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Valve Sponsors Work To Greatly Speed-Up Linux OpenGL Game Load Times
An anonymous reader writes "Valve Software has sponsored some interesting improvements developed by LunarG for the Mesa OpenGL library on Linux for deferred and threaded GLSL shader compilation. What these changes mean for users of the open-source Linux graphics drivers when running their favorite games is that OpenGL games now load a lot faster. As an example, the time from starting Dota 2 until the time actually being within the game is reduced by about 20 seconds on an Intel system. While Direct3D has offered similar functionality for a while, OpenGL has not, which has given it a bad reputation with regard to game load times until all shaders are compiled and cached — fortunately it's now addressed for OpenGL if using the Mesa Linux graphics drivers on a supported game."
So Linux sucks because anyone can improve it in the areas where they feel it is needed? Yeah, that does suck. Booo, Linux.
Pretty good is actually pretty bad.
If nobody is willing to develop a certain feature, then maybe there isn't a real demand for it.
Pretty good is actually pretty bad.
I doubt people are using Windows because of the deferred and threaded GLSL shader compilation. I think it has more to do with the fact games are barely available for Linux at all. And that also has little do with how shaders are precompiled I think.
This feature just shaves off a few seconds during load time. That's great of course, but by no means a killer feature that previously has been a real problem for anyone. That's why the feature is late to the party and it is a gaming company who comes up with the patch, as they want their games to load faster. Makes sense, right? In no way I see how this makes Linux look bad.
Pretty good is actually pretty bad.
How is it Linux fault that Microsoft doesn't provide Office or Adobe doesn't provide Photoshop for it?
Pretty good is actually pretty bad.
So hurray to Valve for fixing this and hurray to Linux for letting them, right?
Pretty good is actually pretty bad.
Well, there's no demand for this because there's a relatively convenient alternative. In this case, the alternative is Windows and DirectX. It doesn't really say a lot for Linux if this is what people are doing.
Yes, exactly right. 3D gaming isn't some half-dead community with no revenue stream on other platforms. Hell, other platforms were created for gaming due to demand (From Atari to PS4), which has been going on for decades.
In the meantime, the Linux community sat on the sidelines and assumed what everyone really wanted in any new distro...a new version of GNOME or KDE to keep other more "important" debates alive.
While I can understand an efficiency within demand, it's rather odd that Linux still looks at 3D gaming like it's a 20-megapixel camera in a cell phone, when we in fact have 20-megapixel cameras in cell phones these days...
Kinda, yeah. What we're seeing now is the breaking of the chicken-and-egg problem of gaming on Linux. Up until very recently, virtually no developers bothered developing games for Linux, because no-one does gaming in Linux. No-one ran Linux for gaming, because there were very few games for Linux (and the drivers were a pain).
Up until recently, Linux had merely taken over the world when it came to servers and mobile (Android). Now it's being given a real shot at gaming.
The problem with OpenGL isn't speed or load times. Microsoft made directx so 3D programming in windows would be easier. It's just like C# or VBA. They made it much easier to use, and therefore much cheaper to hire for. If you're hiring people to write a new 3D engine using OpenGL you need people at the top of their field... If you're hiring for DirectX there are dozens of local tech colleges filled with mediocre talent that will fit the bill. Now, you could argue that you should be getting top talent anyways, but that's why you don't run a major game producers.
OpenGL. Just like WiiU, Android, iOS, and every other platform that isn't Microsoft.
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