Rich Geldreich On The State Of Linux Gaming

[Pajn]

CoD: It has become very console-centric (Advanced Warfare is a evidence of this), it's also bad for Windows PCs, I would say, don't try and nobody will care either.

CoD actually have a reasonable chance to come to Linux in the form of Steam Mahcines.
However it would be limited to gamepads and the gameplay to mashing A as fast as you can.

[MartinN]

Phoronix: Rich Geldreich On The State Of Linux Gaming

Rich Geldreich, the former Valve developer who did a lot of work on the VOGL OpenGL debugger before leaving the game company, and has been critical of OpenGL and its drivers, has written a new post on the state of Linux gaming...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=MTgzNTI

After reading this, I just am sad to see how far up everyone's collective asses is Microsoft entrenched when it comes to PC gaming... Steam has taken on Goliath here - they are selling a paradigm shift. This is the hardest of all things - to get people to think Linux/games.. Linux/games (or Steam/Games, Steam/Games). Most consumers could give a hoot less as to what is at stake here - further lock in into M$.... rather than having a viable choice in addition to Windows/DX. This is by far the most difficult task Linux has to crack - penetration on the desktop/console. Games are probably the best way in.

And as much as I respect Intel... they need to do more to amp this up. Not just Wayland... provide decent, working, performant drivers on Linux. Maybe putting Intel Iris HD inside a Steam box will motivate Intel to deliver on their Linux driver/GL promises...? Not sure - there are many ways to skin this cat, but seems mutual motivation is lacking.

[Paul-L]

CoD actually have a reasonable chance to come to Linux in the form of Steam Mahcines.
However it would be limited to gamepads and the gameplay to mashing A as fast as you can.

Hm, Right about that. Still, as the comment above. Is Valve the one to push their game producers to make games that work on top of Linux.

Honestly, I haven't been following the industry that much. I was just aware those games don't have officially supported on Linux. Some work with Wine, but I don't know which and while Wine is amazingly good considering their ambitious goal, it's not good enough that I would just say, "Install Lubuntu / Xubuntu / Mint / Arch / Fedora / SUSE, then install Wine, put your games on, and go!" to someone that's not pretty tech-savvy or even someone that's tech-savvy but doesn't enjoy tinkering.

Indeed, the problem is simply make Linux a viable alternative to the "easyness" of Windows. People don't like change when this change isn't easy for them to adapt or the time it takes is simply too long.

[matt_g]

Pretty much this. Visual Studio's debugging/development capabilities far exceed anything else. I've had to work with GDB ONCE (frontend was GPS, for an Ada project. Choice of language was government decision, not ours.), and it's like going back to the stone age compared to what we have in MSVC. It does it's job, just not as easily as what MSFT offers. Visual Studio is one of the few times MSFT actually put together a solid product.

Thanks for reply but I'm still slightly confused.

People keep saying "Visual Studio's debugging/development capabilities far exceed anything else" but so far I'm not convinced.

Maybe in the windows world the tight integration between iDE and debuger is a positive but I doubt people will have much luck pushing that paradigm with most linux programmers who are likely to write something like a debugger. In the unix world loose coupling between components is much more common.

What I suspect is its a cultural thing CLI vs. GUI you said you only used GDB once I'm the same with Visual Studio. For a large pre-existing fortran project our company purchased a commercial compiler which was a plug in to visual studio (this was 2007ish I think the version I used was called "Visual Studio .Net", this was during time ".net" branding for everything was really popular from Microsoft) they wanted me to prove the program could build and run in windows. I got the program to build but took me a long time because I was not used to the Visual Studio approach of using a GUI for things like importing all the source files I found it to be really unituitive. Make files didn't work, I couldn't figure out how to configure linker etc it caused me a lot of frustration at the time. Unfortunately I didn't take the opportunity to try out the debugger I was so frustrated with the whole experience I wanted to leave it behind as soon as I could. I suspect the culture shock is the same for people raised in windows world. When they come from visual studio into something like VIM

A few years later I was able to get a different fortran program to build and run in windows using MinGW and that was much better for my sanity. Maybe there needs to be a reverse mingw for linux (I guess this would be wine - can Visual studio be run in Wine?) that way windows devs moving to linux could still have a slightly familiar environment and the shock wouldn't be so high.

