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Ask Slashdot: Is Linux Set To Be PC Gaming's Number Two Platform?

Posted by Soulskill on from the year-of-linux-in-the-living-room dept.

monkeyhybrid writes "Following a tweet from the developer of Maia (a cross platform game soon to hit Steam) that Linux was bringing him more game sales than OS X. Gaming On Linux decided to investigate further by reaching out to multiple developers for platform sales statistics. Although the findings and developer comments show Linux sales to still be sitting in third place, behind those of OS X and Windows, they are showing promise. Developer feedback certainly appears to be positive about the platform's future. With Steam OS on its way, surely leading to more big title releases making their way to the Linux platform, could Linux gaming be set to take the number two spot from Apple?"

18 of 281 comments (clear)

  1. Re:*Sure* it is. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Number two on the desktop?!? Bad baby!!!!

  2. Does SteamOS count as a desktop? by putaro · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's a variant of Linux but it's not for use with a general purpose computer. By that standard, BSD (iOS sorta kinda) and Linux (Android) are already major game platforms.

    1. Re:Does SteamOS count as a desktop? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Q: Didn't you tell me to develop for Ubuntu? Do I need to install Debian to build for SteamOS?
      A: All Steam applications execute using the Steam Runtime which is a fixed binary-compatibility layer for Linux applications. This enables any application to run on any Linux distribution that supports the Steam Runtime without recompiling.

  3. Maia and Linux by blackraven14250 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Maia isn't a game that's "soon to be released". Maia is in a very early alpha stage with very little of the final functionality - you'd expect Linux to be over represented in that particular sample.

  4. Unknown sources by tepples · · Score: 3, Interesting

    As I understand what I've read, Steam OS allows the user to exit the Steam client, run GNOME, and install games from unknown sources. Android (both Google Play and Fire OS flavors) likewise lets users install games from unknown sources. The odd man out here is iOS.

  5. It has to start somewhere by asmkm22 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The problem is that Linux still needs a baseline distro for developers to target. Ubuntu had a lot of promise until the last few years where it's been shifted to target every device *except* desktops. Not to mention the weird shit they've been pushing like ads in the OS.

    I'd really like to see something to the effect of a Linux Gaming Standard, where as long as certain structural conditions are met within any given distro, developers could simply target those standards and build their rpm/deb packages and not have to worry about supporting Ubuntu specifically. I'm talking things like specific libraries and drivers that need to be present for "Linux Gaming Standard" certification, so that people aren't having to worry about hunting down the right repo by blindly copy/pasting some forum suggestion for someone else into their terminal hoping to make magic happen.

    1. Re:It has to start somewhere by steveha · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Linux still needs a baseline distro for developers to target.

      I think Linux has one now; it's called SteamOS. I've said this before:

      http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=4252825&cid=44926779

      John Carmack has talked, in the past, about the insane difficulty of packaging games for Linux. There are so many distros out there. Well, SteamOS solves that problem.

      I predict that game developers who support SteamOS will not accept bug reports filed against any other distro; instead they will tell the user "it runs fine on SteamOS, so tell your distro it needs to get compatible."

      I am fine with the above, as long as SteamOS is free and open. Well, it is. So I think this is the best possible news for Linux gaming.

      --
      lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
  6. Wine is not an emulator by tepples · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Sure Linux has Wine support but I would prefer to have native support instead.

    Wine is not an emulator but a reimplementation of the Win32 API. So long as the developer of a video game or other application tests its product on Wine, it's just another toolkit, just as GTK+ and Qt and SDL are toolkits. In such a case, I don't see how an app running in Wine is any less "native" than, say, a Qt app running on a GTK+-based distribution. If you complain instead that not enough developers and publishers of games designed for Windows care about Wine compatibility, I can agree with that complaint though. Is that what you're trying to say?

    1. Re:Wine is not an emulator by tepples · · Score: 4, Insightful

      To keep this debate from collapsing into one of definitions, I'll offer some. In the retro-gaming community, an "emulator" simulates the operation of an entire computer, using an interpreter or dynamic recompiler to simulate the CPU. This emulator imposes a substantial performance penalty. For example, DOSBox and Bochs are emulators. Wine, on the other hand, is just a set of libraries that run on your existing machine; the application's code runs natively. VirtualBox and VMware are somewhere in the middle as "virtual machine monitors", which execute unprivileged code directly and recompile privileged code into the same instruction set but without use of privileged instructions.

      Let me put it another way: If you think Wine is an emulator, then Qt is an emulator too if I install it on a GTK+ based distribution like Ubuntu or Xubuntu, and GTK+ is an emulator if I install it on Kubuntu.

