Alien: Isolation Officially Confirmed For Linux, Releasing On September 29th

Quoting: Guest(I'll sum up instead of a particular quote)[snip]

I actually agree with most of what you write, including the part about better drivers across all hardware manufacturers. And yes, I'm sure Feral could and should put more effort into improving their code on all hardware and drivers.
But none if this translates into your statement of 'They don't care'. That statement implies a motivation that's not backed up by your explanation.
I agree that I'd prefer better coded, better running games, I doubt anyone would argue with that.

Quoting: GuestYes, even the nvidia fanboys will see performance improvements if Feral upped their game.

This name calling is getting tiresome. Not everyone who has a nvidia card must be a fanboy, some people just want the currently best performance. In this discussion, it's already been implied that people using nvidia are braindead, now fanboys. This doesn't contribute anything, and really doesn't convince anyone of your argument.

Quoting: FredO

Quoting: ricki42Could you quote their exact words on that? Don't know if you're allowed to...

I think for Feral it's simply a matter of what makes financial sense. If you look at the GOL surveys, more than 70% of folks here use nvidia+prop. drivers. About 17% use AMD GPUs, but that's in turn pretty much evenly split between open-source and prop. driver. So you have <10% on Catalyst. This situation isn't Feral's fault, but they are faced with it and have to make the best of it.

It sucks though, because it's a vicious cycle that leads to a monopoly. It's not just on Linux, nvidia has a similar lead on Windows, and basically for the same reasons: unreliable driver support on AMD.

When the latest nvidia cards came out, new Linux drivers were available day-1, when AMD released Fury, it took several weeks (don't remember exactly, I checked some time after release and couldn't find drivers, checked phoronix, but I don't know how reliable that is).

I'm not happy with this situation either, but Feral's lack of AMD support isn't the cause, it's a symptom. I think you're barking up the wrong tree.

Agreed. Aspyr don't officially support AMD with their Borderlands ports - so is that their lack of skills and effort? VP's ports nearly all run badly on my AMD machine, and sometimes with missing textures too - but do we only blame VP? How can these 3 porting companies all have trouble with AMD, and yet all their games work without problems on my Nvidia machine. AMD is the common factor here, so where does the problem really lie?

Is logical amd users are so tiny part of market* if count only catalyst users are supported, stay around 8% compared with nvidia stay around 80% of market

*And this situation is all fault amd for leave grow nvidia until this instance, maybe if amd put more resources in linux some time ago this situation can be different but when you have tiny part of market is very difficult impulse new standard

Maybe next year with new gpu 14/16nm, amd can show good watts/performance cards for try reverse this situation for example: radeon r270 performance level card but consume 60-65w must be hit in sales

Hopefully amd can improve drivers for radeon r400 appears in market, around middle of 2016

In this point most users have nvidia because games works (ideological reasons dont care)

^_^


Last edited by mrdeathjr on 23 September 2015 at 4:09 pm UTC

Quoting: edve98Hell yeah!

But really, it is weird that it won't support AMD cards. The change log was the thing that pretty much confirmed it is coming to Linux.

Blame AMD and their craptastic drivers. It's been like this for years, even on Windows, and has cost AMD massive market share.


Last edited by Mountain Man on 23 September 2015 at 10:03 pm UTC

This post might contain tidbits of an opinion piece I'm writing for GOL regarding AMD's reputation among Linux gamers, so you will have to excuse the redundancies in the aforementioned article (when I finally get time to write it down in a factual format).

Blaming the "nvidia only" trend with the latest AAA-games released for Linux squarely on AMD is misinformed at best, inferring way too much out of a snapshot of a very limited set of data.
When it comes to drivers quality, I'll paraphrase an opengl/workstation dev: "nvidia lets you get away with murder, AMD expects all crossed "t"s and pointed "i"s, and intel has drivers"; i.e. when people code exclusively on nvidia, throw the game out of the door and say "here AMD, fix it for us" it's basically a TWIMTBP title without the namesake, and as such one shouldn't be surprised AMD cards show subpar performance at launch.
There has been extreme cases, such as Arkham Asylum (TWIMTBP game back when Fermi was late although the HD 7k-series was about to get a release) that turned off MSAA if it detected an AMD card (Source. Patches to TWIMTBP games showing AMD cards in a better light being taken down (Source.

Ask yourself: Is that really the kind of stuff that favors us as consumers? And how's AMD supposed to compete, by putting up similar shenanigans?

