Looks Like Shadow Of Mordor Won't Support AMD Graphics On Linux At Release

I prefer a port on par with Windows, but not supporting all hardware/drivers, to a mediocre one.
But of course, in this case that's easily said as an Nvidia user.

I have to say that worst case scenario comes true. All the steam machines have NVidia GPU (correct me if I'm wrong) and developers who cooperate with Valve are meant to make games work on Steam Machines.

Tux icon was changed to Steam OS icon for a reason. Developers won't be forced to make games work on Linux distributions - they will be forced to ensure that experience on Steam OS will be good. And what's more - I bet official Steam Machines with Steam OS will get support. If You decide to build Your own "Steam Machine" with Steam OS but AMD graphic - it may turn out that half of the AAA games do not run on your machine, because Your card is not supported.

Developers won't be forced to make games work on Linux distributions

They never were. Even Feral and Aspyr support a very small amount of distributions - if I remember correctly, about 1 of them, maximal 2. You cannot port to Linux if this would force you to support Debian and Arch and Gentoo and LFS.

I have to say that worst case scenario comes true. All the steam machines have NVidia GPU (correct me if I'm wrong) and developers who cooperate with Valve are meant to make games work on Steam Machines.

Tux icon was changed to Steam OS icon for a reason. Developers won't be forced to make games work on Linux distributions - they will be forced to ensure that experience on Steam OS will be good. And what's more - I bet official Steam Machines with Steam OS will get support. If You decide to build Your own "Steam Machine" with Steam OS but AMD graphic - it may turn out that half of the AAA games do not run on your machine, because Your card is not supported.

You're wrong, but just barely.

From this page: http://store.steampowered.com/sale/steam_machines

The Gigabyte BRIX Pro has Intel Iris Pro 5200, plus there are a couple of machines that don't specify the brand of GPU. All the rest, however, come with a Nvidia GPU. To be honest, I don't blame the hardware manufacturers. Nvidia's proprietary graphics driver is simply superior to AMD's, significantly so. That's just the flat out truth of it. It's the reason I've been stuck with Team Green for a good while now. I like AMD's hardware and sometimes they provide a better value, from a purely hardware perspective, but it doesn't matter if the driver isn't up to snuff. Hopefully this changes once Vulkan arrives and (hopefully) starts being used extensively, considering how much of AMD's Mantle went into Vulkan. I'd really like to have a choice of GPU manufacturers.

On a side note, Feral has 1 week left if they're going to make good on their promise of "Spring 2015".

And this problem is not the fault from Aspyr, Feral or others, it's a problem from AMD which still have very bad driver for Linux, even since the first release of SteamOS ...

And that is why I haven't gamed in Linux for months. I'd gladly pop in Linux to play out of principle but somewhere between AMD's CRAP drivers and the developers not supporting their hardware I just had enough. I truly hope all Nvidia gamers can enjoy this title in Linux, but I'm 100% playing it in Windows. Just as with Borderlands I know it will never get an official AMD support and I'm also positive AMD won't be able to pull their sh*t in the next 12 months if ever.

I have to say that worst case scenario comes true. All the steam machines have NVidia GPU (correct me if I'm wrong)

Majority do, but there was one with Intel and others with AMD options listed on release. There were also options to customize your hardware, depending on the vendor (ie: Syber allowed you to ask for pretty much anything). That was information at the announced Steam Machines debut, so you'll have to look up the +10 vendors sites if that information on Steam disappeared.

and developers who cooperate with Valve are meant to make games work on Steam Machines.

Duh, and what is SteamOS? Debian. What is Debian? Linux. Upgrade your hardware? Vulkan isn't going to be a success story for Linux if people stick to toasters.

Tux icon was changed to Steam OS icon for a reason. Developers won't be forced to make games work on Linux distributions - they will be forced to ensure that experience on Steam OS will be good. And what's more - I bet official Steam Machines with Steam OS will get support.

Oh, here we go. The baseless paranoia that SteamOS is out to kill Linux and rule them all because of a branding image. Did we suddenly forget Valve is releasing their open source Intel driver? I'm sure they would release a proper AMD one as well if AMD wasn't off in their own world.

If You decide to build Your own "Steam Machine" with Steam OS but AMD graphic - it may turn out that half of the AAA games do not run on your machine, because Your card is not supported.

No shit, that's the current state of affairs today with AMD and Linux. If they said it would work optimally without anyone improving the AMD experience on Linux across the board, they would be shooting themselves in the foot for making such a claim.

