Note: This is a really old article, if you're here, I do suggest you read this article "Why The Porting Method Doesn't Matter For Linux Games".
Thanks to the recent fiasco of The Witcher 2 I wanted to write down some thoughts on why we shouldn't accept bad quality ports from developers.
Only in recent years have we had so many damned games in our Linux libraries that you now see comments from Linux gamers like "I've got too many games already!" which I imagine now sounds familiar to a lot of you. We have never before seen so much attention from developers thanks to Valve & Steam.
Also thanks to the push from developers we are seeing ports come along that are quite frankly lazy or just downright buggy to the point of being unplayable for a majority of people.
The problem is if we keep accepting ports at a sub-par quality then Linux will gain a reputation for having low quality games. Think about that big picture for a moment, seriously.
Imagine if you will that AAA developers started pushing out more games for Linux using technology like this "eON" that was used to port The Witcher 2. Let's say we have a lot of them and it suddenly looks like Linux has a lot of big-name games. You then have plenty of people trying out Linux, and seeing that their games run with terrible performance on the exact same hardware giving them the impression that Linux itself is bad for gaming. That's not good for anyone.
I've seen many people say "the toolkit used to port doesn't matter?". That in my eyes is a very naive statement to make. Of course it matters, it can mean the difference of light and day in the quality of a game on Linux. Which directly goes back to my point above about the perception of Linux gaming.
You can still say the toolkit doesn't matter and use whatever comparison/analogy you fancy, but if the toolkit is the root cause of the issue, like it will be 99% of the time when we are talking about computer software then yes, it does of course matter.
I've seen comments now from other major websites stating we should just accept them and be thankful we have them at all. That is an idiotic statement from people who don't look at the bigger picture.
Think about the developers and publishers who will see it as acceptable to push terrible Linux ports out the door and call it a day with only profits in mind. The consumer perception of Linux gaming would worsen yet again with even more bad quality ports.
I am all for ports from developers, of course I am I run this site after-all. I as a customer however do not want to pay for games that would work on Windows, but run like a snail on Linux, why should I? Why should you?
Final added point: You should never attack a developer when they reach out to the community having issues, that's not acceptable. Feedback is fine, but name calling is childish and makes Linux again look bad. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Thanks to the recent fiasco of The Witcher 2 I wanted to write down some thoughts on why we shouldn't accept bad quality ports from developers.
Only in recent years have we had so many damned games in our Linux libraries that you now see comments from Linux gamers like "I've got too many games already!" which I imagine now sounds familiar to a lot of you. We have never before seen so much attention from developers thanks to Valve & Steam.
Also thanks to the push from developers we are seeing ports come along that are quite frankly lazy or just downright buggy to the point of being unplayable for a majority of people.
The problem is if we keep accepting ports at a sub-par quality then Linux will gain a reputation for having low quality games. Think about that big picture for a moment, seriously.
Imagine if you will that AAA developers started pushing out more games for Linux using technology like this "eON" that was used to port The Witcher 2. Let's say we have a lot of them and it suddenly looks like Linux has a lot of big-name games. You then have plenty of people trying out Linux, and seeing that their games run with terrible performance on the exact same hardware giving them the impression that Linux itself is bad for gaming. That's not good for anyone.
I've seen many people say "the toolkit used to port doesn't matter?". That in my eyes is a very naive statement to make. Of course it matters, it can mean the difference of light and day in the quality of a game on Linux. Which directly goes back to my point above about the perception of Linux gaming.
You can still say the toolkit doesn't matter and use whatever comparison/analogy you fancy, but if the toolkit is the root cause of the issue, like it will be 99% of the time when we are talking about computer software then yes, it does of course matter.
I've seen comments now from other major websites stating we should just accept them and be thankful we have them at all. That is an idiotic statement from people who don't look at the bigger picture.
Think about the developers and publishers who will see it as acceptable to push terrible Linux ports out the door and call it a day with only profits in mind. The consumer perception of Linux gaming would worsen yet again with even more bad quality ports.
