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Can Linux Succeed As A First-Rate Gaming Platform?

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  • #21
    To be a good gaming platform, in my opinion Linux have to do some of this,

    1. Good driver support from manufacturer either OSS or binary. Don't get me wrong, I know why we need OSS drivers but if you have to play games, the card have to get blessing from its godfathers. Also manufacturer also have to think their target audience is gamers not Professional designers or server admins.

    2. Backward compatibility, the amount of troubles I got for running old/new binary software or games is not worth for a desktop gamer. I know how to solve library problems, when a game complain some libxyz.so.3 not found, all you have to do is make a link to libxyz.so.10 to libxyz.so.3 . But I can't recommend this to my gamer friends who don't have any idea what the heck libxyz is. Companies don't maintain their code usually for much long but the binary games are sold for long time. Valve/Stream has a good chance for fixing this; if they use local libraries for games then using system libraries then blob's should work well.

    3. Gamers , professional, general public and hobbies are not same material. Give each of them some credits. Many linux softwares are either for hobbies or for some tech hackers. Now canoncial targeting general public. To be gaming machine, the games should also be targeted.


    It's all my personal opinions, I think of using Linuxes for last 5 years and recommending a lot of Windows users. And being a occasional gamer.

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    • #22
      Originally posted by NoAsylum View Post
      This topic is completely irrelevant. Linuxes success in gaming has nothing to do with the operating system itself. It all depends on the games, software and support it receives from OUTSIDE sources. A Texas Instruments calculator circa 1998 can be a kickass gaming machine if the right software is created for it.

      +1 well written games will be better than poorly written ones

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      • #23
        People realise that Android is a JVM sitting on top of the Linux kernel right?

        The Linux part is not the relevant part, the JVM is.

        We don't want horrible Java games.

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        • #24
          Originally posted by scottishduck View Post
          People realise that Android is a JVM sitting on top of the Linux kernel right?

          The Linux part is not the relevant part, the JVM is.

          We don't want horrible Java games.
          You realize Google has an NDK, right? Most Android games are C/C++.

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          • #25
            Originally posted by russofris View Post
            While porting is a valuable exercise, we (the community) should probably be less focused on porting older games and more focused on creating/polishing the "linux for gaming" platform and SDKs to attract developers in order to ensure that future games get published for the platform.
            The best way to attract developers is to have a user base.

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            • #26
              Originally posted by russofris View Post
              Understand that the porting work involved is nowhere near as easy as Tiz indicates, nor is it as insurmountable as Ela makes it sound. Valve's recent work on L4D2 serves as an incomplete but applicable example. It's not really that important though.

              While porting is a valuable exercise, we (the community) should probably be less focused on porting older games and more focused on creating/polishing the "linux for gaming" platform and SDKs to attract developers in order to ensure that future games get published for the platform.

              Legacy console titles are likely better supported via emulation, as the completion of a good console emulator is far less demanding than porting the console's entire catalog.

              F
              My example was referred to getting the game just work , ofc optimizing it, finding crashes that have appeared only on the new platform will take more time

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              • #27
                Originally posted by scottishduck View Post
                People realise that Android is a JVM sitting on top of the Linux kernel right?

                The Linux part is not the relevant part, the JVM is.

                We don't want horrible Java games.
                One can simplify without the inaccuracies. To call it a VM is fair. To call it java-esque VM is fair. To call it 'java-derived' or 'java-inspired' VM might even be fair. To call it 'java' is not accurate.

                Why not just call it a DVM instead and avoid the potential exchange of trolls?


                F

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                • #28
                  Originally posted by NoAsylum View Post
                  This topic is completely irrelevant. Linuxes success in gaming has nothing to do with the operating system itself. It all depends on the games, software and support it receives from OUTSIDE sources. A Texas Instruments calculator circa 1998 can be a kickass gaming machine if the right software is created for it.
                  Also, this. If Windows is a 'gaming platform', and DOS was a gaming platform, then Linux should have no problem. It's in far better shape than either of MS' offerings were until years after the OS version release. Sure, hardware support needs to be worked on, the GFX especially is lacking right now but with more eyes on the ball, theoretically, there should be an increase in support. Hopefully before people get burned by the Linux gaming experience =D And was it SDL 2 that was trying to be a DirectX-like implementation for all platforms for device management?
                  Hi

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                  • #29
                    Originally posted by johnc View Post
                    The best way to attract developers is to have a user base.
                    I disagree. As MS demonstrated in 87 (and repeatedly throughout history) and Apple demonstrated in 2006, the best way to attract developers is with an easy to use SDK that produces working results in a short amount of time.

                    F

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                    • #30
                      Originally posted by Dukenukemx View Post
                      Is Linux a good gaming platform? Hell no, and anyone who thinks otherwise is delusional. Can it be? Well, if Android can do it then why not Linux?

                      Android is Linux, except with much better support and standards. It is a gaming platform. It wasn't always, and started off with a rocky road. Funny enough, you can look at custom Android roms as linux distros in a way, and they do just fine.

                      So what's the problem?

                      #1 Graphic drivers in general are just terrible.
                      #2 Better hardware support and a easier way to setup that hardware.
                      #3 Lack of standards between distros.
                      #4 Needs to be backwards compatible with older games, and why Wine is so important.
                      #5 Lack of stability in general. I like how I installed Mint 13 and came with broken repositories, but fixed if you install updates.
                      #1 Better now than it's ever been. Also it's a bit of a chicken and egg problem. Not a lot of games? -- Not a lot of incentive or resources to get to 100% support on day one. Lots of games? -- a big incentive to contribute code so they work.

                      #2. Always a hazard on installing an OS rather than having it pre-installed. Again though better now than ever before (X mostly self-configures, cups has a flashy gui interface ...)

                      #3. Not entirely true http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/ . Many things are standardized, some or not. SystemD promises to provide some additional standardization. Also not as bit of a problem when you use a service like desura or steam that can smooth out of fill in library mismatches.

                      #4 Containers, chroot, or VM's are solutions, also see game management programs like steam and desura.

                      #5 Meh Mint isn't commercial, it just takes money and time to iron these things out.

                      #6 I don't thing it will be an unequivocable success this year, but 2-3 years out is definitely possible.

                      #7 There is a yet unmentioned possibility here, the potential to turn any x86 computer into a game-specific console. Boot from a live media with just the game and it's scrict dependencies. Plug in a Bluetooth adapter connect your controllers, and play. Progress can be saved to the cloud or a local storage device.

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