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[SUGGESTION] Running Xonotic in web browsers

#1
The idea struck me from another thread, about how to make Xonotic more popular. Has anyone ever attempted to get Xonotic working in a web browser? I seen a video of someone doing this for Quake 2, and of course Quake Live does it also.



I'm not too knowing in web browsers. So I don't know if it would work with the normal darkplaces, or DP would need specific implementations and libraries (or to be compiled as a plugin entirely). But if architecture doesn't make it impossible, a browser plugin could be enough to get it working.

What would the point be? Well for one thing, it could be an interesting experiment. Second, it would encourage more people to try Xonotic. Some don't bother to download the 1GB package, extract it, then run it. Also, if we'd get something like this working, Xonotic would earn even more respect, and show that the developers mean business and know what they're doing. People could also link Xonotic on their own pages, and make it playable from blogs and stuff Cool

I imagine it like this: On http://www.xonotic.org/ there would be a big button saying "Play in web browser". You click it, and it takes you to another page, which prompts you to install the darkplaces plugin. Once you do, it prompts you to download Xonotic's data in the browser cache (or another folder). For this, Xonotic could use the low quality package, which can hopefully reduce download size to < 300MB. People would still wait depending on their connection, but can leave the download running in a browser tab. Once that's done, just click the plugin and find yourself in Xonotic on the web page Big Grin

I think it would rock if people could play Xonotic just like Quake Live. I'm not getting hopes up that it's doable with darkplaces, nor trying to ask for the impossible. But just in case it can be done with minimal effort, the idea would be awesome Big Grin
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#2
Hey, I think the Quake2 browser port is written in HTML5/webGL while QuakeLive uses openGL. I don't think that running it a browser would help popularity much though, you still need to download a plugin in any case. However, adjusting www.xonotic.org to match the actual game style a bit more might help.
"If your killer instincts are not clean and strong you will hesitate at the moment of truth. You will not kill. You will become dead marines and then you will be in a world of shit, because marines are not allowed to die without permission. Do you maggots understand?" - Gunnery Sergeant Hartman
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#3
games like quakelive and quake 2 are a lot less resource intensive than xonotic. In truth, xonotic MIGHT run in a browser, but the performance could never be as good.
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#4
...300 mb of dl... why not develop a browser plugin that shows xonotic in a webbrowser ... -.-
MY NOOB STATS:
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#5
That Quake 2 port is based on WebGL and HTML5 and several others. It really is completely run by web browser, but if somebody wants to make Xonotic like that, DP should be almost competely rewritten. And performance is completely different than current Xonotic.

Quake Live is based on a separate plugin. Actually, the game itself is NOT run by web browser - web broswer just launches the game while the actual game is located in your hard drive. Techically QL does not run in browser.
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#6
Sorry to say it but.... if my opinion matters... then i just want to say that I hate browser games,
it makes the game feel cheap to me, downloading it make it feel more like a piece of quality work,
and it is quality work soo. BTW It was still a good idea, I personally just dont like it.. sorry...
BTW xonotic rocks Big Grin
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#7
Nexuiz was once ported as a NativeClient demo for Chromium.
Meaning it runs on native hardware acceleration in a Browser supporting the NativeClient plugin. (which is only Chromium/Chrome now, if I am still correctly informed)

see here (last 20 secs of vid): http://www.geek.com/articles/games/googl...-20100513/

Porting this to WebGL would mean somewhat rewriting the engine though from what I know of WebGL.
Would be fancy to have DarkPlacesWebGL though Tongue
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#8
(11-20-2011, 03:24 PM)nilyt Wrote: Nexuiz was once ported as a NativeClient demo for Chromium.
Meaning it runs on native hardware acceleration in a Browser supporting the NativeClient plugin. (which is only Chromium/Chrome now, if I am still correctly informed)

see here (last 20 secs of vid): http://www.geek.com/articles/games/googl...-20100513/

Porting this to WebGL would mean somewhat rewriting the engine though from what I know of WebGL.
Would be fancy to have DarkPlacesWebGL though Tongue

Wow nice! Glad to see it's already been done. Does this mean the latest Xonotic will work with NativeClient too? Only reason I imagine it might not is if DarkPlaces had a change that rendered it incompatible since then. But given it didn't switch main libraries or dependencies that I know of, I imagine chances are high.
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#9
well, from what I still understand about NaCl (had more insight there last year), it is a sandbox, that compiles like a Q2 game-mod to binary, but with all the dangerous system access stuff removed. So you need to compile the code under NaCl, and the result is still architecture-dependent. So different compiles for each arch supported by NaCl.
But it's way more 'native' than WebGL, so it should be rather easy compared to such a port. People dislike it though, since it's more like Flash, arch-dependent, and not 'the way of the web'. Won't be supported by Mozilla and friends.

Never tested the Nexuiz demo, so I can't be sure of the quality or if stuff got stripped to make it work, but code should be available somewhere. Probably can be made to work again.
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#10
I think this is way to make BIG FAIL, there some reasons:
1. The only way to make game popular its different kinds of Ad.
2. It will be so uncomfortable, that I can't expain it in English.
3. Playing in browser will DEVOUR memory so fast...
4. It will be lagging (Xonotic have nice graphics!) and cutted version of quake live.
5. Internet dependence.
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#11
Don't worry, this probably won't happen soon and it would never replace the standalone game.
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