Curmudgeon Gamer
13 January 2008
Hacking the PS3 (or: Sony is clever, for once)
A thread came up on NeoGAF about when it might be possible to play copied PlayStation 3 games, via modchip or hacked firmware or what have you. This reply pointed to this talk on YouTube, which is terribly interesting. Watch the introduction, which takes about five minutes.
I remember when it was announced that GNU/Linux would be permitted on the PlayStation 3 out-of-the-box and how this was a move to prevent piracy. These folks, who at least give the impression of being in touch with the hardware hacking scene, believe that making the PlayStation 3 open to other operating systems has kept it safe from the pirates. In a nutshell, the "smart" hackers open a system up and the "dumb" pirates then exploit the opening. By inviting the former group to play within some boundaries (certain PS3 hardware is still off limits from within PS3 Linux distributions) the latter group doesn't have a chance.
Now, that doesn't mean that the PS3 will never be hacked. All systems are hacked, eventually, I believe. But 14 months after the launch Sony is still secure. Every other system they've launched has been hacked to pieces, and they've lost out on at least some software licensing fees as a result. (I won't try to figure out how much, given how people argue that pirates would never have bought the games in the first place, that Sony might benefit from having more people playing software on its platforms, etc. etc. Perhaps we can all agree that it's at least greater than thr-- four dollars.)
Of course, the irony is that Sony finally had the right idea on the platform whose software fewer people actually want to play, much less pirate.
I remember when it was announced that GNU/Linux would be permitted on the PlayStation 3 out-of-the-box and how this was a move to prevent piracy. These folks, who at least give the impression of being in touch with the hardware hacking scene, believe that making the PlayStation 3 open to other operating systems has kept it safe from the pirates. In a nutshell, the "smart" hackers open a system up and the "dumb" pirates then exploit the opening. By inviting the former group to play within some boundaries (certain PS3 hardware is still off limits from within PS3 Linux distributions) the latter group doesn't have a chance.
Now, that doesn't mean that the PS3 will never be hacked. All systems are hacked, eventually, I believe. But 14 months after the launch Sony is still secure. Every other system they've launched has been hacked to pieces, and they've lost out on at least some software licensing fees as a result. (I won't try to figure out how much, given how people argue that pirates would never have bought the games in the first place, that Sony might benefit from having more people playing software on its platforms, etc. etc. Perhaps we can all agree that it's at least greater than thr-- four dollars.)
Of course, the irony is that Sony finally had the right idea on the platform whose software fewer people actually want to play, much less pirate.
--jvm at 18:00
Comment
[ 4 ]
25 September 2007
PS3
Writing this from the new 60Gb PS3 that arrived today. So far, a nice system.
I've downloaded and played a bit of fl0w, and it's a decent relaxing game. Blast Factor, the main Robotron-clone for PSN, is neat but I'm not upgrading from the demo just yet. I may wait until Christmas for any games on disc, but we'll see.
I've moved all my PS2 save data over, and the system worked just fine with Ace Combat 5. I've got a bunch of demos downloaded already and will get around to them eventually.
The USB keyboard driver and web browser could be a little more robust. Blame typos on that, please.
I'll probably watch Casino Royale on Blu-Ray with the wife this weekend. We'll see if she thinks there's any difference between DVD and an HD format.
When I have a vacation I'll probably look into backing up my data and installing GNU/Linux.
I've downloaded and played a bit of fl0w, and it's a decent relaxing game. Blast Factor, the main Robotron-clone for PSN, is neat but I'm not upgrading from the demo just yet. I may wait until Christmas for any games on disc, but we'll see.
I've moved all my PS2 save data over, and the system worked just fine with Ace Combat 5. I've got a bunch of demos downloaded already and will get around to them eventually.
The USB keyboard driver and web browser could be a little more robust. Blame typos on that, please.
I'll probably watch Casino Royale on Blu-Ray with the wife this weekend. We'll see if she thinks there's any difference between DVD and an HD format.
When I have a vacation I'll probably look into backing up my data and installing GNU/Linux.
