Linux version

[mimox]

I just registered here to talk about a possible Linux version of Torchlight. With the game nearly done, now is the time I guess...

The FAQ still mentions "We have not made any decisions regarding versions on any other platforms as of this time", which is kind of nice but a bit more information would be great. How likely is a future port to Linux? Are there any real technical problems that would be involved?

Sacred:Gold is the only comparable game on Linux right now. I am sure the game is exactly what a lot of Linux gamers are looking for. Also, I think Torchlight's "different" distribution channel and price tag would help making this a success just like with the following recent games:

Mystic Mine: http://www.koonsolo.com/news/?p=33
Caster: http://elecorn.com/blog/2009/05/caster-is-hot-well-sort-of/
World of Goo: http://2dboy.com/2009/02/12/world-of-goo-linux-version-is-ready/

Those show that there *is* a market for Linux games and it really pays off to do ports.

If you don't want to port the game yourself, consider outsourcing the port to Linux Game Publishing.

[greenwizard88]

Just some background, I am in no way affiliated with the developers, nor do I care about a Linux port at all.

However, I understand there is an OS X port in the works, and both OS X and Linux are someeeewhat similar, meaning it'll probably have an OpenGL component. My understanding is that the DirectX to OpenGL port is the most work, but if that's done it shouldn't be too hard to do.

But then again, what do I know?

[mimox]

My understanding is that the DirectX to OpenGL port is the most work

Yes, I assume the same. Ogre3D runs on Linux, maybe other components that are used are not, but that would be a thing the developers could answer. Anyway, if the port is not much trouble at all there's even more reason to do it. Even if the Windows-Linux percentage ends up being 100:5 or something like that, the result would probably be a fair amount of extra money for Runic...

[hawkn]

Lol there are more mac users than linux(i think), but even then i'm buying windows for my mac so i can play TL...

[mimox]

Lol there are more mac users than linux(i think)

I am not questioning this. Still, every additional buyer is a buyer. And I am sure we could expect more than 10 Linux gamers

but even then i'm buying windows for my mac so i can play TL...

Well, I would say that it is not supposed to work like _that_

[hawkn]

The reason i'm buying windows for my mac is because there are no good games for mac, and i'm a gamer...

[syltman]

Let's wait until this game is released, it may work perfectly fine with wine?

[hawkn]

Lol, TL isn't the only game i'll play. I have about 30 games waiting for a hard drive for me to install them onto.

[Chris]

Torchlight on Linux would be fantastic for people like me. I'm stuck in Mint whenever i'm at office, just because LaTeX packages are easier with a repository manager. But tons of people here at uni use Linux for general convenience. Wine is a bit messy, virtual hardware and all, but generally good. I don't like the borders much though, especially if Preditor had to be run in Wine. Anyone know what Pred was made in, *hopes for something like wxWidgets*, But yeah, later seeing the Torchlight game as a deb somewhere would be kickass.

[mimox]

> Wine is a bit messy, virtual hardware and all, but generally good

Well, first of all, there is no virtual hardware in wine. Wine implements the windows APIs on top of linux. Theoretically this could work perfectly, but it will never be free of bugs. I have bought a number of windows games to be played in wine... games that were said to work flawlessly. Half-Life 2 is one of them... it really works fine with one release and then breaks horribly for month (either because of a new patch from Valve or a wine update). WarCraft III is a nother "good" example. It works great, only problem is that you cannot save or it will crash. The bug is known but is not being fixed for a year or so. This is why wine is not really an option...

[Chris]

> Wine is a bit messy, virtual hardware and all, but generally good

Well, first of all, there is no virtual hardware in wine. Wine implements the windows APIs on top of linux. Theoretically this could work perfectly, but it will never be free of bugs. I have bought a number of windows games to be played in wine... games that were said to work flawlessly. Half-Life 2 is one of them... it really works fine with one release and then breaks horribly for month (either because of a new patch from Valve or a wine update). WarCraft III is a nother "good" example. It works great, only problem is that you cannot save or it will crash. The bug is known but is not being fixed for a year or so. This is why wine is not really an option...

