7 ms·

Who's going to be the hero that builds a modern update of C&C Generals/Zero Hour with 4k rendering, raytracing, etc?

by ageitgey 2y ago

theandrewbailey 2y ago
I'd settle for a native Linux build.
- tete 2y ago
  Would be nice. But they all work just fine with wine and/or proton.
  - insane_dreamer 2y ago
    I haven't tried wine in ~15 years, but it was pretty useless for gaming back then. Has it much improved?
    - Sesse__ 2y ago
      Basically the entire premise of the Steam Deck is built on WINE (via a Valve-developed fork, Proton).
      - sho_hn 2y ago
        Noting that Proton is regularly rebased on upstream, and Valve is contracting CodeWeavers, the same company which employs many core Wine contributors. Fork is certainly technically the correct word, but "distribution" might give more the right impression.
    - khedoros1 2y ago
      When someone releases a game in a Windows version and a Linux version, the current Wine-based compatibility layers mean that the Windows one is more likely to run without issue than the native binary is. I built a Linux gaming desktop 5 years ago. The only thing that regularly causes more than minor issues is that many online games use incompatible anticheat technology. I pretty much play exclusively single-player games on PC, so it hasn't been a practical issue for me.
    - Rebelgecko 2y ago
      It's pretty awesome. Some of the compatibility layers built on Wine (Valve's Proton/Codeweavers Crossover/Whisky) are almost plug and play. With Steam on Linux, a lot of games work seamlessly. I've only ran into trouble with very new games and multiplayer games with invasive anti-cheat that freaks out when they're running in an environment that doesn't look like a normal windows install The performance hit is surprisingly low. It's not rare for the windows binary to run better on linux than the native one (when it's an option)
    - lucb1e 2y ago
      Just yesterday I got the Linux version of an indie game made with Unity and it doesn't even launch. Fetched the Windows build, ran "wine game.exe" and it just ran. Couple other things (C# projects iirc) also worked well This is not a Unity game, but especially with ancient stuff like Red Alert? I would certainly try it and expect good results. Some years ago, Wine always used to give me trouble and never worked unless you used some special blend of options (like Proton and PlayOnLinux help with). Maybe those times have passed
    - seba_dos1 2y ago
      These days Wine works better than Windows for some kinds of games.
    - account42 2y ago
      Wine was far from useless for gaming ing 2010.
    - alex7o 2y ago
      Man wine works on Android now, with stuff like winlator. I saw a video of someone playing fallout 4.
  - josephg 2y ago
    Did they eventually fix the game desync bug that would happen when you have a multi-core CPU? We used to play Generals at LAN parties all the time - but once multicore CPUs hit the market, it was difficult to just get to the end of a game, because peers would desync and you'd suddenly find yourself playing singleplayer. Its clearly some race condition in the game engine which makes the game non-deterministic in a multicore situation. Does anyone know - is that still a problem?
    - skhr0680 2y ago
      I'm going to be nice to the net code and say that it has issues because of its age, but multicore CPUs don't cause any issues as far as I know: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tS0UL9QC2c4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tS0UL9QC2c4
  - chpatrick 2y ago
    Generals has a really annoying issue where it just desynchronizes and drops you out of a multiplayer game after a random amount of time.
- gatane 2y ago
  There was a reverse engineering one, and openRA. https://github.com/TheAssemblyArmada/Vanilla-Conquer https://github.com/TheAssemblyArmada/Vanilla-Conquer
harshreality 2y ago
Converting the assets to use the Spring engine (or BeyondAllReason's active fork of it) is probably easier than writing a new engine from scratch for the existing assets. And then it'll feel like BAR but with C&C's assets. The UI is what gives the game most of its feel.
- SXX 2y ago
  C&C Generals plays completely different compared to Total Annihilation like games with streaming economy that Spring was built for. I like both subgenres of RTS, but they are very different.
- josephg 2y ago
  With the game engine opensourced, I doubt thats true. Its probably going to be much easier to just get this code building (patching out any proprietary bits and pieces) and going from there. Modding the game to work properly at a high framerate doesn't sound very hard when you have the original assets & source code to work from.
invalidOrTaken 2y ago
There's a mod for RA3 that re-implements Generals: https://www.moddb.com/mods/command-and-conquer-generals-evolution/ https://www.moddb.com/mods/command-and-conquer-generals-evol...
- ElCapitanMarkla 2y ago
  Whoa awesome. I spent hours playing Generals in the mid 2000s.
rco8786 2y ago
You might check out https://www.openra.net/ https://www.openra.net/
- cogman10 2y ago
  That's RA. Generals was a different game engine.
blashyrk 2y ago
Even more importantly, running at 60+fps while not breaking gameplay, physics, shaders, cutscenes...
- account42 2y ago
  This is less of a problem for multiplayer games usually because they will already need need to deal with these issues for syncing between clients.
ed_mercer 2y ago
Don't forget fix all the bugs...
czbond 2y ago
What is a modern equivalent of this genre of game? I loved C&C