    2. Re:Wine is not an emulator by KiloByte · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Wine: an emulator of the win32 API+ABI on POSIX+X.
      WinXP/Vista/7/8: an emulator of the win32 API+ABI on NT.

      Neither is native in this sense.

      --
      The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
    3. Re:Wine is not an emulator by tepples · · Score: 3, Informative

      If you use that definition, then nothing on Linux can be native because Linux is a UNIX emulator.

  7. Re:Apple doesn't take gaming on computers seriousl by Guspaz · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Annoyingly, you'd be able to use discrete graphics cards with any modern Mac if Apple would stop refusing to license thunderbolt PCIe bays. Benchmarks (via enthusiasts hacking together solutions) show that even a Macbook Air can provide good gaming performance (5x or more the framerate of the iGPU) when connected to a high-end graphics card via Thunderbolt (even on the internal display). Since Apple refuses to license them, however, you're restricted to doing it under bootcamp with expensive enterprise-targeted enclosures.

    In other words, there is no technical reason why you couldn't simply plug an external discrete GPU into any Mac and instantly get massively improved gaming performance. Apple is actively blocking such things.

  8. Not surprising if you state Macs aren't supported by Volguus+Zildrohar · · Score: 5, Informative

    On the Maia website, for system requirements:

    OS: LINUX 64, WINDOWS. MAC SUPPORT COMING SOON.

    --
    When confronted with one problem, some think "I'll use recursion". Now they are confronted with one problem.
  9. Re:*Sure* it is. by sabri · · Score: 3, Funny

    I hope this won't happen:

    make[2]: Entering directory `/call-of-duty/src'
    gcc -Wall -Werror -ggdb -g -O2 -lshoot-em-up -o cod cod.o
    cod.o: In function `kill_em_all':
    /call-of-duty/cod.c:59: undefined reference to `shoot'
    make[2]: *** [cod] Error 1
    make[2]: Leaving directory `/cod/src'
    make[1]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1
    make[1]: Leaving directory `/cod'
    make: *** [all] Error 2
    root@gamer:~/#

    :)

    --
    I'm not a complete idiot... Some parts are missing.
  10. Re: *Sure* it is. by aliquis · · Score: 4, Funny

    Yeah, an additional 40 FPS for everyone running Gentoo .. ;D

  11. Re:I'll be ecstatic! by interkin3tic · · Score: 5, Funny
    Why? Did you look at those numbers?

    Puppy Games
    89% Windows
    6% Mac OSX
    5% Linux

    I have more good news for you. In a three way dunk competition between you, Kobe Bryant, and me, you have a good shot at coming in second!!!

  12. Re:Apple doesn't take gaming on computers seriousl by Guspaz · · Score: 4, Informative

    Here's one set of benchmarks from a guy who did it using a rather indirect way involving a thunderbolt-to-expresscard adapter combined with an expresscard-to-pcie adapter:

    http://forum.techinferno.com/d...

    And here's a guy who did it more directly using a thunderbolt-to-pcie adapter:

    http://forum.techinferno.com/d...

    You can see the benchmarks there for yourself. External monitor benchmarks are higher, probably because of the extra copying that has to go on to use the internal monitor. As an example, the first guy on an 11" 2013 macbook air got 69 FPS running Bioshock Infinite on max settings at 1366x768 (versus 15 FPS on the stock iGPU), and the second guy reported running Battlefield 3 on "Ultra" quality at 40FPS at 1920x1080.

    Is there a big performance hit from doing all this, including using a dual-core ultrabook-class CPU? Sure, but it's hard to argue that the results aren't playable. It certainly proves the concept, and a properly supported solution at an affordable price could make one hell of an improvement to a notebook docking solution. Having the portability of an ultrabook, but docking it at home to your home monitor/speakers/mouse/keyboard/storage/network/etc? That'd be pretty nice. For many people, it might obviate the need to have both a desktop for gaming and a notebook for portability.

  13. Re:I'll be ecstatic! by PopeRatzo · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'll become a gamer again if this happens. Just the idea of this makes me incredibly happy.

    Linux is already the #2 gaming platform.

    Don't wait to be happy.

    SteamOS will be available for download very soon, and then you're going to see a lot start to happen. I'm already collecting components for my SteamBox. No, it's not going to be in the "living room" because playing games in the living room is for children. I play games at a desk with a captain's chair like God intended.

    Plus, my wife won't let me connect my gaming computer to the big TV. You know how it goes, "happy wife, happy life". Anyway, once I get my Oculus Rift I won't need that big TV. It's easier to play in a room by myself because then nobody can see me making funny faces and sticking my tongue out with drool on my chin while I'm running and jumping through Steelport in nothing but a tattoos, a cowboy hat and high heels.

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.