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  • you are equating the nvidia blob to that of the ati driver when you say that every driver has some unavoidable bugs. Yes both drivers have countless bugs. One of these drivers is alot better then other other and i think its clear which one. By better, i mean lesser of these "bugs". If a driver cannot handle certain filters or shaders or whatever, it is lacking. The only barriers my nvidia cards have ever had with the proprietary driver, for my 3d use, is the gpu limitations itself. You can compare the performance of the nvidia blob against its windows counterpart but an ati linux vs windows is an absolute slaughter and you know it; particularly getting things running to begin with. On windows you dont need to touch your video driver utilities unless you are getting serious. I cant say i have ever needed to do it with either a nvidia or ati card under windows, even as a heavy gamer.

    Let me just quote carmack here.

    Yes, it is. The codebase is much, much larger, and the graphics technology pushes a lot of paths that are not usually optimized. It probably wouldn't be all that bad to get it running on the nvidia binary drivers, but the chance of it working correctly and acceptably anywhere else would be small. If you are restricted to it only working on the closed source drivers, you might as well boot into windows and get the fully tested and tuned experience...

    John Carmack
    Its not like hes joe blow, we can account some of our best games to some of his work. So he has a major voice. the ati driver is clearly one of the things holding up linux gaming. As steam, a game distribution company, this is a very big deal. Key is getting things going in the first place. I think he means it must be harder.

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    • The guy is also saying that it's not worth porting games to Linux until the open source drivers are able to render them. I think he's stalling.

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      • Originally posted by Remco View Post
        The guy is also saying that it's not worth porting games to Linux until the open source drivers are able to render them. I think he's stalling.
        I think its a specific reference to the AMD side of open drivers as nouveau hadn't gained the same spotlight at the time he said that. One thing i dont like is the assumption that we all dual boot .

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        • If you look at 3D open source games, everyone will tell you that nvidia is the way to go and that you will get better support from the game developers. Most users go with nvidia and start reporting problems to the game developers, which in turn start focusing more on getting their game working with the nvidia blob since that's what the majority of their user base is using. Very understandable, but this means that users with ATI binary blobs or even those on open source drivers will often get the cold shoulder. Again, understandable due to the limited resources on most open source projects.

          Now that ATI hardware is getting more popular and drivers are offering a decent experience, FOSS game developers are starting to see a change in their usage statics. You can see it now and ask any developer out there; they are now starting to better focus on getting their games working with fglrx and even the radeon drivers. More ATI users also means more bug reports concerning their drivers, which makes it easier and encourages FOSS game developers to address said issues and offer workarounds/fixes, and/or give more weight to concerns regarding the quality of the drivers.

          Point is, that the video drivers get better as user numbers increase. There is now more interest in having fully functional drivers because of it. If you lack the users, the driver maintainers just don't get the feedback necessary for them to further develop their driver or the incentive for them to fix issues.

          __________________________________________________ __________________


          Anyway, got sidetracked there for a bit. To the real issue. I don't think ATI drivers themselves are what's preventing any commercial gaming in Linux. That seems like an excuse not to bring games to Linux.

          Once you start bringing big commercial games to Linux you inevitably will bring everything that comes with it, which in short equals to money. You think AMD won't want a piece of that pie? If Linux gaming starts getting as big as Windows gaming, then AMD will start doing whatever it deems necessary for it to secure a place in that new market.

          If commercial game developers keep stalling and offering excuses, then things won't change from how they are now. Entrepreneurship in the industry is all but dead though, so the sad reality is that aside from a miracle, we will never see the big commercialization of gaming in the Linux side of things like we see with Windows. If anything, Linux gaming will remain the realm of hobbyists and small indie studios.

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          • i somewhat agree with your points regarding the video drivers to the degree of them being an excuse. They are, but only to a degree. About the driver getting better with users, yes and no. I feel it works both ways. About the apps getting better with more ati users, absolutely.

            I will also note and agree that there are plenty of reasons for our current gaming situation. This is 1 case.

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            • Originally posted by Melcar View Post
              If you look at 3D open source games, everyone will tell you that nvidia is the way to go and that you will get better support from the game developers. Most users go with nvidia and start reporting problems to the game developers, which in turn start focusing more on getting their game working with the nvidia blob since that's what the majority of their user base is using. Very understandable, but this means that users with ATI binary blobs or even those on open source drivers will often get the cold shoulder. Again, understandable due to the limited resources on most open source projects.

              <*the rest snipped for brevity*>
              I don't care what GPU you use, so long as there's currently supported drivers so I can correct my bugs or go gnaw on a vendor's backside on a bug in their code...

              I want people futzing with Caster and other titles with Intel, NVidia, AND AMD GPUs. Sure, it's closed source- but there's some FOSS-ed things that I'm working with here that I'm going to hold the same position with. But then, I'm probably the exception there and not the norm.


              Anyway, got sidetracked there for a bit. To the real issue. I don't think ATI drivers themselves are what's preventing any commercial gaming in Linux. That seems like an excuse not to bring games to Linux.
              Depends on the game and the studio, but yeah, it's one of the gems that keeps coming up from time to time...

              Once you start bringing big commercial games to Linux you inevitably will bring everything that comes with it, which in short equals to money. You think AMD won't want a piece of that pie? If Linux gaming starts getting as big as Windows gaming, then AMD will start doing whatever it deems necessary for it to secure a place in that new market.
              Well...if the rumor I recently got handed is even half true, there's going to be a much bigger market than most of them think. And there might be some hardware vendors scrambling to catch back up where companies like Intel and AMD are at right now. Combine that with what we're all seeing with the smartphone/smartbook space, well...you get the idea I'm going for there...

              If commercial game developers keep stalling and offering excuses, then things won't change from how they are now. Entrepreneurship in the industry is all but dead though, so the sad reality is that aside from a miracle, we will never see the big commercialization of gaming in the Linux side of things like we see with Windows. If anything, Linux gaming will remain the realm of hobbyists and small indie studios.
              Well, I see the Smartphone/Smartbook story changing the rules up some. (You want to sit on the hottest new smartphones with a mobile game? You'd better quit making excuses and start making Linux games- however you can do it... ) There's some other trends that are beginning to show to the studios and other companies that maybe they're missing a bet there that they should be putting something down on.

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              • Just a little update. Valve will releas Steam and the SourceEngine for MacOS in April. slashdot.org

                So lets see, if we get a Linux too, in the near future.

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                • Both future and old games are being ported, that's kinda cool of them, considering that Half-Life 2 was released way back in 2004...

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                  • Well Valve said the Mac Source engine will use OpenGL so I have my hopes up.

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                    • Originally posted by SkyHiRider View Post
                      Well Valve said the Mac Source engine will use OpenGL so I have my hopes up.
                      Awesome news. Too bad Linux wasn't mentioned in their announcement,but hopefully it'll come later.

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