I am all for ports from developers, of course I am I run this site after-all. I as a customer however do not want to pay for games that would work on Windows, but run like a snail on Linux, why should I? Why should you?
Final added point: You should never attack a developer when they reach out to the community having issues, that's not acceptable. Feedback is fine, but name calling is childish and makes Linux again look bad. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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Why we think it's eON?
Benchmarks:
http://forums.cdprojektred.com/threads/29958-Linux-issues-and-user-solutions?s=bfc51ea74da412c48d4dd56a647cd80e&p=1302703&viewfull=1#post1302703
Results - https://imgur.com/a/NuTrl
And then like Samsai said, the base game shouldn't have changed between the Windows version and the wrapped version. The fact that even some people get an extra 20fps perf on WINE over the eON wrapper when eON is specifically targeted for Witcher 2 is just mindblowing.
"The toolkit used to port doesn't matter" - you mean it doesn't matter in regards to end-result perf? Because it DOES matter if the toolkit is the thing causing the bad perf. And from what we can see, it's eON (the toolkit) that's causing the bad perf for many people. This is why Liam said it's naive to think that the toolkit doesn't matter.
Edit: I personally don't buy really expensive games and got it only because it was on sale for $4. Whether it was worth it or not depends on if I can play it on Linux, and right now I'm leaning on downloading from GoG and using WINE instead. 15GB steam download wasted, unless they push updates.
Edit2: http://steamcommunity.com/app/20920/discussions/0/522728268811804386/ see this for some fixes if you're running the steam/eON version.
Benchmarks:
http://forums.cdprojektred.com/threads/29958-Linux-issues-and-user-solutions?s=bfc51ea74da412c48d4dd56a647cd80e&p=1302703&viewfull=1#post1302703
Results - https://imgur.com/a/NuTrl
And then like Samsai said, the base game shouldn't have changed between the Windows version and the wrapped version. The fact that even some people get an extra 20fps perf on WINE over the eON wrapper when eON is specifically targeted for Witcher 2 is just mindblowing.
"The toolkit used to port doesn't matter" - you mean it doesn't matter in regards to end-result perf? Because it DOES matter if the toolkit is the thing causing the bad perf. And from what we can see, it's eON (the toolkit) that's causing the bad perf for many people. This is why Liam said it's naive to think that the toolkit doesn't matter.
Edit: I personally don't buy really expensive games and got it only because it was on sale for $4. Whether it was worth it or not depends on if I can play it on Linux, and right now I'm leaning on downloading from GoG and using WINE instead. 15GB steam download wasted, unless they push updates.
Edit2: http://steamcommunity.com/app/20920/discussions/0/522728268811804386/ see this for some fixes if you're running the steam/eON version.
3 Likes, Who?
Wine and likes would be good on olds games. But in games yet to released please a native port!
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Why we think it's eON?
Benchmarks:
http://forums.cdprojektred.com/threads/29958-Linux-issues-and-user-solutions?s=bfc51ea74da412c48d4dd56a647cd80e&p=1302703&viewfull=1#post1302703
Results - https://imgur.com/a/NuTrl
yes, it is eON fault, but major problem was first specified by developer that got attacked so badly. eON does not switch to full screen, which doesn't disable compositing.
there are also people who say it is otherwise and eON performs well. right now, it is pretty much known fact that if you switch to lighter WM like metacity, performance more than doubles. gnome-shell is extra terrible here
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And one more thing - this editorial is based on us "accepting" the port. When did we do that? I had this game in my library from some bundle I bought years ago - and I suspect most did too.I purchased the game believing it was a properly tested native port,
What constitutes our "acceptance". Buying the game? Too late. Playing it? Well, it's working great on my system. Are you suggesting I don't play it because a minority are having problems?
And is it a minority? How many people are actually affected by this terrible port that works really well for me?
I get it. You're angry because it doesn't work for you. Doubly so, if you bought the game. But using your editorial power to trash a company's efforts to enter the Linux market? Based on supposition?
No. I'm not supporting that.
...
If you don't like my opinion, don't read it.
Native port, just like Mac, right? Since the Mac port was the grounds for the Linux port to be made "easily", right? If you had exercised an ounce of deductive reasoning you would have known it wasn't native.
