It's Been Five Years That Ubuntu Has Tried To Improve For Linux Gaming

[roothorick]

Valve is invested in this long term as a hedge bet, because they really dislike microsoft, and want a fallback in case Windows fails. This is because MS loves making really unpopular decisions with windows, that people hate. They are scared one day people will have enough and jump to Linux. This probably won't happen, but its a backup plan for Valve

There's more to it, I think. Valve wants Linux to emerge as a dominant platform, but like the rest of us, has no clue how to do it. While they brainstorm and wait for an opportunity to arise, they're investing in building up Linux as a gaming platform. Whether it pays off or not, it's a better plan than anyone else has.

Actually, given their recent development effort, it looks like they think they found something -- VR. PSVR is on the losing end of fighting a "passing fad" perception, and PC-based VR takes a savvy enthusiast to maintain. A casual-user-accessible solution could be the "killer app".

But Microsoft is poised to seize that one with the new Windows MR headsets... maybe. Depends on how they're marketed. Anyone's guess right now.

[dh04000]

Michael is trying to blame Linux gaming not taking off solely on Canonical. Lovely. In other news, Obama turn the freaked frogs GAY!

[torsionbar28]

They are scared one day people will have enough and jump to Linux. This probably won't happen, but its a backup plan for Valve

Think about it, there is literally zero demand for Microsoft Windows. People want MS Office, and people want the latest AAA games, and thus they tolerate Windows as it is their only option. Heck, every other OS they release is a turd, and none of their OS's are even stable before SP1.

If Mac and Linux could natively run the latest MS Office and AAA games, Windows marketshare would plummet. Microsoft knows this of course, so they'll do everything they can to prevent it. They'll never make Office available on Linux, and I have no doubt they make shady back-room deals with AAA game publishers.

[labyrinth153]

1) Get a kernel that gives a damn about latency.

Linux has some of the cleverest algorithms and fastest code paths of any general purpose kernel. The problem isn't kernel.

2) Get a framework in place that can mark all related components as latency-critical, and favor them always or on request.

This would be great but it has a potential to be abused. Kwin is doing something like this trying to mark drawing threads as real time processes. Though generally CFS is excellent for most workloads in its current form.

4) Who cares for Steam or Ubuntu? I don't want to be drawn into a damn client or distro bc of gaming, much less a bottom feeder one.

Ubuntu is cancer. I helped it get where it is.

Fat chance of this happening in my lifetime. Thanks god I got a PS4 and don`t have to game on Linux (or Windows).

I switched to Mac. Better everywhere except OpenGL. Games that use Metal run great.

[stormcrow]

I don't respond to many articles but this one kinda whispered to me to respond.

Ubuntu is a basic computing platform. It's reasonably adequate as a front end for development and research so long as your back end is optimized for whatever your goal is. It's also reasonably adequate for basic computer needs - e'mail, some degree of word processing (if you can work around LibreOffice's warts), web browsing, watching Netflix, etc. It is not even close to optimized as a desktop for a lot of things that would need the UI and input responsiveness that certain program types need. Gaming is one of them. Even with Nvidia graphics drivers the experience with most games is abysmal. Stuttering, high latency input, lack of support for gaming features like gaming mice, keyboards, etc. Many people are wanting to record their gaming experiences these days. It's not a thing on Ubuntu even if you could manage the inevitable drop in responsiveness when the system starts disk writing. A lot of benchmarks on FPS don't really even bother touching on whether the game is *playable* at those frame rates: frame tearing and stuttering should something decide to access the disk, input latency, output latency such as audio. It's not just the kernel being largely optimized for server loads that's the problem. The X framework was never designed for this kind of thing and for 30 years people have been trying to bolt on workarounds for basic problems with UI responsiveness, especially 3D.

OpenGL is not at feature parity with DirectX and never has been (and never will) thanks to the OpenGL steering committee being dominated by visualization companies rather than people from the game development community. Any games using OpenGL are visually inferior to the DirectX version, ignoring the frame rate differences. The current games I've seen using Vulcan are more proof of concepts - ports of OpenGL games to Vulcan which means that their graphics are usually the same feature set as OpenGL, they look pretty much the same. I wouldn't be holding my breath Vulcan will change anything on Linux.

