During the livestream I did last night I had one of those moments where you fully appreciate how far Linux gaming has come.
Make sure your sound is up, it's not about the video, but what's said.
I tend to babble on a bit during livestreams as my mind ends up wandering, but a viewer managed to catch this clip which I just had to share (thanks to Leeo97one for posting it in our Discord):
I also ended up comparing different Linux distributions to Pizza toppings for some reason. If you want to catch more nonsense like that, be sure to follow us on Twitch.
In April 2010, I was posting about tiny indie games like Osmos being released for Linux (Osmos is awesome though). I thought to myself back then "this is incredible!", how little did I know that a few years later I would be livestreaming a game of Rocket League full of Linux players.
We may not get every AAA release ever, but what we do get is usually quite good. We have more games on Linux than I ever thought possible! We have even more arriving this year like Civilization VI and I'm sure there will be plenty of others announced as time goes on.
Linux is too small to get the majority of AAA games right now, as we would be spoilt for choice and our market-share would be stretched too thin across too many games, resulting in lower sales and less friendly developers in future. Essentially, too many big games right now would probably be harmful to our growth as a gaming platform. I'm happy with what we have now, and as we grow you can be sure we will get more.
Just today I setup another Antergos PC in my home attached to my TV, and GNOME Shell works surprisingly well on a big screen:
My family now play Slime Rancher on the family TV, and they absolutely love it.
It was originally going to get Windows 10 on it for various Windows-only children's games, but no matter how it was copied onto a USB drive Windows 10 just refused to boot. It's funny how much easier I find Linux to be at almost everything it's really quite amazing. First attempt at getting Antergos burnt onto a USB worked without a single issue.
Be sure to share your interesting stories in the comments. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Make sure your sound is up, it's not about the video, but what's said.
I tend to babble on a bit during livestreams as my mind ends up wandering, but a viewer managed to catch this clip which I just had to share (thanks to Leeo97one for posting it in our Discord):
I also ended up comparing different Linux distributions to Pizza toppings for some reason. If you want to catch more nonsense like that, be sure to follow us on Twitch.
In April 2010, I was posting about tiny indie games like Osmos being released for Linux (Osmos is awesome though). I thought to myself back then "this is incredible!", how little did I know that a few years later I would be livestreaming a game of Rocket League full of Linux players.
We may not get every AAA release ever, but what we do get is usually quite good. We have more games on Linux than I ever thought possible! We have even more arriving this year like Civilization VI and I'm sure there will be plenty of others announced as time goes on.
Linux is too small to get the majority of AAA games right now, as we would be spoilt for choice and our market-share would be stretched too thin across too many games, resulting in lower sales and less friendly developers in future. Essentially, too many big games right now would probably be harmful to our growth as a gaming platform. I'm happy with what we have now, and as we grow you can be sure we will get more.
Just today I setup another Antergos PC in my home attached to my TV, and GNOME Shell works surprisingly well on a big screen:
My family now play Slime Rancher on the family TV, and they absolutely love it.
It was originally going to get Windows 10 on it for various Windows-only children's games, but no matter how it was copied onto a USB drive Windows 10 just refused to boot. It's funny how much easier I find Linux to be at almost everything it's really quite amazing. First attempt at getting Antergos burnt onto a USB worked without a single issue.
Be sure to share your interesting stories in the comments. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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Essentially, too many big games right would woulddouble would ;) Other than that, a bit short short, but also a bit interesting article.
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oldrocker99 
22 Jan 2017
I started in 2008, with Ubuntu 8.04, and, at the time, there was exactly one freely-available commercial game that had a Linux client available: Neverwinter Nights. I happily played it (and still occasionally fire it up, and it still works; not bad for a 15 year old port) until the Humble Bundles came up. I dual-booted from 2012 to 2014; when X-COM came out for Linux, I deep-sixed my Windows partition and haven't looked back.
I have seen gaming on Linux grow from Steam's initial offering of mostly Humble Bundle games to the wealth of titles we have now. I used to buy just about every Linux game that came out, and now I'm pretty damn picky.
We are in a Golden Age of gaming for Linux.