[Michael_S]

Most consumers could give a hoot less as to what is at stake here - further lock in into M$.... rather than having a viable choice in addition to Windows/DX. This is by far the most difficult task Linux has to crack - penetration on the desktop/console. Games are probably the best way in.

I don't know that there's any best way in. In my experience, most people don't like learning new things unless it's forced upon them. Apple and Google managed to establish themselves in mobile because they weren't fighting an entrenched player. Blackberry, Palm, and Nokia were big, but they weren't selling the kinds of devices to consumers that the iPhone or original Nexus phones represent.

With Linux, we're asking people who were forced to learn Windows - and many of them hated that process, too - to learn something else new. It's an uphill battle. I wish it wasn't.

Indeed, the problem is simply make Linux a viable alternative to the "easyness" of Windows. People don't like change when this change isn't easy for them to adapt or the time it takes is simply too long.

Yeah. But getting a volunteer community to make something as good as the product from companies that can toss a billion dollar annual budget at quality assurance is damn difficult. I think our only option is the path we're already on - a few more users each year, a bit more open source code each year. As the number of interested people and the choice of available code grows, eventually the free community will match the best the proprietary world has to offer. Since no shareholders call the shots, we're free to make nine hundred piles of junk before somebody builds gcc, llvm, Firefox, Node.js, etc...

[blackiwid]

"easyness" of Windows.

What? The only thinig about Windows that makes it seem to be easy is that on most machines its preinstalled and configured when u buy it, if not its a complete nightmare on usabilaty. It nearly impossible to make it worse, even if it would be your goal.

Steammaschines will be pre-installed, so it will work like every apple computer will do or better. Printer setup is way more easy under linux as example. Except the vendor gives no support, but thats seldom. But who cares taht are game consoles, and yes you can even try to use a playstation 3 or 4 like a pc, but the central thing is that its a console, I think the correct term for that is applience?

And Android had his changes to become the gaming plattform I mean for real games not some handigames, all failed, nvidia consoles failed, ouya failed etc. will there be people trying that again of course.

The point was android had something that was needed for phones and tablets, you could not run effeciently X on tablets it would be to resource intensive also some other parts, and then there was the java thing, I dont really understand why people want java on this plattform but for mobile it seems the app developer want it.

There is no reason to use not X for gaming, and even wayland is coming, there is no reason or nobody wants to only allow java games 99.9999% of all better games are not wirtten in java. There is no nead of a fundamentaly new touch centric imput system, most tvs whhere people want to play there games or monitors dont allow touch. So tell me a reason why android would be better, except the brand is maybe better known?

I think android has its peek point behhind em, at least in growth. A few years ago there was only IOS and Android and IOS lost at least in % much, and the users had only the choice between this 2 and some old dieing plattforms. So that was a great position for google.

Now they get attacked by Ubuntu-os, Firefox-os and last but not least Sailfish/Jolla, and even I dont really like it, even windows starts to get a few %, if you count in tablets they are not so bad there.

Samsung the big dog in the android sector struggles really hard, the newest generation is a joke, make em a bit bigger and add a sdcardslot, what funnily the old 500 euro phones did not have (most of em).

And its really dangerous for google, this vendors dont attack the high price sector maybe except jolla, but there are news that they want to sell phones in india and russia, at least in india they have to produce low budget phones, and if you see their used hardware on the jolla its a cheap hardware phone, they just made it expensive for really lowend hardware. So if they sell more of them I guess they will lower the price massive.

And yes thats something Google cant do so easy, their os uses java and therefor is slow as hell or at least needs extremly much ram. Its really bad software packaged with good powerful hardware.

Of course android will not loose its nearly monopoly in 1-2 years or so, but they will loose some percentages, and its more a time for licking their wounds then expanding. Except people buy this nsa-driven cars they want to build.

[Paul-L]

What? The only thinig about Windows that makes it seem to be easy is that on most machines its preinstalled and configured when u buy it, if not its a complete nightmare on usabilaty. It nearly impossible to make it worse, even if it would be your goal.

Steammaschines will be pre-installed, so it will work like every apple computer will do or better. Printer setup is way more easy under linux as example. Except the vendor gives no support, but thats seldom. But who cares taht are game consoles, and yes you can even try to use a playstation 3 or 4 like a pc, but the central thing is that its a console, I think the correct term for that is applience?

And Android had his changes to become the gaming plattform I mean for real games not some handigames, all failed, nvidia consoles failed, ouya failed etc. will there be people trying that again of course.

