Priestess asks:
"The story on Slashdot about the Xbox had much discussion on the advantages
of coding, games especially, for a fixed platform. This made me
start to wonder about all the things built into modern OS's that
do nothing other than get in the way for games programming. Multi-User Multi-Tasking Memory-Protected OS's running X through
a network socket, etc., are very useful indeed, but do you really need any of these things for a 'put in the CD and play' style OS? Clearly not. So I thought I'd ask, how hard would it be to develop a cut
down version of the Linux kernel which basically just booted
into single-user mode, perhaps with just a small partition
mounted to protect the rest of the OS, dumped an image
from the CD into RAM and ran nothing but a quick and efficient
OpenGL OS? A Games Only free-OS which could be selected
from LILO at boot?" Do you all think there might be a use for something like this? Getting into single user mode isn't all that difficult, but maybe there might be some advantage in having a Linux Games system by simply inserting a CD and hitting the 'on' switch.
"Obviously this could clear up a lot of space for the
important things in a game, Textures, Sounds, Models, etc.,
and it could give the PC some of the advantages of a
console, or at least remove some of the DISadvantages.
If this game-kernel could be made small enough it could
even, if it were given the right licence, be thrown onto
the boot section of a CD-ROM and allow simple turn-on-and-go
operation like with the Playstation.
I probably don't know what I'm talking about here, perhaps
there's less wasted stuff resident in modern OS's than it feels like there is and there'd be no point but it does seem like somewhat of a waste to run Quake in Multi-User mode through an X loopback network socket rather than just let the processor do nothing but throw polys at the graphics card. If it supported nothing but Sound cards and 3D OpenGL graphics cards, could PC games not be improved? Or is the
idea of spoiling your uptime to reboot to a different kernel
for running games just as abhorent as rebooting into Windows?"
Nice idea, but..... (Score:2)
Re:Neat idea, but.. (Score:2)
It does seem to have a somewhat limited usefullness though.
How many Linux users would like having a version of that would boot just enough of Windows via CD to play the game? Man, I would love to be able to boot a copy of Motorcross Madness (for example) without having to dedicate a partition and a Windows 98 license to a _game_. And wouldn't it be awesome to boot the game on whatever machine I want regardless of having Windows 98 or Linux or whatever on the machine. Sadly this doesn't seem very practical.
Still, you could come up with a game kernel that can use a few MB on a FAT16/32, EXT2FS, FFS, whatever partition to store updated drivers and settings. (or even a floppy! (ok LS120)) Then you basically use a small bit of disk space for nonvolatile storage and updates, new drivers, etc which extends the reach of the game.
Re:Nice idea, but..... (Score:1)
Nothing difficult is ever easy. (Score:2)
If I had to reboot, put the CD, play, take the CD out, reboot and then get back to work, I wouldn't e interested.
LK
Neat idea, but.. (Score:2)
You might as well reboot into Windows.
Actually... (Score:2)
I think such a system is more than possible, however, I think the thing that will forever hold back the PC from being able to do such a thing (at least for a while) is the fact that there is no single "standard" for the hardware the OS will be running on.
All game consoles have a standard platform that doesn't deviate - period. Game developers can code to that platform, without having to worry if the platform will support a particular function or not - they know what functions are supported on the platform they are developing for.
This is the main reason why Windows is the popular platform for game development - because game developers aren't developing for Windows, or for the PC - they are developing for DirectX. Prior to this, they developed for the VGA and SVGA specs (VESA standard on the last, at least for the video portion). The Win GDI could have been developed for during the Win 3.1 and early Win95 days, but wasn't because it was too slow (actually, it would have been OK for platform side-scroller type games, and tile type games, but we were already moving into the 3D realm, etc - Win32s didn't catch on, etc).
So, can such a thing be done with Linux, today? Perhaps. I am imagining sticking with LCDs here - using the SVGA framebuffer device or a low-res common, stripped-down, SVGA X-Server/Client combo on bootup - in other words, similar to what SuSe does for the install. Maybe some common 3D card detection setup, as well (Virge, Voodoo, maybe others).
Even so, you would still be looking at other problems - sound cards, motherboards, ethernet and modems, etc - what to include as a "standard" and what to exclude.
Maybe for those using such a thing to play games could buy a "standard" system, with "supported" components. In other words, make the end user buy a supported system, rather than try to support any configuration...
Hang on, we may be on to something!!! (Score:1)
People are saying this is an impractical idea for a number of reasons, such as it's a pain to reboot, what platforms to support etc. But since we're talking about putting a boot sector on a CD, we've got a new option: Put a bootable, minimal games-oriented linux kernel on the CD, along with the game and drivers/libs needed to play it. Now, linux users who want to use the game can just put it in after boot and install the game on their HD. Non-linux (or linux who don't mind rebooting) users with a standard spec pc could just put in the CD and reboot. If they use windows they should be used to it.
This allows games to be developed for linux (or any other pc os) and have the audience of windows (or any other pc os) users. Most exclusive windows users I know don't run any other tasks concurrently with playing their "cool games" (i.e. stuff other than mah-jong/solitaire/minesweeper that you might do while downloading or chatting) aside from the regular background stuff that starts up with windows. Nor would they mind a reboot for a particularly cool game. And when Quake 4 shows stunningly better performance than Unreal 2 Tournament after the former is released like this and the latter as a standard windows game, they will definitely prefer the higher performance.
Ever get the impression that your life would make a good sitcom?
Ever follow this to its logical conclusion: that your life is a sitcom?
BeOS Kinda (Score:1)