Labels: linux, online distribution, ps2, ps3, sony
--jvm at 23:20
Comment
[ 3 ]
31 October 2006
How to give me a GNU/Aneurysm
From an Extreme Tech article on the plight of GNU/Linux gamers:
I'm all for honest assessments of the state of GNU/Linux gaming, but any article that doesn't mention native versions of Unreal Tournament, Doom 3, Quake 4, Darwinia, and many other games (see TuxGames for an exhaustive list) isn't worth a pitcher of warm spit. And the misguided focus on WINE-based gaming...ARGH!
Nobody is a bigger critic of Microsoft than me, but if you're a Linux gamer, it's time to go buy a copy of Windows.Idiot! That's a great plan. Here's what the author was really thinking: "The key to enjoying and supporting gaming on GNU/Linux is...ah, screw it, look at those SHINY NEW WINDOWS VISTA BOXES!"
I'm all for honest assessments of the state of GNU/Linux gaming, but any article that doesn't mention native versions of Unreal Tournament, Doom 3, Quake 4, Darwinia, and many other games (see TuxGames for an exhaustive list) isn't worth a pitcher of warm spit. And the misguided focus on WINE-based gaming...ARGH!
Labels: linux
--jvm at 16:52
Comment
[ 2 ]
01 October 2006
CrossOver 6.0: Competition for Cedega?
While I no longer play games on Windows, I do have a pile of older Windows games from my pre-GNU/Linux days. Until last week, Cedega (by TransGaming) and vanilla Wine (the project on top of which Cedega was built) were the primary means by which I might attempt to play Windows games on GNU/Linux. Now CodeWeavers, primary corporate backer of the Wine project, has released a public beta of their CrossOver 6.0 product for GNU/Linux and MacOS X on Intel, and it supports World of Warcraft and Steam-based games like Half-life 2 and Counter-Strike.
I downloaded the beta and tested a handful of my older games on my Fedora Core 5 machine, just for kicks. All of these are unsupported, so I didn't expect them to work. I do not have the proprietary NVIDIA driver installed, so I only have software OpenGL. I suspect that with hardware acceleration, some problems noted below might go away.
The other games never had native GNU/Linux ports. I have been able to play Dungeon Keeper under dosemu and DOSBox, but the former was far too fast and the latter far too slow. As for Unreal, there was a hack to play some of its levels using the GNU/Linux client of Unreal Tournament, but this is a cleaner solution.
If CodeWeavers continues to improve this product, it could be some real competition for TransGaming's Cedega. At the very least, I will be pleased to see them follow through on their usual policy of kicking every improvement to Wine that they develop back into the official Wine project. Certainly their "Wine bottle" front-end to the whole bundle of Wine software is impressive, and I can see how they might be making some money. Wine itself is very good, but somewhat difficult to configure (last I tried), and I'd much rather mouse-click my way to a working game than muck around with text files, at least until I retire and have days of spare time to burn again.
Anyway, this is just some random blogger's tale of a few games he tried. If I get the urge to install the NVIDIA drivers or plop my ATI card into the box (and can use the Free software hardware drivers for that card) then I'll give it another try and see if things are any better.
I downloaded the beta and tested a handful of my older games on my Fedora Core 5 machine, just for kicks. All of these are unsupported, so I didn't expect them to work. I do not have the proprietary NVIDIA driver installed, so I only have software OpenGL. I suspect that with hardware acceleration, some problems noted below might go away.
- Worms 2 by Team 17 - Installed and ran fine, at least just to get into the game and shoot a few worms.
- Unreal by Epic Games - Installed and ran fine using software renderer. Played through until I got to the outside portion, had no problems.
- Tomb Raider III by Core Design - Installs fine, runs extremely slowly. Probably needs hardware acceleration.
- Tomb Raider Chronicles by Core Design - Installs fine. Dies when the game is started.
- Kingpin by Xatrix - Installs fine. Dies with a hardware device error. The renderer requires hardware acceleration on Windows, and therefore probably under Wine.
- Dungeon Keeper Deeper Dungeons by BullFrog - Installs fine. Dies after initial splash screen when game is run.
- Shogo: Mobile Armor Division by LithTech - Installs fine, but don't select "Custom Install", which causes a lock-up. Shows opening cinemas and game menu, but died when I used keyboard to start a new game.
