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Games Entertainment

UT2003 Gone Gold, Ships with Linux Support 345

Posted by CowboyNeal from the unix-heads-like-games-too dept.
SiW writes "This announcement should be music to a Linux gamer's ears: Unreal Tournament 2003 has just gone gold, and supports Linux (client and server) out of the box!" It's not often that I get to play a new game without rebooting. I'm really looking forward to this.
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UT2003 Gone Gold, Ships with Linux Support More

UT2003 Gone Gold, Ships with Linux Support

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  • let's hope... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by sheean.nl ( 565364 ) <(sheean) (at) (sheean.nl)> on Saturday September 21, 2002 @10:07AM (#4302764) Homepage
    let's hope that this will hapen more often, one of the most frequently heard arguments for not running Linux is: "but, I can't play my games on it"...
    • WARNING do not try this at home without supervision by an professional geek, in fact: don't try!

      Do, or do not.
      There is no try.

      yoda

  • Unreal... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Traser ( 60664 ) on Saturday September 21, 2002 @10:07AM (#4302767)
    Kudos for the unreal team - it's about time more software was released first run with linux/bsd support.

    • Re:Unreal... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 21, 2002 @10:21AM (#4302814)
      Agreed. Now lets all do our part and buy it.
      • Yes, all of us with hardware capable of running this.

        I can't figure out why people are so obsessed with *new* games. Do games suddenly suck because they're a year old? I like my Linux box because I *don't* have to constantly upgrade it to keep it nice and usable. I have an old PII and a Matrox G450 that work nicely in Linux, but would never be able to play this at a reasonable clip.

        Let's work this out:

        a) People that dual-boot. They can already play this in Windows. Little reason to use Linux to play UT2003.
        b) People that don't dual-boot -- are they going to upgrade their graphics card and processor to play a single game? Plus, most of them already can live without games pretty well, or else they wouldn't be using Linux in the first place, so there's a significant cost to doing lots of hardware changes for one game.

        Now, don't get me wrong. I bought Quake 3, Alpha Centauri, and Jagged Alliance II for Linux. But those *run* reasonably on computers not built for gaming. UT2003? Riiight...

        Ah, well. I'm sure others won't agree. However, IIRC, SimCity 3k and Alpha Centauri were Loki's biggest sellers...

        Now, I don't mean "retro" games like Asteroids. I mean, what about Close Combat? Command & Conquer? Fallout (okay, this *does* work in WINE, so less draw)? What's wrong with porting these? Does the port cost so blinking much to do that it's not worth it?

        (Exile III did get ported, which was great, but the widget set used was absolutely unbearable. Try it and see what I mean.)

        • Now, don't get me wrong. I bought Quake 3, Alpha Centauri, and Jagged Alliance II for Linux. But those *run* reasonably on computers not built for gaming. UT2003? Riiight...

          I have a Duron 700 with 128 MB of RAM and a Geforce 2MX. By all accounts, I'm actually below the required stats for the game. But the demo runs just as well as the original Unreal...

          If you're running Q3 at an average rate, you can probably run UT2003.

  • Maybe you should try the demo first? (Score:4, Informative)

    by Phosphor3k ( 542747 ) on Saturday September 21, 2002 @10:08AM (#4302771)
    Instead of just buying it because it supports linux? The linux and windows demos can be found here [unrealtournament2003.com].

  • Linux support.. (Score:4, Informative)

    by Manes ( 17325 ) on Saturday September 21, 2002 @10:09AM (#4302772)
    is great and all, especially since they bundle it with the game. (unlike q3, which required getting a different box, which was impossible to get here in norway)

    Too bad the game feels like a UT expansion pack though - after 10 minutes you forget the fancy new graphichs and physics models, and you realize that not only are almost all the weapons exactly the same, you still got the same voice taunts, the same feel, the same sounds and the same game.
    • Eh? If you read the UT2003 forums, the biggest complaint is that it doesn't feel like UT anymore. Just because there are skin deep similarities doesn't mean it's not a very different beast.
    • is great and all, especially since they bundle it with the game. (unlike q3, which required getting a different box, which was impossible to get here in norway)

      Actually, that's wrong. You could download the other OS executables from id Software's website. You could have bought the Windows box, and then downloaded the linux executables from them.

