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Thanks To Valve, More Than 1,500 Games Are Now On Linux

Posted by timothy on from the snowball-rolling dept.

An anonymous reader writes: The Steam Store crossed the threshold this morning of having 1,500 games natively available for Linux. Timberman, a 0.99$ video game was the 1,500th title, but while there are a lot of indie games available for Linux, in the past three years have been a number of high profile AAA Linux games too. What games (old or new, free or paid) would you like to see available for Linux systems?

168 of 281 comments (clear)

  1. 99% shit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    99% of these games are shit - but so is 99% of everything

    1. Re:99% shit by greenfruitsalad · · Score: 1

      what he said. 1500 games and i still have to have a volume for MS Gameloader.

    2. Re:99% shit by JohnboyHolmes · · Score: 1

      So are 99% of unreferenced statistics, including this one.

      --
      I stopped thinking I was unique when I found out everyone else was to. So does that make me the average user???
    3. Re:99% shit by nnull · · Score: 1

      Like? I have Wargames, Shadow of Mordor, Civ 5....

    4. Re:99% shit by Talderas · · Score: 1

      That accounts for 0.2% of the Linux library. Name another 12 more and you'll be at 1%. Name 8 more on top of that and you'll account for rounding up/down.

      --
      "Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
  2. Open world city by jones_supa · · Score: 4, Interesting

    What games (old or new, free or paid) would you like to see available for Linux systems?

    This is kind of obvious answer...but some big open world "dicking around in a city" game like Grand Theft Auto, Saints Row or Sleeping Dogs would be nice to see.

    1. Re:Open world city by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Try Tux Racer

    2. Re:Open world city by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Saints Row IV (and other SR games, I hear) is coming to linux: http://store.steampowered.com/app/206420

    3. Re:Open world city by revford · · Score: 4, Informative

      Saints Row IV is coming to Linux later this year. http://store.steampowered.com/...

    4. Re:Open world city by jones_supa · · Score: 1

      Sweet.

    5. Re:Open world city by jandrese · · Score: 1

      GTAV apparently runs under Wine. It should be pointed out that several of the Linux games on Steam are just wine wrappers around the Windows version. Sometimes they're incredibly shoddy too. Eador has a Linux version, but it is one of those aforementioned Wine ports and it has badly broken graphics. It's pretty much unplayable yet it still counts as one of the titles. Thankfully this is rare, most of the Wine titles work and are transparent to the end user.

      --

      I read the internet for the articles.
    6. Re:Open world city by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Super Tux Kart is really shaping up very well these days. After they get network support into maturity, a possible next step could be larger open world style gameplay.

    7. Re:Open world city by hairyfeet · · Score: 1

      But how big of a frame hit do you take for using Wine? How big of a graphical hit? Does Wine support DX11 completely yet, or is it still stuck on DX9?

      It would be nice if Wine could easily replace Windows, especially now that Windows is becoming spyware, but last time I tried it it just wasn't a good experience on anything really graphically intensive. Sure if you only want to play something like WoW or the Sims? It'll work fine, but for heavy graphics games? Not so much.

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
    8. Re:Open world city by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The overhead of Wine is not a constant that can be easily generalized across all software.

      In principle there is no reason why Wine should be any slower than native Windows because it's just re-implementing the same API interfaces that Win32 provides but backed by Linux system calls, the X11 protocol, GLX, etc rather than Windows NT system calls, GDI, DirectX driver interface, etc.

      In practice the implementations of those APIs will of course differ between Wine and Windows, so any given function may be faster, slower or the same speed. The speed and reliability relative to Windows depends entirely on which API functions the application is using and how they are being used. Some titles on some systems can actually end up performing faster on Wine, though in the case of games that might be because missing features in the DirectX-to-OpenGL interface cause the engine to fall back to simpler techniques that are less taxing for the CPU and/or GPU, giving faster rendering but inferior quality or effects. (e.g. falling back on older versions of DirectX, as you said.)

      In practice the major problem with Wine is that it is chasing a moving target, attempting to re-implement an API that was never intended to be portable and one that is constantly having new features added to it.

    9. Re:Open world city by GNious · · Score: 1

      I've seen reports in the past that games have run faster (which doesn't equate to better) under Linux+Wine compared to Windows. No idea if this is still the case.

    10. Re:Open world city by wezelboy · · Score: 1

      If GTA V were available on Linux, I would have no reason to use Windows.

    11. Re:Open world city by hitchhacker · · Score: 1

      TuxRacer VR running on the Oculus Rift. :)

    12. Re:Open world city by jandrese · · Score: 1

      I've not noticed Wine games performing especially bad. If they are a few FPS slower or faster it is not noticeable to me. Wine isn't a proper emulation system, it's really more like a re-implementation of the Windows ABI, theoretically it should run at nearly the same speed.

      --

      I read the internet for the articles.
  3. Minesweeper by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Duh!

  4. DirectX by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    DirectX is the only thing i need a linux port of then i can get rid of windows completely and keep playing my dumb games i like to play.

    I am even willing to pay Operating System prices for a directX that runs on linux.

    1. Re:DirectX by jones_supa · · Score: 1

      That's nearly impossible. DirectX is very closed, proprietary world, and deeply tied to the Windows architecture. It's much more practical to wish for better DirectX support in Wine, or wish for more games to use OpenGL or Vulkan.

    2. Re:DirectX by Gr8Apes · · Score: 1

      I think that is partly due to marketing, partly due to not everyone deciding that OpenGL was worth the effort to improve for whatever reason, but mostly I suspect because OpenGL was "open" at a time video card makers wanted to be closed.

      --
      The cesspool just got a check and balance.
    3. Re:DirectX by gyroheli · · Score: 1

      That's a bit flawed, you could say the same thing about Linux and Windows, and their market share. Then you look at smartphones and look at their share and Linux + OpenGL ES are the majority there. Both Cryengine and UE4 support OpenGL, if they can make their rather demanding engines work with OpenGL i think a lot of AAA games could follow suite. Is it worth the cost though? Xbox probably has a similar API as Directx, it is a lot easier to use something you already than to use something new. So if you are releasing for Xbox and PC it makes sense to target the 90%+ share API that you already know. Anyways OpenGL did a lot of things wrong, explicit uniform locations isn't a feature until some version of OpenGL 4.0, it doesn't even add any functionality that would improve performance or new features. It is really there to make code simpler, so you don't have to queue the shader for the location of a variable and then store it somewhere. There's a bunch of features like that that Directx has had for a rather long time and OpenGL only recently added. Of course OpenGL versions are slow to adopt and GPUs drop support. I work on a little engine of mine and i need really only the features of the level of OpenGL 2.1, that would support virtually all the GPUs out there but that would mean having to write shaders in whatever version of GLSL that OpenGL had. It's a giant mess and making new versions of OpenGL at the frequency Khronos is doing it at isn't helping. It's just making it that much harder for driver developers to adopt. Mac OS X is still running a couple versions behind iirc.

    4. Re:DirectX by Trongy · · Score: 2

      There's even more Mac games than Linux games on steam and Macs don't have DirectX either.
      For games that require leading edge graphics I would tend to agree that deviating from DirectX isn't commercially acceptable. However most games these days are ported from the consoles which have much less powerful GPUs than a typical gaming PC.

      It's not OpenGL per se that's the problem, it's the quality of the OpenGL drivers under Linux. Having decent OpenGL drivers is a lower priority than good DirectX drivers for NVidia and AMD. Intel does a good job, but they are not the gamer's choice.

    5. Re:DirectX by walshy007 · · Score: 1

      actually native directx on linux is quite feasible, especially with the way the graphics stack has been going in linux

      All you need is the proper state tracker in gallium. Which has been around for a while, granted it's likely nowhere near bug free. But it is certainly native directx to the hardware rather than translation layers to a different api like wine is.