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FutureSuture May 25, 2014
How much would a native port have cost as compared to whatever was done here? I am rather curious. It's not like the game is from over a decade ago and it's not like the source code isn't available either.
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Hindsight is great, but there was no reason to think it wasn't a native port when it was released. It was only after inspecting the files from the downloaded game that this was determined. CDProjekt didn't state it anywhere (at least, not anywhere easily visible) prior to that.
Actually the hardware requirement was so unbalanced between Windows and Mac/Linux that it was possible to guess there was something going on. I personally thought it was wrapped with Wine and I bought it even if my machine is not meeting the minimum requirement as a way to tell the developers that considering Linux as a viable platform was not an error, it was quite cheap anyway.
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How much would a native port have cost as compared to whatever was done here? I am rather curious. It's not like the game is from over a decade ago and it's not like the source code isn't available either.
Definitely MUCH more (both in money and time) than the wrapper since they would have to port the engine first.
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Hindsight is great, but there was no reason to think it wasn't a native port when it was released. It was only after inspecting the files from the downloaded game that this was determined. CDProjekt didn't state it anywhere (at least, not anywhere easily visible) prior to that.
The system requirements, specifically the CPU & RAM differences between Windows & Linux are a dead give away, you need to read between the lines but the facts are right there. The author stated he is well aware of crappy Mac ports using wrappers, then claimed ignorance in this case. That is sounding disingenuous & a lot like poutrage.
Someone in this thread said how PS3 ports are/were crap, and they were shouted down for that not being any kind of excuse. Yes, a world with no bad ports would be great, but we don't live in that world, yet.
The PS3 argument is that the PS3 gamers continued to show support for developers & publishers who provided games in the early years, even if those games didn't run as well as the Xbox versions. This often resulted in more money being spent on PS3 ports since the user base had proven itself to exist. Yes there is a danger of sending the message that poor performance is acceptable, but a bigger danger is sending the message that the user base doesn't exist. You just need to look at the Wii U to see what happens when no one buys games, they stop coming.
No we shouldn't accept poor ports forever, & new demanding games should run mostly native, but we need to accept the current reality.
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FutureSuture May 25, 2014
What about Valve's ToGL? Considering all of Valve's games that are on Linux now and run pretty damn fine, using ToGL sounds like a much better approach than eON.How much would a native port have cost as compared to whatever was done here? I am rather curious. It's not like the game is from over a decade ago and it's not like the source code isn't available either.Definitely MUCH more (both in money and time) than the wrapper since they would have to port the engine first.
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Someone in this thread said how PS3 ports are/were crap, and they were shouted down for that not being any kind of excuse. Yes, a world with no bad ports would be great, but we don't live in that world, yet.
The PS3 argument is that the PS3 gamers continued to show support for developers & publishers who provided games in the early years, even if those games didn't run as well as the Xbox versions. This often resulted in more money being spent on PS3 ports since the user base had proven itself to exist. Yes there is a danger of sending the message that poor performance is acceptable, but a bigger danger is sending the message that the user base doesn't exist. You just need to look at the Wii U to see what happens when no one buys games, they stop coming.
thanks on putting my comment into english that actually makes sense, lol.
i would just add one more thing. ps3 was in waaaaay more dire situation than linux is when multiplatform games were considered. it had completely different infrastructure based on SPU processing. porting to linux is like saying cake compared to porting to Cell with extra slow gpu and small amount of ram.
