Linux GPU Driver Issues Are Still Holding Up Games In 2017

[johnc]

Driver problems for games are common even on Windows though. It's not rare for even a AAA game to encounter many big driver problems both before and after release. Programming GPUs is hard work. I wouldn't consider this a problem unique to Linux.

[pal666]

The "advantage" that Windows has in this instance

the only one windows advantage here is they developed on windows. if they developed on linux they would fix issues as they come up during development, instead of looking at broken final release

[pal666]

of over 60 games that I've bought on Steam only 5 are available for Linux

so you bought wrong games. there are more aaa linux games than one person could play. but looking at your idiotic posts i don't expect smart decisions from you

[pal666]

a lot of Win32 applications for Windows 95 work just fine in Windows 10) without recompilation and/or changes to the source code, while the same is near impossible for Linux?

"Alan Cox notes that "my 3.6rc kernel will still run a Rogue binary built in 1992. X is back compatible to apps far older than Linux.""
now you can go and fuck yourself

[pal666]

Well, I've been waiting for over a year now for my $330 R9-390 to be supported under Linux. And I mean fully supported, not trickles of support here and there, but full solid support.

why did you buy not yet supported card? you made not smart decision. luckily you can't do that again, since amd now supports new hardware on release day.

We have the open source drivers that refuse to face the reality that without OpenGL 4.5 compatibility mode many games won't work

you've made this up, games do not need 4.5 compatibility profiles.

And then we have AMDGPU-PRO

you don't have it. it is not for you. forget about its existence

Things aren't getting better, they're getting worse

you are lunatic. amd had 5 years backlog of cards, now it has release day support and driver which destroys nvidia blob in mad max

And the dream that Valve held out for Linux to finally become a viable gaming platform is dead.

lol, that is why valve hires more people to work on amd drivers

[pal666]

And instead of the drivers being fixed, all the software that doesn't work with them should be rewritten.

drivers are not broken. your brain is broken, there are no games which require 4.5 compatibility profile. there was theory that some do, but in fact they have fucked up shaders

The world is not going to rewrite all the software that doesn't run on Linux

well, world already did rewrite million of apps for one linux distro(android)

because some developers refuse to acknowledge such a simple and undeniable truth.

such a plain and simple bullshit

[pal666]

For example No Man's Sky, a very modern game, requires OpenGL 4.5 compatibility mode

so your last line of defence is windows-only shit with mostly negative reviews? linux drivers can't support windows games, imbecile

[starshipeleven]

Well Linux desktop is a huge mess in general, from poor quality graphic and other drivers to fragmentation into zillion desktops and bugs in each of them, things not working at all, half-working, missing functionality etc. And people are still talking about Linux gaming, what Linux games? Indie level stuff that looks seriously dated? A handful of AAA games that quite often perform far worse than Windows version? Linux gaming is a joke compared to Windows. Linux is great for supercomputers, mainframes, servers, cloud and embedded devices, but on the desktop it is going down the drain fast, after 26 years it has 2% of market share on desktops, in another 26 years it might even reach 3%. While Windows and OSX are progressing more and more on the desktop, Linux users are still bitching about what distribution is the best, what desktop environment is the best and get into nerd rages about all that. I have been using Linux since 1990s and the state of Linux desktop is not much better than back then, it is plagued with multitude of small bugs everywhere, always tweaking, always fixing, always "maintaining" which is why Linux desktop will forever remain something only hobbyists and enthusiasts will use.

You really need to stop identifying Ubuntu with Linux. Just because your favourite distro has basically pulled the plug to anything noteworthy does not mean everyone else will die tomorrow.

Also, there are whole classes of jobs that revolved and still revolve around babysitting Windows, so there is many tweaking, fixing and maintaining going on in the Windows land too. Neither Windows nor linux are going down the drain.

Lol at OSX "progressing". It's not going anywhere, they make new versions just because of marketing reasons.

If you want to look at something superior, look at Android (from Google or OEMs that take plain AOSP) or iOS.

[GI_Jack]

Michael, you're being too generous Let's say, "Those rare crazy people who decide to port their game to an ever moving platform discover that it's not friendly to gaming". I'd even venture to say it's not friendly to any kind of software development but such a statement won't be met with enthusiasm here ;-)

Probably you've heard many times that Android thus Linux is conquering the entire world since it's running on the majority of smart phones (which are indeed little specialized computers but not desktops). However there are two important things to keep in mind - firstly, Android is not Linux

I stopped reading at this. Android is Linux. All the android patches have been mainlined a long time ago. What you mean is Android is not GNU. Important distinction.

As far as linux as a serious gaming platform, it seriously won't happen outside of steam boxes. The technical aspects of Linux are fine. Unless there is going to be a signifigant tangible benefit of running linux on high end gaming machines no one is going to bother switching.

1. High End Gamers spend lots of money on games and HW. Most games run on windows, and windows is better supported. If they can see a notcible reason such as better stability or better performance they will switch. Otherwise they won't bother.

2. Casuals are going to run whatever came with their computer.

3. There are some existing Linux users who might pick up gaming if games ran natively on Linux. %2 of desktops run linux. Most of the Linux running gamers dual boot windows for games.

As far as nVidia drivers. Gamers are not the target audience. Its high end workstations running binary drivers. This is why they port for Solaris and FreeBSD. This is a small, but very profitable endevour as these machines are expensive. They run a very limited set of expensive software.

[Cerberus]

You really need to stop identifying Ubuntu with Linux. Just because your favourite distro has basically pulled the plug to anything noteworthy does not mean everyone else will die tomorrow.

Also, there are whole classes of jobs that revolved and still revolve around babysitting Windows, so there is many tweaking, fixing and maintaining going on in the Windows land too. Neither Windows nor linux are going down the drain.

Lol at OSX "progressing". It's not going anywhere, they make new versions just because of marketing reasons.

If you want to look at something superior, look at Android (from Google or OEMs that take plain AOSP) or iOS.

Neither is good enough, Ubuntu, Fedora, Arch Linux, OpenSuse, Debian, ANY of them, I am writing this right now from my Arch Linux installation so dont you pulling the Ubuntu argument on me. I didnt say Linux desktop will die, I am saying it is getting worse and worse all the time. OSX unlike Linux works beautifully and everything just works on it, sure you need expensive Apple hardware to run it, but it is closest to a perfect OS as it is currently possible, Unix base so its secure and reliable, user friendly, everything works and there is a lot of open source and proprietary applications for it. It is not open source, but you cant argue about its strong points. Android superior? Give me a break, I used iOS and Android and Android has NOTHING on iOS who performs buttery smooth and stable, overall quality of iPhone applications is also greater than those on Android, sure expensive and closed source, but Android cannot compare when it comes to user experience, 5 year updates are also a big advantage, Android has occasional lags on even the most powerful devices, battery life is also better on iOS and yes I tried Nexus with Google's "vanilla" Android and it still does not compare to iOS.