New Comments By Ryan Gordon On Linux Gaming, Drivers

[Julius]

Except with their Optimus fiasco, which instantly brings their Linux support to zero.
Without Linux Optimus support from Nvidia, my Nvidia chip is a brick inside my computer, and this is a big step backward!

Try Bumblebee/Ironhide, it works surprisingly well with only a very few quirks (like problems starting games from Desura right now).

https://github.com/MrMEEE/ironhide

[WorBlux]

- NVIDIA is the real and only choice for Linux for anyone wanting to get full power from their GPU under linux. We know this from ,mm, 2001?

- EA, Blizzard, Activision, Capcom and Squaresoft are the real gaming companies (there are others of course). If these don't get into the Linux world, sorry to say but:

Linux != gaming

Hopefully Michael will understand this..

Wafku, developed by Ankama, and published by Square-Enix has a Linux client. The middle-ware is looking at Linux support to provide a competitive edge, and then from there it's not a huge leap to see some of the big names offer linux as a platform.

[stqn]

WRT Ryan Gordon's recommendation of SDL, I'd like to mention that its handling of input really is a pain in the ass. No alt-tab out of the games, as well as all other keyboard shortcuts not working anymore, plus problems with the mouse pointer when unclutter is running and the pointer is grabbed... And they won't fix it because they're working on SDL 1.3 now. But everyone uses 1.2. Yay.

I'm considering SFML as a replacement but haven't tried it yet.

[XorEaxEax]

I.e., with Wine you're not going to have issues like applications linking to ancient versions of libstdc++ or libSDL, which then won't be available at some point in modern distributions.

Certainly, but if you're making closed source software which you won't be updating then you will link those libs statically instead. And it's not like it's any different on other platforms, the reason windows games/applications often installs common .dll's which likely already exist on the system is because A) they can't be absolutely sure the .dll's exist so they ship them, B) they may be certain it exists, but as in your example of ancient 'libs' may not be 100% compatible with the version the game was developed against and so they ship their versions aswell.


As for Phoronix focus on Linux gaming, I've never quite understood it.

In most cases Wine serves the AAA-title gaming needs very well and as such is the obvious solution in bringing games to Linux. Apart from that indie game development which has seen a rise is an area in which Linux seems well supported. Looking at a grander scale pc gaming is losing AAA titles to dedicated gaming consoles, while casual gaming is targeting web technology like flash/html5 (which Linux supports) and the mobile market (Iphone/Android/Ipad etc).

This obsession Phoronix has with Linux 'native' gaming just doesn't make sense to me, maybe I'm missing something?

[Hamish Wilson]

- NVIDIA is the real and only choice for Linux for anyone wanting to get full power from their GPU under linux. We know this from ,mm, 2001?

- EA, Blizzard, Activision, Capcom and Squaresoft are the real gaming companies (there are others of course). If these don't get into the Linux world, sorry to say but:

Linux != gaming

Hopefully Michael will understand this..

And hopefully you will recognize that I have more games available to play on my Linux system right now using an AMD graphics card than I know what to do with. These are games I am happy with, games I do not feel queasy playing, don't have to jump through hoops to set up due to DRM, games with actually nice looking and original graphical flare and actually inspired (or well handled) gameplay. Games that if you put the effort into supporting you are actually supporting someone and their family rather than contributing to some publishing executives bonus.

There is more to gaming than a few giant companies. But, if they ever do want to step on board and join the large array of titles on my to play list, than good luck to them. I am still playing through my Frozenbyte games at the moment, not to mention the ones from the next Bundle.

I'd like to go one step further than that though. If the application in question is closed source anyway, you're likely to be better of running the application in Wine in the long term. You can be pretty sure that Wine will get updated to work with changes in the underlying platform (although admittedly that may sometimes take a while), while that's far from certain for random closed source ports. I.e., with Wine you're not going to have issues like applications linking to ancient versions of libstdc++ or libSDL, which then won't be available at some point in modern distributions. To put this another way, I think the goal should be more Free Software games rather than more "native" games. I don't think there's necessarily much value in running native Linux closed source games over running Win32 closed source games. To put this another way, I think the goal should be more Free Software games rather than more "native" games. I don't think there's necessarily much value in running native Linux closed source games over running Win32 closed source games.

I can understand your point somewhat, but I can not agree with it based on certain technical objections and personal experience. I prefer native games, even as an unsupported binary, to WINE versions as they actually interact with my system in a native way. For example, I MUCH prefer the Linux system of handling game and user data. Copying old saves from one machine to the next is much easier when you can move a ".game" directory than having to dig around for specific files in a larger install directory as I would with a Windows binary. Plus there is the fact that the CPU overhead of WINE in my experience, while bearable, is still significant, especially compared to native titles.

