NEWS - X3 announced for Linux

michael_x2 · Post by **michael_x2** » Wed, 10. Jan 07, 09:12

Linux Game Publishing ( http://www.linuxgamepublishing.com ) has announced that the Linux version of X3 is underway.
The expected release date will be around the middle of the year, and it will be released patched to the latest version, including the latest bonus package on the disc.

title edited - Abyss

nirwin · Post by **nirwin** » Wed, 10. Jan 07, 10:18

YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Fantastic news, I was trying to get it to work under cedega, but the codecs refused to install because they noticed it was not a true Windows system.

I bought X2 for Linux, and I will be buying X3 for linux, glad X2 sold well enough to warrant this. Thank you guys at LGP for all your effort on behalf of the linux gaming community.

Post by **Cycrow** » Wed, 10. Jan 07, 13:33

thats great new michael.

i guess ill have to start converting my plugin manager to linux as well

Player. · Post by **Player.** » Wed, 10. Jan 07, 13:46

What about bonus material? are you intrested in some stuff? I remmber you asked for the release of X2

nirwin · Post by **nirwin** » Wed, 10. Jan 07, 14:49

Cycrow wrote:thats great new michael.

i guess ill have to start converting my plugin manager to linux as well

Really? You gonna? I would sure appreciate a linux port of the ship installer, script installer/packager.
You a linux user under normal circumstances?

Post by **Cycrow** » Wed, 10. Jan 07, 14:55

yes i am a linux user. And the plugin manager and ship installer, were built in QT, which is a linux based API

nirwin · Post by **nirwin** » Wed, 10. Jan 07, 15:09

Cycrow wrote:yes i am a linux user. And the plugin manager and ship installer, were built in QT, which is a linux based API

Hey cool, I did some programming with QT at Uni, they had a suite of S.u.S.e machines, it was a pretty good toolkit (or API?).
In that case I'd imagine most of the code is already in ANSI standard C++, and little conversion will be needed.
Anyway glad to see one of the masters is a linux user and I will look forward to using your linux compatable versions in the future.

michael_x2 · Post by **michael_x2** » Wed, 10. Jan 07, 15:58

Player. wrote:What about bonus material? are you intrested in some stuff? I remmber you asked for the release of X2

Yes, I will be asking again coser to the release date, none appeared on the X2 disc in the end as we only had a small number of submissions and they looked kindof lonely on the disc... Hopefully this time...

michael_x2 · Post by **michael_x2** » Wed, 10. Jan 07, 16:03

nirwin wrote:Thank you guys at LGP for all your effort on behalf of the linux gaming community.

Thanks for the comment, it really does cheer us up to get positive feedback!

michael_x2 · Post by **michael_x2** » Wed, 10. Jan 07, 16:07

Cycrow wrote:thats great new michael.

i guess ill have to start converting my plugin manager to linux as well

Those would be great. If you can get them done by the time the game goes gold, and they run well on all of our test platforms (multiplatform Linux cmpatability is a pain) Id be willing to put these as an install option into the main game installer along with credit to you for making them, these look really useful!

Termight · Post by **Termight** » Wed, 10. Jan 07, 16:56

Getting X3 working under Linux would be awesome! Are they going to be looking for beta testers at any point? My laptop runs the w32 version just fine, so I can probably beta for the linux version (dual boot).

michael_x2 · Post by **michael_x2** » Wed, 10. Jan 07, 17:19

Yep, we'll be asking for beta testers in a few months.

http://betas.linuxgamepublishing.com

Sign up there and we send you a quick email each time a beta is announced (no spam mail, a single 2 line email per new game that we beta).

=VipeR= · Post by **=VipeR=** » Thu, 11. Jan 07, 01:42

Great news in did!

I have bought the standard version of X3, than i bought the Steam version and you can be sure that i will be buying the Linux version as well, specially because it will run on my favorite OS!

Thanks a lot to Linux Game Publishing and to Egosoft!

TheZapper · Post by **TheZapper** » Thu, 11. Jan 07, 04:26

Hmm... On one hand I'm glad to see a good game come out for Linux.

.. but on the other hand... think this is *way* too late. Woulda been great 6 months ago...

After all, I picked up *my* copy of X3 for Windows, for $9.95 at Walmart... and that was 4 months ago or so.....

Considering I still see the Mac version of X2 for >$30.... what's this linux one going to cost. (I'd like to buy a copy for my Mac too!... but not at that price!).

Any more than $10, and I'll pass... $10, I'll take another copy and load up on my linux boxes....

Anyone agree/disagree on the above? (i.e. why pay significantly more for a 'old' game on another platform?)

Scarecrow · Post by **Scarecrow** » Thu, 11. Jan 07, 05:17

Have you seen this?

nirwin · Post by **nirwin** » Thu, 11. Jan 07, 10:24

Scarecrow wrote:Have you seen this?

I've had X3 running that much under linux myself (with cedega, kinda similar to codeweavers wine), but the codecs are a problem for me. Most speech and video is missing.

Hmm, might have to sign up for the beta testing

@TheZapper
I don't really agree with you. I personally want to use Linux exclusively, I don't want Windows, I don't want to fork out £100+ for Vista when I could run Linux for free and it is much better. The only problem is, 95% of my games are for Windows, so I have to have Windows.

If X3 were to run under Linux I think I could finally go an entire month without having to boot into crummy old Windows. The more good games that get released into Tux's domain, the more I can move away from proprietary OS's.

michael_x2 · Post by **michael_x2** » Thu, 11. Jan 07, 11:17

TheZapper wrote:Anyone agree/disagree on the above? (i.e. why pay significantly more for a 'old' game on another platform?)

Trust me, if we could charge less we would.

However the fact that the game is 12 months old does NOT mean it costs us less to port it by some magical means. It still takes the same team of developers, testers, and producers to port the game to Linux now as it did previously.

And we KNOW we cant compete with the windows release on price. If we try we go out of business. We are aiming to sell the game to people who do NOT use Windows. For these people, they dont care how much the windows version costs, it is a fair price for a new game on their platform. If some people who dual-boot choose to buy it, that is a bonus.

We would love to find some magic formula that lets us port a game in 2 weeks with one developer but it is never going to happen. If the cost if prohibitive for you, then please accept our apologies, but it is not going to change.

michael_x2 · Post by **michael_x2** » Thu, 11. Jan 07, 11:22

Scarecrow wrote:Have you seen this?

Yes, many games run as far as the opening screenshots using emulation (which is where this one is, if you notice the way the screen looks).
However it is unlikely to run any further. No Linux emulation supports all the features used in X3, and arent likely to for some time.
Also, emulation is less stable by far than a native port. Consider, the emulation has to try and match the windows layer, including all the 'features' in it that developers exploit, as well as any programming errors of theirown. The sum of these bugs will ALWAYS be greater.

Besides, our version will come with a penguin on the box!

Yellow Melos · Post by **Yellow Melos** » Thu, 11. Jan 07, 14:56

A question for all those how run x2 on both wondows an linux

If using the same machine, do the versions run the same or does one perform better.

michael_x2 · Post by **michael_x2** » Thu, 11. Jan 07, 15:00

We aimed to make the versions run at a comparable speed. X2 Linux runs on a GeForce 4 MX graphics card or better, which is about the same as X2 windows..

There is a slight slowdown in scrolling the menus for x2 linux compared to windows, but it is slight. Frames per second is comparable.

egosoft.com

egosoft.com

NEWS - X3 announced for Linux

NEWS - X3 announced for Linux