  • I wonder who will actually use it. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Vinum ( 603982 ) on Saturday September 21, 2002 @10:09AM (#4302773)
    You know what would be funny? If UT actually put some code in there to send statistics back to its HQ to see how many people actually ran a copy of it on Linux. And no... 50 people replying to this post saying they will does not count as part of statistics :P

    Even more importantly, if those stats could be found from certain slashdot admin. :) I always thought it would be funny if slashdot put peoples USER-AGENT header next to their posts too...

    • Re:I wonder who will actually use it. (Score:4, Interesting)

      by TheLinuxWarrior ( 240496 ) <.moc.rracnoraa. .ta. .rrac.noraa.> on Saturday September 21, 2002 @11:12AM (#4302986)
      The registration tool will probably tell them which version you installed. (If you register the game that is)

      To me, it doesn't matter if I actually use it or not.

      I've never played UT before, but I am impressed enough that they shipped a native linux client and server that I will buy the game. If for no other reason than to support future gaming on linux.

      I'll also be emailing them and letting them know that their support of linux was a factor in my purchasing decision.

    • I, for one, would be interested in showing User-Agent with Slashdot posts. Perhaps registered users could have the option of disabling it, as I'm sure some people will object.
      • And what conclusions would you hope to draw from this?

        A poster is 5up3r 3r33t if they use the latest bleeding edge mozilla?

        Their opinion means less if they happen to be on a machine running windows?

        That makes about as much sense as forcing people to reveal their CPU speed and amount of RAM so that we can moderate comments from people with fast machines up and slow machines down.

        • On the same note, why do you oppose it?

          I said I think it would be *interesting*. Not that it would be "useful for evaluating the worth of a poster's comments". Slashdot is a tech forum -- it's interesting to see what techies use to browse the Web. It's be interesting to see how quickly techies upgrade to the latest browsers.
  • Anyone have some informationss regarding a Linux version of UnrealEd 3.0 on the final release ? It would be cool if we can both play and map !

  • Just what we need... (Score:5, Funny)

    by roalt ( 534265 ) <slashdot DOT org AT roalt DOT com> on Saturday September 21, 2002 @10:14AM (#4302787) Homepage Journal
    UT2003 is a 3 CD set. Of course you know it's a huge game with a ton of content (over 35 levels), great characters, awesome gametypes, incredible AI, cool mutators, etc. But there's also some great tools including the following:

    (...)

    2. The Karma Authoring Tool (KAT) that allows you to set up character joint constraints for use with MathEngine's Karma real-time physics system which is incorporated into UT2003. (...)

    It already costs me a day-job just to keep my slashdot-Karma positive, I think I'll give up op Unreal tournament for now....

  • great for linux gaming (Score:3, Insightful)

    by jonsen ( 609864 ) <jonfredrikhole@h ... m ['tma' in gap]> on Saturday September 21, 2002 @10:14AM (#4302789) Homepage
    I think that this is great for linux gaming. I'm sure that other gaming companies is going to follow, and maybe this is going to be a common trend in gaming. If it is, I think linux's popularity is going to rise even more. Maybe we can finally microwave our win cd's now...

  • I wonder if user bitching caused this? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by garcia ( 6573 ) on Saturday September 21, 2002 @10:17AM (#4302798)
    I was a little pissed off when I heard that they were not going to do Linux support right off the bat. I couldn't understand why they wouldn't at least put up the binaries on FTP/WWW and let the geeks download it after they bought the Windows version...

    I like this idea a lot better though :) We don't have to have a poor showing on the shelves (yes, we will) and we still get the binaries out of the box.

    I don't play games on my computer, but I think that this is the best way to go. Just bundle both in the same box and forget about it.

    Thanks for letting me rant my hangover [spydar.com] off.

    • Re:I wonder if user bitching caused this? (Score:4, Informative)

      by jvmatthe ( 116058 ) on Saturday September 21, 2002 @11:07AM (#4302965) Homepage
      It's my impression that user bitching didn't have much to do with it. Epic has one person, Daniel Vogel, that is interested in seeing some Linux support and he contacted a notable Linux game coder, Ryan Gordon, about getting the client work done on Linux. My experience has been that Epic isn't nearly so pro-free-software as say Carmack but they do have a view of the world that isn't completely Windows-centric. Mostly Windows-centric? Of course...that's where a good portion of their profit sits, along with console ports, like the Xbox Unreal game slated for this winter and Unreal Tournament for PS2 at the launch of that console. But the recent comment by Mark Rein of Epic saying, in effect, "if we have a server port, we should also do a client port" is probably indicative of the positive attitude that Epic currently has about ports for other systems. And they haven't forgotten the Mac, and a port will be coming along for that platform as well. Epic wants everyone to buy the game and they've taken steps to make sure that every major platform has a port for people to buy.

