I tired to reach developers with question whether they plan Linux release or not, but got no response. So not really looking forward to it.
Everspace on the other hand looks quite promising: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HvpLe-2ijk
Everspace on the other hand looks quite promising: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HvpLe-2ijk
Why fight this losing trend when you could easily dual boot or even have a dedicated gaming rig?
I'm not saying it's right, and I wouldn't mind seeing better gaming support on Linux and Mac, but I'm saying it's reality.
Also Vulkan support doesn't fix busted drivers, wonky fullscreen, OS integration, etc.
It also doesn't fix audio, or HID support, which is both huge headaches on linux.
Drivers can be busted anywhere (including Windows). But with Vulkan they are reduced to hardware layer which is ironed out rather fast normally. Not sure what you mean about OS integration (sounds too vague). Fullscreen, input and etc. are mostly issues related to X11, which should be cleaner with Wayland usage. The later takes longer than it should to get adopted, but all major DEs are already close to it.
Sound - never had any sound problems on Linux for a while. Are you sure you aren't measuring it by experiences of some early broken Pulse releases?
User experience is not the same as developer experience. Debian (where Pulse seems mostly standard) is not the only distro. Vulkan is expensive, time consuming and difficult to develop against - for a game that already had multiple launch delays.
b) A dual boot setup is awfully annoying. I keep a ton of things open in a "i'm in the middle of this" state, and shutting everything down/losing that state in order to reboot is a massive cost, and it means in practice that I only ever boot into windows to play games if I plan on playing a specific game for several hours at least - it means I can't play a game casually. Over time, I've started avoiding windows only games altogether. As for not having a dedicated gaming rig: Space, mainly. And cost, secondly. I could potentially set something up, but I'd need to share monitors/keyboard for practical reasons, which is a ton of setup I don't really have time to get right. Other solutions like a windows VM, same reason.
- IE6 is strictly, inherently an obsolete platform, running on obsolete OSes and superseded by later versions of the same browser
- No one's talking about making the games work only on Linux.
b) In theory, you should be able to hibernate Linux and boot in to Windows
> I'd need to share monitors/keyboard for practical reasons, which is a ton of setup I don't really have time to get right
I use a fairly cheap KVM, which isn't problem free, but is less hassle than swapping cables between my macbook and my PC (used for nothing but games). Even swapping the cables between 2 computers isn't that huge of a hassle ;-)
If you're using tools like Unity, then shipping to Linux is not nearly the headache it used to be.
I play a lot of games, but thanks to this shift I no longer have to run Windows (can't play overwatch but I can live without it for now). I, for one, am glad I don't have to double my purchases.
One of the big things that changed was that Macs got a lot more popular and became a bigger market.
I think the main reason we don't see more games for Linux is that it's just not a big enough market (yet?)
Because it is important to challenge monopolies least they abuse their position of power. With DirectX, XNA etc., Microsoft pretty much holds the monopoly as the PC gaming OS. Microsoft has made bold moves against individual freedom and privacy in Windows 10, and I'm sure more will follow.
And what better platform to compete against Windows' monopoly on PC gaming than the most popular free OS? I think that in the long run, continuing to create and display demand for PC games on Linux will only help gaming and even computing in general.
Rarely there are standards bodies that aren't controlled by companies and their interests.
If they allowed OpenGL to flourish, it would ultimately be controlled by either Nvidia, ATI, PowerVR or someone else in the interest group to suit their hardware. Somebody has to pay the engineers.
Look at W3C, if is practically controlled by Google, and they only do what suits their needs, the way they want.
Look at Bluetooth, Apple is controlling the thing, and now they are releasing a newer version that's selfishly taylored for Apple to sell expensive headphones probably with patented methods, which they will use to protect themselves in court in case someone goes on a patent war against them.
Open Standards are the MOST CRITICAL thing we can be considering right now. If we can agree on standards that can adapt to other standards, using AI most likely, then we can get on with being able to trust each other again.
In order to trust each other, we have to be honest about our intent. Personally, I think the use case of games on insecure hardware is probably fine. To a point.
> If they allowed OpenGL to flourish, it would ultimately be controlled by either Nvidia, ATI, PowerVR or someone else in the interest group to suit their hardware.
As opposed to DirectX, which is not implementable on other systems without large reverse-engineering efforts, because the technology depends on proprietary and encumbered middle-ware. Does a former specification for DirectX even exist (aside the documentation for Microsoft's implementation of the API)? Or it is one and the same, is it not? Where is the DirectX equivalent of MESA?
W3C, Bluetooth etc. have nothing to do with PC gaming. Why are you bringing this up? But since you mentioned W3C, what would you prefer - proprietary technology controlled by a single entity, such as Adobe Flash, or an open standard, such as HTML5?
An open platform allows free choice of technologies to use it with. A closed platform restricts those choices. A monopoly in control of a closed platform has even more freedom to restrict freedom of choice, and push forward with platform lock-in.
Which are also made by companies just like Microsoft.
It's really hard to combine gaming enthusiasm (with the exception of retro gaming) with love of the 'free choice' and not be delusional.