Who's going to be the hero that builds a modern update of C&C Generals/Zero Hour with 4k rendering, raytracing, etc?

theandrewbailey 2y ago

I'd settle for a native Linux build.

tete 2y ago
Would be nice. But they all work just fine with wine and/or proton.
- insane_dreamer 2y ago
  I haven't tried wine in ~15 years, but it was pretty useless for gaming back then. Has it much improved?
  - Sesse__ 2y ago
    Basically the entire premise of the Steam Deck is built on WINE (via a Valve-developed fork, Proton).
    - sho_hn 2y ago
      Noting that Proton is regularly rebased on upstream, and Valve is contracting CodeWeavers, the same company which employs many core Wine contributors. Fork is certainly technically the correct word, but "distribution" might give more the right impression.
  - khedoros1 2y ago
    When someone releases a game in a Windows version and a Linux version, the current Wine-based compatibility layers mean that the Windows one is more likely to run without issue than the native binary is. I built a Linux gaming desktop 5 years ago. The only thing that regularly causes more than minor issues is that many online games use incompatible anticheat technology. I pretty much play exclusively single-player games on PC, so it hasn't been a practical issue for me.
  - Rebelgecko 2y ago
    It's pretty awesome. Some of the compatibility layers built on Wine (Valve's Proton/Codeweavers Crossover/Whisky) are almost plug and play. With Steam on Linux, a lot of games work seamlessly. I've only ran into trouble with very new games and multiplayer games with invasive anti-cheat that freaks out when they're running in an environment that doesn't look like a normal windows install The performance hit is surprisingly low. It's not rare for the windows binary to run better on linux than the native one (when it's an option)
  - lucb1e 2y ago
    Just yesterday I got the Linux version of an indie game made with Unity and it doesn't even launch. Fetched the Windows build, ran "wine game.exe" and it just ran. Couple other things (C# projects iirc) also worked well This is not a Unity game, but especially with ancient stuff like Red Alert? I would certainly try it and expect good results. Some years ago, Wine always used to give me trouble and never worked unless you used some special blend of options (like Proton and PlayOnLinux help with). Maybe those times have passed
  - seba_dos1 2y ago
    These days Wine works better than Windows for some kinds of games.
  - account42 2y ago
    Wine was far from useless for gaming ing 2010.
  - alex7o 2y ago
    Man wine works on Android now, with stuff like winlator. I saw a video of someone playing fallout 4.
- josephg 2y ago
  Did they eventually fix the game desync bug that would happen when you have a multi-core CPU? We used to play Generals at LAN parties all the time - but once multicore CPUs hit the market, it was difficult to just get to the end of a game, because peers would desync and you'd suddenly find yourself playing singleplayer. Its clearly some race condition in the game engine which makes the game non-deterministic in a multicore situation. Does anyone know - is that still a problem?
  - skhr0680 2y ago
    I'm going to be nice to the net code and say that it has issues because of its age, but multicore CPUs don't cause any issues as far as I know: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tS0UL9QC2c4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tS0UL9QC2c4
- chpatrick 2y ago
  Generals has a really annoying issue where it just desynchronizes and drops you out of a multiplayer game after a random amount of time.
gatane 2y ago
There was a reverse engineering one, and openRA. https://github.com/TheAssemblyArmada/Vanilla-Conquer https://github.com/TheAssemblyArmada/Vanilla-Conquer

harshreality 2y ago

Converting the assets to use the Spring engine (or BeyondAllReason's active fork of it) is probably easier than writing a new engine from scratch for the existing assets. And then it'll feel like BAR but with C&C's assets. The UI is what gives the game most of its feel.

SXX 2y ago
C&C Generals plays completely different compared to Total Annihilation like games with streaming economy that Spring was built for. I like both subgenres of RTS, but they are very different.
josephg 2y ago
With the game engine opensourced, I doubt thats true. Its probably going to be much easier to just get this code building (patching out any proprietary bits and pieces) and going from there. Modding the game to work properly at a high framerate doesn't sound very hard when you have the original assets & source code to work from.

invalidOrTaken 2y ago

There's a mod for RA3 that re-implements Generals: https://www.moddb.com/mods/command-and-conquer-generals-evolution/ https://www.moddb.com/mods/command-and-conquer-generals-evol...

ElCapitanMarkla 2y ago
Whoa awesome. I spent hours playing Generals in the mid 2000s.

rco8786 2y ago

You might check out https://www.openra.net/ https://www.openra.net/

cogman10 2y ago
That's RA. Generals was a different game engine.

blashyrk 2y ago

Even more importantly, running at 60+fps while not breaking gameplay, physics, shaders, cutscenes...

account42 2y ago
This is less of a problem for multiplayer games usually because they will already need need to deal with these issues for syncing between clients.

ed_mercer 2y ago

Don't forget fix all the bugs...

czbond 2y ago

What is a modern equivalent of this genre of game? I loved C&C