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The Valve's Source engine soon Linux native?
Saturday 10 May 2008 at 23:59
It's been several months that we don't know anymore if we can hope or not. In September 2007, the Valve editor was publishing a « Senior Software Engineer » job offer with the responsibility of porting Windows-based games to the GNU/Linux platform. But once this offer announcement done, we never heard about it anymore and it wouldn't have been the first disappointment about a game's port to GNU/Linux.
It's the excellent Phoronix.com website which just went back over that story. In an article by Michael Larabel, the website's administrators claim they have informations from Valve, confirming that the Source engine's port was effectively started. Knowing this site's serious, we can trust in those words. But can we do the same with Valve's word?
But what is this « Source engine »?
It's simply a software rendering layer created by Valve for their games. The Source's particularity is to used by numerous and sometimes famous games! Nothing less than Half Life², Counter Strike : Source, Team Fortress and Portal! To put it plainty, all Valve's great games (Source is also used by other editors' games but they are less famous).
Source originally used DirectX, the 3D library from Microsoft, so this port requires a big modification to use OpenGL too (such as Quake's engines).
Source is a little bit old (2004) but it is regularly updated to sensibly limit the obsolescence of the technology.
Thus, the Source's port would be strategic, it would give access to a number of games -and by the way, excellent games- made in Steam.
Info? Intox? Nothing isn't yet done. When reading this, we can feel either totally overexcited as well as totally septic.
But Phoronix used to finish their articles with a positive note. So they remind us that they predicted, one year ago, a new AMD/ATI driver generation and their video cards' specs release.
Before leaving, a message of Linux users from Ravenholm:
Translation:
"Fear me! I want games!
Else I'll eat you!"
Links:
- Phoronix.com article: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=source_linux&num=1
- The Valve's job offer: http://www.valvesoftware.com/job-SenSoftEngineer.html
By Asimov
It's the excellent Phoronix.com website which just went back over that story. In an article by Michael Larabel, the website's administrators claim they have informations from Valve, confirming that the Source engine's port was effectively started. Knowing this site's serious, we can trust in those words. But can we do the same with Valve's word?
It's simply a software rendering layer created by Valve for their games. The Source's particularity is to used by numerous and sometimes famous games! Nothing less than Half Life², Counter Strike : Source, Team Fortress and Portal! To put it plainty, all Valve's great games (Source is also used by other editors' games but they are less famous).
Source originally used DirectX, the 3D library from Microsoft, so this port requires a big modification to use OpenGL too (such as Quake's engines).
Source is a little bit old (2004) but it is regularly updated to sensibly limit the obsolescence of the technology.
Thus, the Source's port would be strategic, it would give access to a number of games -and by the way, excellent games- made in Steam.
Info? Intox? Nothing isn't yet done. When reading this, we can feel either totally overexcited as well as totally septic.
But Phoronix used to finish their articles with a positive note. So they remind us that they predicted, one year ago, a new AMD/ATI driver generation and their video cards' specs release.
Before leaving, a message of Linux users from Ravenholm:
Translation:
"Fear me! I want games!
Else I'll eat you!"
Links:
- Phoronix.com article: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=source_linux&num=1
- The Valve's job offer: http://www.valvesoftware.com/job-SenSoftEngineer.html
By Asimov