The only place where Ubuntu tends to shine as a desktop is it's ok - not great but ok - for very basics and more privacy than Windows 10 right now. If that's not a compelling reason for you, and you're a gamer there is no reason to use Ubuntu, and every reason NOT to use it. My main desktop runs Win 10 and it's my gaming system. My secondary desktop runs OpenSUSE and it's dedicated to ham radio related programs thanks to an outstanding OBS repository for it. My other systems are not desktops and run OpenBSD or Raspbian. The sad thing from a privacy and open transparency point of view, Windows still does desktop and gaming better. I don't see that changing so long as Windows for desktops is actively developed.

If Apple ever wakes up to the opportunity they could have with a private desktop supporting robust security, embrace Vulcan and help steer it as a standard, stop telling people "my way or the highway" on features in both software and hardware, they could possibly take the gaming and some of the general desktop market away from Microsoft -- release OS-X from it's Apple hardware millstone.

[stormcrow]

Linux has some of the cleverest algorithms and fastest code paths of any general purpose kernel. The problem isn't kernel.


This would be great but it has a potential to be abused. Kwin is doing something like this trying to mark drawing threads as real time processes. Though generally CFS is excellent for most workloads in its current form.


Ubuntu is cancer. I helped it get where it is.


I switched to Mac. Better everywhere except OpenGL. Games that use Metal run great.

"fastest code paths"
Context added - throughput doesn't equal latency.

Linux is abysmal on UI & input latency under disk load even with the usual workarounds (adjusting cache pressure, desktop latency options in the kernel, etc). To get back on topic more: unless things have recently changed, Ubuntu also uses a generic kernel not optimized for any one thing rather than a more optimized desktop kernel; low tick cycles & generic server throughput & resulting poor desktop response rather than the more desktop friendly kernel latency settings like higher tick settings and the desktop latency kernel options.

[jnrivers]

As someone who has been using GNU / Linux exclusively for well over a decade I can say with full confidence the situation has improved stupendously.
Over 5 years ago games were limited to ports of classic titles, novelty games, or using WINE to run a Windows game with mixed results.
Today we have Steam w/ 1000's of compatible games. GOG (a personal favorite) has large numbers Linux titles. Maybe only a few AAA developers release Linux versions but the fact any do at all seems monumental. Generally the overall experience from a performance and success rate perspective is notable and easy to take for granted unless you remember the gaming situation 5 years ago where almost everything required fiddling with and coping with drawbacks.

With the Linux desktop share staying as low as it is and Valves fizzled push for SteamOS / Steam Machines, my worry is this might actually be as good as it gets and the "golden years of Linux gaming" where it almost had a chance.

[humbug]

It's a night and day difference how good things are now compared to a few short years ago. Not talking about ubuntu but rather Linux gaming in general since Valve got involved. Compared to a few short years ago I now have access to more AAA games natively on Linux than I can hope to play, performance is good, framerates are high. My R9 290 was basically unusable for Linux gaming 3 years ago. Now the open source drivers give a very good experience. Now everything just works. Apart from that the Vulkan initiative was very well executed by the whole industry and starting to reap real rewards.

[leipero]

We still searching for someone to start a D3D11 state tracker. We will donate or help of course.

The very fact that nine state tracker exist, it is proof of concept, and proof that WINE can be really good when dealing with Windows D3D API's. The only reason why WINE developers do not follow that path is compatibility, they are aware of benefits it offers, plus it's extremely complicated to pull that out. WINE developers would have much easier time if most (or all) games are developed with OpenGL/Vulkan in mind, that sadly isn't the case as of now.

For those comenting on latency of Linux kernel, I don't know, the best way to compare it with Windows in non-scientific way from user-level perspective is to use nine state tracker in games on wine. From my own testing on my hardware, latency is much better under GNU/Linux. Few months ago I've got into nostalgia mode and played Juiced 2, with modification of the game .exe to run at 60+FPS, I've played it under Windows because on my particular hardware there were some (very annoying) graphical anomalies, so I've beaten the game on Windows, then played for fun under Wine, my custom car (same save game) what I "felt" imidiately is how car is much more responsive (eg. input lag was non-existant, and yes both are used without vertycal synchronization), and this game is not standalone case, I've observed same thing with some other games. In some cases, performance under wine+nine were better than under native windows, without graphical inferiority.

[Cyber Killer]

We need a graph of absolute numbers of Linux users on Steam vs time. I mean calculate the absolute based on the percentage of Linux users from the total Steam users at the time of the survey and show this though time. I bet it's going to show that the are steadily more and more of us.