      The community helping out and being supportive is probably more likely to get things to happen, rather than bitching.

      You can read a little more about how the UT2003 client came to be at LinuxGames [linuxgames.com].

    • Re:I wonder if user bitching caused this? (Score:5, Informative)

      by whovian ( 107062 ) on Saturday September 21, 2002 @11:18AM (#4303011)
      ...when I heard that they were not going to do Linux support right off the bat.

      I thought I had read that they weren't even planning Linux support at all, but seeing as how they needed OpenGL support en route to a Mac version, they decided it was convenient to produce a Linux version. After searching for the "official" statement, I found this post from the man himself Mark Rein:
      Here are the answers to some questions I've been asked:


      "Why did Epic waste time supporting Linux?" - it is NOT a waste of time. It is absolutely crucial to have Linux support for the server and seeing as we found a very competent programmer (Ryan C. Gordon) to take on the client side job we decided to go full steam ahead with the client as well. We were already going to have to do OpenGL support for the Mac version so it made sense. Linux support has not impacted the development of the core game in any way. There was never any specific plan to release a Linux client at the same time as the Windows client ships but the timing just worked out that way. I wish we had known earlier because I would have liked to indicate the game is Linux-compatible on the box like we did with the original UT. But at least we'll have the support in the game and that's what really counts.

      "I'm a Windows XP user - why should I care about whether there are Linux versions or not?" You should care because we estimate that about half the servers for UT are currently run under Linux. This is why I said it was "crucial" to have Linux support for UT2003 on the server side and personally I think that if we're taking advantage of an OS for the server then we should have a client implementation as well. I played UT2003 on a Linux system the other day and it rocked. It feels the same as the Windows version in terms of performance and robustness. Linux users will enjoy the game and all users (Windows/Mac/Linux) will enjoy having more servers to play on. Linux support in UT2003 is a win-win for everyone.

      Source: Infogrames Forums

  • support (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 21, 2002 @10:18AM (#4302799)
    just noted that UT2003 doesn't support Mac (as far as I could tell).
    Does this mean that Linux is now considered to be a more lucrative market than Mac, or is this just a show of support for Linux?

    UT original did run under mac, but it used an engine that was native to DirectX. Now that UT2 is more openGLish, cross platform would be much easier. Perhaps the portion of linux users that play UT is greater than that of mac?
    • No, this means that Epic has an ex-Loki employee now who did the porting to Linux in his spare time. There has been talk of an OSX port, but once again, processor architecture requirements are going to be a hangup (unlike the Intel-only port to Linux).

    • Re:support (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Cyno01 ( 573917 )
      yeah, i havn't seen a switch ad with some LAN d00d saying "I switched to mac because of the hundreds of thousands of neeto games out there for it"

    • hah (Score:2, Interesting)

      by the_Speed_Bump ( 540796 )
      Doubt it. Both have a pretty small niche, but Mac still has something on the order of 4 times Linux's desktop userbase. [google.com]

      More likely, they did it just because it was easy, (same hardware) or because one of the staffers ported it on his/her own time. Or both.

      A Mac port would be more lucrative. But not as easy. :)

      oh, and one final nitpick. The original UT favoured software rendering and glide, not D3D. UT2k3 is geared towards Direct3D first and foremost. The GL renderer was extremely hard to code, as I understand it.

    • OS X version: DECEMBER (Score:4, Interesting)

      by blakespot ( 213991 ) on Saturday September 21, 2002 @11:03AM (#4302942) Homepage
      OS X version coming in December [macrumors.com]

      blakespot
    • > Does this mean that Linux is now considered to be a more lucrative market than Mac, or is this just a show of support for Linux?

      No, the Linux game is no way more lucrative than Mac. It's just that network games such as ut2k3 most always need at least a Linux server version because roughly all recent FPS game servers (q3/UT/rtcw/jk2/sof2,etc..), run on Linux. A significant portion of halflife/CS servers also run on Linux. So, they basically needed a Linux server at launch of the Windows version of the game to have ut2k3 become any popular online. Unlike Valve with halflife, they didn't want to have a platform with a server and not a client, so they made both for Linux.

