Valve has boosted their Linux ranks by hiring another developer to work on open source graphics

Quoting: DuncYou don't attack an overwhelmingly superior enemy straight out of the box; you build your strength and gradually eat away at his defences until you've evened out the odds.

I like your analogy, however I think you also have to be careful about your enemy gaining territory and strength while you mess around learning basic strategy. Unlike many games, the enemy AI in this "reality" game tends to be quite aggressive.

Quoting: KimyrielleIt -is- a sound strategy, and I think a lesson learned from their failed attempt to push SteamOS-based SteamMachines at a time when the product wasn't yet ready to compete with established systems. If you want to gnaw away at Windows/XBox's market share, you need to present customers a fully functional system that's -at least- on par with what you're attacking. We still lack a convincing argument for gamers currently (more or less happily) using Windows for gaming to switch to Linux. Every single game available for Linux is also available for Windows, so we need to beat Windows as a -platform-.

Mind you, we may have a couple of arguments for gamers currently (more or less happily) using consoles for gaming to switch to Steamboxes. At original release those arguments weren't strong enough to stack up against the Steamboxes' disadvantages (polish problems, lack of multimedia integration, price etc), but those are the kind of thing this long game is meant to get rid of, except multimedia which will take a bit of work with the multimedia providers. Get rid of those disadvantages, and you have a console with a big library that, with the Steam controller, allows you to play games you can't normally play on consoles (like complex strategy games) and play other games better than you can normally play them on consoles. And also with games that are often cheap.

I think a future re-release, with issues fixed and a lot bigger marketing push, would have a decent chance of making a dent.

I do hear you about a feeling of lost momentum, at least in the AAA space. I'd say that, more and more, anyone much smaller than that--specifically, anyone using one of the major game engines--is likely to take a "why not?" approach to Linux just because it's so much less work releasing multi-platform than it used to be. Ultimately, though, I don't know that it's going to be a story of this studio waking up or that studio throwing a crumb. We'll see more momentum if Valve starts feeling a pinch from moves by Microsoft and decides they better get Plan B (Linux) under way seriously, or if Linux just starts organically increasing its desktop share. There are some indications that may be slowly happening, but I'd sure as hell like to see a faster shift and less ambiguous data.

I am hoping that with the work that Valve and others are putting into the AMD graphics drivers, then basic AMD Ryzen 5 2400g APU based boxes, like the new one from Zotac, would be 'good enough' Linux gaming platforms. However, I suspect that it will also need modern action games to support Vulkan to get around 60 fps at medium quality. If these boxes can be priced at say $300, then with their advantage of also being a good Linux PC, they could be very competitive to current consoles in the market. The Ryzen APUs are out in a week, so will soon see.

I hope Valve continues to support Linux as their recent activity would suggest. We need someone with as many resources as they have contributing to the Linux gaming world.

By the way - locked-down systems could offend other companies (EA, Blizzard) too. But they may run into the trap by Microsoft first allowing other distribution platforms as Origin or the Battle.Net client for free, and then at some point asking cash for reselling and trying to kill off the "other" platforms. The very much reason why Origin exists (they don't want to pay valve for distribution), and the very reason Blizzard does it (they don't want to pay ~30 % to somebody else), which is very likely for huge AAA publishers.

Quoting: KimyrielleNo 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.


Last edited by Shmerl on 8 February 2018 at 11:38 pm UTC

Quoting: jensI don't think that wine will ever reach the level where wine gaming comes close to the quality of Feral like ports.
(And I sincere hope that I'm right about this, otherwise the Linux community would shoot themselves pretty badly into their own feet when wine aims to compete with Feral etc and takes paying costumers away from them.)

I think you are wrong. I see no reason why Wine can't reach same quality, even though it could take longer time since Wine needs to support general Windows compatibility, while Feral can take shortcuts for each title.

Especially with projects like vkd3d for DX12 and dxvk for DX11, Wine eventually will be strongly competitive with Feral ports. And what's the problem with strong FOSS competition?

Quoting: Shmerl

Quoting: jensI don't think that wine will ever reach the level where wine gaming comes close to the quality of Feral like ports.
(And I sincere hope that I'm right about this, otherwise the Linux community would shoot themselves pretty badly into their own feet when wine aims to compete with Feral etc and takes paying costumers away from them.)

I think you are wrong. I see no reason why Wine can't reach same quality, even though it could take longer time since Wine needs to support general Windows compatibility, while Feral can take shortcuts for each title.

Especially with projects like vkd3d for DX12 and dxvk for DX11, Wine eventually will be strongly competitive with Feral ports. And what's the problem with strong FOSS competition?

Because I don't think companies should rely on wine for their games and if wine gets that good that might start happening.

Quoting: ShmerlWhat's the problem with strong FOSS competition?

In this case it reduces incentive for companies to natively support Linux.

Pumping as much cash into Linux supporting companies as possible is a big goal for Linux Gamers as cash is king.

Quoting: ScooptaBecause I don't think companies should rely on wine for their games and if wine gets that good that might start happening.

I agree with you that companies should strive to do proper native ports. But relying on Feral's wrappers for them isn't any better than relying on Wine, if native aspect is concerned.

In fact, Wine has advantages that closed wrappers don't. It gives you more freedom. Not only it's FOSS with available code that you can modify and run as you like, it's not tied to any distributor and can be used with any game you want. Compare it to Feral's wrappers that are available on Steam only and only for a few titles selected by Feral. I.e. personally I don't benefit form Feral's wrappers at all, since I'm not using Steam, while I can easily use Wine with GOG and other DRM-free games.


Last edited by Shmerl on 9 February 2018 at 2:22 am UTC