I have seen gaming on Linux grow from Steam's initial offering of mostly Humble Bundle games to the wealth of titles we have now. I used to buy just about every Linux game that came out, and now I'm pretty damn picky.
We are in a Golden Age of gaming for Linux.
2 Likes, Who?
For example, a major reason for Linux game availability is the rise of high quality game engines, many of which have added Linux support. As these engines generally have many Indie developer customers, I'm guessing that as long as the Indies make enough from their Linux sales, then it will be worth the engine companies continuing to support Linux. But I don't know of any concrete figures that would indicate that continued Linux support is worth it for these companies.
Well, the big engines probably make money hand over fist. Maintaining and improving Linux support I would expect is cheaper than adding it was in the first place. And the thing about Linux is, even if there were no non-techie Linux desktops at all, Linux dominates in most other spaces and shows no sign of that diminishing. Between that and the attractiveness of the FOSS idea, Linux has a strong allegiance among programmers. Once they've jumped the hurdle of putting in support in the first place, even if keeping it isn't worth it financially it's probably worth it just for morale within the company and goodwill outside.
There's also the checklist effect. If you offer a product it's kind of hard to measure which features are making you money, which make the difference in people's choices to use your product or a competitor's. But if that kind of product has a checklist of features that most of them support, I suspect most companies would be leery of changing their product so it gets a red X beside something on the list while their competitors still have a green check mark.
So I suspect chances are pretty good Linux support in the engines will stay for a while.
0 Likes
I started in 2008, with Ubuntu 8.04, and, at the time, there was exactly one freely-available commercial game that had a Linux client available: Neverwinter Nights. I happily played it (and still occasionally fire it up, and it still works; not bad for a 15 year old port) until the Humble Bundles came up. I dual-booted from 2012 to 2014; when X-COM came out for Linux, I deep-sixed my Windows partition and haven't looked back.
I have seen gaming on Linux grow from Steam's initial offering of mostly Humble Bundle games to the wealth of titles we have now. I used to buy just about every Linux game that came out, and now I'm pretty damn picky.
We are in a Golden Age of gaming for Linux.
Let us hope it turns out to be only a Silver Age, with the Golden Age of World Domination yet to come! ;)
2 Likes, Who?
I got a laptop, MSI decent specs, GTX870 vidcard.
But rocket leauge really is choppy, with everything on low even.
Any tips?
Any more to go on?
Version of Linux?
RAM?
Nvidia driver version?
Processor?
Screen Resolution?
What resolution are you trying to play at? 720p? Screen res?
Noting that by GTX870 graphics, I take it you mean GTX870M (i.e. the mobile version of the graphics chipset, which would be slower than the equivalent desktop graphics.)
Graphics can be 'choppy' if the graphics card overheats, and then ramps down automatically to lower the temperature.
Do you hear fan speed going up and down?
0 Likes
I got a laptop, MSI decent specs, GTX870 vidcard.
But rocket leauge really is choppy, with everything on low even.
Any tips?
Are you using Bumblebee or Prime for switchable graphics(Intel-Nvidia)and are you sure game is running with Nvidia,not Intel?
0 Likes
Well, the big engines probably make money hand over fist. Maintaining and improving Linux support I would expect is cheaper than adding it was in the first place. And the thing about Linux is, even if there were no non-techie Linux desktops at all, Linux dominates in most other spaces and shows no sign of that diminishing. Between that and the attractiveness of the FOSS idea, Linux has a strong allegiance among programmers. Once they've jumped the hurdle of putting in support in the first place, even if keeping it isn't worth it financially it's probably worth it just for morale within the company and goodwill outside.
There's also the checklist effect. If you offer a product it's kind of hard to measure which features are making you money, which make the difference in people's choices to use your product or a competitor's. But if that kind of product has a checklist of features that most of them support, I suspect most companies would be leery of changing their product so it gets a red X beside something on the list while their competitors still have a green check mark.
So I suspect chances are pretty good Linux support in the engines will stay for a while.
I certainly hope you are right. I think we can assume a few years of speculative Linux support, but beyond that there probably has to be a commercial argument, and it is currently unclear how that will pan out. At one point the DICE team seemed quite keen to make their engine run on Linux ( enough to advertise for the expertise ), but then I think the money men overruled them.
