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Comment by ekianjo | Hacker News Reader

Native means nothing. Nobody rewrites DX engines to OpenGL from scratch. If you believe so then you have been lied to. Feral interactive uses InDirectX to translate DX calls, VP has eON which is very similar... Everyone is doing it already.

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I don't know if this is what you meant, but plenty of game engines definitely have separate backends for Direct3D and OpenGL that are more than just translation shims.

There's the big ones like Unreal, Unity, etc. The same is true of smaller in-house engines I've seen and worked on. Even open source hobbyist-driven engines like Godot have multiple renderer backends.

It is true that there is a fair amount of translation going on (browsers and ANGLE is a big example, along with the recent MoltenVK) but it's by no means the only way people do things.

Middleware engines yes. But not all AAA games rely on those. And you know what? Most games using Unity for example dont get Linux ports even though it should be relatively straightforward in many cases. So in practice, DirectX is the main renderer used everywhere on PC.

Wow. HN is so literal. Without expanding upon ever tiny definition, take "native" to mean a linux release developed, beta-tested, and supported by the original developer. Not something developed for windows and then expected to just run on linux boxes thanks to a compatability layer.

KSP, factorio, prison architect, they all put considerable efforts into native linux support. I'd hate to see that be outsourced to valve's compatability layer(s).

> KSP, factorio, prison architect, they all put considerable efforts into native linux support. I'd hate to see that be outsourced to valve's compatability layer(s).

Nothing prevents developers from making specific Linux clients. Valve just provides the option for when clients are not available. Nothing to lose, really.

He claimed that developers could become lazy and simply stop making specific Linux clients, he never claimed that this additional option could prevent developers from making specific clients.

Most developers already dont produce Linux ports. Even indies. So thats the current sad state of affairs. We tried. It does not work well so it was kind of obvious a WINE based solution would have to come sooner or later.

Well, other than companies just not bothering with making specific Linux clients, and relying on Valve. And then when something doesn't work, the developers brush it off and say, "not my problem".

We already know what the current state of Linux gaming is like. Almost nobody apart from 20 percent of indie gamers make Linux ports, there are no AAA games apart from rarely a few ports from Feral every year, its not going anywhere. In the meantime with DXVK i was able to play several DX11 titles as if they were native. This is the only way to go.

The thing is just because a few take the time to do that doesn't mean most developers do and it seems like most don't want to take the time to do so. But, more developers may be interested in using an emulation layer if it's supported and easy for them to use. If developers see their titles being purchased and played more on Linux systems because of this, this gives them more incentive to put more effort into developing native Linux clients and providing proper support.

The way I see it, devs aren't obligated to support any system they don't want to. I really appreciate the ones that take the time to support Linux natively, or even by using an emulation layer because I realize they don't have to. If this makes more developers realize Linux is a viable ecosystem for them to make games for. Even if it's just through an emulation layer to begin with at least they're making some efforts which is more than can be said less than a decade ago.

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