Usually at that point I get 2 kinds of reactions:
1. "Well I just want to get the best performance for my money" which is (and I'm not going to get many fans here but I'd rather be brutally honest than a famous suck-up) selfish, short-sighted and prone to shooting yourself in the foot, taking everyone else down the drain with you. Voting with your wallet... buying from a company that does it darnest so that you CAN'T vote with your wallet.
A supplier's job it to put their wares on the table, and let consumers sort things out. Not tilt the table with backroom deals and other BS (Spoiler alert, that phrase will probably appear in my AMD vs intel bit, oh yeah my opinion piece WILL be a two-parter, so sit back and enjoy). With fair competition, everybody wins... which by definition includes yourself, think about it.

2. "Well if AMD was in nvidia's position they'd do the same" which is A. not guaranteed B. besides the point - the point is we should always keep market leaders in check by making sure there is an underdog around. See the last paragraph above, paint it on your wall, tattoo it on your dog's ear I don't care, just remember that part. I'll probably have it written on my gravestone - I really REALLY don't want to have "I f*cking told you so" instead.

Next part is, "Catalyst sucks because it doesn't support kernel/X.org version such and such". There is a reason for that. I'm going to paraphrase AMD's John Bridgman. Catalyst was pretty much a workstation-only suite of drivers back when ATI was a stand-alone company. Workstation graphics cards were until recently the only thing for ATI (and later AMD) that justified pouring resources into Linux. Yet since AMD took over, Catalyst (which code is rather messy as per ) has received the following "desktop"-oriented improvements:
- Compositing support (2008 or so)
- 2D acceleration (2009-ish)
- Game profiles (Steam launch-ish)
- Kernel support for later versions than the main distros - not Arch cutting edge levels, but better than a few years back
Now, seeing that list, I perfectly understand that long time desktop Linux Radeon users have been burnt.
But yeah, Catalyst is a conservative set of hardware for a conservative market, meant to run on cards that alone cost more than our computers, and on which companies bet their business on. Sure it's a pain if you want the latest and greatest version of your packages, though from a business standpoint, you really don't want to mess things up on the CAD/CAM side just to add a few FPS in the latest shooty-shooty-bang-bang. R&D money doesn't grow on trees and I doubt AMD pays its employees with hugs and kisses.
However, this is one of the reasons the AMDGPU drivers were born.

Last part, before I-wrote-my-opinion-piece-already-although-I-didn't-mean-to, bugs. Yeah bugs happen in software, some affect you, some don't. And AMD doesn't have a patent on software bugs. I had an nvidia IGP once that had my desktop freeze every 3 seconds while watching a youtube video, on specific nforce version could fry your card (Source. What I find particularly cringe-worthy is user error blamed on software bugs on AMD's side. E.g. failure to install the drivers properly. Or Ubuntu backporting a feature to their 3.19 kernel which messed up DKMS.

Actually, AMD's biggest competitor isn't nvidia, it's Catalyst's reputation.

TL;DR: build an AMD Steam party machine (i.e. for local coop games) to help keep nvidia and intel on their toes. APUs like the A8-7600 will do, without breaking your wallet. You'll thank me later.


Last edited by PsynoKhi0 on 23 September 2015 at 10:19 pm UTC

What the heck does "TWIMTBP" mean?

As for the rest of your editorial, you're missing the historical perspective. Things didn't reach their present state overnight. You see, AMD cards have always been second-rate performers going all the way back to when they were known as ATi and exclusively supported Windows. You say that coders can "get away with murder" on Nvidia cards, but isn't that evidence of a more mature API? And indeed, Nvidia has been a strong supporter of OpenGL from day one. ATi/AMD has often tried to persue proprietary solutions (like their recent Mantle experiment) which has caused them to perpetually lag behind Nvidia in terms of driver support and performance.


Last edited by Mountain Man on 24 September 2015 at 12:29 am UTC

Quoting: Mountain ManWhat the heck does "TWIMTBP" mean?

"The Way It's Meant To Be Played"

Basically games that were developed on/for/sponsored by NVIDIA. Usually NVIDIA helps debug the graphics stack (sometimes with developers in-house at the studio) and I believe can contribute code or libraries to a project. AMD's version of the same is "Gaming Evolved".


Last edited by Mblackwell on 24 September 2015 at 12:29 am UTC

Quoting: Mountain ManYou say that coders can "get away with murder" on Nvidia cards, but isn't that evidence of a more mature API?

Hell, no! WTF....
At least not if it is an implementation of an open API used by more than one hardware vendor..

Great post, PsynoKhi0!


Last edited by sub on 24 September 2015 at 8:11 am UTC

Quoting: Mountain ManAs for the rest of your editorial, you're missing the historical perspective. Things didn't reach their present state overnight. You see, AMD cards have always been second-rate performers going all the way back to when they were known as ATi and exclusively supported Windows.