Good point, I was confusing myself with virtual machines, ahk long day
But yeah, you're right about the updates and the borders/integration still bothers me a bit with it. A Linux release still has my vote, if all it takes is one guy to spend a couple of days compiling it with some different settings, and a testing round. I'm guessing it wont be that simple, but after the mac release it shouldn't be too much.

[ombra]

Personally i hope to see a linux port too. At first glance it seems to be a niche market, but i think the linux users will be more than happy to play such an incredible nice game in their freetime too.

But i know the pros and cons.

[johny8]

Hi Friends.
I am new to this gaming world and also for linux OS but want to install Torchlight. I am using RHEL 4 now but want to know best compatible linux flavour for Torchlight.
Can anyone suggest on this ? I found some solution from this topic but still not cleared about it.

[jamesL]

at this point the best solution is to have wine, then download the demo of the game and see if it will run

I know its not the solution anyone wants to hear, but that seems to be the answer

[MaximB]

Now that the release day has finally arrived, are you planning on porting Torchlight to Linux ?

[Corni]

Hi,
I'd really like to see a Linux port as well, from what i've seen tilll now I just love it!
The main point, directx vs opengl is also dealt with because of ogre, which runs under linux as well.
Another thing which is hard on linux, sounds, is done with FModEx, which has a linux port as well
What's missing is a port of the Ogre ParticleUniverse plugin, which has no linux port, but it should be trivial to do, according to it's developer.
Then there's the main executable, torchlight.exe:
Threading, instead of WinAPI threads, boost.thread
Filesystem, boost.Filesystem
windows registry: move to ini-style, lots of OSS librarys available
There's not much more stuff to port, judging from the dll imports of TL.exe
Build system (you probably use VS 200x, but i'm unsure): cmake, which even automagically generates projects/solutions for MS VS as well.
If you don't want to make a linux port, is it possible to get a volunteer project up for this?
I'd really like to help if this is possible.
The stuff listed above would need to be done for a Mac port as well, at least a level of OS abstraction is needed at some point, and using libraries which have win, mac and a linux port there wouldn't hurt.

The editor, on the other hand, will probably have to stay win-only because you said it's written in C#, or at least I don't know enough about C# and linux, except that the Mono project tries to implement it on linux.
Thanks for consideration,
Cornelius

[mimox]

The editor, on the other hand, will probably have to stay win-only because you said it's written in C#

Depending on what sort of system components it uses it could even run unmodified on Linux and Mac using Mono. But I suspect it is not pure C#, e.g. embeds Ogre3D etc? That would make it more complicated. But the Mono team actually helps companies "porting" .net stuff to Mono or fixing Mono bugs to make things work...

[chozar]

I registered just to post this.

I'm a linux user, and I will buy torchlight for linux the first day it is available. The game looks really great.

Take a look at the data that 2dboy and World of Goo announced for their recent sales. Linux users are a small part of the overall market, but 17% of their sales in the past 2 weeks were from Linux users. Compared with 19% mac and the remainder Windows. That's sizable, and profitable. It can only continue to help with the network effect you get by having more people out there playing your games. I also believe that the biggest day of sales for World of Goo was the day they released the Linux version.

Just because we don't pay for our OS doesn't mean we don't pay for software when it makes sense.

It looks like games that had cross-platform in mind since the beginning are easiest to port. It also looks like Torchlight mostly went this route already. Please consider doing what it takes to help us Linux (and Mac) users, that may very well be a third of your market.

[syltman]

Has anyone tried to run this game with wine yet to check the results? I could perhaps try tommorow when I'm installing ubuntu 9.10

[mimox]

Has anyone tried to run this game with wine yet to check the results?

There's another thread about running with wine and it seems like wine is not able to cope with the copy protection. Those who got it running are most likely running a cracked and/or pirated version