The other games never had native GNU/Linux ports. I have been able to play Dungeon Keeper under dosemu and DOSBox, but the former was far too fast and the latter far too slow. As for Unreal, there was a hack to play some of its levels using the GNU/Linux client of Unreal Tournament, but this is a cleaner solution.
If CodeWeavers continues to improve this product, it could be some real competition for TransGaming's Cedega. At the very least, I will be pleased to see them follow through on their usual policy of kicking every improvement to Wine that they develop back into the official Wine project. Certainly their "Wine bottle" front-end to the whole bundle of Wine software is impressive, and I can see how they might be making some money. Wine itself is very good, but somewhat difficult to configure (last I tried), and I'd much rather mouse-click my way to a working game than muck around with text files, at least until I retire and have days of spare time to burn again.
Anyway, this is just some random blogger's tale of a few games he tried. If I get the urge to install the NVIDIA drivers or plop my ATI card into the box (and can use the Free software hardware drivers for that card) then I'll give it another try and see if things are any better.
Labels: linux
--jvm at 16:13
Comment
[ 6 ]
20 September 2006
Next-Gen.biz podcast
I was asked to join in the Next-Gen.biz podcast this week. I can't bring myself to listen to the finished product, Next-Gen.biz Podcast Episode #2, but you can and then leave comments here. The producer, Jeremy Williams, made a comment after we finished recording along the lines of "I think it was good to have a bit of disagreement in the podcast". I think everyone looked in my direction at that point, through their respective Skype clients.
Addendum: Ruffin helpfully suggested that I might comment on the anti-Valve comment I made, so I will. Valve's succeeded on the back of a pile of servers being run by the public, and over half of them (for a long time) were GNU/Linux servers running the server that Valve put out for just that purpose. However, they never bothered to port their client to GNU/Linux for those helpful GNU/Linux people to play the game with. It's not that a port was impossible -- we know for sure that a nearly fully functional client was ready to go for MacOS at one point, using OpenGL as you'd use on GNU/Linux. With the advent of Steam you've got a new GNU/Linux server for the Valve games that knows how to talk to the Steam service, but according to Ryan Gordon, that isn't actually a Steam client. They've done the bare minimum to avail themselves of the GNU/Linux community without actually giving that community a game to play. Compared to Epic or id Software, they're parasites. If they ran their own servers, like Xbox Live servers are run by Microsoft, that wouldn't bother me one bit. It is, after all, their game. But asking for my help and then shunning me is too much. See my Linux User's Lament at Curmudgeon Gamer Classic for a longer rant.
Sorry all you freedom lovers, but it appears they don't provide an Ogg Vorbis version, just MP3. You can at least get it through iTunes, a direct-download, and some in-browser player.
Posting has been light. Last night I was looking at topics for the podcast and Tuesday night I was grading like mad. Tonight...tonight...maybe I'll have time to actually play a game. Maybe Sound Voyager and Orbital will come in...
Addendum: Ruffin helpfully suggested that I might comment on the anti-Valve comment I made, so I will. Valve's succeeded on the back of a pile of servers being run by the public, and over half of them (for a long time) were GNU/Linux servers running the server that Valve put out for just that purpose. However, they never bothered to port their client to GNU/Linux for those helpful GNU/Linux people to play the game with. It's not that a port was impossible -- we know for sure that a nearly fully functional client was ready to go for MacOS at one point, using OpenGL as you'd use on GNU/Linux. With the advent of Steam you've got a new GNU/Linux server for the Valve games that knows how to talk to the Steam service, but according to Ryan Gordon, that isn't actually a Steam client. They've done the bare minimum to avail themselves of the GNU/Linux community without actually giving that community a game to play. Compared to Epic or id Software, they're parasites. If they ran their own servers, like Xbox Live servers are run by Microsoft, that wouldn't bother me one bit. It is, after all, their game. But asking for my help and then shunning me is too much. See my Linux User's Lament at Curmudgeon Gamer Classic for a longer rant.
Sorry all you freedom lovers, but it appears they don't provide an Ogg Vorbis version, just MP3. You can at least get it through iTunes, a direct-download, and some in-browser player.