Actually I did touch the historical perspective, just not strictly from a raw, canned performance numbers standpoint, in a instant snapshot manner.
Though if we are to address that: The Radeon 7000 made splash, the Radeon HD 4000-series made a splash, the Radeon HD 7000 made a splash. So right off the bat IMO you're exaggerating on that point.

My main argument is that purchase decisions should take into account the price/performance at a given point in time *AND* the company's overall behavior through the years.
Price/performance is what you get today, while behavior and ethics shape what the price/performance ratio will be tomorrow for everyone. Giving dickish behavior a pass for the sake of personal short-term convenience has never fostered a sustainable marketplace (and this is far from limited to fields of economics, but I digress). Take microsoft as an obvious example.

Yeah, maybe AMD haven't been constant jerks because they couldn't afford to, I'll give you that. If they ever happen to switch place with intel and nvidia in market share and revenue, and shift attitude then I'll reconsider. But for the time being, it's bad enough that our "choice" boils down to a duopoly on the x86 CPU front, and on the GPU side, to favor actors that use underhanded tactics to give us even less choice.
I don't even understand the point. If your hardware and/or software is THAT great compared to your nearest competitor, what are you even remotely afraid of?


Last edited by PsynoKhi0 on 24 September 2015 at 5:11 pm UTC

So far I gather from all this that people have their magnifying glasses out and are trying to put AMD, nVidia, Intel & Developers under a microscope to understand exactly why AMD Cards aren't selling well and how this will effect the future market landscape of PC Gaming Video Cards.

In my opinion those that are saying that AMD cards simply fail to deliver in performance and stability are painfully correct. This can be dissected to reveal AMD's Linux Drivers are said to be cumbersome & nonperformance. If you really wanna split a hair and dissect the situation further you can say that game developers producing butchered code makes unstable and nonperformance problem worse by making AMD Hardware do less than it was designed to do. (You'd be at least partially correct that that element is co-morbid to other primary issues.)

I think in the case of Alien Isolation it's safe to say that Ferrel Interactive probably had a discussion that went something like this

QuoteFI: "The base package is $80,000-$120,000 which includes a estimated X hours towards the port project."
FI: "This will get you nVidia support which covers about 70-80% of the market"
FI: "AMD & Intel optimizations will cost an extra $10,000 - $20,000 depending on the complexities which our team is ready to do if you'd like, however the market share is only 20% of gamers as of present."
Client: "Lets just start with the base package and if / when we need to add AMD support. We'll tackle that later after we get a better idea of the return on this investment."
FI: "You got it - 2 developers will begin the project as soon as we get payment."
[Client hands Ferrel Interactive $100,000 check]

I just bought a second nVidia GTX 970 for my other Steam Linux Rig - you know why? 1 ) It's stable, 2 ) I expect the 9xx series to be supported fully by nVidia as it'll launch with SteamOS 3 ) I don't wanna d1ck around fixing my GPU or hacking my games to work properly when Linux already requires high maintenance, 4 ) When a Windows Gamer tries to bash on Linux I can instantly make Linux look super bad-ass because of being built with bad-ass gaming hardware & running a 4k monitor with it. (No I'm not a nvidia fanboy or whatever, I just choose the best, and maybe some Linux people would dump Linux if they could afford to get Apples, but I for one use Linux because it's technically superior to OSX and Windows, not because its the economical choice.)

If AMD was further along in the race and had their driver at a more stable & reliable state I would have happily thrown my $800 into their bank account as I love to support the underdog. Hopefully, my next upgrade cycle will be AMD (2x Linux). Hopefully my Client (1x Linux) & Family's (3x Linux) gaming systems will be AMD (upgrading in 12 months). If AMD proves themselves worthy, they will be selected.

Time and again for the last 3 years I've contacted AMD's support pleading for better Linux drivers and after going through a 30 question contact form that was more difficult and cumbersome to fill out than a job application - I don't even recall getting a reply. Their overly complicated contact form was simply a symptom of major infrastructure issues which is now evident by their financial crisis & bad market consumer opinions. In fact, I hypothesize their recent chip maker leaving may have been contributed to by the infrastructure and internal politic issues of the company.

I just hope in 12 months the future is bright, we all have to vote with our wallets by buying steam games and video cards to make Linux & SteamOS succeed.


Last edited by ElectricPrism on 25 September 2015 at 7:50 am UTC

Maybe we can return to this nvidia/ATI war once linux has a larger share of the gaming market. As it stands, in it's current state, I cannot blame developers for ignoring linux and just focusing on WIndows with third-parties, like Feral, going back to Mac.