      > Now that UT2 is more openGLish

      Actually, it's more direct3dish, but it has good openGL support.

      > Perhaps the portion of linux users that play UT is greater than that of mac?

      I doubt it, but there are many more UT servers running on Linux than MacOS.
    • None of the above. Epic had already planned to convert the engine to OpenGL for the Mac version, and they had enough spare time to port it to Linux too.

  • Goatse (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 21, 2002 @10:20AM (#4302808)
    I want a skin in UT 2003 of the goatse guy with a Bill Gates head?

    Can somebody please make it for me?

  • No gaming on Linux here (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ekephart ( 256467 ) on Saturday September 21, 2002 @10:21AM (#4302816) Homepage
    I don't know how most people set up their computers but I have one Windows (1.4ghz) machine and 3 Linux machines (600mhz, 350mhz, 166mhz). The Windows machine is the fastest of the 4 basically because most games are played in Windows and they need the speed.

    The limited number of people that just have a bunch of uber ninja boxen spells slow growth for the Linux gaming world.

    You can argue that people dedicated to Linux gaming are already using it. Well, yes, but where does it go from there? To attract new customers you have to provide something they desire at a reasonable cost. For me giving up Civ3, EQ or Warcraft3 isn't worth making the switch (yet).

    • Re:No gaming on Linux here (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      For me giving up Civ3, EQ or Warcraft3 isn't worth making the switch (yet).


      You don't have to give up Civ3 or Warcraft 3 under Linux. (I've never played EQ, so I don't know about that.) I've got a dual athlon workstation with lots of ram, but no Windows. Both Civ3 and War3 run under Wine.

      Quake 3 is native, UT2k3 is native, NWN will be native :), and I just can't think of another game I'd like to run.

      Without me noticing as it was happening, Linux got game. :)
    • For me giving up Civ3, EQ or Warcraft3 isn't worth making the switch (yet).

      Please check what you can do with WineX first.

    • Re:No gaming on Linux here (Score:4, Interesting)

      by 13Echo ( 209846 ) on Saturday September 21, 2002 @11:21AM (#4303025) Homepage Journal
      I use a 1400 MHz machine at home with 1024 MB of RAM, 3 hard drives, and a reasonably good videocard. I made the transition from Windows to Linux this year, and I was surprised to find that if you have the right hardware- there are games to be played. There are even plenty of good 3D games. My computer is by no means top-of-the-line anymore, but it will still run all current Linux games at good speeds. I'll be upgrading the machine by sometime early next year. I take Linux gaming pretty seriously as a hobby. The platform works great for that stuff, it just needs a bit more of a boost from the game companies.

      That said, I understand what you mean about giving up on your favorite games. Giving up on MOH:AA was one of the biggest decisions that almost made me not want to switch completely, but the benefits have outweighed that single game for me.
  • played the demo for a bit, graphics are nice, went back to the old favorite. i may eat my words by next month, but this ain't no counter-strike killer.

  • Register IT! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by wowbagger ( 69688 ) on Saturday September 21, 2002 @10:40AM (#4302865) Homepage Journal
    Remember, if you buy UT2003, and you are going to run it under Linux:

    SEND IN THOSE REGISTRATION CARDS!

    Make sure that when the vendor tallies the results that Linux is well-represented.

    Allow me to compare and contrast UT2003 with QuakeIII in this regard:


    • QIII: Windows shipped first. Linux shipped later. Justification: "We need to be able to track the Linux shipments."
      Result: hard-core games bought Windows version, waited to download Linux version.

    • UT2003: Both versions are in the box.
      Result: Hard-core gamers can get whatever version they choose to run now.

    • Well, with Quake3, id/activision wanted to make money of the linux version.

      With Quake2, on the other hand, the linux port was a unsupported version.

      Ut2k3 seems to be handled similiar to how id handled the linux port of Quake2. Infogames won't give any support to the Linux version, and it won't even say on the box that it includes the Linux version (evidently it was too late to put it on the box.)

      After all, they made the Linux version for two main reasons. First of all, a linux server version is _extremely_ important. Slightly more than half of all Quake3 and UT servers run on Linux. Many halflife/cs servers do too. Unlike Valve, Epic didn't want to leave a platform with a server without a client. The second reason was that they'd done an OpenGL port anyways for the Mac version, and several programmers used Linux for development, so they wanted to make a port to the platform.