Posting has been light. Last night I was looking at topics for the podcast and Tuesday night I was grading like mad. Tonight...tonight...maybe I'll have time to actually play a game. Maybe Sound Voyager and Orbital will come in...
Labels: linux
--jvm at 06:03
Comment
[ 2 ]
14 August 2006
Microsoft enables "homebrew" -- who cares?
Oh boy, here we go again: Microsoft is making homebrew on the Xbox 360 a reality! In a year no one will remember, much less care, that this happened. Microsoft has bought some cool PR, but the long-term effects of this will be minimal.
As the Microsoft fanboys fire up their keyboards to respond, let me explain:
This will seem even less important when Nintendo and Sony announce later this year that they've got similar programs. Then we can get down to the really important points like "Who has the best developer environment?" and "Which system has the best version of Freecell?"
As the Microsoft fanboys fire up their keyboards to respond, let me explain:
- Finally, console homebrew! - But before we had Net Yaroze for the PSOne and PS2 Linux for the PlayStation 2. Neither one amounted to a hill of beans when it comes to homebrew games for the masses.
- But this is easy homebrew on a console! - The tools have existed for homebrew on a Dreamcast for years. You know what they think is cool? A million different variations of Beats of Rage. Don't get me wrong: those Dreamcast guys are hardcore and dedicated. And while they did produce some excellent emulators, almost nothing original has come out of there.
- But this enables homebrew authors everywhere! - Done already. It's called a "computer". Depending on your operating system, you've been able to make games for years with a cheap copy of Visual Studio or a free copy of XCode and maybe Torque. For the GNU/Linux hippies, try SDL and go cross-platform while you're at it. It's not like Microsoft suddenly released tools that had been tied up away from the dirty mob all this time.
- But I could use Xbox Live! - And computers can use the whole of the internets. Big deal.
- But now gamers can create what they've always wanted! - Which, as you'll soon learn, amounts to 100 different implementations of Tetris, Sudoku, and Sokoban. More importantly, most people who pick this up will be simply copying games someone else already made. Look at the GNU/Linux games section of Freshmeat.
- You just hate Microsoft! - Yes, I do, but that doesn't figure into this.
This will seem even less important when Nintendo and Sony announce later this year that they've got similar programs. Then we can get down to the really important points like "Who has the best developer environment?" and "Which system has the best version of Freecell?"
--jvm at 22:50
Comment
[ 8 ]
03 August 2006
TransGaming forsakes GNU/Linux gamers one more time
We now know exactly what TransGaming has been doing with the money its gotten from selling WineX/Cedega to its GNU/Linux customers: preparing for a future on MacOS X with a new product called Cider.
WineX/Cedega is a legal fork of the WINE project which came to prominence in 2001 with TransGaming's focus on making Windows games work on GNU/Linux and a promise to release code back to WINE after reaching 20,000 paying subscribers. A number of games now work well enough to be officially supported, but after six years the code promise isn't mentioned by TransGaming anymore. In the meantime TransGaming began working with Aspyr to port console games to other platforms; not a single one included a port to GNU/Linux.
This new Intel Mac product, Cider, is based on WineX/Cedega. With its promise of "Cider-vetted games", cleared by the original PC publishers, it appears to have support far beyond what TransGaming ever secured for GNU/Linux customers.
To all the WineX/Cedega supporters: this is your bitter reward. With your contributions, TransGaming will likely take its WINE-derived code, move on to MacOS X, and never look back. Unlike Loki who left us their installer, SDL, OpenAL, and much-improved OpenGL, a departure byTransGaming will not leave the GNU/Linux infrastructure any stronger. On the other hand, they did manage to make your wallets a little lighter.
My advice is this: cancel your subscriptions and buy a copy of a native GNU/Linux game, like DooM 3 or Uplink or Cold War. Give a donation to the coder of a Free Software game. Or donate to a Free Software project, especially one that's making GNU/Linux a better platform for games. Better yet, if you have the skills the community needs your help on any of a multitude of projects.
But whatever you do, spend what you have on real supporters of GNU/Linux, not parasites.