one has to remember that driver situation is kinda bad side of linux which developers are facing too, beside other linux quirks like case sensitive file system and so on... sadly, you don't see many people actually providing feedback. 1 out of 100 is doing that, 99 are doing the entitlement dance. instead of realizing that if you help fix up the root of the problem, you'll be facing shinier days
i was ps3 user from day 1 and i can say ps3 had it 10x worse than linux has it right now. but, when there was competition why ps3, even bad ports were named as reason, go figure. now, go and try finding public crucifixion of some developer
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First of all let me say this port is "kinda" playable for me. Now some more background info:
- i have the game as a box and on steam cause i support CDPR for their effort to bring DRM free games back than and nowadays
So after i saw it finally launched on steam i was realy realy happy. What happend:
1.) The configuration tool didn't suggest any useafull settings (all was set to low). I suspect this is cause of the local bug in the tool since my system locale is not english
2.) I started the game like 10 times till i figured out that because of this locale bug all my other settings where screwed too << keyboard & gamepad
3.) Once i figured and was able to set the gamepad to default i was finally able to play and bugged out on the tutorial ... i couldn't put a mutagen cause the raised skills wasn't mutable << at this time already 2h where spend i still had no real running game.
4.) Ok i restarted again and ignored the tutorial -> finally i was able to play
5.) Somewhere during the tutorial (i don't remember where) the framedrop was again so high , so i needed to adjust my settings once more
6.) After i got throu the prolog -> flotsam ... damm nothing again goes anymore frames so low that it hurts -> again change the setting
Now i compare this to windows .... setup the game on my even older pc configuration -> run the game with all settings beside uber.
I'm someone who uses pc's (dos / os2 wrap if someone reminds / windows / linux) for a long term and i'm often asked to help from my friends and family. Would i suggest them to buy the on linux -> omg no. Why i wouldn't? Cause basically , while i was able to fix and get it running and don't mind a reduced quality i can't expect that from them. Can i warn all the steamos user (later steambox buyers) that this game is not optimal for their system -> i can't! Do i want steamos and steamboxes be successfull -> i want! What does it mean for this game? No matter how much i want it / no matter how much i love cdpr for different reasons / no matter how much i wanna encourage cdpr to make more ports , i basically can't allow them to be as bad as this one.
To all the people who defending this port as a effort. Think a moment about the following ->
The xbox 360 cost around 100 to 150 bucks + the game it might be 120 to 170 bucks. A steambox might be 500 bucks + the game = 520 bucks. The out of the box experience on a system which cost 1/3 of a steambox is right of now much much better.
With that said if you defend this kind of ports you take away any good argument for linux being a viable gameing platform. If you don't mind picture quality you get for 1/3 of the price the game. If you mind picture quality you get for the same price a stressfree experience on windows. On this point we need to be honest ... the nerds won't make linux successfull (we are just a few) but the day to day user can make it successfull and for this people there is no reason to choose linux with such quality ports (even if they agree with loosing a few frames , which i doubt the powergamers which complains if they don't get 60fps will do! I have even read someone complaining for not geting 120fps cause a 120hz screen on linux).....
I totally agree with liam .. the dev is the wrong person here to attack but we realy need to find a way to show the overall picture. I hope that there will be enough business behind steamos end of this year so not we customer need to point this out but the business itself regulates this. Right of now it's hard to be a customer (which f... got a realy bad product) and a linux ethusiast (which at least got a product and so can show he want products).
In the end i know where i stand ... as much as i love linux ... this is a business and it's a contract i made when i payed. I can play a game and the publisher / dev delivers the game. Right of now the contract isn't fullfilled by the publisher / dev ... crashes , not working config tools and a performance which puts a shame on the product. If people still go for the other route ... welcome to what ea is doing on windows (take a look on the release of bf4 and all the problems).
I think you got me so i stop here ... all points are made, thanx to the people who make it down to this words.
- i have the game as a box and on steam cause i support CDPR for their effort to bring DRM free games back than and nowadays
So after i saw it finally launched on steam i was realy realy happy. What happend:
1.) The configuration tool didn't suggest any useafull settings (all was set to low). I suspect this is cause of the local bug in the tool since my system locale is not english
2.) I started the game like 10 times till i figured out that because of this locale bug all my other settings where screwed too << keyboard & gamepad
3.) Once i figured and was able to set the gamepad to default i was finally able to play and bugged out on the tutorial ... i couldn't put a mutagen cause the raised skills wasn't mutable << at this time already 2h where spend i still had no real running game.