      Mark Rein (vice-President of Epic) said something to this effect recently in the Infogames AG forum.

    • Re:Register IT! (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Ramses0 ( 63476 )
      Also, buy it from TuxGames ... they report all sales to the manufacturers as "Linux Sales" so that's one less thing to worry about. Actually, I've been having pretty good luck with a few titles under WineX (found some cheap games and they work really well under WineX). It might be nice if TuxGames stocked some of the older game titles which are 4 or 5 supported by WineX (ie: Baldurs Gate 1, Black & White, etc) and then reported those sales as Linux sales. (are you listening Michael?)

      Heresy, heresy! I hear the cry. But these older games are never going to be native ported to Linux. I'd be willing to pay $30 instead of $20 to buy them from a Linux store (this means $$ for TuxGames) where I knew that the game had a good chance of working (this means no stress for me) and that the manufacturer would know that people are using Linux to play their games (meaning that they'll consider it in the future).

      Only after the games have dropped in price to ~$20 in regular retail channels, though. Transgaming is making a big deal about how WineX supports WarCraft III really well out of the box. That *is* exciting, but I still have hope (actually, I don't) that Blizzard will port it to Linux. When WarCraft III is on the $19.99 shelf, I have no hope that it'll ever be ported to Linux, so at that point, I'd be willing to buy it from TuxGames.

      I don't remember who said it, but this is a case where we shouldn't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

      --Robert
  • What a terrible joke. Linux is Open Source kernel. GNU/Linux is Open Source operating system. UT2003 works only with closed source nVidia drivers. Compare it with Return To Castle Wolfenstein which works perfect with my old Voodoo3.
    Please do not talk about "Linux support" until S3TC will be deleted from UT2003.

    • Re:Linux support??? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      This is why no gaming company wants to support linux
      • This is why no gaming company wants to support linux

        This is very interesting. I remember everyone was bitching to RedHat, becouse there was software released "only for RedHat". It was easy to run it in Debian in Slackware. But people wrote "RedHat is bad". Now there is a game which work only with nVidia cards. It's impossible to run it on other cards. But noone is angry. Everyone is happy, becouse there is new game available for Linux. Even, if it's impossible to play.

        PS. I know DRI is talking to S3, and maybe UT team is going to create version with uncompressed textures, but it's impossible to play now

        • Re:Linux support??? (Score:3, Insightful)

          by dinivin ( 444905 )

          WTF? Epic spent a good deal of time getting this game up and running under Linux and all you can do is bitch!

          You should be thankful that they've done what they have. It is not up to Epic to make the game playable on every Linux system. It is up the video card manufacturers to make sure their cards can support the latest games.

          Dinivin
        • The game is *supposed* to work with PowerVR Kyro series cards on Linux (They DO support S3TC despite popular rumors), but there is an alleged "driver bug" that prevents it from running. I personally blame it on a hoaky GL engine that was written in a week.

          Regardless, PowerVR and even ATi may very well have the game running on their cards by the time it comes out. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

    • Re:Linux support??? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by jvmatthe ( 116058 ) on Saturday September 21, 2002 @11:17AM (#4303002) Homepage
      Comparing UT2003 to RtCW is really poor. UT2003 really is pushing the system much harder than RtCW, simply in terms of the textures, polygons, and physics. To get the performance they needed for the textures they're using, Epic needed to use some texture compression and they chose the standard that's available by every major Windows drivers, S3TC/DXTC. This is available in NVIDIA's drivers, XiG's drivers, and PowerVR's drivers (although there are other issues with the PowerVR drivers). All of these already have a license for S3TC/DXTC in their Windows drivers and therefore can implement that in their closed Linux drivers.

      The DRI drivers, on the other hand, are by their nature open and getting a license is a much trickier proposition. Steps have been taken to work with the patent holders to get a license for an open implementation in DRI, and some of those steps are being taken by Daniel Vogel of Epic (see DRI mailing list in past two days for an email from Brian Paul about this). So even though the DRI drivers are currently crippled and unable to use the required technology, Epic hasn't given up and has been working to help the DRI team get what they need to support UT2003.

      Yes, only closed drivers currently work. The open solution is trying to move forward in a legal manner. Yet S3TC/DXTC is required because there isn't another solution. Epic is trying to help.

