The Linux developers at Unity [Official Site] have been plugging away on putting SDL2 [Official Website] into the Linux builds, and with Unity 5.6 it should be there.
Na'Tosha Bard tweeted out that the code for it has landed in "trunk" (their main codebase), so it's all ready to go now. The first beta of Unity 5.6 sounds like it's not due for another few weeks yet, so there's still some time until anyone can test it in the wild.
I spoke with Na'Tosha for a bit on Twitter to clear some things up. She said that it enables Unity to remove their own X11 implementation, and they are using SDL2 for window management and mouse, gamepad, joystick and keyboard inputs.
Na'Tosha did state that she's not aware of any actual issues being fixed by using SDL2, but some users may see improvements.
It will also provide them with the possibility of Mir and Wayland support in future, but they aren't currently on their roadmap yet.
This is good for SDL2 as well of course, as any bugs encountered by the Unity team can be reported and hopefully fixed to then improve SDL2 for other developers. The power of open source and all that jazz.
SDL2 isn't the only big thing that Unity 5.6 will bring. It's also planned to have their first version of Vulkan support too, and you can find more on that here.
You can find out what else Unity has planned on their roadmap.
You can also find the Linux builds of the Unity editor right here on their forum.
Many thanks to Na'Tosha Bard for replying to me on Twitter about it to clear some things up. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Na'Tosha Bard tweeted out that the code for it has landed in "trunk" (their main codebase), so it's all ready to go now. The first beta of Unity 5.6 sounds like it's not due for another few weeks yet, so there's still some time until anyone can test it in the wild.
I spoke with Na'Tosha for a bit on Twitter to clear some things up. She said that it enables Unity to remove their own X11 implementation, and they are using SDL2 for window management and mouse, gamepad, joystick and keyboard inputs.
Na'Tosha did state that she's not aware of any actual issues being fixed by using SDL2, but some users may see improvements.
It will also provide them with the possibility of Mir and Wayland support in future, but they aren't currently on their roadmap yet.
This is good for SDL2 as well of course, as any bugs encountered by the Unity team can be reported and hopefully fixed to then improve SDL2 for other developers. The power of open source and all that jazz.
SDL2 isn't the only big thing that Unity 5.6 will bring. It's also planned to have their first version of Vulkan support too, and you can find more on that here.
You can find out what else Unity has planned on their roadmap.
You can also find the Linux builds of the Unity editor right here on their forum.
Many thanks to Na'Tosha Bard for replying to me on Twitter about it to clear some things up. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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I'm not really familiar with SDL, does this mean that games will be able to run in independent window manager regards of which one system uses (x11, wayland, mir)? If that is the case this is some great news!
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kellerkindt Nov 9, 2016
I'm not really familiar with SDL, does this mean that games will be able to run in independent window manager regards of which one system uses (x11, wayland, mir)? If that is the case this is some great news!
SDL is more like a thin layer you talk to (your application -> SDL -> X11/Wayland/Mir/whatever).
It allows you to use the same code for everything SDL supports. So you tell SDL to create a new window, and it will sort out how to do it on your system.
2 Likes, Who?
natewardawg Nov 9, 2016
I'm not really familiar with SDL, does this mean that games will be able to run in independent window manager regards of which one system uses (x11, wayland, mir)? If that is the case this is some great news!
Exactly! :) SDL takes care of the display server stuff for you.
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I'm not really familiar with SDL, does this mean that games will be able to run in independent window manager regards of which one system uses (x11, wayland, mir)? If that is the case this is some great news!
SDL is more like a thin layer you talk to (your application -> SDL -> X11/Wayland/Mir/whatever).
It allows you to use the same code for everything SDL supports. So you tell SDL to create a new window, and it will sort out how to do it on your system.
I'm not really familiar with SDL, does this mean that games will be able to run in independent window manager regards of which one system uses (x11, wayland, mir)? If that is the case this is some great news!
Exactly! :) SDL takes care of the display server stuff for you.
Well this is really nice and great news :) Because having different display managers as future will probably bring to us, it won't be display-manager dependent :)
1 Likes, Who?
SDL is actually much more an analogy to the full DirectX stack than OpenGL/Vulkan are. (Which as graphical APIs are analogies to the Direct3D portion of DirectX) In fact, SDL also has wrappers around OpenGL to handle the graphical parts too. SDL can handle window management, graphics, audio, input enumeration and handling, and is basically the swiss army knife of open source game development. It's left most similar efforts in the dust long ago. (Allegro, I'm looking at you!) I'm kind of interested in which pieces of SDL Unity will be using.