4.) Ok i restarted again and ignored the tutorial -> finally i was able to play
5.) Somewhere during the tutorial (i don't remember where) the framedrop was again so high , so i needed to adjust my settings once more
6.) After i got throu the prolog -> flotsam ... damm nothing again goes anymore frames so low that it hurts -> again change the setting
Now i compare this to windows .... setup the game on my even older pc configuration -> run the game with all settings beside uber.
I'm someone who uses pc's (dos / os2 wrap if someone reminds / windows / linux) for a long term and i'm often asked to help from my friends and family. Would i suggest them to buy the on linux -> omg no. Why i wouldn't? Cause basically , while i was able to fix and get it running and don't mind a reduced quality i can't expect that from them. Can i warn all the steamos user (later steambox buyers) that this game is not optimal for their system -> i can't! Do i want steamos and steamboxes be successfull -> i want! What does it mean for this game? No matter how much i want it / no matter how much i love cdpr for different reasons / no matter how much i wanna encourage cdpr to make more ports , i basically can't allow them to be as bad as this one.
To all the people who defending this port as a effort. Think a moment about the following ->
The xbox 360 cost around 100 to 150 bucks + the game it might be 120 to 170 bucks. A steambox might be 500 bucks + the game = 520 bucks. The out of the box experience on a system which cost 1/3 of a steambox is right of now much much better.
With that said if you defend this kind of ports you take away any good argument for linux being a viable gameing platform. If you don't mind picture quality you get for 1/3 of the price the game. If you mind picture quality you get for the same price a stressfree experience on windows. On this point we need to be honest ... the nerds won't make linux successfull (we are just a few) but the day to day user can make it successfull and for this people there is no reason to choose linux with such quality ports (even if they agree with loosing a few frames , which i doubt the powergamers which complains if they don't get 60fps will do! I have even read someone complaining for not geting 120fps cause a 120hz screen on linux).....
I totally agree with liam .. the dev is the wrong person here to attack but we realy need to find a way to show the overall picture. I hope that there will be enough business behind steamos end of this year so not we customer need to point this out but the business itself regulates this. Right of now it's hard to be a customer (which f... got a realy bad product) and a linux ethusiast (which at least got a product and so can show he want products).
In the end i know where i stand ... as much as i love linux ... this is a business and it's a contract i made when i payed. I can play a game and the publisher / dev delivers the game. Right of now the contract isn't fullfilled by the publisher / dev ... crashes , not working config tools and a performance which puts a shame on the product. If people still go for the other route ... welcome to what ea is doing on windows (take a look on the release of bf4 and all the problems).
I think you got me so i stop here ... all points are made, thanx to the people who make it down to this words.
0 Likes
What about Valve's ToGL? Considering all of Valve's games that are on Linux now and run pretty damn fine, using ToGL sounds like a much better approach than eON.How much would a native port have cost as compared to whatever was done here? I am rather curious. It's not like the game is from over a decade ago and it's not like the source code isn't available either.Definitely MUCH more (both in money and time) than the wrapper since they would have to port the engine first.
That's what I've been asking as well.
Without knowing the actual numbers and prices, I wonder if a native port by "the well-known porters" wouldn't have been the better alternative. I don't see why this has to be necessarily more costly.
Having a look at the "Virtual Programming" website, they feature an upcoming port of "Dirt Showdown". It says upcoming release in Q3 and it's currently in beta. So this obviously takes quite some time and - (surprised face) testing. Hard to believe this is "cheap".
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That's what I've been asking as well.What about Valve's ToGL? Considering all of Valve's games that are on Linux now and run pretty damn fine, using ToGL sounds like a much better approach than eON.How much would a native port have cost as compared to whatever was done here? I am rather curious. It's not like the game is from over a decade ago and it's not like the source code isn't available either.Definitely MUCH more (both in money and time) than the wrapper since they would have to port the engine first.
Without knowing the actual numbers and prices, I wonder if a native port by "the well-known porters" wouldn't have been the better alternative. I don't see why this has to be necessarily more costly.