The main reason: the GPU. There is very little value in having an open specification, if the implementation sucks. And the complexity of the graphics stack is such that nobody but huge monoliths that can focus lots of paid personnel to implement the GPU, implement the drivers, fix the drivers, fix the drivers, fix the drivers...
It's grueling, backbraking work to make a complete hardware based graphics stack.
Yes, there is MESA - so if software rendering suffices one can use more open options.
We can argue what do we mean by "gaming" of course. Solitaire, chess, tuxracer - yeah, I agree, free is very doable.
GTA v, Witcher 3 ( triple aaa titles) - you need a BigOrg to mind your graphics stack, of which there are only handfull on earth, of which Microsoft is one, and not worse as the others (if we limit discussion to games).
Mesa has hardware accelerated implementation of OpenGL. You don't need "big org" to do it. But it surely helps if they put resources into that work.
> of which Microsoft is one, and not worse as the others (
It's worse than many others because their goal is not to improve the graphics stack, but to lock everyone into using MS systems.
The hardware specific driver is the more laborious thing to get correct. Well, OpenGL as well, but the driver is what I was after, not the specific API on top of it, and if the driver is buggy the OpenGL implementation on top can only try to patch things only so much.
>> of which Microsoft is one, and not worse as the others ( > It's worse than many others because their goal is not to improve the graphics stack, but to lock everyone into using MS systems.
I don't think there is any way MS can lock everyone into using their system.
I would claim MS has driven innovation in hardware accelerated realtime graphics by providing a stable and tested API at a time when OpenGL implementations were buggy and broken due to the messy work Khronos did with the standard and the way the implementations were done.
Not really, especially recently. They were pretty slow (because OpenGL was even slower to evolve), and only woke up when AMD voiced their interest to open up Mantle (which became Vulkan). So AMD were the main innovator in the recent times, when graphics APIs are concerned.
My comment was about monopolies and how they creep into other fields through lock-in and proprietary technology which restrict choice. You have warped my comment into one advocating for a fully open platform stack, a strawman. At this point, why not also argue that the games are open source too? I mean, that would be nice, but it wasn't what I was saying.
> Which are also made by companies just like Microsoft.
And that's fine, as long as it doesn't come with strings attached such as "This technology shall only run on Microsoft Windows" or "All users of this technology, even open-source projects, must pay royalty fees".
How are they a good player, if they could back Vulkan instead of pushing lock-in DX12, but they didn't? It's clearly bad.
I don't know, maybe we should try. Currently the implementations suck, because there's no specification, not the other way around.
> And the complexity of the graphics stack is such that nobody but huge monoliths that can focus lots of paid personnel to implement the GPU, implement the drivers, fix the drivers, fix the drivers, fix the drivers...
Substitute GPU / graphics stack with general purpose OS. Sounds plausible, yet there are lots of people working on that huge monolith for free and getting paid.
XNA is deprecated: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/185894/Its_official_XNA_i...
I find it hard to believe gaming capability would be a major motivator in the PC market. They're more of an item in the PC enthusiast segment - which is not the majority of the market.
If one looks at what sort of hardware is sold in systems - the majority is not really well equipped for high end gaming[0][1].
Therefore I conclude in the general PC market does not hold games that important.
My view of the hardware spec of the average desktop or laptop GPU is anecdotal but I would guess it's fair to say they are sub NVidia's 960M in performance (which I have on my years old 'gaming' laptop and which is kinda slow).
If someone has better statistics I'm all ears!
[0] http://www.statista.com/statistics/272595/global-shipments-f...
[1] http://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov...
One of the most frequently cited reasons I hear about for why home users and enthusiasts are not using Linux is availability of games. It's true that this does not speak of the entire market, but it's not an insignificant part. It is also a market segment that is more realistic to dislodge than, e.g. corporate use.
> the majority is not really well equipped for high end gaming[0][1].
But "gaming" != "high-end gaming"...
Because I don't want to pay Microsoft. Because I don't want Microsoft to collect my data. Because I care about my freedom. What better reason is there?
But then folks like you need to be willing to pay the game developer whatever it costs them to hire an engineering bench to maintain a linux port - ideally with significantly higher profitability than the windows version to make it worth the effort.
I've no problem paying for Linux games. At one point I spent quite a bit on Humble Bundles (before they got boring), and I always paid twice what the averages for Windows & (then) OS X were.
If you want to support Linux as a platform, I recommend you donate at higher e.g. $50 or $100 tiers to Kickstarter projects that have Linux stretch goals and be vocal about your donation.
Paying 5% of the sale price years after the game has come out doesn't strike me like fruitful.
Many Linux users do. Especially with backing crowdfunded games which pledge Linux support.
Enjoyment of a game is not contingent on the slice of the OS market share pie chart I'm in.
I like to stay on linux because it is a great development environment and as soon as I am done with a game or get psyched for implementing an idea during yhe game, I am able to switch immediately back to whatever I was doing before I started playing.
Your suggested alternative of waiting for a reboot and restoring all the files and editors is just uncomfortable and I am surprised you couldn't figure this out.
And Linux marketshare and number of games are still rising, so it's anything but a losing trend.
I use windows (for games and .net development), but this is soon going to be a requirement for me soon too. The games I spend 90% of my time playing (paradox GSG's) are released on linux and the other 10% I don't really care about.