http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/item/2538/
But in the PC gaming world, the game developers must be aware of and test for many different hardware and software configurations. This makes games for PCs less reliable and adds to the expense of development.

I propose developing a sort of test suite for ubuntu (or other distros) that can evaluate system performance to determine if a specific game can work on a users machine. This could be integrated with something similar to valve's steam, but built with open source code. The goal is to make something that eases the pain of testing and distribution for game developers, smoothing the path to more commercial (and open source) games on linux.

From the user side:
- a way to evaluate system capabilities, to determine what games can work.
- a guarantee that games that qualify on their system will actually work.
- a way to install games online, for ubuntu probably just providing a front end for packages.
- a way to buy commercial games online.

From the developer side:
- ability to code to a specific performance level on the users' machine.
- guarantees of a consistent runtime environment, with much of the burden of testing resting on the community developed tools rather than on the individual developer.
- an easy way to distribute commercial or noncommercial games on linux at low/no cost.

[346 votes] Solution #1: Auto-generated solution of idea #2538


]]> en-us Sun, 02 Mar 2008 18:19:46 +0000 Fri, 23 Oct 2009 07:58:39 +0000 QAPoll module http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/2538/ Mon, 03 Mar 2008 01:27:51 +0000 (This would be a massive, bloaty addition to Ubuntu, at best it'd be Gubuntu or something.)]]> Mon, 03 Mar 2008 02:52:01 +0000 Mon, 03 Mar 2008 17:41:05 +0000
Or maybe something required to do once then the game's name shows in color red if it's not possible to play it, or green if its gonna work flawlessly, and orange if it plays but with some options trimmed down.]]> Tue, 04 Mar 2008 16:33:46 +0000
There's nothing you can do in code to know if you're game is going to work on X without testing it on X.

As for your other points, if you want xbox live on Ubuntu then I doubt Canonical is going to be the one to implement it.]]> Sat, 08 Mar 2008 06:26:55 +0000
The point is to make choosing and installing games on linux as easy as doing so on a console - or even easier. I think this is an achievable goal.

If the project was nothing more than a way of collecting system stats and comparing them with the system requirements as published on the box, that would be an improvement over the current situation, where the user must do that themselves.

But I think its possible to go much further than that - with benchmarks and checks to nail down things like:
- codec availability
- hard/flash drive space
- CPU and graphics performance/capability
- network performance
- WINE configuration/availability
- game controller availability/capability
- etc.
So that the user doesn't have to. This is probably more important with the greater diversity of hardware that is available to linux users. It would be cool to be able to see what games would work on an ultra-mobile device, or on that 10 year old laptop up being used as a server.

The other side of the coin is that a well defined benchmarking process could also help developers by showing what technologies are available, and maybe providing some use statistics for various configurations (opt-in for information gathering, of course).

]]> Sat, 08 Mar 2008 18:10:38 +0000 Sat, 08 Mar 2008 22:43:22 +0000
You might not have noticed this but the reason they can do it on consoles is because they all have the same hardware.]]> Sun, 09 Mar 2008 20:12:05 +0000 Thu, 13 Mar 2008 18:45:21 +0000
If it's a commercial game... they can make up their own procedures. Ubuntu has everything needed to run most games that will run on GNU/Linux.]]> Sun, 23 Mar 2008 11:26:46 +0000
This doesn't sound like a system that is as easy as a console to me, it sounds like the status quo of PC development.

Just because a game can be installed on ubuntu doesn't mean its going to run - for instance, ubuntu is capable of being installed on a much greater variety of hardware than, say, vista. As a result, not every game will be playable on every install of ubuntu. If you have an older machine (or a new ultramobile), you could evaluate your system's performance with some tests and then see which games you could play. So suppose there are 1000 games in the system, and maybe 300 are playable on your ultramobile. It would be great to be able to see that without having to install 1000 game demos, or search around on forums to see if people succeeded or failed on your particular hardware. ]]> Mon, 24 Mar 2008 16:12:53 +0000
- games that use WINE
- ROMs for emulators
- java based games (together with requirements for a specific java engine?)

Perhaps you could have the option to upload your system data together with your success or failure in running a game, to help build a compatability database.]]> Tue, 25 Mar 2008 16:48:48 +0000
http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/40/]]> Sun, 06 Apr 2008 16:00:30 +0000 Mon, 14 Apr 2008 03:39:16 +0000 Sun, 29 Jun 2008 15:09:15 +0000 Tue, 05 Aug 2008 08:28:36 +0000