WineX/Cedega is a legal fork of the WINE project which came to prominence in 2001 with TransGaming's focus on making Windows games work on GNU/Linux and a promise to release code back to WINE after reaching 20,000 paying subscribers. A number of games now work well enough to be officially supported, but after six years the code promise isn't mentioned by TransGaming anymore. In the meantime TransGaming began working with Aspyr to port console games to other platforms; not a single one included a port to GNU/Linux.
This new Intel Mac product, Cider, is based on WineX/Cedega. With its promise of "Cider-vetted games", cleared by the original PC publishers, it appears to have support far beyond what TransGaming ever secured for GNU/Linux customers.
To all the WineX/Cedega supporters: this is your bitter reward. With your contributions, TransGaming will likely take its WINE-derived code, move on to MacOS X, and never look back. Unlike Loki who left us their installer, SDL, OpenAL, and much-improved OpenGL, a departure byTransGaming will not leave the GNU/Linux infrastructure any stronger. On the other hand, they did manage to make your wallets a little lighter.
My advice is this: cancel your subscriptions and buy a copy of a native GNU/Linux game, like DooM 3 or Uplink or Cold War. Give a donation to the coder of a Free Software game. Or donate to a Free Software project, especially one that's making GNU/Linux a better platform for games. Better yet, if you have the skills the community needs your help on any of a multitude of projects.
But whatever you do, spend what you have on real supporters of GNU/Linux, not parasites.
Labels: linux
--jvm at 21:05
Comment
[ 18 ]
28 February 2002
Water's OK. Just Don't Drink the WINE!
Bored readers may have observed my linuxgames.com email address. Yes, I do use Linux for gaming occasionally. Like other non-Windows computer platforms, we wave our hands frantically in a bid for legitimacy, only to be run down by the developers in their fancy DirectX-powered machines. Needless to say, this doesn't get us a whole lot of ports.
I have a friend that works as a real-life video game developer. He works for a company that is primarily focused on Windows games right now but he did work for a Linux game company for a short while. Whenever I bring up WINE (WINE is not an emulator), he tells me that I need to stop worrying about it since WINE is not a legitimate platform. "No real Windows developer knows about it, much less cares about it. It can't hurt the Linux gaming scene one bit," he chastises me. Generally, I have deferred to him, since he is, after all, more in touch with the game developer world than I am. But I think he's missing a crucial point, one that really is my biggest concern. I suppose I just wasn't able to vocalize it before.
WINE, as it stands right at this moment, is not anything that can be used against Linux users. Windows developers are now ignoring, and will for the next year or so continue to ignore, Linux users. I can accept that, and WINE isn't affecting the situation one way or the other. WINE is still immature, for gaming, and plays only a few select games well, like Half-Life. Today's WINE is not my concern. My concern is what happens when WINE reaches a level of compatibility that allows some new games to work, at least mostly, at the time of release for Windows.
Consider this situation. If Linux population starts to grow and can take 5% of the desktop market, then Windows developers will be in a position where it might make sense to sell some extra copies to Linux users. After all, this is about the same percentage of the desktop that Mac users have right now. But a better WINE increases the temptation for developers to allay the Linux gamer with the partial support that WINE provides. "See, we developed it on Windows. You have WINE to play Windows games. Now go away," they'll tell us like little misguided children. And when the games don't work because some feature in WINE because part of an API isn't implemented yet, or the developer's code does some weird thing that just happens to work in Windows but not WINE, we'll be right back where we started. It gives developers a reason not to put any effort into supporting Linux users. Yes, in this possible future WINE may be doing well for many games. But that is not a success. It will provide a means for developers to continue to treat us as second-class citizens, hindering development of good cross-platform software with native builds on each system.
Any tool that we develop which allows commercial developers to ignore us cannot possibly be helpful. The fact that WINE is not a fully realized tool at this time is not the point. The point is that as WINE gets better (and it will since development on it continues at a brisk pace) it marginalizes Linux more with each step forward. If it reaches 95% compatibility and Linux gains 5% of the desktop market, almost all of the advantage of the market share gains will be nullified by the advances in WINE.
Labels: linux
--jvm at 01:05
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[ 1 ]
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