Linux Gaming

 < Day Day Up > 

Fedora has a number of games that come as part of the distribution, and they are divided into three distinct camps: KDE games, GNOME games, and X games. Our favorites are Tux-Racer and Maelstrom (see Figure 12.1), but there are a few for you to choose from. The best part, of course, is trying each one and seeing what you think. Many other free games are available across the Web, so go to Google and see what you come up with.

Figure 12.1. Zapping asteroids in the highly unpredictable Maelstrom.


However, games for Linux do not stop there a few versions of popular Windows-based games are being ported across to the Linux platform, including Doom 3 and Unreal Tournament 2004. These two popular games have native Linux support and in some cases can run at similar, if not better, speeds than their Windows counterparts. Even the U.S. Army produces a simulation called America's Army that is available for Linux.

Finally, an implementation of the Wine code, called WineX, is optimized especially for games. This uses application interfaces to make Windows games believe they are running on a Windows platform and not a Linux platform. Bear in mind that Wine stands for wine is not an emulator, so do not start thinking of it as such the community can get touchy about it!

Because of their popularity, we will examine the process of installing proprietary drivers for an NVIDIA graphics display card and show you how to install Unreal Tournament 2004 from Epic Games and Doom 3 from id Software.

Installing Proprietary Video Drivers

Fedora does not provide the official NVIDIA display drivers because they are closed source. The latest drivers can be downloaded from http://www.nvidia.com/object/linux.html. The Linux 2.6 kernel series did not actually support the NVIDIA graphics drivers when it was released, but advancements made by NVIDIA do get around this problem, with the current kernel (at time of writing, it's 2.6.11) working with little or no problems. If you do encounter problems with the NVIDIA drivers, check out http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=14 for more help. The NVIDIA staff do contribute to that forum, so you should be able to find expert help when you need it.

As for ATI, the other principal graphics card maker, the story is not quite the same. Although ATI is committed to producing Linux drivers, it's not as quick to update them as NVIDIA is. At the time of writing, ATI had just released versions of its driver for Linux. Go to http://www.ati.com/support/infobase/linuxhowto-ati.html to get detailed instructions on installing them for use.

Installing Doom 3

The follow-up to the infamous Doom and Doom II was released in the second half of 2004 (see Figure 12.2), and it provides a way to run it under Linux. You still need to purchase the Windows version because you need some of the files that are on the CDs. The rest of the files are available from id Software at http://zerowing.idsoftware.com/linux/doom. You can find other information about graphics cards on there too.

Figure 12.2. Descending into the pits of hell. Doom 3 is one of the most graphic computer games available.


You can download the file doom3-linux-1.1.1282.x86.run from their FTP server or by using BitTorrent. Once finished, open a terminal and change to the directory in which you saved the file. Type the following command:

 # sh doom3-linux-1.1.1282.x86.run 

This begins the installation of the demo. As with other commercial games, you must agree to an EULA before you can install. Follow the installation procedure and, when it finishes, you need to get the Windows CDs ready.

The files you need to copy across are the following:

  • pak000.pk4

  • pak001.pk4

  • pak002.pk4

  • pak003.pk4

  • pak004.pk4

They must be saved in the /usr/local/games/doom3/base/ directory. After you have copied these, you can start the game by typing doom3 or starting the dedicated server for multiplayer games by typing doom3-dedicated.

Installing Unreal Tournament 2004

Unreal Tournament 2004 (or UT2004, as it is affectionately known) from Epic natively supports Linux in both its 32-bit and 64-bit incarnations (see Figure 12.3). Be aware that if you run the 64-bit version, you need to ensure that your graphics drivers are supported under 64-bit mode.

Figure 12.3. Unreal Tournament builds on the classic death-match scenario with more enemies and more combatants!


Installation is easy, and there are two ways to do it. You can insert the DVD and mount it, or you can open the DVD in GNOME and double-click the linux-installer.sh icon. When you are asked if you want to run it or display its contents, click Run in Terminal to launch the graphical installer. As with Doom 3, you must read and accept the terms of the EULA before being allowed to install UT2004. You are given the option of where you want to install the software; the default is in your home directory. After it's installed, click Begin Install and UT2004 does the rest.

The alternative way of accessing the graphical installer is via the command line. Change directory to /media/cdrom/and type

 $ sh linux-install.sh 

This brings up the graphical installer. Continue through this and, when finished, you should find Unreal Tournament 2004 in /home/username/ut2004.

If you want to uninstall UT2004, you can use the uninstall script in the ut2004 directory. Type

 $ sh uninstall.sh 

After confirmation, Unreal Tournament removes itself from your system.

Installing Wolfenstein Enemy Territory

Whereas the earlier Return to Castle Wolfenstein was both single-and multiplayer, the freely available Wolfenstein Enemy Territory is multiplayer only. Available in Win32 and Linux native versions, it can be downloaded through http://www.SplashDamage.com/. After you download the 260MB file named et-linux-2.55.x86.run, install the game by typing

 # sh et-linux-2.55.x86.run 

Then accept the defaults. A symlink exists in /usr/local/bin to the script that loads the game. When using the KDE desktop, we had difficulty with sound due to a conflict with the KDE sound daemon artsd. The fix was prepending a line to the et script that read killall artsd.

Wolfenstein Enemy Territory, as shown in Figure 12.4, does not require an NVIDIA graphics card to play the game, unlike UT2003. We found the game playable on a 16MB Voodoo 3-3000 AGP video card.

Figure 12.4. Teamwork is the key to victory in this lush but hostile graphical environment.


Playing Windows Games with Cedega

As mentioned earlier, the key to mass-market appeal of an operating system is in the applications available for it. A group of developers saw that the vast majority of the computing world was using Windows-based productivity and gaming software and decided to develop a way to run this software on Linux, thereby giving Linux users access to this large application base. The developers came up with a program called Wine, which has been updated regularly and forms the basis of the gaming variant called Cedega. This is a commercial product available from developers Transgaming (www.transgaming.com) so you can't retrieve it using yum.

However, it is a very popular and up-to-date product with support for recent releases such as Half-Life 2, Sid Meier's Pirates!, and World of Warcraft.

So, if you cannot wait for Linux to become more popular with the games developers, use Cedega as a stop-gap until they can be persuaded to support Linux directly.

TIP

The keys to successful gaming in Linux are to always read the documentation thoroughly, always investigate the Internet resources thoroughly, and always understand your system. Installing games is a great way to learn about your system because the reward of success is so much fun.


     < Day Day Up > 


    Red Hat Fedora 4 Unleashed
    Red Hat Fedora 4 Unleashed
    ISBN: 0672327929
    EAN: 2147483647
    Year: 2006
    Pages: 361

    flylib.com © 2008-2017.
    If you may any questions please contact us: flylib@qtcs.net