    6. Re:DirectX by interval1066 · · Score: 1

      If it was any good

      YOU have no idea what your talking about. OpenGL is excellent, and is used by many games and commercial products (think cad). I have owned more than one game that gave me opengl as a gfx option, and I've seen it do some amazing things.Its not widely adopted by major players because those players have deals with MicroSoft, who throw in deals and free tools and support to those guys. That certainly DOES NOT make DirectX "better".

      --
      Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
    7. Re:DirectX by gyroheli · · Score: 1

      The state of GLSL is really really really bad. In that regard Directx is better. No idea who thought it was a good idea to have to pass the source of shaders nor that they haven't implemented an alternative yet to this day. They did provide some way of getting the shader binary back but is completely useless as it makes no guarantee that the binary retrieved will be usable by the GPU, such as after driver updates. The binary also isn't compatiable across GPU brands etc etc. Making it another bloated useless feature. My laptop with an AMD gpu takes upwards of a minute to compile the GLSL shaders, there aren't even that many. Some convenience features like explicit uniform location isn't core until OpenGL 4.3. This is a feature Directx has had since it first introduced HLSL (iirc). Factor a bunch of things in and even if the next version of OpenGL included support for SPIR-V it'd be too little too late. Vulkan is around the corner and drivers for that will probably appear much more quickly and be compatibility with more computers than a new version of OpenGL.

    8. Re:DirectX by Mirddes · · Score: 1

      i had issues with directx in farcry on my nvidia 6600 256MB under windows XP sp2. textures were all black , shaders were broken, trees sprouting out of black hills etc. worked fine under opengl

  5. Natively? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I thought most of the games are re-compiled using Wine?

    I guess that's technically "native", but...

    1. Re:Natively? by squiggleslash · · Score: 1

      Well, possibly, but honestly that doesn't matter. What matters to users of GNU/Linux distributions is that the games can be downloaded and will work without the need to fiddle with other software (such as an independently installed version of Wine), without risk that only half of it works because the rest isn't supported by Wine, etc.

      If the developers have used a compatibility layer to make it easier, good for them. That helped them save them and makes it more likely they'll port their games in future. It's infinitely better than either a list of hacks needed to make it run under an independently installed copy of Wine, or no support at all.

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
  6. Re:Blizard Games by binarylarry · · Score: 3, Informative

    They run really well on Wine.

    --
    Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
  7. Those I play by leegaard · · Score: 4, Informative

    The games I play - and the only reason I am still on windows:
    -Everything Blizzard makes (WoW, Diablo, Starcraft, Hearthstone, Heroes of the storm and Overwatch when it becomes available.
    -Battlefield (and derivatives, including Star Wars Battelfront)

    Blizzard should be able to do something since they already have support for OSX.
    EA could be a bigger problem.

    I spend a lot of time in steam games - and welcome all they have done for gaming on Linux. I loath wrappers though as they have a tendency to cost on perfomance an example is Civilization V on Linux is painful compared to windows on trhe same machine.

    1. Re:Those I play by phantomfive · · Score: 5, Funny

      EA could be a bigger problem.

      Yeah, EA has problems making their titles work right on Windows.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    2. Re:Those I play by Rob+Bos · · Score: 2

      I haven't had any problems with WoW for the best part of a decade in WINE, if you need a data point. I don't even remember whatever hacks I needed to get it working. Except that I run it in its own desktop session to simplify fullscreen mode. Similarly Diablo and Starcraft. I ran HotS a few times, seemed to work well enough. No idea about Hearthstone.

    3. Re:Those I play by Fweeky · · Score: 1

      I loath wrappers though as they have a tendency to cost on perfomance an example is Civilization V on Linux is painful compared to windows on trhe same machine.

      What makes you think this is the fault of the wrapper rather than just drivers being crap?

    4. Re:Those I play by chainsaw1 · · Score: 1

      I think the right person could go a long way by reminding developers that w/ linux they could include the OS with the game to create a stable environment free of configuration differences (back to the days of including DOS / MacOS 2.x with the game on a disk). This should go a long way to reducing delivery day problems (assuming all required drivers are available), and would make cheating harder as the OS can be check-summed and read-onlyalong with the game files.

      The downside is most companies deliver half assed software dependent on updates, and the updates would now need to include OS updates in addition to the game. Plus, if game developers all used different OS's, that means a crap-ton of rebooting just to play a different game.

      --
      - Sig
  8. FreeBSD by unixisc · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Dear Valve

    Can you work w/ the FreeBSD project to make this available on the BSDs as well? I'd love to play Civ V on this laptop running PC-BSD

    1. Re:FreeBSD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      PC-BSD provides binary compatibility with 32bit Linux software. Chapter 10 of FreeBSD online handbook describes it better, and PC-BSD points to that same resource on their wiki, along with adding that Linux software should just work out of the box. Performance should be about the same as on Linux. So - did you try to install the Linux version?

    2. Re:FreeBSD by unixisc · · Score: 1

      Haven't figured how to install Linux software on PC-BSD. They did have something online on how to run Steam under WINE, but not under Linux.

    3. Re: FreeBSD by unixisc · · Score: 1

      She's busy playing Minuet OS based games

    4. Re: FreeBSD by Pseudonym · · Score: 1

      Linux gaming is a niche, why would anyone care about BSD gaming? Niche of a niche.

      You'd be surprised at the number of games that have been ported to Orbis OS, which is a fork of FreeBSD.

      --
      sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
  9. civ by johnh677 · · Score: 1

    Civilization

    1. Re:civ by godrik · · Score: 3, Informative

      You do know that civilization V runs on Linux, don't you? And provided you have a discrete graphics cards, it runs pretty well.

    2. Re: civ by johnh677 · · Score: 1

      Wow. I am happy to learn that. Thanks. I had given up on it ever happening at about civ III. And just never thought to look.

    3. Re:civ by mukinrestak · · Score: 1

      Eh, a lot of us really dislike the direction Civ 5 took vs the previous ones. Gimme Civ 4 with Fall from Heaven 2 and I'll be a lot more enthused.

    4. Re:civ by unixisc · · Score: 1

      Except that Civ4 doesn't run on Linux. I like it, but the landscape is a bit too strange. I'd try Civ 5 - since they've splintered Christianity into 3. One idea they should try should be marry every nation to a religion - say Russia Eastern Orthodox, Italy Catholic, Britain Protestant, China Taoist and so on

    5. Re: civ by r1348 · · Score: 1

      And so is Beyond Earth.

    6. Re:civ by jandrese · · Score: 1

      News to me since I was playing Civ 5 on Linux late into the night last night. It's right there on Steam.

      Seriously, if you use steam and have a Linux machine, go ahead and install Steam on the Linux box. You might be surprised how many games show up in the list when you start it up. Stuff you might never expect like Bioshock Infinite for example.

      --

      I read the internet for the articles.
  10. Popular games by godrik · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Actually, I think the most important games to get to run on Linux are games that are popular with the general gaming population. Videos games are parts of 21st century general culture. Being able to access (play) them would be a good step forward.

    Of course, I'd love some weirder, less common games to be available as well.

  11. Re:Blizard Games by Calydor · · Score: 1

    "natively available"

    I know Wine Is Not an Emulator, but it does tend to more or less behave as one when you need it to run a game intended for a different platform.

    --
    -=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
  12. I'd like to see by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    HL2 Episode 3 :-)

  13. Amazing! by SirJorgelOfBorgel · · Score: 1

    Thanks to Valve! Absolutely no game developers involved at all!

