Further evidence that Valve is here for the long-run, they've hired yet another developer to help improve open source graphics drivers on Linux.
Daniel Schürmann is the latest, confirmed by Valve developer Pierre-Loup Griffais on Twitter. So they have now hired Samuel "hakzsam" Pitoiset, Timothy Arceri (who previously crowdfunded his work to improve Linux drivers), Andres Rodriguez and more in addition to this latest.
It's going to be interesting to see if Valve continue to bring in more Linux folk, and the fact that Valve is still hiring people to help Linux gaming through driver work, VR work and so on is quite telling on how they plan to continue pushing Linux gaming for some time. They might not be shouting from the rooftops about it, but the work they're doing is vitally important.
Something else that Valve developer Pierre-Loup Griffais shared recently, is that approximately 13% of Mesa contributions in 2017 were from Valve developers:
Fun fact: Valve contributions seem to make up about 13% of Mesa commits in 2017. (commit count isn't relevant to contribution significance, so this fact is not only fun, but also useless).
It's going to be interesting to see what kind of splash Valve make, when VR support is solid on Linux and what their plans are after then. Some form of Steam Machine with SteamOS and a VR headset bundle, along with some upgrades to SteamOS could be quite interesting.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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We already had this discussion and I see no value in repeating it: Feral's games are compiled as native Linux binaries.
Indeed, let's not repeat it. I don't see Feral's releases as native, so let's move on to other topics.
If you want fully native Linux games (in your undestanding of "native" ), you shouldn't use WINE either.I never said I'm against wrappers. I was only commenting on the inconsistent claim, that Feral are encouraging native ports and Wine discourages them.
Last edited by Shmerl on 9 February 2018 at 4:24 pm UTC
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One is playing a game sold for Windows, and other is not playing the game that Feral didn't port. That's the options. So for me the first is clearly better, since the second would be 100% of games that are available in DRM-free stores.
Erm, did I understand that right that you're buying DRM'ed games for Windows (to play them under WINE), but not for Linux?
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If you want fully native Linux games (in your undestanding of "native" ), you shouldn't use WINE either.I never said I'm against wrappers. I was only commenting on the inconsistent claim, that Feral are encouraging native ports and Wine discourages them.
Playing Windows games on WINE is as opposite to native as playing on Linux can get...
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I feel like you don't know what Feral's wrapper even does
I know what it does. It's source level wrapper. That doesn't make it a native approach, it's still a wrapper.
So if you want to say that Feral's ports don't support Linux any more than Wine.
Not for me, if I can't even play them. You are comfortable with Feral's exclusivity approach, that's why you don't get it.
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Even you are benefiting from them because they are pushing our graphics stack forward. You just refuse to acknowledge this because you are mad that their games are not on GOG.I feel like you don't know what Feral's wrapper even does
I know what it does. It's source level wrapper. That doesn't make it a native approach, it's still a wrapper.
So if you want to say that Feral's ports don't support Linux any more than Wine.
Not for me, if I can't even play them. You are comfortable with Feral's exclusivity approach, that's why you don't get it.
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One is playing a game sold for Windows, and other is not playing the game that Feral didn't port. That's the options. So for me the first is clearly better, since the second would be 100% of games that are available in DRM-free stores.
Erm, did I understand that right that you're buying DRM'ed games for Windows (to play them under WINE), but not for Linux?
No, it means I'm buying DRM-free only games, which means no Feral games are available for me. Insistence on DRM is the outcome of Feral's control over their wrapper. Wine has no such thing, so it's perfectly usable with DRM-free games.
Last edited by Shmerl on 9 February 2018 at 4:31 pm UTC
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It makes me sad to read that your own personal choice to avoid Steam doesn't let you see the value Feral and friends are doing for Linux gaming plus Linux adoption and that you are even prefer to compromise their efforts :(I disagree, because one is paying for a game sold for Windows (and is strenghtening Windows market) and the other is paying for a game sold for Linux
One is playing a game sold for Windows, and other is not playing the game that Feral didn't port. That's the options. So for me the first is clearly better, since the second would be 100% of games that are available in DRM-free stores.
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Even you are benefiting from them because they are pushing our graphics stack forward. You just refuse to acknowledge this because you are mad that their games are not on GOG.
I never refused to acknowledge that. More than Feral about Valve for instance. I don't use them, but I well acknowledge their contribution to the Linux stack. Does it mean there should be no competition to any of them in the Linux gaming market? Of course not.
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I first read like this: and it seems he's from the same universe as me. I thought:An alien! Oh no! It's the beginning of the end!this is an attack from Mars. Green little men are coming!^_^
I sure have to do some gaming now... :-D
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It makes me sad to read that your own personal choice to avoid Steam doesn't let you see the value Feral and friends are doing for Linux gaming plus Linux adoption and that you are even prefer to compromise their efforts :(
I didn't say there is no value. I said I don't agree that it's wrong to have competition. I quite strongly disagree with that especially in case when their option is exclusive. Competition makes it accessible, rather than walled.
Last edited by Shmerl on 9 February 2018 at 4:38 pm UTC
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Playing Windows games on WINE is as opposite to native as playing on Linux can get...This is going in circles, since same can be said about playing closed wrappers. Companies that funded those releases didn't want to make native ports because it was a cheap method. So decide whether you are OK with that or not.