Having a look at the "Virtual Programming" website, they feature an upcoming port of "Dirt Showdown". It says upcoming release in Q3 and it's currently in beta. So this obviously takes quite some time and - (surprised face) testing. Hard to believe this is "cheap".
you can simply look up the reasons why ToGL is not suitable for wine. it is very limited to what valve needs and nowhere near complete
still, even if they used ToGL, you're left with videos, files, sound...
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What I do not understand is the assumption that AAA developers need to be baby coddled while Indie developers do not. With Indie games we expect quality native ports and by and large receive them, but when a AAA developer shows up suddenly we are all supposed to accept a sub-par effort from a company with far more resources than those Indie developers. This makes no sense to me.
3 Likes, Who?
you can simply look up the reasons why ToGL is not suitable for wine. it is very limited to what valve needs and nowhere near completeThat's what I've been asking as well.What about Valve's ToGL? Considering all of Valve's games that are on Linux now and run pretty damn fine, using ToGL sounds like a much better approach than eON.How much would a native port have cost as compared to whatever was done here? I am rather curious. It's not like the game is from over a decade ago and it's not like the source code isn't available either.Definitely MUCH more (both in money and time) than the wrapper since they would have to port the engine first.
Without knowing the actual numbers and prices, I wonder if a native port by "the well-known porters" wouldn't have been the better alternative. I don't see why this has to be necessarily more costly.
Having a look at the "Virtual Programming" website, they feature an upcoming port of "Dirt Showdown". It says upcoming release in Q3 and it's currently in beta. So this obviously takes quite some time and - (surprised face) testing. Hard to believe this is "cheap".
still, even if they used ToGL, you're left with videos, files, sound...
Sorry, my comment might have been a bit misleading as it wasn't specifically targeted at ToGL - in particular not with respect to WINE/WINELIB - but a native port.
For the "videos, files, sound", it looks like _all_ middleware used in TW2 is available for Linux, so that shouldn't be a big issue.
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I really don't care how the game is ported as long as it works and the performance is good. System Shock 2 "feels" native to me. Witcher 2 "feels" native to me, it runs like any other game and it picks my xbox 360 controller up with ease. If they can get more games on Linux that work and don't require tons of configuration, then I'm don't mind. Better than a developer telling you just to run the game on wine (example: The developer of Retro City Rampage).
Nevertheless, it sucks that others are having performance problems, and I hope they can fix it will all the feedback from that particular thread on the steam forums.
Nevertheless, it sucks that others are having performance problems, and I hope they can fix it will all the feedback from that particular thread on the steam forums.
0 Likes
Its perhaps better if there is a game studio dedicated to do ports for Linux.
A group of people willingly to support Linux by helping other studios to port over their games so that they can only focus on their projects.
Porting games and working on other IP's isn't going to work especially for 3rd party studios that do console ports and PC and Mac ports. It takes time.
A group of people willingly to support Linux by helping other studios to port over their games so that they can only focus on their projects.
Porting games and working on other IP's isn't going to work especially for 3rd party studios that do console ports and PC and Mac ports. It takes time.
1 Likes, Who?
Its perhaps better if there is a game studio dedicated to do ports for Linux.
A group of people willingly to support Linux by helping other studios to port over their games so that they can only focus on their projects.
Porting games and working on other IP's isn't going to work especially for 3rd party studios that do console ports and PC and Mac ports. It takes time.
Yes, it might be time for a rise in professional porting houses again. At least for older titles that were not developed with cross-platform in mind.
Back in the day Loki Software made stellar ports of some very Linux unfriendly games. What they lacked was an effective means of distribution. That is not a problem anymore.
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What about Valve's ToGL? Considering all of Valve's games that are on Linux now and run pretty damn fine, using ToGL sounds like a much better approach than eON.
They didn't run fine at the beginning and actually some still have game breaking bugs, I've never been able to complete HL: OF because of this bug: https://github.com/ValveSoftware/halflife/issues/917
According to jaycee1980 from the Steam forum: "Actually, we've had plenty of help and feedback from Valve...". So it would seems Valve does consider eON a valid solution.
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What exactly is the fiasco? I purchased Witcher2 on Friday on sale, and I've played it all weekend on Fedora 21 with no trouble. What have been the issues?
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