I'm still hopeful that other AAA studios will think more about cross-platform support when they develop new engines, but they may remain risk averse without a clear financial argument.
0 Likes
I was searching for "best PC games" for 2012 "13 "14 "15 "16 in google yesterday.
+- 40% or more have a native linux port :)
for example: Firewatch, Life is strange, Oxenfree, Alien Isolation, XCOM 2, Deus Ex, Pillars of Eternity, SOMA, Sunless Sea, The Talos Principle, Tomb Raider, Shadow Tactics, ..
+- 25% of the remaining "best pc games" (without linux support) have a platinum or gold rating on winehq, so they perform great on linux via the wine app :)
for example: Dishonored, The Walking Dead, Skyrim, Metro: Last Light, Path of Exile, The Sims 3, Mass Effect 3, ..
If HP, Lenovo, Acer and Asus would decide tomorrow to offer the customer two options 1) Windows 10 and Office 365 for 100 Euro or 2) GNU/Linux for 0.00 Euro
How many people would buy Windows 10 if computer devices would be sold without operating system?
There is not one good reason for Windows 10 to exist anno 2017.
Yes, we have about 1/4 of all Windows games on Steam, and 2/3 those available for MacOSX. So we are much better served than a few years ago. ( By the way, Metro:LL actually does have Linux port ).
The problem with large OEMs offering Linux pre-installs in the way you suggest is that the financials don't work that way.
It may cost you or me 100 €/$/£ for Windows and 0 €/$/£ for Linux, but for a large OEM the costs are worked out on a per-unit basis.
They actually pay very little for a copy of Windows, but assume the first-line support costs, which are amortised over a very large number of sales and so are quite low. Many also get revenue through deals to include extra software trials that you almost certainly did not want. So they basically lie if they suggest that you are paying 100 €/$/£ for Windows but force you to take an OS.
Conversely, for Linux, although the OS is free, they may actually have to pay Canonical, or some other entity for second/third line support ( i.e. to get fixes ), while their per-unit costs for first-line support will be higher than Windows due to smaller sales volumes.
This means that when companies like Dell have offered Linux pre-installs, it has been at a similar price point to Windows, which is not much of a pull factor. Sad but true.
Last edited by etonbears on 22 Jan 2017 at 11:41 pm UTC
0 Likes
The problem with large OEMs offering Linux pre-installs in the way you suggest is that the financials don't work that way.
It may cost you or me 100 €/$/£ for Windows and 0 €/$/£ for Linux, but for a large OEM the costs are worked out on a per-unit basis.
Then how do you explain that?:
http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2017/01/dell-precision-3520-ubuntu-laptop
Last edited by Nyamiou on 23 Jan 2017 at 12:41 am UTC
0 Likes
Mountain Man 23 Jan 2017
Humble Bundle woke some people up to Linux gaming, but it wasn't the revolution that Steam for Linux has been.Before Steam for Linux was launched, commercial games were almost never released for Linux. AAA releases were especially rare.Humble Bundle started pushing Linux gaming before Steam, and quite successfully. They encouraged developers of commercial games to make Linux ports. So let's give credit where it's due. Their initial bundles always required developers to produce Linux versions to participate. Only later they started slacking, and limited it to their periodic indie bundles only.
0 Likes
Well, the big engines probably make money hand over fist. Maintaining and improving Linux support I would expect is cheaper than adding it was in the first place. And the thing about Linux is, even if there were no non-techie Linux desktops at all, Linux dominates in most other spaces and shows no sign of that diminishing. Between that and the attractiveness of the FOSS idea, Linux has a strong allegiance among programmers. Once they've jumped the hurdle of putting in support in the first place, even if keeping it isn't worth it financially it's probably worth it just for morale within the company and goodwill outside.
There's also the checklist effect. If you offer a product it's kind of hard to measure which features are making you money, which make the difference in people's choices to use your product or a competitor's. But if that kind of product has a checklist of features that most of them support, I suspect most companies would be leery of changing their product so it gets a red X beside something on the list while their competitors still have a green check mark.
So I suspect chances are pretty good Linux support in the engines will stay for a while.
