Is a Linux Client planned?

[peter stein]

Hi,

I bought this game as a low price to test it myself, the installer works fine until the moment after it downloaded the latest patch during the installation then it tells me that the downloaded file is not valid

So I cant install it, yes I know....the package says "Games for Windows" but I also tried and it seems everything is fine until the moment securom trys to validate my version.

When you're havent used this stupid copyprotection I have bought it earlier and had paid the full price but it seems you dont want my money.

Is a LinuxClient planned? It couldnt be this hard, 'cause the newest UT runs nativly under linux and you're using the same 3D engine. The PS3 Version dont use DirectX either.

And no, I dont want to pay money for a operating system that give me less comfort, security and usability just to play games.

Many thanks in advance
Best Regards
Peter Stein

[Talikar]

Since you mentioned Linux, I decided to have a go at getting Bioshock working in Ubuntu 8.10, here are my results (for anyone interested):

Using wine the game did install properly for me, and the auto patcher did manage to download the files it needed to. Only, the auto patcher claimed that the files were invalid and that it would try to reinstall them. To make sure no files were deleted, I just killed the installer.

After that, the game was installed with all needed files, but it couldn't run because of missing Visual C++ runtimes. At that point all I did was install vcrun2005sp1 (aka MS Visual C++ 2005 sp1 libraries OR VC++ 2005 SP1 Redist, or whatever you want to call it).

With that problem resolved, I tried running the game again, only to have it crash on a directx error.
Installing the latest DirectX redist (actually I only tried the jun2008 redist at first) fixed this problem.

Yet again I tried the game, and it worked! At least, I thought it did, except the beginning cinematic was upside down and seemingly backwards.

Oh well, was a small problem, so I continued. Got to the bathysphere, started the ride. All was going great except the little video thing froze the game. Setting all of the graphics settings to low seemed to fix that minor problem.

So, the bathysphere ride was then working pretty well, I had my hopes up. Then, the end of the Bathysphere ride came, and the loading screen appeared for awhile, only to eventually crash the game.

So the game isn't exactly playable under wine just yet, but it's getting there; we just have to be patient.

Of course, I'm not done my testing though, so I'll get back to you and let you know how it works out.

P.S. It is easier to just dual boot windows though (as I'm doing).

Edit:
To answer your question slightly, I doubt they plan on releasing a linux client.
It takes extra time and resources, and it's hard to tell how many linux users are actually gamers,
so they might not see the demand.

Edit2:
Tried using the aug2008 redist, and installing the corefonts, and fontfix packages for wine, and changed some other settings. It didn't work though, still the same crash. That's unfortunate. I'll try some other things and see if there's any workarounds. From the looks of it though, WINE isn't so far off from playing the game (could be wrong about this).

[peter stein]

Hello again,

for a easier access for this solution it would be better if you give your test data to http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManage...ation&iId=5695
so everybody can find it, cause http://www.winehq.org is the first adress the most wine users will look for solutions.

********************************* 'cause I dont find any binary to start bioshock when I kill the installer and theres no way to patch the game afterwards with the autopatcher.

But thx anyway

Best Regards
peter stein

[rofthorax]

Edit:
To answer your question slightly, I doubt they plan on releasing a linux client.
It takes extra time and resources, and it's hard to tell how many linux users are actually gamers,
so they might not see the demand.

Wine doesn't only run on linux it also runs on MacOSX since it also runs on Intel.. That's a 10% potential gain in sales.. BTW, Bioshock is selling for 5 dollars on Steam.. So much for a high class game.. BTW, Quake Wars Enemy Territory runs native on Linux and I have a 9800GT with NVidia drivers on Ubuntu 8.10. I've played every game in Wine available from Valve, pretty much, and I just got Call of Duty 4 to run in Wine.. I think 2K just doesn't know how to write portable code, or lacks the experience to write low-level OpenGL2.0 code. One of these days one of these companies is going to realize Linux does have the potential, and on that day someone will think "hey I wonder what it would take to make Linux the base OS for a video game system".. And you know what, they will have the capacity to make their games cross platform compatible with wine, but that have extra special features on their own platform.. And they'll nail Sony and Microsoft to the baseboard and leave them dangling.. But until then, the industry is gutless and weak..