6 Likes, Who?
This is great news. Better standardisation, more constructive bug reports. Probably more stable controller support as well. Future proof!
1 Likes, Who?
About time. Should of been using it from the start. Would of eliminated tons of problems they had with the engine on linux. Most of it seems fixed now already. I assume Unity will now have proper vsync support aswell.
2 Likes, Who?
cRaZy-bisCuiT Nov 10, 2016
I'm actually more excited about the Vulkan rendering path. I wonder if games like Cities: Skylines will update their engine. I hope the performance will increase, at least the low FPS.
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soulsource Nov 10, 2016
Good to see. This will help the Unity developers get rid of some nasty boilerplate code maintenance work (directly dealing with X11 can be a huge PITA...).
Said boilerplate code has already caused issues previously (one example being the nasty window handling bugs of KSP 1.1), so having SDL take care of it will definitely be an improvement.
Said boilerplate code has already caused issues previously (one example being the nasty window handling bugs of KSP 1.1), so having SDL take care of it will definitely be an improvement.
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I'm sorry about this digression into a discussion of grammar, however there's been a burning question for me a long time and I want to use this opportunity now that I saw this usage of the word "of" again:
I see this *all* the time: This usage of "of" instead of "have"!
This is not meant as an insult or anything towards this particular poster cause like I say, I see this absolutely everywhere and it puzzles me every time.
My question is: Is it legit English? Or an American variant? Or is it a kind of slang?
About time. Should of been using it from the start. Would of eliminated tons of problems they had with the engine on linux.
I see this *all* the time: This usage of "of" instead of "have"!
This is not meant as an insult or anything towards this particular poster cause like I say, I see this absolutely everywhere and it puzzles me every time.
My question is: Is it legit English? Or an American variant? Or is it a kind of slang?
2 Likes, Who?
@Beamboom the correct way is "should have", but let's not have article comments descend into grammar hell?
3 Likes, Who?
Yes. However, as Na'Tosha said, only the X11 backend will be supported at first - Wayland and Mir will come a bit later, as everything gets set up for building/deployment/testing of those configurations.I'm not really familiar with SDL, does this mean that games will be able to run in independent window manager regards of which one system uses (x11, wayland, mir)? If that is the case this is some great news!
SDL is more like a thin layer you talk to (your application -> SDL -> X11/Wayland/Mir/whatever).
It allows you to use the same code for everything SDL supports. So you tell SDL to create a new window, and it will sort out how to do it on your system.
0 Likes
Hmm, I wonder if this will fix the longstanding issue I've had with unity games (and perhaps it's fixed, I've not checked with newer unity titles) where you cannot launch multiple unity applications at the same time.
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@Beamboom the correct way is "should have", but let's not have article comments descend into grammar hell?
No no by all means - I just have always wondered about this particular "odd" way of writing, since I've seen it "everywhere" and it's so explicitly wrong (in my eyes).
But I understand now (also thanks to those who sent me a PM on the subject!) that it's a way of mistyping "should've" since it sounds a bit like "of" at the end. I still think it's odd, but at least I now know that it's not me whom vocabulary is just a bit outdated. :)
Last edited by Beamboom on 10 November 2016 at 3:20 pm UTC
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it's not me whom vocabulary is just a bit outdatedTo nitpick, shouldn't this have been "whose"? :D (but I must say I would have worded it differently anyway - not a native speaker either, btw).
I am glad they took the SDL route. I didn't occur to me that they weren't already using it. I guess this explains quite a lot of the early bugs, especially concerning mouse handling.
SDL is such a great tool. It has been around for a long time, I never encountered any bugs, and its developer is now a Valve employee. However, it's not a magic bullet, if you want to make a good 3D game, you will probably have to use Vulank/OpenGL, and OpenAL. I emphasize the last word; HRTF is so great, and having a maximum number of games using OpenAL means we get it for free :)
This Na'Tosha seems to be one of the most dedicated developers we have. Many thanks to her and the whole (Linux) Unity team ! <3
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natewardawg Nov 12, 2016
Levi/Tak, I didn't forget about you. Thanks to the both of you for your hard work. If you want to be more easily remembered, all you have to do is dye your hair bright pink. :D
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