Don't get me wrong, I want AMD to survive because competition is a good thing, but if they drag their feet in this process (two way street in this scenario), their fans might want to rethink where to buy a graphic card.

@Keizgon

Vulkan isn't going to be a success story for Linux if people stick to toasters.

Good one :).

The baseless paranoia that SteamOS is out to kill Linux and rule them all

Second good one, especially because we discuss game based on a Tolkien's universe :).
But I have to say that I am affraid that at some point Valve will decide to stop support it's client on different linux distributions than SteamOS and their games will work only with up and running steam client. As You said - maybe it's baseless, but I have such a feeling.

I want AMD to survive because competition is a good thing

I totaly agree. Just to clarify - I have Intel + NVidia hardware and I have no interest in great AMD support on Linux except one thing - I do like to have a choice. And as you said - competition is a good thing for prices or evolution of technology.

Might as well try it, even Borderlands says it doesn't support AMD, but runs perfectly. Hope this is the case too.

Borderlands 2 (and TPS) doesn't officially support my AMD card and yet I'm playing that game just like in windows, with the major exception that I run the open source drivers.

I will definitely give this a try, if it doesn't use advanced OpenGL 4+ features that are not yet available in mesa.

I must admit though: If nvidia is the only way to go I'll probably stop this hobby I've been having for more than 15 years now. (gaming) At least on the PC.

As I do not use proprietary technology on my Linux-machines Nvidia is no option for me (as nouveau sadly is not on par with the open source AMD driver)

While I do maintain one Windows 10 partition for testing purposes I do not plan to buy games that only run on Windows and/or Nvidia.

I've had many graphicscards in the past and I've never been a fanboy of any manufacturer.

That being said, I do not forget. I do not forget PhysX that is proprietary bullshit that is crippled on non-nvidia-hardware, I do not forget the 970 scandal, I do not forget that AMD supports and embraces Open Source while Nvidia sees it as a hindrance of their profit.

I plan(ned) to buy a new graphics card in the next months and I wanted it to be another AMD, but maybe I'm going to save that money for other stuff :)

I must admit though: If nvidia is the only way to go I'll probably stop this hobby I've been having for more than 15 years now. (gaming) At least on the PC.

Well if you plan to do it on Consoles, Android or iOS, then you're doing exactly the same, only being locked down even further.

It's not Nvidia's fault that games are having issues with AMD.

I m more at the side of Maelrane than Liam, part fault is the developer choose a graphics card to make the game, an example on windows to witcher 3, they have better performance with the hair and with amd the frames drop a lot.
I agree that AMD is the mainly fault that their games are not full support at linux but remember AMD buy this from ATI and ATI their main problem was always their drivers and great hardware(now they have better driver at windows), but also what is the reason the developer choose Nvidia, no one said it, they have a better api or some tricks to develop game who doesn't know. I think they should do it neutral and don't pick a card to do a game(or it's that nvidia put money for development on their hardware). If you want a close hardware make just the game to console that is easy is the same hardware. If you would like to do a game for pc remember the many configurations that must be also consider.
This is like windows and linux, i choose do it, just one way for avoid issues with the others SO, I choose one card that will be supported the other might have some problems. It's the same. That mean I will focus on this hardware so people would like to play my game bought nvidia.
The main problem as Maelrane suggest, nvidia the problem they make properties things and just focus on their hardware that is not bad to a company but affect to pc gamers, that things PhysX they just bought it and make property, they make a g-sync they make it closed(they should make it open to any card, just selling that the hardware has nvidia is enough on the monitor ), they lie to their client about the new card 970 and so on. If they do more to the community as properties things they do, it will be better a way for pc gamers.

In the SofM manual there was a link back to Feral. It was a recent FAQ describing their linux support.
These are some of the questions answered. Link is below.

Will Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor work on my Linux distro?
Which graphics cards and driver versions are supported by Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor?
Does Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor support achievements?
How do I obtain DLC?
How do I access DLC?
Can I play Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor with a gamepad?
Switching to a virtual terminal causes the game to crash or the graphics to render incorrectly. How do I prevent this from happening?
Where are my saved games stored?
Where are the configuration files for the game stored?
Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor runs slowly on my computer. Is there anything I can do to increase the speed?
How do I get technical support for Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor?


