Mesa 19.1 Adds Workaround For Epic Games Launcher With OpenGL

[computerquip]

Obviously this is the wrong way. If the SW does something wrong, the very game SW should be fixed and not mesa acquiring quirk after quirk for faulty SW. This might be one reason blob drivers are so huge: of course, bundled non-sense and 100 language packs you never need, but also quirks, compatibility profiles, cheats for benchmarks and so on.
But I guess it's still "easier" or at least done faster to workaround in mesa than wait for a game (launcher) to change its behaviour.

It's not just one reason, it's all the reason. Drivers add chunks of driver code after each AAA game release to deal with shitty quirks the game has. There's probably a competitive edge there as well. Nvidia has screwed every one there by letting shit software be shit so either everyone adheres to shit software or nobody can compete.

[ElectricPrism]

Obviously this is the wrong way. If the SW does something wrong, the very game SW should be fixed and not mesa acquiring quirk after quirk for faulty SW. This might be one reason blob drivers are so huge: of course, bundled non-sense and 100 language packs you never need, but also quirks, compatibility profiles, cheats for benchmarks and so on.
But I guess it's still "easier" or at least done faster to workaround in mesa than wait for a game (launcher) to change its behaviour.

Agreed. We as a collective at some point are required to make a choice -- Optimize Principles, or Optimize Practicality.

In principle, this is the wrong way to go. In terms of practicality considering encountering binary blobs where these problems can never really be fixed by the community - the choice is do you add these "per .exe quirk fix" or not. I am fine adding them in for the next 5-10 years and cleaning the slate as needed.

[nanonyme]

While I agree in general this kind of workarounding in drivers should be avoided, this specific thing seems more or less harmless to me and you should really just raise middle finger to nVidia for allowing this to happen in the first place. If they had fixed core contexts in general case years back and added exe-specific workarounds, this problem wouldn't exist.

[ElectricPrism]

While I agree in general this kind of workarounding in drivers should be avoided, this specific thing seems more or less harmless to me and you should really just raise middle finger to nVidia for allowing this to happen in the first place. If they had fixed core contexts in general case years back and added exe-specific workarounds, this problem wouldn't exist.

It sounds like it could be strategic. When you have the dominant hand you basically deviate from specification to make applications and games less compatible with competitors thus entrenching users and software and lies of "hey guys, we have better benchmarks" (and it has nothing to do with cutting corners or messing with specification.

Nvidia is cancer.

[Hibbelharry]

Since bugs occur in every piece of software the main question is:

Did someone tell Epic about the problem? If yes, did they respond anything?

They might be helpful, they might be not, but at least they should be asked.

[STiAT]

Totally agree with this. A bit off topic, but you can already see the nasty quirks introduced in the linux kernel because of OEMs (they suck at firmware development and deployment). It should be the other way around.

UEFI .. just saying ;-).

[kpedersen]

Is it a slight case of stockholm syndrome? This would never happen to fix a bug in SuperTux Cart or OpenArena

Also quick question... Why do we care so much about a silly games launcher that we would even bother writing any code to work around it?

I would understand a hack for UE4 because that is quite a nice bit of tech to access... but an optional launcher?

[Brisse]

It sounds like it could be strategic. When you have the dominant hand you basically deviate from specification to make applications and games less compatible with competitors thus entrenching users and software and lies of "hey guys, we have better benchmarks" (and it has nothing to do with cutting corners or messing with specification.

Nvidia is cancer.

This is basically what happened with the web, first with the dominance of Internet Explorer, and now Chrome. That should serve as a good warning sign if anything.

[Termy]

I remember not too long ago where adding software-specific hacks was frowned upon by mesa (was it the topic that lead to the gl_threaded whitelist?).
Especially not for a piece of software that is not on Linux and that is so toxic to the whole PC-Gaming-market...
If it was a native Linux-Client, a small hack would maybe be in the realm of sensible consideration, but who am i to decide....

[JPFSanders]

I wouldn't touch the Epic launcher or store with a ten foot pole, Epic doesn't care about Linux in the slightness, Tim Sweeney is a hypocrite of the tallest order.

The paranoid in me thinks Epic is just trying to sabotage Steam.

While Valve has a nice contingency plan to avoid the PC turning into a closed platform that benefits the entire industry (including us Linux peasants), Epic is sabotaging steam while leaving itself and the industry vulnerable to Microsoft.

If Epic succeeds in sabotaging Steam we'll lose a lot if not most of the momentum we're enjoying now with Linux Gaming.

All this development money and good will with developers that Valve is pouring on Linux will dry as Steam moves resources to counter Epic.

I might be paranoid, but this is how I see the Epic store exclusives story.