The point was android had something that was needed for phones and tablets, you could not run effeciently X on tablets it would be to resource intensive also some other parts, and then there was the java thing, I dont really understand why people want java on this plattform but for mobile it seems the app developer want it.

There is no reason to use not X for gaming, and even wayland is coming, there is no reason or nobody wants to only allow java games 99.9999% of all better games are not wirtten in java. There is no nead of a fundamentaly new touch centric imput system, most tvs whhere people want to play there games or monitors dont allow touch. So tell me a reason why android would be better, except the brand is maybe better known?

I think android has its peek point behhind em, at least in growth. A few years ago there was only IOS and Android and IOS lost at least in % much, and the users had only the choice between this 2 and some old dieing plattforms. So that was a great position for google.

Now they get attacked by Ubuntu-os, Firefox-os and last but not least Sailfish/Jolla, and even I dont really like it, even windows starts to get a few %, if you count in tablets they are not so bad there.

Samsung the big dog in the android sector struggles really hard, the newest generation is a joke, make em a bit bigger and add a sdcardslot, what funnily the old 500 euro phones did not have (most of em).

And its really dangerous for google, this vendors dont attack the high price sector maybe except jolla, but there are news that they want to sell phones in india and russia, at least in india they have to produce low budget phones, and if you see their used hardware on the jolla its a cheap hardware phone, they just made it expensive for really lowend hardware. So if they sell more of them I guess they will lower the price massive.

And yes thats something Google cant do so easy, their os uses java and therefor is slow as hell or at least needs extremly much ram. Its really bad software packaged with good powerful hardware.

Of course android will not loose its nearly monopoly in 1-2 years or so, but they will loose some percentages, and its more a time for licking their wounds then expanding. Except people buy this nsa-driven cars they want to build.

Ah, this is what I was trying to avoid.

OK, let me put "easyness to use" in terms related to gaming.


I insert a DVD, click setup.exe, install, and play.

I fire up Steam, buy the game, wait for it to download, click play, and do my thing.


That's what I am talking about. Your explaination simply answers something I haven't asked. And for now is still a thing, and unless Linux becomes (in terms of gaming) as simple as above, it will be a no-brainer for any gamer.

[dungeon]

I fire up Steam, buy the game, wait for it to download, click play, and do my thing.

Steam is steam for Windows, Mac and Linux... AFAIK it is essentialy same thing about "easyness to use", other then possible same or different bugs in those games/drivers regardless of OS used...

Might be i am missing something, what other extra step you need to do for steam linux other then learning linux a little if you are very new linux user?

[Paul-L]

Steam is steam for Windows, Mac and Linux... AFAIK it is essentialy same thing about "easyness to use", other then possible same or different bugs in those games/drivers regardless of OS used...

Might be i am missing something, what other extra step you need to do for steam linux other then learning linux a little if you are very new linux user?

As a Arch user, depends on the game, ie. CSGO needs a PulseAudio (which I had to install too, I didn't needed it and I was fine with ALSA) fix regarding audio syncing and sometimes I get texture glitches regarding illumination (which are fixed, by rebooting, and both are confirmed bugs on Valve's github).

Steam itself needs various packages, and their own fonts from AUR. Some games also need a generic fix for localization (LANG=C or LC_ALL=C), which doesn't only happen on Arch, but on Ubuntu too (client doesn't launch otherwise).

Then, games instalable on Linux are few, TF2, DotA and CSGO (if I remember correctly) are the most played of the ones available. I play CSGO on Linux from time to time to see it's state, so far it has improved a lot, but in comparison to Windows. I don't get comparable FPS, and mouse acceleration seems very different (even with raw input on, which is strange), and then I have the glitch I mentioned about lighting...

[dungeon]

As a Arch user, depends on the game, ie. CSGO needs a PulseAudio (which I had to install too, I didn't needed it and I was fine with ALSA) fix regarding audio syncing and sometimes I get texture glitches regarding illumination (which are fixed, by rebooting, and both are confirmed bugs on Valve's github).

I am Debian user, so you and i does not strictly follow recommendations, isn't it ? Steam recommends only Ubuntu or SteamOS that is what they target, other than that well you can use your Linux of choice, but really YMMV . So, both recommended distros have pulseaudio by default, do you know that, do you know issue is not there for recommnded distros and that there can be additional bugs if you use something else .