Linux Port

[maep]

Greetings,

I'm a C/C++ dev with experience with Linux and Win32 system programming. From what I understand you guys have access to the src. Is anybody working on a true (not WINE) Linux port? If yes, do you need help? If not, would it be possible for me to start working on a Linux port?

Sorry if this has been asked before.

[Solver]

This is unfortunately not an option, I believe.

We have access to the source code of the game itself, but the game uses an engine that we do not have the source for. Neither did the original developers at any time. And the engine is Windows-only (using DX is the most obvious problem), and so poor that it takes many workarounds just to get it working properly on Windows.

[maep]

Interesting. The Game comes with SDL.dll, so I assumed the engine would be portable, at least to some degree. Out of curiosity, do you know which engine is used?

Edited September 10, 2014 by maep

[Solver]

Playground SDK version 5, by developers PlayFirst. It's intended for casual games, even browser-based ones. Not for anything half the complexity of Xenonauts. As an added bonus, the engine hasn't even been available or supported for quite some time now.

[llunak]

I'm a C/C++ dev with experience with Linux and Win32 system programming. From what I understand you guys have access to the src. Is anybody working on a true (not WINE) Linux port? If yes, do you need help? If not, would it be possible for me to start working on a Linux port?

You can have access to the source too: http://www.goldhawkinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php/10965-Community-Coder-Program!

As Solver said, a true Linux port is far beyond being worth the effort. However, not only because of the vast amount of work needed, but also because I don't think it's actually really needed. It'd be of course nice, but I in fact both run and develop the game on Linux, and I don't have a serious problem with either. Playing the game works just fine for me, so I see the need of a native Linux version largely as a philosophical issue only, and while developing it on Linux has its glitches and gotchas, it's still doable (and definitely much less work than spending time on trying to port it).

So if you'd be interested in helping with improving the game, IMO it's better to just work on it in general and live with the fact that it'll always need Wine. And BTW I don't find the engine to be that bad - it was certainly a poor choice for a game of this complexity (so the game has e.g. implemented a number of things itself), but I don't have a big problem with the engine as such.

[maep]

For me it's not just philosophical. In combat the game frequently stalls for a few secons and sometimes crashes. Without any evidence I put all the blame on Wine .

Anyway, I've looked at the PE imports of Xenonauts.exe and from what I can see there is nothing too fancy going on. All of the drawing seems to be done with GDI or GDI+ which could be easily replaced with something like Cairo or maybe even plain SDL drawing. It still won't be a walk in the park but as far as I can tell there is no Direct3D/DirectDraw to deal with.

I wouldn't mind putting in extra work for a clean port, although without the Playground SDK sources this whole idea is a pipe dream.

[llunak]

For me it's not just philosophical. In combat the game frequently stalls for a few secons and sometimes crashes. Without any evidence I put all the blame on Wine .

Well, in that case you can either use the link I posted and debug&fix it yourself, or just create a bugreport just like everybody else. In case you can reproduce it with multiple Wine versions (I use 1.7.20), I doubt it's Wine's fault. There's been only one Linux-specific problem caused by Wine that I remember.