[japester]

I have chosen to take the time and edit this thread rather than deleting it entirely despite the nasty tone and illegal nature of certain posts. 2K allows us a lot of latitude to discuss complaints about their games, but use a little common sense and show a little respect. Insults will not be tolerated (not against other forum users, and certainly not against the forum hosts!).

Since others may find some of the info useful, I won't delete the thread unless it gets off-course again. The choice is yours.

[zndkwn1+]

I dont see any insults to anyone, be it forum members or moderators, so i dont know what youre talking about. Theyre actually making very valid points regarding multi-platform games and linux as a viable commercial gaming platform, one that can challenge the mighty microsoft and sony.

[FtRapture]

I dont see any insults to anyone, be it forum members or moderators, so i dont know what youre talking about.

Did you miss the part where he said..

I have chosen to take the time and edit this thread rather than deleting it entirely despite the nasty tone and illegal nature of certain posts.

[japester]

I dont see any insults to anyone, be it forum members or moderators, so i dont know what youre talking about. Theyre actually making very valid points regarding multi-platform games and linux as a viable commercial gaming platform, one that can challenge the mighty microsoft and sony.

I agree that there is some value in discussing Linux, which is why I didn't nuke the thread. I took out the unnecessary nasty stuff, which added nothing to the conversation anyway.

To be clear, no forum members were insulted. I simply added that statement because some members seem to think that calling the forum host (2K) every name in the book is acceptable, and I wanted to point out that the same courtesy we show each other should also be shown to the people who run this site. Disagreements are fine as long as people keep it civil.

[Sidog]

Don't know why I didn't think of this sooner...

Ahem... "Would you kindly" make a linux install of Bioshock.

What about porting the PS3 version over? Possible? Is this even something that 2kG is toying around with doing?

[nzgeek]

I don't think it's impossible, but it would certainly be quite hard.

The biggest problem with game development for Linux is that there's no unified way to do high-performance 3D graphics. Windows has DirectX, so as long as the video card has the required shader model etc, it'll all work.

Probably the best way in Linux would be to use OpenGL, but that has its own programming challenges. Once you take into account this, the low overall market share, and the percentage of home Linux users vs corporate users, and the development cost probably won't be recovered by sales.

[headkase]

WINE Is Not an Emulator is the best way to go about gaming on Linux. Paypal them a bit of development incentive. I know in my case gaming is what keeps me on Windows. For me its a chicken and egg problem - Linux doesn't have games because there aren't enough users and there aren't enough users because it doesn't have games. WINE short-circuits this situation. Not only does it do games but it also addresses applications as well so it is in my opinion one of the most important and under-recognized projects in GNU-land. With constantly improving compatibility with Windows programs WINE actually could provide a much needed bridge in the OS wars and in doing so break Free (notice the capital ) software into the mainstream. We would just need to get Mr. Stallman to acknowledge that content does not have to be free while I agree with him that the engines to make the content go should be!

As an aside, WINE is like an old program for the Commodore Amiga called A-Max!. It allowed an Amiga computer to run Classic Macintosh operating systems and programs. It behaved similarly in that it did not emulate but in the case of A-Max! was a "hostile port" of the Mac's boot ROM. The ROM was the only thing that touched the hardware directly so by rewriting the ROM's Application Programming Interface (API) calls to touch Amiga hardware instead of Mac hardware this provided a layer of abstraction that made the magic work. The Amiga shared the same processor as a Mac (Motorola 68000) which is the same situation between Linux and Windows today as well - this is essential for API translation as the code can still run natively on the processor (i.e. the Not an Emulator part). Also the Amiga was clocked 10% faster so the Amiga "Mac" actually ran faster than a real Mac. WINE is like A-Max! in that it is a hostile port of the Windows API and as such programs written for Windows go through that compatibility layer and WINE translates the calls to touch Linux systems.

Edit:
See this: Wikipedia Page for information about A-Max. Although this page seems to indicate that hardware was required I actually owned A-Max back then (so it must have been one of the later revisions that page mentions) and I did not need anything but the software and a Mac ROM.