Epic Games Contributes New SDL Video Driver For Offscreen Rendering

[sarmad]

What comes next? Epic Games Store on Linux?

No. What comes next is Epic games on Stadia.

[Almindor]

Nothing is stopping Epic from removing that middleware from their code, and releasing their own source, which they own. People could implement replacements for that middleware if they wanted to.

This, where there's will there's a way. Same can be said for Jolla who consistently lied since day one about open sourcing their OS. Same for Sifive with their hifive1-revB RISCV board btw. lying about stuff and then claiming licensing issues when people ask to open source a basic OTP memory code or bootloader.

It's pathetic, I wish they'd just up front said what the plan is and saved us all some time. Most folk don't give two duck tits about open source or privacy, there's no risk in being upfront about not being open.

[enigmaxg2]

What comes next? Epic Games Store on Linux?

The source code for their older engines is withheld due to the stupid middleware that they used. It is under a proprietary license and cannot open-source it. Plus the original companies are dead so they likely never will.

Nothing is stopping Epic from removing that middleware from their code, and releasing their own source, which they own. People could implement replacements for that middleware if they wanted to.

[kpedersen]

Considering their store, and lack of effort to put it somewhere besides Windows, on top of no source code releases for old versions of Unreal Engine, Epic is an awful company that's pretty bent on ensuring that classics like Deus Ex run like crap these days, and are subject to bit rot.
I suggest boycotting them.

The source code for their older engines is withheld due to the stupid middleware that they used. It is under a proprietary license and cannot open-source it. Plus the original companies are dead so they likely never will.

Epic is also making the same mistake today. Their entire engine requires so many resources and the editor almost requires a super computer to use. They immediately drop older technology such as older DirectX or OpenGL as soon as mainstream hardware is able to use it. Epic are basically little fat kids who always want the latest toys. Their build system alone drags in more dependencies than all the rest of my installed packages combined!

Their digital preservation strategy is basically naive and careless and for an engine with an eye on mobile hardware they are basically doing it wrong. Yes I don't expect game developers to be expert software engineers these days but I do expect them to clean up after themselves a little bit.

Considering their store, and lack of effort to put it somewhere besides Windows, on top of no source code releases for old versions of Unreal Engine, Epic is an awful company that's pretty bent on ensuring that classics like Deus Ex run like crap these days, and are subject to bit rot.

I suggest boycotting them.

[tildearrow]

They never targeted Linux, so Stadia won't change that.
On the contrary that will bring more devs aware of the Linux system. The more Linux knowledge game devs have, the better it is for Linux gaming in the long term.

You destroyed me.

I could tell you about Feral and Valve, but now that is pretty much a wasted effort.

[tildearrow]

Same for proton btw... and it's a good thing. Linux is not ready for games. It's the one thing that always breaks (unless they're OSS and can be recompiled against an updated batch of libs every ~2 years or so).

I agree. As long as these anti-compatibility folks are along, we'll suffer from this problem.

And even if it was an open-source game, nobody feels like recompiling anything. They just want to play, not spend years learning how to become a programmer.

[nuetzel]

Thank you all, very much appreciated.
I'll start trying with Lutris on my RX580 and send feedback.

[sarmad]

Anyone here for recommendations about running hardware accelerated Windows 10 in the right VM?
VMWare Player?
VirtualBox?
KVM?
etc.?

Our son would play Fortnite on our Linux PCs.
Steam/Proton didn't do it, currently.

Hmm... I thought you can do it through Lutris by installing the Epic launcher and running the game from there. Haven't tried it myself, but this site claims it's doable:

https://yourpcfriend.com/fortnite-on-linux/