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NetBSD Made Progress Thanks To GSoC In Its March Towards Steam Support

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  • #11
    Originally posted by DoMiNeLa10 View Post

    I don't think it is worth the effort to get Steam running. The way forward is to define win32 as the de facto API for games, so Wine becomes the standard runtime. This way, all compatible software will be preserved.
    The underlying OS used becomes moot if Wine/Proton is the target provided the OS has good support for Wine. BSD isn't up to par in that regard (yet; lots of work was done this year). But only software compatible with the win32 API is preserved under that scenario and that's not a good thing.

    BSD with their Linux compatibility layer working well enough to run Steam and its games ensures that more than just the Windows version of something is preserved for the long-haul. Even more so, BSD getting the ability to run Linux and Windows games means we have even more operating systems to choose from for our desktop and gaming needs.

    BSD looks like it's in the state that Linux was in when I made the plunge and quit dual booting 10/11 years ago. BSD was on my radar when I first used Linux, quit dual booting, and it's there even now. Not going to lie, I went with the open OS that played my games over the OS I preferred on technical merits. If I can get 2014 levels of Linux gaming out of BSD, that'd be enough for me to be able to switch.

    Y'all quit hating The fact that KSP on BSD might be a reality in the near future is making me happy

    That KSP 2 announcement the other day is making me even happier

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    • #12
      Originally posted by starshipeleven View Post
      there is more than win32 to let games run. Only plausible way is virtualization with some form of GPU passthrough.

      Eventually when they decide that virtualized GPU isn't just a thing for workstations and every consumer GPU will allow it (Or even just AMD and Intel's, we all know how NVIDIA thinks) you can pull off a VM with the various OSes that games need.
      Wine/Proton, D*VK, this article about NetBSD's Linux compatibility layer, etc show that compatibility layers are just as plausible and in some instances they run better and faster than the native version and without the overhead that virtualization might require.

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      • #13
        Originally posted by DoMiNeLa10 View Post
        This sort of virtualization depends on hardware compatibility. It is not a way you'll be running 25 year old games with a plan that extends beyond your lifetime.
        This hardware feature exists already, it's just not in consumer hardware. Just like VT-x and VT-d it will become commonplace in years.

        Wine still can't run more than a small fraction of Windows software, and anything older than 10 years runs better (or at all) in a VM, a full blown emulator or even a FPGA faking a different core architecture (for most console stuff).

        As usual, software wanking fails and the issue has to be solved by throwing hardware at it, again.

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        • #14
          Originally posted by skeevy420 View Post
          Wine/Proton, D*VK, this article about NetBSD's Linux compatibility layer, etc show that compatibility layers are just as plausible and in some instances they run better and faster than the native version and without the overhead that virtualization might require.
          The issue is working reliably with more than a few handpicked software, without significant maintenance.

          You can install a VM of Win95 and play most win95 native games there, can you do the same on a Wine setup? no. Is there a chance in hell that anyone will care about investigating why a 15+ year old sofware that may or may not be particularly popular fails to run in Wine? No.

          Also, do note that even through the valiant efforts of this guy and 2-3 layers of compatibility wanking he still can't start the Steam client at all.
          Last edited by starshipeleven; 26 August 2019, 04:30 PM.

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          • #15
            Originally posted by starshipeleven View Post
            The issue is working reliably with more than a few handpicked software, without significant maintenance.

            You can install a VM of Win95 and play most win95 native games there, can you do the same on a Wine setup? no. Is there a chance in hell that anyone will care about investigating why a 15+ year old sofware that may or may not be particularly popular fails to run in Wine? No.

            Also, do note that even through the valiant efforts of this guy and 2-3 layers of compatibility wanking he still can't start the Steam client at all.
            It's not that I don't agree with you, I'm just more glass half full. I recognize that VMs aren't going to be a solution everywhere in the same way that comapt layers aren't going to be a solution everywhere so I see both as being necessary long-term.

            Progress in getting it working is still progress. How much stuff didn't work with Wine a year ago or before summer for that matter? (that's a rhetorical question)

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            • #16
              Originally posted by starshipeleven View Post
              You can install a VM of Win95 and play most win95 native games there, can you do the same on a Wine setup? no. Is there a chance in hell that anyone will care about investigating why a 15+ year old sofware that may or may not be particularly popular fails to run in Wine? No.
              Excuse me? With just what VM? both Virtualbox and VMWare kicked Windows 9x support to the road years ago, and even just making it work let alone getting things like 3D acceleration enabled was a shitshow and a half and really didn't work that well. Unless things have changed significantly since I last cared about this the best you can really do is jury rig DosBox into running Windows 9x.

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              • #17
                Originally posted by starshipeleven View Post
                This hardware feature exists already, it's just not in consumer hardware. Just like VT-x and VT-d it will become commonplace in years.

                Wine still can't run more than a small fraction of Windows software, and anything older than 10 years runs better (or at all) in a VM, a full blown emulator or even a FPGA faking a different core architecture (for most console stuff).

                As usual, software wanking fails and the issue has to be solved by throwing hardware at it, again.
                You could always implement a portable x86 emulator. There are attempts at that, such as PCem.

                A pure interpreter will be slow, but provided it's written properly, it will run on any architecture. If you need performance, there are ways to optimize things for a given architecture. I assume the host machine is powerful enough to brute force through the emulation of hardware.

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