All the talk nowadays if of "unification" or to paraphrase Mark Shuttleworth and Ubuntu the "availability of a single interface for all devices." And with all this talk I began to wonder why more gaming engine's aren't jumping on board.
The recent release of Unity3d 4 was all the rage because it meant that an incredibly popular engine was coming to Linux, and thus all unity3d games developed with the new engine could in fact run on Linux (granted a Linux version was released). In my personal opinion, Unity3d is great, but when compared to the more AAA engines like the Unreal, FrostBite and CDProjectRed's RED Engine just to name a few, Unity3d falls a bit flat in my eyes.
Sure it's pretty, but how does it compare to the competition?:
Then steps in Unigine, another well known Linux engine. Surprising to me at least is that the Unigine engine isn't widely used at all, even compared to Unity with lacks PlayStation support. I'm not interested in the pricing, so I cannot say if that's the issue, so someone please correct me if I'm wrong.
Back to my rant, Unigine looks amazing. From my time running the Heaven benchmark to me playing their standalone Naval RTS Oil Rush, I've fallen in love with how amazing Unigine looks. And I might add, my GTX 680 struggles to run Heaven on max settings. Ungine is, and has been a showcase into the future of PC gaming, with Linux support to boot.
Don't believe me? Then here:
Now this begs the question, why haven't Epic, EA, or CDPR ported their already great engines to Linux? The Unreal Engine as well as Frostbite (the Red engine is just a combination of other engines) are GREAT engines. And at least Unreal HAD Linux support (pre Unreal 3 days), so there's merit that gaming on Linux WAS plausible. But now with the advent of Steam for Linux and overall increasing numbers of games for Linux the re-adaptation of Unreal to Linux seems possible. But is it really? No. Unreal seems to be focused on the mobile platforms ( Android, IOS), which from a business standpoint makes sense to me (more "customers"). Which leaves us minority (but ever so growing) Linux uses stuck in the dark.
Which brings me back to my first point, if Linux had a universal Engine or even Distro (a completely different story) would Linux Gaming be in a different position today? TO me unigine seems like the answer, but yet it's not. Anyone have any ideas why? Please comment below.
I typed this from my self built Windows 8 Gaming rig. I love Ubuntu, but prefer rolling release and seamless Nvidia integration. If I get around to it this weekend I'm going to install Manjaro Cinnamon (arch based and rolling) to get back to my Linux gaming side. Or if anyone want to suggest another distro? I was maybe gonna try SUSE Tumbleweed.
Specs:
i5 3570K @4.5Ghz
H80
32GB 1866Mhz Ram
Nvida GTX 680
Samsung 840SSD
ASUS Maximus V Gene MB
Please Note: This Editorial is by a Guest and may not represent the thoughts and feelings of GamingOnLinux.com. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
The recent release of Unity3d 4 was all the rage because it meant that an incredibly popular engine was coming to Linux, and thus all unity3d games developed with the new engine could in fact run on Linux (granted a Linux version was released). In my personal opinion, Unity3d is great, but when compared to the more AAA engines like the Unreal, FrostBite and CDProjectRed's RED Engine just to name a few, Unity3d falls a bit flat in my eyes.
Sure it's pretty, but how does it compare to the competition?:
Back to my rant, Unigine looks amazing. From my time running the Heaven benchmark to me playing their standalone Naval RTS Oil Rush, I've fallen in love with how amazing Unigine looks. And I might add, my GTX 680 struggles to run Heaven on max settings. Ungine is, and has been a showcase into the future of PC gaming, with Linux support to boot.
Don't believe me? Then here:
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Now this begs the question, why haven't Epic, EA, or CDPR ported their already great engines to Linux? The Unreal Engine as well as Frostbite (the Red engine is just a combination of other engines) are GREAT engines. And at least Unreal HAD Linux support (pre Unreal 3 days), so there's merit that gaming on Linux WAS plausible. But now with the advent of Steam for Linux and overall increasing numbers of games for Linux the re-adaptation of Unreal to Linux seems possible. But is it really? No. Unreal seems to be focused on the mobile platforms ( Android, IOS), which from a business standpoint makes sense to me (more "customers"). Which leaves us minority (but ever so growing) Linux uses stuck in the dark.
Which brings me back to my first point, if Linux had a universal Engine or even Distro (a completely different story) would Linux Gaming be in a different position today? TO me unigine seems like the answer, but yet it's not. Anyone have any ideas why? Please comment below.
I typed this from my self built Windows 8 Gaming rig. I love Ubuntu, but prefer rolling release and seamless Nvidia integration. If I get around to it this weekend I'm going to install Manjaro Cinnamon (arch based and rolling) to get back to my Linux gaming side. Or if anyone want to suggest another distro? I was maybe gonna try SUSE Tumbleweed.
Specs:
i5 3570K @4.5Ghz
H80
32GB 1866Mhz Ram
Nvida GTX 680
Samsung 840SSD
ASUS Maximus V Gene MB
Please Note: This Editorial is by a Guest and may not represent the thoughts and feelings of GamingOnLinux.com. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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No way. GPL engines can be used (and are used) to make commercial games. The only requirement is that the engine modifications must be released under the same license. A game isn't an engine modification but an asset that USES the engine. We're fooling our own nest by making false statements.
Not trying to bite the new user, but seeing this misunderstanding again and again is becoming especially tiring. I will thank Berarma for beating me to actually explaining why though.
EDIT: By the way Jeremy, you do kind of have what you want - Ogre3D is under the MIT license and has been used by commercial studios such as Runic Games and Deck13.