      Getting bent out of shape and spewing ill-informed vitriol as if they were all conspiring to screw you isn't going to help the situation.
      • Getting bent out of shape and spewing ill-informed vitriol as if they were all conspiring to screw you isn't going to help the situation.

        I haven't wrote about conspiracy. What I mean is that it's impossible to play UT2003 on Open Source system yet. Imagine person who bought full UT2003, tried to run it in Linux, didn't work, so he play only in Windows forever, becouse "Linux is to hard to configure becouse UT2003 is bitching about some S3TC".
    • Return To Castle Wolfenstein is based on the Quake3 engine.

      ut2k3 is basically a rewrite of the unreal engine, which means new technology.

      Anyways, stop complaining. It's great they ported it to Linux in the first place. I can't help but understand why most gaming companies prefer using Direct3d over OpenGL these days; it's the difference in quality/capabilities of various drivers.

  • But what about dependencies ? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by vluther ( 5638 ) <vid@OOOluther.io minus threevowels> on Saturday September 21, 2002 @10:43AM (#4302874) Homepage Journal
    I downloaded the demo in Linux, only to find out that the game will only work with Binary Nvidia drivers. I own a laptop, I can't just go around buying new video cards and putting them into this machine.. I really hope they will have removed the dependency on nvidia by then.

    • Re:But what about dependencies ? (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      There isn't any direct dependency on nvidia in UT2003. UT2003 requires texture compression and currently only nvidia's binary drivers provide that in Linux. Blame manufacturer of your laptop video card for not providing decent Linux drivers.

  • Just what I want... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Telex4 ( 265980 ) on Saturday September 21, 2002 @10:53AM (#4302910) Homepage
    Another Unreal game! I've mucked aroud with the demo, and it's not really markedly different from UT2 (except it runs natively on my machine). Same weapons, same taunts, same levels, and its all really boring.

    I mean, CTF... the classic CTF maps were back in Quake1/2 CTF and Team Fortress Classic (2fort being the best). The idea of them is to divide the level up into areas which you can defend in different ways, giving the game some tactical depth. The level with the demo is just one big open space full of spikes, with two little rooms at each end Boo. Dull. And the lightning gun is horrid... I suppose the idea is that the old sniper gun was untracreable, and therefore too good on open maps, but why not just give it tracer bullets? The lightening gun just feels, well, rubbish.

    On the plus side, it's nice to see they've used Loki's installer program (and update program) which work like a treat. Hopefully in the next releases they'll also know they'll be able to ship the UNIX versions in time, and so will write that it runs on various UNIX based OSs on the box. Oh and maybe they'll support more drivers than Nvidia :(

    • Re:Just what I want... (Score:3, Informative)

      by fault0 ( 514452 )
      I think the best thing about ut2k3 is the better physics than UT. Quaker's, like myself, have always felt restricted by UT's lack of strafe jumping. ut2k3 doesn't include strafe jumping, but it's dodge jumping is a bit more pronounced than the dodge jumping in UT. Also, it has a Quake2-like double jumping system. Also, wall jumps and lift jumps (which were found in UT), also seem more pronounced, especially with a faster than default game speed (110%), and a higher fov than normal (around 100 is best, imho).
      • Yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head.

        I played the demo for a little while, and that's exactly what I thought. All the effort in redesigning UT2003 seems to be in the enhanced physics and new character movement characteristics.

        (Well, that plus improved graphics - but that's the norm for all game sequels, even the yearly refresh of the sports games.)

        Basically, if you were bored sick of UT, you probably won't find much fun in UT2003 - but I think I'll be playing a lot of it. (I never really got tired of the old one. It's still my most commonly loaded/played game on my PC. There are so many custom levels and mods out there, it never really gets stale for me. That hack that changed the redeemer into a jet fighter was pure genius, for example!)
    • ...and it's not really markedly different from UT2

      Perhaps you didn't notice that UT2k3 is really Unreal Tournament 2?


      Oh and maybe they'll support more drivers than Nvidia :(

      It is not Unreal Tournament 2003's job to support drivers. It's the vendor's job to add the Savage texture compression support to their drivers. ATI, for one, is doing this [ati.com] for some of their cards.
      • Sorry, that was a typo, I meant UT ;-)

        And at the time of posting that, I didn't realise the problem was not Epic's (or arethye just the publisher? I don't know, I'll shut up :-)

  • GREAT!!! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Eric_Cartman_South_P ( 594330 ) on Saturday September 21, 2002 @11:01AM (#4302938)
    So glad I just Switched(TM) so now I can play Unr... oh wait...