  14. Portal 2 would be nice by DivineKnight · · Score: 1

    Portal 2 would be nice, but that's more of an ATI/AMD issue where I am currently standing...http://imgur.com/a/2Nd9h

    1. Re:Portal 2 would be nice by Narcocide · · Score: 1

      Works amazingly well for me on Linux, even with a rather old NVidia card, FYI.

    2. Re:Portal 2 would be nice by joaommp · · Score: 1

      Works perfectly for me with a Radeon R7-260X.

      --
      Onda Technology Institute
    3. Re:Portal 2 would be nice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Portal 2 was a bit of a letdown. Fancier graphics, but the level design went from having multiple ways of solving each puzzle to figuring out how the level designers intended for you to solve the puzzle.
      In the developer commentary of Portal 1 they say that in some instances the game testers sometimes found ways to sidestep most of the level. Those ways were left in if they were clever enough to not be obvious to the average player.
      No such thing in Portal 2.

      As a result Portal 1 has replayability while Portal 2 does not have that.

    4. Re:Portal 2 would be nice by DivineKnight · · Score: 1

      And mine would be a "01:00.0 Display controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Venus PRO [Radeon HD 8850M] (rev ff)".

  15. Windows 10 Push by Drunken_Piper · · Score: 1

    Microsoft is really pushing me to game elsewhere. I read so often the only reason people are running Windows is the games. With the help from Steam and the push from Microsoft I think we will see a large jump in Linux gaming.

  16. Star Wars Battlefront by MrKaos · · Score: 1

    Just too much fun. Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeze!!!

    --
    My ism, it's full of beliefs.
  17. Correction by bananaquackmoo · · Score: 2

    Thanks to Valve, GoG, and Humble Bundle.

    1. Re:Correction by bananaquackmoo · · Score: 1

      Also thanks to Kickstarter backers and various third party game engines.

  18. Re: hardly something to celebrate by t1oracle · · Score: 1

    Except the publishers can distribute their games outside of Steam, and now that they have a Linux port they're more likely to keep supporting it.

  19. Re:hardly something to celebrate by Gaygirlie · · Score: 1

    More like thanks to Valve, 1500 games are locked up inside a walled garden distribution service, available for as long as a faceless corporation wants to allow users to access them.

    It seems you have not heard that there are plenty of DRM-free games on Steam. Steam does *not* require the publishers to apply any form of DRM to your products, they make that decision by themselves.

  20. World of Warcraft, please. by Narcocide · · Score: 2

    No more lame excuses, Blizzard.

    1. Re:World of Warcraft, please. by cwsumner · · Score: 1

      More like World of Waste Your Time.

      But isn't that the very definition of a game? 8-)

  21. Not good enough by Jethro · · Score: 2

    I recently moved from console gaming to PC gaming. And I really, really wanted to move to SteamOS because I do NOT want to deal with Windows when I want to simply sprawl out on the sofa and play a game.

    And I waited ever since they announced the thing to see how it does. The thing is, they're never getting those big titles to work natively on Linux. Small games? Sure. "Indy" games? Maybe. But the big ones? No way.

    I consider myself a casual gamer (if anything). I play those games where you can get immersed for a few months. I don't play the little and indy games. And they will /never/ get a Skyrim ported to Linux. Or Fallout 4, or Mass Effect, or Assassin's Creed. Furthermore, there's a very spotty record of EA games showing up on Steam to begin with - and why would they when they have their own service?

    SteamOS (and other Linux, by extension) have a lot of games now, but they're mostly not very good ones, and not the big titles. If that's what you're into then that's great, but it's no competition at all to Windows or Playstation/XBOX.

    And yeah I know there's in-house streaming, but that defeats the point of using SteamOS in the first place.

    --


    In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is kinky.
    1. Re:Not good enough by Gaygirlie · · Score: 1

      And I really, really wanted to move to SteamOS because I do NOT want to deal with Windows when I want to simply sprawl out on the sofa and play a game.

      Couldn't you just set up Steam to automatically start up in Big Screen - mode when you boot up the system? It wouldn't really matter even if the underlying OS was Windows, then.

    2. Re:Not good enough by Jethro · · Score: 1

      I have done just that. And it actually works a lot of the time. But I still have to deal with drivers and updates and Windows weirdness. And I have to use Steam to start Origin games. And sometimes Steam takes too long to start and other things get in the way and stay on the screen in FRONT of Big Picture mode. And no matter what I do, I still need to have a keyboard and mouse in the living room, which annoys me greatly.

      --


      In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is kinky.
    3. Re:Not good enough by Gaygirlie · · Score: 1

      I have done just that. And it actually works a lot of the time. But I still have to deal with drivers and updates and Windows weirdness. And I have to use Steam to start Origin games. And sometimes Steam takes too long to start and other things get in the way and stay on the screen in FRONT of Big Picture mode. And no matter what I do, I still need to have a keyboard and mouse in the living room, which annoys me greatly.

      I see. Well, nothing Valve can do about Origin as the thing lies entirely on EA's shoulders, but I can understand your frustration with that. I suppose UPlay isn't any better. But do you really need a keyboard and mouse? There are plenty of those small, reduced-size thingamabobs with an integrated touchpad, I would imagine those would be a much more comfortable solution for when you want to do things from the couch.

      I don't use Steam in Big Picture - mode nor do I play from the couch as I can't stand gamepads as a control - method, but I am still curious about the issues and wouldn't mind hearing if you've found any workarounds or such to things you've encountered.

    4. Re:Not good enough by Jethro · · Score: 1

      The Witcher 3 isn't available for SteamOS, so whether it's big or not is a moot point.

      --


      In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is kinky.
    5. Re:Not good enough by Jethro · · Score: 1

      Yeah, but that's kind of the point - I need to have Steam running, and Origin running, and if I ever get a Ubisoft game I'll need THAT running, too...

      I have a small keyboard and small mouse (I prefer that to an integrated touchpad). Doesn't matter if they're small, they're still here (; The real deal with that is mods and mod management. Mods were one of the big considerations about moving to PC so hell if I'm not going to use them!

      I use a controller because it's really, really uncomfortable to use a keyboard+mouse in the living room (: I tried all kinds of different solutions for several months until I settled on just using the controller.

      I knew this would be a sacrifice, but I was willing to live with it. Better than the nonsense subscription crap consoles started pulling...

      --


      In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is kinky.
    6. Re:Not good enough by Jethro · · Score: 1

      I actually hate labels and kind of regret using that term, but I wanted to provide some context.

      I /am/ a consumer of games. I pay for them, and I buy hardware to play them. When I say I'm a "casual" gamer I mean I don't go out there and buy every game ever made. They DO make a lot of games I like, an enjoy. I just don't want to pay $60 (or $40, or $30, or $20, or $15) for a game I'll only enjoy for like a day or two.

      My friends who consider themselves "serious" gamers will just buy EVERY game. Whenever there's a Steam sale they go nuts. Not me. I'll happily pay $60 for a Skyrim or a Mass Effect or an Assassin's Creed - games I can play for weeks or months and have lots of replay value. And what I'm saying is that games like that are not showing up for SteamOS. I'm saying I love the idea of SteamOS and really, really wanted to use it and have been following it's development (albeit with extreme doubts) for years. It's just not something I can use for my gaming needs.

      I'm not saying Valve need to cater to me. I'm just providing my perspective.

      --


      In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is kinky.
    7. Re:Not good enough by Jethro · · Score: 1

      There's actually no official announcement for it.

      --


      In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is kinky.
    8. Re:Not good enough by chipschap · · Score: 2

      All my text games run on Linux. What more can anyone ask? Text mode Tetris, boggle, minesweeper, space invaders .... a rich environment. And that's not even mentioning my Infocom games.

