Steam On Linux Crosses 1,400 Games

[jacob]

And unfortunately, it's still a sub-par experience. I still boot into Windows to play games. In Linux, playing games means lots of input lag, lower performance, missing graphical effects, the desktop interferes with the game (no exclusive fullscreen mode), etc.

Many of these problems are due to the ports not being as good as the Windows versions, but many are due to the Linux stack not working well with games in general. There's some key people in the Linux Desktop world (who maintain various parts of the stack, being X11 or some window managers) who dismiss video games and don't consider them a valid use of computers. As long as these people have this attitude, Linux will never be a good choice for gaming.

Do you have anything to support this claim? There certainly ARE people who dismiss video games, but they would be the type of people who also dismiss UIs and any user-friendliness improvements altogether, believing that the only acceptable use of computers is through vi. But among X11 and window managers' developers, seriously?

[jacob]

I'm amazed that people on these forums have so many problems with the Linux games. I've around 20 steam games and I only play them on Linux. Only one of them gives me any real problems and I found a simple workaround for it. Maybe I've been lucky or maybe it's because I have not bought any high end games.

I have bought some AAA games and my experience with them on Linux has generally been positive. In the few cases I ran into problems, it was due to the fact that either 1) the game itself was buggy as hell, just like it was on Windows; or 2) video driver problems, specifically with fglrx. Now that the open-source video driver has improved dramatically, this latter type of problems have vanished.

[jacob]

Shall we start with Linus?
While I don't think there is anyone on the Linux world that does not want games (RMS and steam aside), the is a VERY strong bias towards server performance at the expense of desktop performance.
One of the reasons Linus dismissed the brainFskSchedular was it wasn't good for servers and went as far as stating there won't be a kernel option to choose scheduler.
Kolivas stopped developing for Linux (for a while) due to the hostilities.

I can't be arsed to get exact citation but I am sure you know of Google

While the focus of Linux is biased towards server performance then yes, desktop re. Gaming will suffer

RMS does want games, as long as they are Free Software. But if I remember correctly, he also said that having Steam ported to "GNU/Linux" was a good thing if it encouraged more people to switch away from Windows, or something to that effect.

[jacob]

I don't know if SteamOS expectations is what drives games developers to port their products to Linux today. It could be simply that it is a good way to ensure that the software is multiplatform and thus easier to port to other, more economically relevant gaming platforms (consoles etc...) as they appear.

[Luke_Wolf]

I don't know if SteamOS expectations is what drives games developers to port their products to Linux today. It could be simply that it is a good way to ensure that the software is multiplatform and thus easier to port to other, more economically relevant gaming platforms (consoles etc...) as they appear.

The fact that game developers only seriously started targeting after Valve endorsed Linux and announced their console plans should be a hint as to the correct answer.

[Jonathan Silverblood]

I'm amazed that people on these forums have so many problems with the Linux games. I've around 20 steam games and I only play them on Linux. Only one of them gives me any real problems and I found a simple workaround for it. Maybe I've been lucky or maybe it's because I have not bought any high end games.

My collection of steam games for linux is up to... 223. I barely play a tenth of them, but those I do play work just fine.

[Tuxee]

I'm amazed that people on these forums have so many problems with the Linux games. I've around 20 steam games and I only play them on Linux. Only one of them gives me any real problems and I found a simple workaround for it. Maybe I've been lucky or maybe it's because I have not bought any high end games.

I do have maybe 200 titles in my portfolio, including several AAA titles. Apart from Witcher 2, which I experienced as sub-par, all other titles run without any hiccups (on NVidia proprietary): Bioshock Infinite, Metro LL/2033 Redux, X-Com and Civ5 (they even run nicely on an Ivy Bridge laptop), War Thunder, Borderlands 2; the indie games behave equally satisfactory: Distance, Assault Android Cactus, Invisible Inc., Transistor,...

[mike4]

X-Plane for example is ~20% faster than on Windows.- (Last tested with Win8.1)

[bregma]

There's some key people in the Linux Desktop world (who maintain various parts of the stack, being X11 or some window managers) who dismiss video games and don't consider them a valid use of computers. As long as these people have this attitude, Linux will never be a good choice for gaming.

I might consider myself one of those key people. At Canonical not only do the window manager people consider gaming to be among the highest priority uses, we in fact play games ourselves.

There are a number of reasons why a game experience can be sub-par. Using a bespoke low-latency kernel instead of the default one that ships with a general-purpose distro can help a bit -- if I were to roll a gaming-specific distro, I would include such a kernel, which would not be suitable for many more general-purpose applications. There is issues with input processing latency through the X11 stack and they may be resolved through libinput (which underlies Mir and Wayland) since processing is not done in non-reentrant signal space.

Most of all, I've played some really really bad game ports. Many are unusable, but running the Windows version on the same hardware in a dual-boot setup is fine. When I examine why, I usually find a Windows emulation layer between the game and the OS. That's not a port, that's just throwing a bone to get a checkmark on the virtual box.

[ruthan]

I cant proof it, but i suspect that present boom of Linux game porting is as almost always about money. Valves usual cut from every sale is 30%, i suspect them that if you release Linux version of game that their cut is smaller.. and this is their Linux leverage.

Im hardcore gamer more that 20+ years and also part time game developer - i to be honest Linux gaming experience is bad, better than nothing, but bad.. every time is better time investment to reboot into Windows that mess with Linux, with Linux im always losing some time because of some Linux crapp, and there are only few exceptions like Dosbox gaming.

In general i would like to use Linux and get rid of Microsoft monopoly and dont pay again hundreds of bucks for OS every 5 years, in my whole life in total i already spend more that 3+k dollars for all Windows desktop licenses and i think that it is enough for MS.

Its long time process but, in number i have 350 Windows games in Steam library, its reduced to 90 for Mac and only 65 games for Linux.. a i dont even mentioned no Steam games which are in 99% no Native Linux and i messing with Wine is other time hole. I know there is PlayonLinux- a bit better wine experience and Crossover - not good enough for paying annualy for it, for 100 buck for lifetime license i would in be, 40 bucks for year never.

This week i have tried to play Metro last light - it worked, somehow, but.. game was started on my secondary monitor, without possibility of run game in window, or even change resolution, i game directory is some user.cfg but editation isnt working.. that experience should be final polished redux version.. Yes i can disable some monitoring and force game on my primary screen, but again is waste of time.
As user i want best gaming experience how is possible i dont care, if i need to reboot into Win, MacOS or turn console, if experience is better.. Its better that Linux gaming begging..

Interesting case is SteamOS - as console equivalent it could work, but not with present HW variability design, there would be zillions steam machines in November and no console like guaranty of at least 30 FPS performance of every released game for particular Steam machine. If Valve realy wants to have more that 1 steam machine, there should be some - performance clear levels for machines and game or something like that.. - For example i buy Steam machine level 5, which would degrade by one level per year and i would have granted what all games with level 5 - system requirements, would be preset game setting to ensure at least 1080p 30 FPS, it similar to Geforce Experience game settings auto optimization present on Windows.
Even SteamOS would work for masses to move from Playstation and Xbox to more open and healthy SteamOS enviroment, that totally closed present environments... i would be not still OS for me, because i want to switch between work and gaming, like in Windows and overall Linux GUI experience is still realy big limiting factor (speed, apps support, stability, customization). Even basic thinks like really force primary monitor for all windows and apps or save / load desktop icons positions, or add new Desktop folder file on primary screen still not working - small thing but once again is waste of time.