[Link to FAQ.](http://support.feralinteractive.com/docs/en/shadowofmordor/latest/linux/faqs/)

I have to say that worst case scenario comes true. All the steam machines have NVidia GPU (correct me if I'm wrong) and developers who cooperate with Valve are meant to make games work on Steam Machines.

Tux icon was changed to Steam OS icon for a reason. Developers won't be forced to make games work on Linux distributions - they will be forced to ensure that experience on Steam OS will be good. And what's more - I bet official Steam Machines with Steam OS will get support. If You decide to build Your own "Steam Machine" with Steam OS but AMD graphic - it may turn out that half of the AAA games do not run on your machine, because Your card is not supported.

This is pointless FUD. It's up to distros to make sure they keep up with SteamOS if they want compatibility, not up to developers to make sure their game runs on each and every distro, that's illogical.

We know why AMD graphics aren't supported, and why NVIDIA is in the commercial Steam Machines, it's because AMD linux drivers are still bad. We also know they're a work in progress and better ones are on the horizon.

If you build your own Steam Machine...yeah, I'd suggest you choose hardware with the best compatibility. Right not that is NVIDIA and not AMD and everybody knows this. No one is gonna buy hardware and have it suddenly and surprisingly not work for half their games. That is pure FUD. We read reviews, gamers aren't stupid - choose compatible hardware, easy.

I am in full support of the Tux icon changing. The Steam logo now means linux, that's awesome.

I wouldn't have bought it anyway (I tend not to buy games that force a male player character down my throat). But I have played plenty of games in the past that officially didn't support my graphics chard and ran just fine, so that wouldn't have stopped me. I did switch to Nvidia after my last AMD card gave up, so there is that. I had AMD cards for many years and was always happy with them, but their complete absence of interest to properly Linux got me in the end.

The way I see it, there are at least two ways this could play out:

1. After seeing all the big-name titles coming to Linux, AMD improves their drivers and everyone lives happily ever after.

2. Steam Machines become successful, and Nvidia corners the market on them in the same way that AMD did with Xbox One and PS4, effectively making Nvidia the default graphics company for Linux. That might lead to better performance for Nvidia Linux users but would be very bad for AMD users.

A third possibility of course is that nothing happens and nothing changes.

I will probably try it anyway on my AMD hardware. I put 60 hours into Borderlands 2 without problems, and that with environmental lighting enabled, although it was said not to be supported. If it doesn't work, I'll wait until I get my new Nvidia based machine. I'm done with AMD anyway.

I must admit though: If nvidia is the only way to go I'll probably stop this hobby I've been having for more than 15 years now. (gaming) At least on the PC.

Well if you plan to do it on Consoles, Android or iOS, then you're doing exactly the same, only being locked down even further.

I'm a software engineer and (IT-)Geek myself, but no... I would stop completely. I have about 200 games in steam alone. That's more than enough for the next couple of years.

I would simple stop buying any new games.

It's not Nvidia's fault that games are having issues with AMD.

Let's agree to disagree here. I'm not blaming nvidia for all the mistakes AMD made, but nvidia does use its power and money to ensure they get the best performance and that games run (better) on their hardware.

But ya, the majority of problems comes from stupid developers that do not stick to standards in any way and graphic card manufacturers that adapt their drivers to the games, when - in a perfect world - it should be the other way round.

I do hope soooooo much that Vulkan and the much thinner layer for the drivers to make this situation better.

From a software engineering point of view it's so moronic to adapt the driver to every fucking game out there, because the developers don't know shit about OpenGL and even Direct3D.

(*) I know a stuff or two about OpenGL development. I'm by no means an expert (yet) but I decided to switch my master to computer graphics instead of doing more of the (often boring) software engineering stuff. So while I have a lot to learn I got bigger insight to some code and it's disastrous to say the least.

*snip*

Ya, I forgot to mention that... Nvidia gameworks and stuff like that makes that company highly unappealing to me.

I'm sorry I don't share the common attitude. I'm a dev first, then a gamer. I became a dev through gaming when I was younger and it was and still is an important hobby to me, but there are lines I do not want to cross.

I even have an nvidia card here, but until they change their policy I will not support them anymore.

IF AMD really goes bankrupt and no Samsung or anyone buys them, we have a monopoly.

And if history of capitalism tells us one thing, then that monopolies are really, really, really bad!

AMD has always had inferior drivers going all the way back to when they were called ATi. I don't know why people even bother with them. Nvidia has always been the best.