    9. Re:Not good enough by Jethro · · Score: 1

      You obviously do not understand how it works. I never said they they can just build an app to PORT all of their games, the app would allow them to have their own "store" aka Origin.

      They'd still have to port their games to SteamOS. And they won't. Again, zero incentive. Call it a chicken-and-egg thing if you want.

      --


      In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is kinky.
    10. Re:Not good enough by Jethro · · Score: 1

      I can't find this official announcement (just some references to it happening), but for the sake of argument lets assume it's there and easy to find. All this does is raise MORE issues.

      First, this is not the first time we've heard a Linux version is coming (even officially) only to have it never happen.

      Second, even when they do happen, they show up a year (or more!) later than any other version, and still cost the full-price even though they're half-price on all other platforms by now.

      So yeah, not helping.

      --


      In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is kinky.
    11. Re:Not good enough by Kjella · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Not that I'm going to really dispute anything you said, but never is a very long time. There's a huge section of the smartphone, tablet and console gaming market that doesn't and won't run DirectX, so even ignoring Steam and the PC there's a solid future for OpenGL. And with Vulkan doing significantly less there's hope that Linux support in general and open source support in particular will be much better. I mean, Valve has already written an open source driver for Intel, it took two developers two weeks and is ~27 kLoC - though I assume they generously copied bits and pieces from the mesa driver. The GLSL to SPIR-V compilation comes on top but it's generic and already written, it's only the SPIR-V to target that is unique for each card. Android has already picked it as their next-gen API, that's certainly not a bad ally.

      If Vulkan can become a first party rendering target for Source 2, Unity, Unreal Engine 4 and CryENGINE which I assume they will since they don't want to lose the smartphone/tablet business, the hurdle to produce an AAA game on Linux is that much lower. Maybe the bar still won't be low enough, but lower than it is today. Particularly if Valve paves the way with a good first party title or two, if a year from now Half-Life 3 launches with same day Linux support a lot could change in the next few years. Then again, it might also be just wishful thinking...

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    12. Re:Not good enough by Jethro · · Score: 1

      I don't think they believe they'll make more money than they'll have to invest in it.

      --


      In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is kinky.
    13. Re:Not good enough by Jethro · · Score: 1

      Same with PC games in general

      The difference is that these games will come out for Windows, which I can easily install on my gaming computer, well before they come out for SteamOS (if at all). And they'll want $60 for that version while the Windows version is $30.

      Look, I know that if they set up a build chain, they can do rollouts for Linux with minimal effort. But I don't think they will do that.

      --


      In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is kinky.
    14. Re:Not good enough by Jethro · · Score: 1

      It seems to me like you have no idea of how things actually are right now but you really wanted to hate. Please, stop, you're hurting yourself.

      Oh, well, I guess you've changed my life, and magically all the games I actually do play are now suddenly available on SteamOS, rather than... wait, let me count... zero of them.

      Again, I am not, and never did say that nothing will be available on SteamOS. I'm saying a tiny fraction of AAA games will be. I'm saying there are entire studios that have no reason to support SteamOS. I'm saying that SteamOS is not right for me.

      Look, if I'm wrong and SteamOS takes off? I can always install SteamOS on my gaming machine. Hell, I'd love to be wrong about this. But it's nowhere near there yet. If I installed SteamOS on my machine right now I would literally not be able to play any of the games I play on a regular basis right now. None. And not just the EA ones. And that will be true in 6 months, and probably in a year, and after that there'll still be games I want to play, but can't.

      --


      In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is kinky.
    15. Re:Not good enough by mrchaotica · · Score: 1

      Console CPUs are using custom instruction sets? I assumed they were using a regular AMD APU architecture, just with custom numbers of execution units.

      --

      "[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz

    16. Re:Not good enough by tepples · · Score: 1

      There's a huge section of the smartphone, tablet and console gaming market that doesn't and won't run DirectX

      Smartphone and tablet games are touch-controlled. Because touch is so different from keyboard or gamepad control, you might as well write a completely separate game with a separate engine for mobile platforms. And for games released on both PC and a console, DirectX still runs on Xbox One; in fact the X in Xbox stands for DirectX.

    17. Re:Not good enough by tepples · · Score: 1

      Wii U uses four customized PowerPC G3 cores and a Radeon-derived GPU that has presumably also been customized.

    18. Re:Not good enough by tepples · · Score: 1

      Text mode Tetris

      I wonder how long until The Tetris Company uses its 2012 legal victory over Xio Software to go after Free Software Foundation for including M-x tetris in Emacs. Tetris co-founder Alexey Pajitnov is an out enemy of free software.

    19. Re:Not good enough by Jethro · · Score: 1

      It's not about whether it works or not, it's about them being here at all (:

      --


      In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is kinky.
    20. Re:Not good enough by tlhIngan · · Score: 1

      I recently moved from console gaming to PC gaming. And I really, really wanted to move to SteamOS because I do NOT want to deal with Windows when I want to simply sprawl out on the sofa and play a game.

      And I waited ever since they announced the thing to see how it does. The thing is, they're never getting those big titles to work natively on Linux. Small games? Sure. "Indy" games? Maybe. But the big ones? No way.

      I consider myself a casual gamer (if anything). I play those games where you can get immersed for a few months. I don't play the little and indy games. And they will /never/ get a Skyrim ported to Linux. Or Fallout 4, or Mass Effect, or Assassin's Creed. Furthermore, there's a very spotty record of EA games showing up on Steam to begin with - and why would they when they have their own service?

      SteamOS (and other Linux, by extension) have a lot of games now, but they're mostly not very good ones, and not the big titles. If that's what you're into then that's great, but it's no competition at all to Windows or Playstation/XBOX.

      The problem is, PC gaming is mostly indie games now. The big AAA games rarely make it to the PC. You can partly blame piracy for that - when PCs still routinely draw 90% piracy rates, the most people hope for when doing a PC port is to make back the money spent on the port. There's a few pockets of holdouts though - FPS and online games, where license keys can be verified by servers do find strong PC sales.

      All the big devs have realized this - probably perked up around the original Xbox era, and reinforced through the last-gen PS3 and Xbox360 consoles that console gaming is where the money is made. And the PC then fell by the wayside - home to terrible console ports because the PC version was effectively "do it as cheap as possible" meant to milk out a few extra bucks long after the game stopped being on store shelves.

      At the same time, indie developers rose in popularity. From the availability of development tools, easy publicity, easy distribution over the Internet, they made games. A few brilliant ones garner a bit of press and even more wannabe developers come in.

      And the tools make it easy to make it multiplatform - you supply the content, the tools supply the multiplatform runtimes. And it's no wonder at the time the biggest tool was Macromedia Flash (aka Adobe Flash). These days, they've evolved into many game engines like Unity, Unreal Engine, etc.

      In fact, it got so successful that it was hard to stick out - indie games suffer from a visibility problem, thus many developers want DRM-free - because it's better they play for free than having their game languish on some corner of the Internet, unknown.

      So yeah, you're going to get very few AAA games ported to OS X, nevermind LInux. Lots of indie games, yes, but that's because PC gaming is now about the indie, not the AAA. Few AAA titles will come to the PC, usually heavily delayed from the console releases. The exceptions would be those like Battlefield or Call of Duty, who enjoy robust online multiplayer modes, a huge fanbase, and also to inflate the numbers of sales.

      Indie games are probably split between PC and mobile - there's seems to be a lot of crossover where popular mobile games get ported to PC, and popular PC games get ported to mobile.

    21. Re:Not good enough by Jethro · · Score: 1

      Tell you what, when I can't get the next Elder Scrolls and Mass Effect games on PC, I'll buy a PS4 or whatever number it is.