Last edited by Shmerl on 9 February 2018 at 4:48 pm UTC
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It makes me sad to read that your own personal choice to avoid Steam doesn't let you see the value Feral and friends are doing for Linux gaming plus Linux adoption and that you are even prefer to compromise their efforts :(
I didn't say there is no value. I said I don't agree that it's wrong to have competition. I quite strongly disagree with that especially in case when their option is exclusive. Competition makes it accessible, rather than walled.
I'll repeat myself again:
"With our insignificant market share we should combine forces and not encourage competition. Lets do that again once we have reached 20% market share."
We can agree that we strongly disagree here. Growth in Linux adoption and cool games/big titles are my priorities, your priority seems to be DRM-free gaming.
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"With our insignificant market share we should combine forces and not encourage competition.
Closed projects don't encourage combining forces by their very nature. If Feral want to combine forces, let them contribute to Wine, or open source their own wrapper so it could be used by developers with any game, rather than ones they authorize.
Since that's unlikely to happen, I see Wine as an increasingly important competitor. And for the reference, Wine can be used as a source wrapper too, see https://wiki.winehq.org/Winelib_User%27s_Guide
TL;DR: If you want to see collaboration, make sure your effort is based on FOSS.
Last edited by Shmerl on 9 February 2018 at 5:10 pm UTC
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i had two ideas on how to advance linux gaming and wanted to put the idea here up for discussion and to your attention.
1. Steam/valve take about 30% of a purchase as you know.
If valve would communicate to big companies that if they make a linux port, they would reduce their own % margin by a bit this could be an incentive to make the big companies make linux versions.
For example pubg or such games would think that a reduction of 30% to for example 29% (25% or whatever) would cover the cost of making their own linux port and even make them on their windows versions, more money because instead of 30% they must only give for example 29% or 25% to steam/valve.
Valve could make this offer to specific companies/for specific games "Valve's Linux Support Incentive" or something like that
When in the future by this incentiveprogram linuxgaming would grow Steam/valve could abandon the program because there would not be the need to have an incentive because their would be more and more linuxgamers and the companies themselves without extrafinancial incentive/subsidy would then port their AAA games to linux.
Valve and Steam could ask generally for 30% again as well and would have subsidized and grown linuxports this way.
Steam would give discount for windows versions as well in this way. Steam takes 30% of windows only version and in general 25 % for game which has linux port for example. The windows games would subsidize the linux ports. Just steam would make a little less money in the beginning but getting more linux ports of AAA Games.
Quality of the port would be a condition for the "Linux Port discount" as well so the game companies wouldnt make halfassed linux ports.
2. Another idea is a "kickstarter linux port coordination Homepage" to help feral interactive for example.
Japanese visual novels even use kickstarter to see if a game has support and when the campaign succeeds they translate the japanese game to english and release on steam without any company investment because of kickstarter funds. Examples are MuvLuv Alternate which made $1,255,444 in pledges. Other examples are Libra, Clannad etc. which got english ports because of kickstarter.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/muvluv/muv-luv-a-pretty-sweet-visual-novel-series
Many games like pillars of eternity got a linux port because of kickstarter "stretch goals" (much $ pledges) or else there wouldnt have been a linux port at all. So why dont make even more coordinated use of kickstarter help for linux ports in general and support for feral interactive for example.
I suppose you and liamdawe have perhaps the connections to communicate to Valve and Feral Interactive or the linux community to bring Valve's and Feral Interactive's attention to this plan which would help linuxgaming or open a discussion on the matter. Liamdewe could make an article on the main site perhaps as well to open a main discussion there as well if he wants.
Any comments?
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The Wine talk has quite severely derailed the conversation so if anyone else has some hot takes I would please ask them to voice themselves over on the forum.
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GustyGhost Feb 9, 2018
Any comments?
Echoing what Samsai just said, maybe you want to reiterate your ideas on a forum thread? This article is already a day old and GoL's collective eyes are moving on at this point.
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If Feral want to combine forces, let them contribute to Wine, or open source their own wrapper so it could be used by developers with any game, rather than ones they authorize.
This is indeed the moment to stop ;)
Thanks for the discussion and have a good, depending on your timezone, day or evening.
(just to be sure, I do mean this honestly.)
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Thanks for the discussion and have a good, depending on your timezone, day or evening.
You too.
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No matter how many devs they throw at it: On the NVidia end, people always will have to use the proprietary drivers, unless some sanity returns to NVidia management (which is highly unlikely), no?
Solution is quite easy and likely will be a common choice for many Linux gamers going forward. Ditch Nvidia and use AMD. It's a shame of course that Nvidia are being jerks when it comes to proper Linux support, but it's not our problem anymore.
See the problem I have is way back Nvidia was the only good supporter for Linux. So I have always stayed with them, even through their stupidity. ATI, what it was called at the time, just sucked and forget about Intel graphics.
However they funny thing is I have always been a huge fan of AMD cpu's. My computer right now has a quad core AMD FX. I have an older Nvidia Graphics card, can't afford much more at the moment, but it works for me.
However my patience is not infinite. How does AMD compare to Nvidia now in the graphics area? Price, speed, etc?
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