PS2's unique graphics system. In any event, none of the work I've done with the code has had anything to do with Linux so far. I've made a fix for is_tagged, have made a FS2 version that uses a different registry key so I can test stuff in both graphic modes without having to change it in the launcher, and have been experimenting with creating subsystem subobjects that can be undestroyed. (For transformable Veritechs in the Robotech MOD.)

One thing I would really like if anyone out there thinks they can do it would be a Cygwin compatable GCC port of FRED2. I'm not even sure it's possible without major work to make wrappers (or something) for all that MFC code though. Without a GCC port I can't compile FRED2 which means I can't add SEXPs without outside help, unless I manage to get VC++ 6.0 at a computer show or something and that probably wouldn't happen for a couple months at least.

[IceFire]

Bottom line, it seems to me the smartest course of action for those who simply wish to add some cool stuff to FS2 is to take the straight code as it exists and run with it. Don't worry about running it on 6 sets of hardware. Make it run for those who can already run it, and you're more likely to get results that _you_ can be proud of.

Which is basically what I think people like myself would like to have.  We just want FreeSpace 2 to run a little quicker or a little cooler or with some kind of added elements that we didn't have before.

I think that the Linux thing is definately cool and I hope that it can all be worked out...I just want the next project I do around here to be able to take advantage of the source and add some new things that will help me tell a story and have some fun in missions.

[Inquisitor]

Which, unless I am grossly misunderstanding the modular nature of this code, is not really an issue.

There are an awful lot of feature requests to sift thru, lets see what we got. The "little bit cooler" part IS being attacked, I'd like those attackers to get write access to the CVS as well.

There's plenty of work to interest everyone, and I personally don;t see how one group of people working on a port can affect another group of people writing cool new sexp's or adding beams to fighters, or whatever

THta's the beauty of a project like this

That being said, sounds like maybe theoddone is making some of the porting excercise superfluous by being almost done.

Guess we'll wait and see for that, unless he wants to share before release

[penguin]

fs2_open - the Linux/OpenGL port (aka "the penguin build") is up on Warpcore's CVS -- thanks Inquisitor!

From the README:

This is very much an pre-alpha build.  Don't expect too much from it!

It is very incomplete, crashes often, is slow, has lots of debug printfs, has no configure nor install scripts... I could go on and on.

I am actively working on it, but if theoddone33's build is much farther along, or is obviously better, I will gladly defer to him

Brief status: 2d is done (but will need to be reworked as it is very slow), 3d rendering is about 75% done: no textures, so it looks like you're fighting a bunch of gray ghosts!  No sound, no joystick, no network.

In other words, if you're very curious, go ahead and download it and play around with it.  Otherwise, I recommend that you wait for a more stable build...

[Mysterial]

Originally posted by theoddone33


This is not the version penguin was working on, this is a version done completely independantly by some folks at icculus.org.

I'm not going to give you an estimated release date and time, but I don't think I'm far off when I say it will be out "shortly."

Well of course I meant penguin's version wouldn't be done shortly. I couldn't know how far that one is.

Is it a source modification or did you build it from the ground up?

[IceFire]

Which, unless I am grossly misunderstanding the modular nature of this code, is not really an issue.

There are an awful lot of feature requests to sift thru, lets see what we got. The "little bit cooler" part IS being attacked, I'd like those attackers to get write access to the CVS as well.

We should probably try and establish something to help you guys sift through all the requests.  I know in the documents for my new project I have a number of items I'd like to suggest and I bet others have that too.

[EvilTypeGuy]

Originally posted by Mysterial


Well of course I meant penguin's version wouldn't be done shortly. I couldn't know how far that one is.

Is it a source modification or did you build it from the ground up?

It's a modification of the public source obviously. I'm somewhat disappointed that icculus.org people got involved with a port, it's kinda cheating (Some of them are previous Loki Games employees which means it was almost trivial for them to port it =p (In comparison to other people doing it)) But, looking at the difference between the two code bases will certainly help quite a bit learning wise for a lot of people...

[penguin]

Originally posted by EvilTypeGuy
It's a modification of the public source obviously. I'm somewhat disappointed that icculus.org people got involved with a port, it's kinda cheating (Some of them are previous Loki Games employees which means it was almost trivial for them to port it =p (In comparison to other people doing it)) But, looking at the difference between the two code bases will certainly help quite a bit learning wise for a lot of people...

Cheating is a good thing if it gets a playable game out sooner

You use what you got -- as I've said before, I'm kinda new to OpenGL programming (and game development in general) -- most of my real life stuff is much less exciting  So if there are people who actually know what they're doing that are working on this, the end result will be better for all involved.  It will be interesting to see how this all works out...

[Gangsta]

This is probabily jumping the gun quite considerably, but I was thinking.... Whilst it's all well a good being able to play Freespace in Linux, but since it has a windoze installer, you wouldn't be able to install it without either wine, or a Windows install.  So I've been thinking about creating an installer using Loki's setup tool.

Now the snag.  The files are contained within Installshield's .cab files which are different that Microsoft's.  Net result.  You can't decompress the files without a rather handy extraction utility which is only available for win32.  The upside.  source code is available.  Downside... I know nothing about C so I can't port it.  If anyone's bored, has 20 minutes free and would like to give me a hand with this, let me know.  It's only a small program, and shouldn't take too long (if of course it's possible)

[Mysterial]

Where's the source to the extraction utility located?