      --


      In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is kinky.
    22. Re:Not good enough by Jethro · · Score: 1

      There's definitely SOME escapism in gaming, but that's also why I read and watch movies. That said, all those things are designated for evenings after I've done everything else (well, except for reading, I kind of have a reading problem).

      When I say "immersive" here I mean I've spent enough time in the game for it to be interesting. If I'm done with the game in a few hours... eh. Just not my thing. And that includes big titles. I hated God of War 3 because it was over in a few days and I had absolutely no desire to replay it. I loved the first The Force Unleashed because even though it was short-ish, it was fun to play over and over. I didn't like the second one because it was shorter and just annoying!

      I recently was pretty damn bored and confined to the house due to illness so I did try some indy games recommended by friends - friends I met while gaming, I might add, so I figured I can trust their taste. I played Lifeless Planet, which has a lot of positive reviews. And it's very pretty. But it was basically a platform-jumping game which was just annoying, and the story... the story made no sense. $20 for something I was done with in two days and never want to play again.

      I'm also playing Life is Strange. The story in that one is... so far, a bit better, but the game itself stresses me out and I can't connect to any of the characters.

      Compare that to a Skyrim. I'm still playing that thing. In fact when I moved to PC I ended up rebuying it - mods make it virtually infinitely replayable.

      I'm not just saying "no" without ever trying something. It's just not the kind of thing I like.

      --


      In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is kinky.
    23. Re:Not good enough by Jethro · · Score: 1

      And, like I said, if SteamOS gains, uh, steam, and companies start making their big games available for them, I'll happily reconsider.

      However, there are alternatives to Windows for gaming. Perhaps you've heard of consoles. And perhaps you've noticed games cost the same when available on multiple platforms.

      --


      In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is kinky.
    24. Re:Not good enough by Jethro · · Score: 1

      Ok, I'll admit that I'm probably wrong about that point.

      --


      In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is kinky.
  22. Re:Official Unreal Engine support by jones_supa · · Score: 1

    Still waiting.

    Kind of a classic Linux user comment. ;)

  23. Re:vid games are for sick kids who can't go outsid by Gaygirlie · · Score: 1

    There's nothing worth seeing or doing outdoors anyways.

  24. Game controllers by jones_supa · · Score: 1

    How's the game controller support? Can I chuck in a random gamepad or other gizmo, and expect it to work? Or do I just get weird glitches and scary messages in syslog? I see this being an important part of the puzzle.

    1. Re:Game controllers by Rob+Bos · · Score: 1

      It's probably more important to ask about vendor support for Linux, not Linux support for vendors. It's likely that a random gamepad or gizmo won't work, because the vendors aren't yet taking it very seriously. The solution here is not to buy a random gamepad or gizmo; do your research first. It may eventually happen, but we have to demand it.

    2. Re:Game controllers by jandrese · · Score: 1

      My experience is that an el random USB gamepad gets mapped as a HID when you plug it in. It seems to generally work, but since I prefer KB/Mouse I don't use it a lot. If your gamepad has unusual features (macro buttons, touchscreen, etc...) those are less likely to work, but buttons and analog sticks seem to be pretty reliable.

      --

      I read the internet for the articles.
  25. CoH2, GTA V, Don't Starve by Kjella · · Score: 1

    Those three would be a good start... but real question is "Will it play the next game my friends decide to pick up?" because I once had a decent setup for the games we played at the time. Then those changed and WINE couldn't keep up. The games I play myself, well those I control. The rest is more of a collective decision where I get a vote, not a veto.

    --
    Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    1. Re:CoH2, GTA V, Don't Starve by squiggleslash · · Score: 1

      Goes GTA V run under Wine? I was incredibly impressed by the performance of GTA IV under Wine which felt pretty much native.

      Me: I'd like the Saints Row series (well, the PC versions - I know SR-I will never be available), plus it'd be nice for someone to pick up the already made but pretty much impossible to get port of Alpha Centauri. It doesn't run under Wine (though a customized Wine existed at one point that supported it, but Wine's developers opted not to incorporate those changes), and the only places that I've seen that "sell" Alpha Centauri for GNU/Linux are always out of stock, and have a retail price in the stratosphere.

      • Slow Down Cowboy! Slashdot requires you to wait between each successful posting of a comment to allow everyone a fair chance at posting a comment. It's been 3 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment Chances are, you're behind a firewall or proxy, or clicked the Back button to accidentally reuse a form. Please try again. If the problem persists, and all other options have been tried, contact the site administrator. .

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      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
  26. Old games by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I would like to see the Loki games, like SMAC and HOMM3 (and other previously ported games, like Sacred) re-released for normal consumption (I bought a lot of Loki software, but lost all of my original Loki media in a house fire). Also, I'd like the Linux games that are released to be DRM-free and available on gog.com.
     

  27. Half Life 3 by reactor451 · · Score: 1

    Is that too much to ask for Gaben????

  28. Re:hardly something to celebrate by vux984 · · Score: 1

    To me, freedom in software is about choice - including the choice to emulate Windows, run binaries, have DOSBox, run VM's, etc

    Who has actually said you can't do that?

    The second someone says to me "But it's an open system, you can't do that", it's no longer a open system.

    You CAN do that, but the second you put proprietary software into it its not an open system anymore. If the goal is to have an open system, running closed software is self defeating.

  29. Re:Blizard Games by Blaskowicz · · Score: 2

    Blizzard is known to test its games on Wine, or so it seems. Like unofficial, untold support.

  30. Re:hardly something to celebrate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    You're forgetting, that Steam _is_ DRM.

  31. Re:hardly something to celebrate by Gaygirlie · · Score: 1

    Not any more than e.g. GOG is.

  32. Decent performance? by bradley13 · · Score: 1

    First, I'd like to see decent performance.

    I only keep Windows around for gaming, plus a couple of Adobe applications. The last game I bought over Steam, I was happy to finally be able to put on Linux. Geez.

    Crappy graphics - couldn't see a damned thing. Mouse lag of nearly a second (move the mouse, watch the mouse cursor slowly move to the new spot) - utterly unplayable. I rebooted, installed the same game on windows, it was (unfortunately) like night and day. Naive theory: No DirectX and/or crappy drivers.

    Anyway, if that experience is in any way representative, gaming on Linux has a long ways to go.

    --
    Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
    1. Re:Decent performance? by Rob+Bos · · Score: 1

      Part of the problem is a bias from the user; if Linux performance sucks for a game, it's Linux' fault; if the Windows performance sucks, it's the vendor's fault. In reality, it'll almost always be the vendor's issue, either because the video card manufacturer's drivers suck or because the game did not properly optimize.

      In either case, it's a matter of time and will to make it happen. Hopefully it does. I counsel patience and pressuring the appropriate vendors when you have the opportunity.

  33. Re: hardly something to celebrate by corychristison · · Score: 1

    I disagree.

    The goal is not to have an open system. Your goal may be, but for the vast majority it is not.

    An open system, to me, means choice, as the parent poster said. If I CHOOSE to run a walled garden game distribution software on my system, that is MY DECISION.

    There are many open alternatives to many, many softwares. Which one you choose is no business or concern of the Linux Foundation.

  34. Re:Don't Starve by Kjella · · Score: 2

    Don't Starve is a 2013 action-adventure video game with survival and roguelike elements, developed and published by the Canadian indie company Klei Entertainment. The game was initially released via Valve's Steam software for Microsoft Windows, OS X, and Linux on April 23, 2013.

    Thanks, I wasn't aware it was Linux native (gave up gaming on Linux a while ago), just saw that the WINE rating was garbage. Okay one down, two to go...