  • This should be stipulated, it seems that nvidia is the only manufacture that has drivers to work with linux and be able to run UT2003. This is evident that nvidia wants to push all platforms, and they have their logo start first thing when running the demo.

    It's not that UT2003 is closed that it will only run under linux on an nvidia card, it's just that no one else has drivers... and nvidia was smart enough to pair up with UT2003 to get the market share (seems looks of people are talking about doing a UT2003 upgrade as they can't wait for Doom3). It's really up to the manufacturers to get their shit together and give us good Linux drivers for 3d, not just 2d drivers.

    pretty much makes my ATI Radeon 7500 AiW useless..:(

  • Linux going mainstream (Score:5, Insightful)

    by InodoroPereyra ( 514794 ) on Saturday September 21, 2002 @11:47AM (#4303129)
    There is a quiet and steady trend for GNU/Linux to go mainstream. It is not happening at the exponentical rate some of us thought it would. But every little step helps. This is an egg and chicken problem and we all know it. If more people used Linux there would be more apps available, and the other way around. Whenever we achieve "critical mass" we are in :-)

    Things are happening. Governments considering/adopting open source solutions here and there. Mass media covering Linux/Open Source every now and then. The world's biggest computer chain selling computers with Linux preinstalled online for now. Not to mention the impressive inroads in the server market.

    Now imagine all these win* gamers opening their UT boxes to find a "linux version" in there. They won't give a damn, but deep in their minds they will start to get to the idea that Linux is there, that it exists, that it is as "normal" as "win*".

    One more step. Many Thanks to the UT team !

    • Of course you're not wrong in these beliefs... But just to play devil's advocate for a minute, the fact that UT2003 has a Linux version in the box doesn't seem *that* significant to me.

      Honestly, about the only mainstream games that have had Linux support have been 1st. person shooters with Quake or UT type engines. (I guess "The Sims" was a notable exception to the rule.) If they didn't release a Linux client for UT2003, I'd say that would be more of a "big step backwards" than anything else. I mean, you'd have to ask if Linux support has really backslid so far that there's not even interest in porting the latest 1st. person shooter to it anymore?

      I mean, let's see here: Kingpin, Descent, Quake 1,2 and 3, Soldier of Fortune, the last version of UT, Tribes .... if all those ran as Linux clients, why is it a huge leap to think the new UT wouldn't also do so?

      • Re:Linux going mainstream (Score:3, Insightful)

        by krmt ( 91422 )
        I mean, let's see here: Kingpin, Descent, Quake 1,2 and 3, Soldier of Fortune, the last version of UT, Tribes .... if all those ran as Linux clients, why is it a huge leap to think the new UT wouldn't also do so?
        Because, like he said, UT2003 comes with it in the exact same box. None of these games did. The only example that you could even use the same files for was Q3, and even that didn't come in the same box. You had to know about it and go download it.

        Having right there alongside it means that suddenly Linux is much more valid. It's not something you have to go out of your way to download and know about, it's right there for you. It's not in some separate section of the store either, right next to the keyboard extension cables, it's in the box at the front of the store underneath the giant poster. It's not a huge leap that UT2003 has a linux client, it is a huge leap that it's right there alongside the windows client out of the box. NWN was supposed to have this too, but backed out. It's a very important step.
  • They didn't know the Linux version would be finished in time of shippment? And what the Demo coming in sync with the Win version???
    This sounds *really* fishy to me. I wounldn't be suprised if someone payed them not to mention that it's Linux compatible....
    • This sounds *really* fishy to me. I wounldn't be suprised if someone payed them not to mention that it's Linux compatible....

      This is just totally false.
    • If you would read the announcement, or any of the posts, you would know that they didn't know whether it would support linux when they sent the box design off. You can't reprint thousands upon thousands of boxes, delaying game release, to announce linux support.

      Stop being so paranoid!

  • but did you play the beta ? it is nothing really special beyond snazzy grafix. I was hoping for some new twist but alas it won't come from UT2003. I don't see how it can compete with 1942. I kept flashing back to Quake3 while playing it...

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