I certainly hope you are right. I think we can assume a few years of speculative Linux support, but beyond that there probably has to be a commercial argument, and it is currently unclear how that will pan out.
Not gonna argue. The long and the short of it is, in the end we're gonna need market share, and while there's some indication that may have been growing a bit lately, I still don't see any big obvious sources of Linux desktop growth right now.
I do think the potential is there--the Linux desktop, in various versions, is really quite good and just getting better. Linux has always had some unique strengths as a desktop; it has also, let's face it, had unique disadvantages (including lack of games), but these have been gradually chipped away over the years and at this point few remain. But quality and adoption aren't always related, and I don't know what commercial interests are likely to put Linux on desktops any time soon. Hoping some emerge.
0 Likes
Do you know a online tool to do lobby for asking developers to port their games to linux? Something like gog request but dedicated to linux and where we can put a pledge if done?
I would appreciate to see and fund Everspace and Ghost of A Tale that are very great to move on linux!
I would appreciate to see and fund Everspace and Ghost of A Tale that are very great to move on linux!
0 Likes
Latest Ubuntu versionI got a laptop, MSI decent specs, GTX870 vidcard.
But rocket leauge really is choppy, with everything on low even.
Any tips?
Any more to go on?
Version of Linux?
RAM?
Nvidia driver version?
Processor?
Screen Resolution?
What resolution are you trying to play at? 720p? Screen res?
Noting that by GTX870 graphics, I take it you mean GTX870M (i.e. the mobile version of the graphics chipset, which would be slower than the equivalent desktop graphics.)
Graphics can be 'choppy' if the graphics card overheats, and then ramps down automatically to lower the temperature.
Do you hear fan speed going up and down?
8Gb
Nvidia 367.57
i7-4810MQ CPU @ 2.80GHz
1920x1200 ext monitor, otherwise 1080
Same as above
and yesm the GTX870M
Fan does go up and down once in a while.
I am fairly new to Ubuntu. First I hear of this. So not sure which, if even....I got a laptop, MSI decent specs, GTX870 vidcard.
But rocket leauge really is choppy, with everything on low even.
Any tips?
Are you using Bumblebee or Prime for switchable graphics(Intel-Nvidia)and are you sure game is running with Nvidia,not Intel?
Yes, from your specifications, your machine should manage no problem. Leopard's comments do ring true with me.
These three links might help you or point you in a good direction to investigate and fix the issue...
https://mintguide.org/video/508-easily-switch-nvidia-hybrid-graphics-nvdia-intel.html
http://ubuntuhandbook.org/index.php/2016/04/switch-intel-nvidia-graphics-ubuntu-16-04/
http://askubuntu.com/questions/59489/how-to-switch-between-hybrid-graphics-intel-nvidia
Last edited by g000h on 23 Jan 2017 at 10:12 am UTC
0 Likes
The problem with large OEMs offering Linux pre-installs in the way you suggest is that the financials don't work that way.
It may cost you or me 100 €/$/£ for Windows and 0 €/$/£ for Linux, but for a large OEM the costs are worked out on a per-unit basis.
Then how do you explain that?:
http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2017/01/dell-precision-3520-ubuntu-laptop
Ooh, I stand corrected.
Things are obviously changing, and I admit that I haven't looked at prices in quite a while. What I was attempting to point out is that OEM contractual relationships with their supply chains mean you can't necessarily expect OEM pricing to reflect retail pricing.
The particular offer that you link to is comparing Ubuntu to the Pro Windows, which is a bit more expensive. The Dell UK site seems to have a £30 difference between Ubuntu and the Home Windows price.
It is good to see this happening, as it probably indicates either a weakening of Microsoft's position, or that Dell have much more confidence in the costs of supporting Linux. Either would be welcome.
0 Likes
I literally said 100 euro for Windows 10 and Office 2016, not for Windows 10 alone. And I think that you are misinformed.
Yes, sorry, I completely misread your first post, I thought you were just expecting the retail cost of Windows to be deducted if the same computer ships with Linux.
Even re-reading your first post, I'm not actually sure what you were saying, unless it was just that you REALLY hate Windows and don't see why anyone would use it :)
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