    --
    Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
  35. Steam has been great for Mac too! by Zobeid · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I can't remember ever seeing a Linux game on Steam that didn't also work on the Mac. I think if you use Valve's tool set to create Linux games, Mac compatibility is a "freebie". This has been huge for Mac gamers. Before Steam, Mac gaming was a wasteland. Now it's viable.

    1. Re:Steam has been great for Mac too! by Rob+Bos · · Score: 1

      Similar for Linux games; once you've ported to MacOS, Linux is going to be significantly cheaper, since the hard work of agnosticizing your code is done.

    2. Re:Steam has been great for Mac too! by antdude · · Score: 1

      If Mac ports exist, then where are the Linux ports like Elite: Dangerous?

      --
      Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
  36. Re: hardly something to celebrate by corychristison · · Score: 1

    If the fanatics like the Anonymous Coward that started this thread ever have any sway in decision making of open technologies, we won't have that choice. At least, not the convenience we have now.

    While I don't play video games, I do use some commercial software (Adobe Photoshop, mostly). This mindset that EVERYTHING must be open and free will destroy the current balance we have now.

    For example: I welcome the DRM system in Firefox. I find services like Netflix to be useful. Being able to utilize it on Firefox, on top of a Linux system is useful to me. I would rather that than Pipelight, being forced to install Google Chrome, or having to use Windows.

    As it stands, I use a sandboxed Google Chrome for Netflix on Linux. It is not ideal, as I'm not fond of Chrome, but it is better than the alternatives. If adding DRM support into Firefox means I get Netflix without the run-around then I feel we have progressed forward.

    Unfortunately the zealots are "fighting back," claiming that by adding DRM support to the browser that it will kill the free and open internet.

    I, personally, disagree as more commercial content providers will utilize it over time, thereby providing easier access to users like me. The less hoops I need to jump through, the better.

    I use Linux because I prefer it, not becausen

  37. Re: hardly something to celebrate by corychristison · · Score: 1

    * I use Linux because I prefer it. Not because I am making a political or philosophical statement.

  38. Re:Handsome Jack's Universe... by AntiSol · · Score: 1

    Borderlands 2 has been available for a year or so and runs great on Linux.

    I haven't bought the pre-sequel yet (waiting for a complete pack with all DLC), but it's been available since almost day 1 (perhaps even day 1).

  39. Linux+Multi-Monitors by man_ls · · Score: 1

    I checked the list. Every game that I play is, apparently, available for Linux.

    I'm in the market for a PC upgrade and a new OS to come with it, and Windows 10 looks to be enough of a privacy nightmare that I'm inclined to shy away. That said, though, Windows has always "just worked" for me even with pretty weird configurations (i.e. 6 monitors on 3 video cards, mixing GeForce and Quadro in the same system) and I've never been able to successfully set up Linux multi-mon. That's always led me to re-format and go back to Windows every time I've tried it.

    The last time was 2-3 years ago, though. Has any Linux distribution advanced to the point where it supports multiple monitors? I've simplified my configuration a bit but have also grown out of the desire to do IT projects for fun; now it's 3 identical monitors driven by a single video card (AMD 290X). Is there a GUI to configure multiple monitors yet, or am I just asking for a miserable experience again?

  40. Why? For the PR i guess? by Barlo_Mung_42 · · Score: 2

    Look at the Steam stats. Only 0.92% of Steam users use Linux. There is no way companies that do this are making much money at it. Heck, they would even be better off porting their games to Windows Phone first.

    1. Re:Why? For the PR i guess? by Ksevio · · Score: 2

      Partially because the tools are getting much better. Unity (a popular game engine) works in Windows and Linux, and even had better support for 64bit in linux (the most recent version should even that out). When a game developer can easily make their game for multiple platforms, then easily deploy to multiple platforms through Steam, they can easily access that extra 1% of the market.

    2. Re:Why? For the PR i guess? by Rob+Bos · · Score: 1

      Small percentages can hide large numbers. 1% of (say) a hundred million users is a market a million in size. Once you've saturated your sales on the Windows side of things and your sales start to slow to a crawl, maybe you're selling a trickle, you can get a healthy bump from selling to that smaller portion of the market a year down the line.

    3. Re:Why? For the PR i guess? by Barlo_Mung_42 · · Score: 1

      So most Linux users play windows games. You're full of useless information? Or did you just not think this through?

    4. Re:Why? For the PR i guess? by Barlo_Mung_42 · · Score: 1

      Why? 100 > 70.

  41. Re: hardly something to celebrate by vux984 · · Score: 1

    For example: I welcome the DRM system in Firefox

    I don't. Because now firefox isn't really open.

    If adding DRM support into Firefox means I get Netflix without the run-around then I feel we have progressed forward.

    Keep progressing forwards until we've reached the place we started: proprietary software.

    The MPAA wants 'trusted path' to play blu ray for example. That means all the drivers, kernel, and software; basically anything that touches the video stream, and anything that controls the software that touches the video stream, they want to sign it so you can't modify it.

    Do you welcome a linux kernel and video drivers you can't modify to play blu-ray? Does that represent a "step forward"? If you can't modify the kernel or the drivers, its not an open system anymore.

    DRM in firefox is a bit of a wedge issue. Next they require signed video drivers from the MPAA to play video. You still want your netflix to work, switch to their signed drivers. Another step forward?

    Next they require a signed kernel.

    Next they want telemetry. Game over.

    You might as well be running windows. Because the MPAA will only a sign a kernel with their telmetry in it.

    Oh, fine, you'll just run their OS in a VM. Might as well be running windows in a VM. And that still won't satisfy " trusted path " -- you'll need an MPAA signed hypervisor...

    Frankly, I'm perfectly fine with proprietary code.But I don't like to see it embedded in free software. Netflix can release a proprietary linux netflix app, and stay the hell away from firefox. (Hell they can take the firefox source and use it for all I care as the base (assuming the Mozilla Public License allows it?? No idea. But if not... write their own app from scratch in Qt or something; I don't care.)

    I already use the Windows Netflix app on my HTPC... I haven't used netflix in a browser in ages.

    The bigger issue isn't DRM in firefox to play netflix, is the MPAA turning the screws to bring trusted path to linux. At which point... its not really what the community thinks of linux anymore, except for a familiar CLI and GUI.

  42. So some indie devs support linux, how is that by Kartu · · Score: 1

    So some indie devs support linux, how is that Valve's achievement?

  43. And it even works with Intel chipsets by msobkow · · Score: 1

    This article reminded me to download the Steam client and see if it would run on my Ubuntu 15.04 Linux box with an Intel chipset, and it does! I am most pleasantly surprised. I knew they were doing a lot of development with NVidia chipsets, so I wasn't sure if you needed an NVidia card for the client.

    Most of the games I have are older ones like Left 4 Dead and Half Life 2, so the framerates should even be acceptable. (Intel chipsets may be weak compared to current generation AMD and NVidia hardware, but compared to the cards of a decade ago they're pretty powerful. :) )

    --
    I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
  44. Steam? More like Humble Bundle. by TheLongshot · · Score: 4, Informative

    Humble Bundle has ported over a hundred games to Linux, so they deserve a lot of credit for actually making Linux games, rather than just creating a store to sell them.

    http://blog.humblebundle.com/p...

  45. Look into Vulkan by tepples · · Score: 2

    Games for PlayStation 4 use Mantle, which forms the basis for Vulkan, which is OpenGL 5 in all but name.

    1. Re:Look into Vulkan by RCL · · Score: 1

      Vulkan is not close to OpenGL at all, the design API is completely different. OpenGL has few thousands APIs, some of them are obsolete, Vulkan has 100. "Hello triangle" program in OpenGL (depending on the version) is a few tens of lines, but about 600 for Vulkan.