I would also like to contrast my experience running the game "Blood II: The Chosen" through WINE to using an old native binary for the game "Shogo: Mobile Armour Division". Both games were originally released in the same year by the same developer using the same engine, but one was also later ported over. With Blood II I have had sporadic performance over the years, with my best experience being in early 2009, which dropped dramatically later in that year, and has still not caught up. Shogo has run brilliantly for me on a myriad of Fedora releases for four years. Granted, this is because the native version uses OpenGL while the one ran through WINE uses Direct3D, but the requirement of using OpenGL is one of the advantages of encouraging people to port over.

I would also like to point out that the strong majority of games that have had their source code released started out by offering Linux native closed source binaries. There are strong signs that this is an important step in getting developers to recognize free software and free software ecosystems, and in the end, do things the right way. Desura itself could be yet another example of this.

Except with their Optimus fiasco, which instantly brings their Linux support to zero.
Without Linux Optimus support from Nvidia, my Nvidia chip is a brick inside my computer, and this is a big step backward!

Yeah, I really have no idea why this gets so ignored. And while Bumblebee and Ironhide are amazing projects just like Nouveau is and the developers definitely deserve our full support, neither of these projects equal actual support from Nvidia. I have an AMD graphics card as I feel properly supported, either out of the box through the Gallium3D driver for my card, or if necessary, through their vendor supplied blob. If I used a Nvidia I would always feel second rate.

Yeah, I know, I am flaimbating. But I am just posting my feelings.

[DaemonFC]

Ryan Gordon is an ass.

His positions in condensed form.

Free software video drivers are pointless because they can't run some of his games without the user installing patent infringing libraries. (OK, blame the governments who impose patent restrictions on software, not the people who have to live in that system).

Free software operating systems have a problem, since they ship with free software drivers? (Huh?)

He misses the point that they are there for people who value using their computer and the hardware in it under terms that respect their freedom, even if they don't care whether or not it runs some games, in doing this he makes a mockery of people who have ideals and are willing to sacrifice programs that have no value except as novelties and time wasters. (And a lot of them DO run on Mesa, thanks)

If the user prefers expedience and the ability to run games which are probably nonfree software anyway, they can run nonfree video drivers. AMD and Nvidia both have blobs with a high performance OpenGL implementation, even though they don't conform to X or Linux code quality standards, use obsolete interfaces, and contain bugs, and hide bugs with bug workarounds that sometimes themselves become the problem.

Of course, there's always Windows if you don't give a damn about using anything in your computer on freedom respecting terms and don't mind the DRM, malware, and all of Windows' other problems, I hear Windows has many games. Have fun while they rootkit you with DRM or enforce stupid "3 installs and you must buy a new license" terms of use.

[AnonymousCoward]

WRT Ryan Gordon's recommendation of SDL, I'd like to mention that its handling of input really is a pain in the ass. No alt-tab out of the games, as well as all other keyboard shortcuts not working anymore, plus problems with the mouse pointer when unclutter is running and the pointer is grabbed... And they won't fix it because they're working on SDL 1.3 now. But everyone uses 1.2. Yay.

Their 1.2 branch even has quite a few commits since the last release fixing some annoying things, but if you want them you have to build a custom version.

I'm considering SFML as a replacement but haven't tried it yet.

Reportedly an overengineered clusterf*ck, can't speak from experience though.

[grantek]

He misses the point that they are there for people who value using their computer and the hardware in it under terms that respect their freedom, even if they don't care whether or not it runs some games, in doing this he makes a mockery of people who have ideals and are willing to sacrifice programs that have no value except as novelties and time wasters. (And a lot of them DO run on Mesa, thanks)

If the user prefers expedience and the ability to run games which are probably nonfree software anyway, they can run nonfree video drivers. AMD and Nvidia both have blobs with a high performance OpenGL implementation, even though they don't conform to X or Linux code quality standards, use obsolete interfaces, and contain bugs, and hide bugs with bug workarounds that sometimes themselves become the problem.

Of course, there's always Windows if you don't give a damn about using anything in your computer on freedom respecting terms and don't mind the DRM, malware, and all of Windows' other problems, I hear Windows has many games. Have fun while they rootkit you with DRM or enforce stupid "3 installs and you must buy a new license" terms of use.

Most of what he does is with high-level graphics and game engines on PC hardware, so just because what he does is irrelevant to you, doesn't mean he's an ass.