      --
      Coding etudes
    2. Re:Look into Vulkan by jones_supa · · Score: 1

      Can you show a link to Hello Triangle in Vulkan?

    3. Re:Look into Vulkan by RCL · · Score: 1

      The sources are still under NDA, but this was information is public thanks to AMA with LunarG. You can read it here: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.p...

      --
      Coding etudes
    4. Re:Look into Vulkan by gyroheli · · Score: 1

      You can see how it's done in Mantle, which is going to be pretty similar to Vulkan, there's also hello triangles of Directx12 which is also similar in ways. https://github.com/Overv/Mantl...

  46. Wine is like running Qt apps on GTK based DE by tepples · · Score: 1

    Exactly. Apps that use Wine on a GTK-based X11/Linux system are conceptually no different from apps that use Qt on a GTK-based X11/Linux system.

  47. Civ 4 is rated Platinum in Wine by tepples · · Score: 2

    Civ4 doesn't run on Linux

    AppDB says otherwise. It's rated Platinum as of May 2015.

    I'd try Civ 5 - since they've splintered Christianity into 3

    Did they also split Islam into 2 (Gummi and LaBeouf)? Because I can think of a lot more than 3 divisions of Christendom: Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Baptist, Methodist, Jehovah's Witnesses, Latter Day Saints, etc.

  48. How should I fund free game development? by tepples · · Score: 1

    The game world is so dependant on proprietary software. [...] It just reinforces this idea that proprietary bits are OK

    How would you recommend to fund the development of free games with AAA-class production values? Or would you prefer that the engine be free and the assets (models, textures, maps, audio, and scripts) be proprietary?

    AAA games, players for rented movies, and tax preparation software are three classes of software for which the free software community has failed to produce a viable business model.

  49. Re:MS Office & Games. by tepples · · Score: 1

    Why doesn't your keyboard work well with the generic USB Human Interface Device class driver built into Linux?

  50. Hardware compatibility by tepples · · Score: 1

    I read so often the only reason people are running Windows is the games.

    That and the fact that very few laptops ship with Linux. Those that do, such as from System76, come in a restricted range of sizes. I looked at two 10" detachables (ASUS Transformer Book and Acer Aspire Switch), and essential things were broken on both.

  51. Long-time console exclusives by tepples · · Score: 1

    I'm saying there are entire studios that have no reason to support SteamOS.

    There are also entire studios that have no reason to support Windows. One of them is Nintendo, and another is whichever company is developing the next Halo for Microsoft.

    1. Re:Long-time console exclusives by Jethro · · Score: 1

      Luckily, none of those make any games I'm interested in playing.

      --


      In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is kinky.
  52. Gamepads work on Linux by tepples · · Score: 1

    I own two kinds of "random gamepad": several brands of "generic human interface device" and Xbox 360 game controllers. Both work in SDL on Xubuntu 14.04. The biggest practical problem, whether on Windows or on GNU/Linux, is button layout Babel for anything that's not an Xbox 360 game controller.

  53. Optimization takes time, and time is money by tepples · · Score: 1

    Part of the problem is a bias from the user; if Linux performance sucks for a game, it's Linux' fault; if the Windows performance sucks, it's the vendor's fault. In reality, it'll almost always be the vendor's issue, either because the video card manufacturer's drivers suck or because the game did not properly optimize.

    Optimization takes time, and time is money. If the publisher didn't optimize the game, it could be thought of as GNU/Linux's fault for not being enough of a market to make optimization profitable for the publisher.

    1. Re:Optimization takes time, and time is money by RCL · · Score: 1

      That is very true. Software may be written against "standards", but it is tested and optimized against other software. Linux is not a binary stable platform, and you can have two users who claim to run Linux but share almost nothing except the kernel and possibly libc. How can a big software house test and optimize the game? The test matrix would be unreasonable! In order to ship software for Linux, one has to either limit support to particular distribution and drivers, or to waive all guarantees.

      --
      Coding etudes
  54. Settings > Display in Xubuntu by tepples · · Score: 1

    Xubuntu 14.04 has Settings > Display, which lets me mirror or span my desktop between my laptop's monitor and my HDTV. If that's too coarse-grained for you, you can sudo apt-get install arandr, which is what I did during 12.04 when Settings > Display supported only mirroring, not spanning.

  55. Depends on how well a game adapts to touch by tepples · · Score: 1

    Heck, they would even be better off porting their games to Windows Phone first.

    That depends on whether or not the game's control model can be adapted to a 5 inch touch screen. Point-and-click games work well, such as Fruit Ninja, Pipe Dream, match three games, Threes clones, or much of the ScummVM library. So do shmups, Marble Madness-type games, or anything else that can be adapted well to a laptop's trackpad. So do one-button endless runners, such as Temple Run or Jetpack Joyride or SFCave clones with "Flappy" in the title.

    Other genres, not so much. I tried the Mario/Giana-style platformer Pixeline and the Jungle Treasure on a touch screen device, and I kept missing jumps because I kept accidentally pressing outside the on-screen gamepad's active area. I imagine Mega Man would be even worse. For games that aren't well suited for touch, a port to OS X and GNU/Linux might bring in more sales than a port to Windows Phone.

  56. Ivy Bridge runs PS3-class games by tepples · · Score: 1

    Intel chipsets may be weak compared to current generation AMD and NVidia hardware, but compared to the cards of a decade ago they're pretty powerful.

    Agreed. A previous Intel CPU (Ivy Bridge with HD 4000) runs Skyrim playably at 720p according to Anandtech. This puts it at least at parity with the PlayStation 3, which also runs Skyrim. In turn, because so many AAA PC games prior to 2013 were also released for PS3 and/or Xbox 360, they should have settings that scale down to PC hardware comparable in performance to those consoles.

  57. Re:Don't Starve by Kjella · · Score: 1

    It's like you deliberately picked mostly Linux-supported titles.
    Or maybe you really have no idea what's available for Linux...

    It's genuinely the latter, I got on board with Linux as my primary desktop around 2007 and quit about 3.5 years later in 2010 so my experience is ~5 years out of date. At that point Steam for Linux didn't exist so my go-to place was to check the WINE database. Perhaps I should give it another go, Windows spyware edition isn't tempting. Then again, I got ~4 years left on this Windows 7 license until EOL and I'm very comfortable where I am. It's nice to know the transition wouldn't be quite as painful this time around though.

    --
    Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
  58. Religion in Civ by unixisc · · Score: 1

    In Civ V - Gods & Kings, there are 11 religions - Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Shinto, Sikhism, Taoism, Tengrism and Zoroastrianism. Here, unlike in Civ IV, one can rename the religions.

    In Brave New World, Christianity is split into Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy and Protestantism. Although that begged the question - why not other religions as well? Islam would have Sunni and Shia, Buddhism would have Mahayana and Theravada and Hinduism would have Shaivya and Vaishnav.

    One thing I'd have liked in Civ IV - dunno whether Civ V does this - would be to assign a religion to every nation. Like Persians would be Zoroastrians, Mongols Tengri, Arabs Islamic and so on. That would make more sense than the Russians discovering Polytheism early on, and becoming Hindu. On a different note, I wish that FreeCiv, which now has 555 different nations, would introduce the concept of religion into the game: that would make it more interesting.

  59. www.lineage2.com by Norsys · · Score: 1

    Www.lineage2.com

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    http://alamar.webege.com
  60. Drivers by nnull · · Score: 1

    Please Nvidia and AMD, fix SLI and Crossfire so it actually works properly in linux.

  61. Re:Linux represents 0.7% of sales by nnull · · Score: 1

    And? Lets talk numbers here. How much of that 0.7% of sales equates to dollar amount? I don't see it as a huge effort for nothing.

  62. Re: hardly something to celebrate by RCL · · Score: 1

    You seem to contradict yourself. If you're fine with proprietary software (I am as well), then why are you against "trusted path" in the kernel - in what way proprietary kernel is different from a proprietary user application? Are you going to access their content not on their, but on your terms? If not, then why does the existence of the said path matter to you? Just install untrusted Linux kernel and forfeit your ability to access paid content.

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    Coding etudes
  63. Re:hardly something to celebrate by RCL · · Score: 1

    He does forbid redistribution of the said binary drivers together with the kernel, so you cannot have them "out of the box" - user has to be the one making the "mix" of proprietary and non-proprietary code. And Stallman does put limitations on the developers - their philosophy essentially fights the contractual freedom between them and their users. Gladly, it is about to die finally, most recent and influential projects (clang/LLVM, docker, nginx) shun GPL.

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    Coding etudes
  64. Re:MS Office & Games. by RCL · · Score: 1

    Curiously enough, gaming keyboards can have problems on Linux: https://www.reddit.com/r/linux... - I experienced it myself. I guess it's because of extra functionality (programmability, color lights etc)?

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    Coding etudes
  65. Re: hardly something to celebrate by Gaygirlie · · Score: 2

    As I already said, Steam does *not* require you to use any DRM. There are plenty of DRM-free games on Steam and you *can* copy those to other machines and play them even without Steam installed at all, just as you would if they had been downloaded from GOG or whatever. It's the publishers who insist on slapping DRM on stuff, blame them. Both of the scenarios you listed *are* possible with Steam.

  66. Europa Universalis 3 by jez9999 · · Score: 1

    I still love that game...

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    == Jez ==
    Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
  67. Steam Runtime by tepples · · Score: 1

    Linux is not a binary stable platform, and you can have two users who claim to run Linux but share almost nothing except the kernel and possibly libc.

    3. X.Org X11 Server, and 4. Steam Runtime. Valve is trying to counteract this ABI instability.

    1. Re:Steam Runtime by RCL · · Score: 1

      #3 (X server) is not so guaranteed these days. On an unrelated note - systemd is actually a positive development in that context (of standardization Linux ecosystem).

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      Coding etudes
  68. Bigger jump than GL 1 to 2? by tepples · · Score: 1

    Vulkan is not close to OpenGL at all, the design API is completely different.

    Is it bigger than the difference between OpenGL 1.x, with its fixed-function pipeline and state machine, and OpenGL ES, which abandoned the fixed-function pipeline in favor of shaders and vertex buffers?

    1. Re:Bigger jump than GL 1 to 2? by RCL · · Score: 1

      Yes. Pretty much no existing API would be applicable since the abstraction jumped down several levels - like going from Java to C. You are now allocating and freeing memory buffers on the hardware, filling them out with the complete pipeline state information and passing to GPU to execute as is. I guess one could bolt this onto existing OpenGL API (NVidia tries to do that with GL_NV_command_list), but a) it is still higher level and b) interaction with the rest of GL remains problematic implementation-wise. Naturally a question arises: if that part of API is not interoperable with the rest, why not just separate the two?

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      Coding etudes
  69. Re:MS Office & Games. by tepples · · Score: 1

    I can't read the linked page because as of right now, reddit is giving 503 "all of our servers are busy right now" errors.

    [a few minutes later]
    Do the gaming keyboards require Windows users to install a specific driver?

  70. Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime by U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M · · Score: 1

    http://store.steampowered.com/...

  71. Re:Linux represents 0.7% of sales by U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M · · Score: 1

    You won't get Linux gamers if there's no games for it. If Valve wants to help us break away from Microsoft's stranglehold on the computer gaming market, good for them. Because Apple sure seems to always make sure that the GPUs in most of their computers suck as much as possible with their stupid design over function philosophy.

  72. Time is money by tepples · · Score: 1

    [Creating device drivers] should be done by the manufacturer.

    For which operating system? GNU/Linux? FreeBSD? NetBSD? Haiku? Syllable? The toy OS on my cousin's floppy drive?

    I jest, but making and submitting a patch to use a particular piece of hardware costs time that an engineer could be used for other things, and the minimum wage law states that time is money. Unless ensuring compatibility with GNU/Linux is a sufficient selling point that it will overcome the cost of ensuring said compatibility, a company trying to maximize shareholder value won't take effort to ensure said compatibility.

  73. Re:MS Office & Games. by RCL · · Score: 1

    Not sure. They are often configured with additional software (e.g. https://steelseries.com/engine), but I did not need any of that just to use such keyboards on Windows. However, since Windows installs USB drivers automatically when you plug the device (either from device partition or downloading from the net), I cannot 100% tell whether a special keyboard driver was needed or not. I guess I could check in Hardware Manager but I'm too lazy to boot that machine right now :)

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    Coding etudes
  74. Re:Steam? More like Humble Bundle. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    And then they became a service largely for selling Steam keys rather than having DRM-free titles that ran on PC, Mac and Linux. At least gog.com is still selling DRM free titles exclusively.

    So yes, Humble Bundle deserves props, just not very many.

  75. Re:Linux represents 0.7% of sales by scdeimos · · Score: 1

    Huge effort for nothing.

    I think it's a chicken and egg issue, really: the sales figures are crap because there are comparatively few *nix versions to sell.

    If you look at the first few Humble Bundle packs (in which all titles were available for Windows, linux and OS X) the figures were closer to 60% Windows, 40% linux and OS X. Unfortunately the more recent Humble Bundles are just clearance packs and 90% of the titles are Windows-only that are additionally past their shelf life. Very disappointing, Wolfire.

    I'd be curious to see the per-platform breakdown of sales on places like GoG.

  76. Re:Why don't Steam make WINE configs? by scdeimos · · Score: 1

    This is a good idea in theory, but the big problem is that wine is a godawful mess which breaks every time you upgrade it.

    Correct. Not only is it nearly impossible to install .NET Framework 3.5 under Wine, a pre-requisite for XNA-based games like Magicka, each subsequent version of Wine breaks things that were already working. e.g.: games like HALO don't work on Wine 1.1.25 or later because the memory manager changes broke things that depend on running at fixed addresses.

  77. Re: hardly something to celebrate by vux984 · · Score: 2

    You seem to contradict yourself. If you're fine with proprietary software (I am as well), then why are you against "trusted path" in the kernel - in what way proprietary kernel is different from a proprietary user application?

    The kernel decides what applications will run and what they are allowed to do. An individual program only controls itself. I am fine with running a program on my system that I don't necessarily have the ability to modify. But I still control the operating system, and the permissions that program operates under.

    Trusted path strips me of that.

    Just install untrusted Linux kernel and forfeit your ability to access paid content.

    Today its forfeight paid content. Tomorrow, its just forfeit content.

  78. Re:Blizard Games by Pseudonym · · Score: 1

    What, you don't like Hearthstone?

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    sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
  79. Re:Official Unreal Engine support by Bugamn · · Score: 1

    I find this one funny since I was playing UT2004 in Linux long before Steam was on Mac. It came with a Linux installer in the CD before I even had a Steam account.

  80. DOTA 2 by DarthVain · · Score: 1

    If I'm honest, the only game I really plan anymore is DOTA 2... I think they probably already have a linux version... Other than that, I am eagerly awaiting the release of Fallout 4. Will that be out in Linux at the same time?

    I suspect it would be much easier to transition to linux now from a game perspective than years ago.

  81. Games I want to see on Linux by WallyL · · Score: 1

    Age of Empires 2 (HD or the CD version) Halo 1