We've been waiting quite a while for any real news on the Linux port of Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation [Official Site]. While we still don't know when, we do know it's still happening.
It's nothing big, as I said in the title not to get any major hopes up. Speaking in the Steam forum for Star Control: Origins, which should also be coming to Linux, Stardock CEO said this:
So just an update.
Mac isn't looking as viable. We really thought they'd embrace Vulkan.
Right now, our RTS, Ashes of the Singularity, is ahead in the queue. We just need more engineering resources. :)
The nice thing about Linux is that it provides a fairly neutral platform from which you can then go to other platforms.
Just something I thought that was quite interesting, which I'm sure some of you would also appreciate seeing. As a big fan of RTS games, it's been on my radar for some time. At some point someone gifted it to me, so I would really like to try it.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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Quoting: LinasGraphical design, 3D modeling, and video editing tools is a bigger problem for game development on Linux. At least if you are developing a game from scratch, and not making a port.Actually, Linux is the defacto standard in the movie (post-production/VFX) industry, and basically every AAA blockbuster movie since the early 2000's up to today have been made on Linux workstations and rendered on Linux servers. Because of this, all relevant commercial 3D suites are available for Linux (except 3dsmax, but who cares.. even game studios use Maya nowadays). 2D (compositing and grading in this context) is done on Linux aswell. Of course Photoshop-ninjas won't change, but Krita is used by some studios and artists for concept art/graphics/textures, and even primarily game-dev apps such as Substance Painter is available for Linux (because it wants appeal to the VFX industry). Video editing, like sound design, have a harder time moving to Linux, even though commercial offerings are available. Commercial game engines and editors exists in some form (I guess Unity is in better shape than UE4.. don't know about CryEngine or Unigine).
In open source, we have Blender, Krita, GIMP (which is very capable despite its stigma), Ardour, Godot, Shotcut, Darktable, etc.
The notion that Linux is not a platform for graphical/"creative" work needs to stop. It is simply not true anymore, and haven't been for well over a decade. Next time you watch "Avengers" or "Star Wars" or whatever, enjoy the thought that all the CG/VFX was powered by Tux :)
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Quoting: GuestQuoting: ShmerlQuoting: Guestor if there are features they need that Metal simply doesn't support.
MoltenVK is missing tessellation support and some other features: https://github.com/KhronosGroup/MoltenVK/blob/master/Docs/MoltenVK_Runtime_UserGuide.md#limitations
Yes, mostly because Metal doesn't support them. My wording was poor - I wondered if they might use MoltenVK, or if they can't because of lack of feature support (because of not being able to map those features to Metal). For example, geometry shaders are used quite a bit in cascaded shadow mapping, which I would've thought to be useful here, depending on the camera angle intended.
Just wondering if that might be behind why they think Mac might not be viable. Too much time & effort to rework their engine around the problem for now. If that's the case, I'm sure Khronos would be interested to hear, if for no other reason than as extra data points for the portability initiative.
Guess we'll find out eventually.
Metal supports them, but they don’t map cleanly from Vulkan.
I’m sure they just don’t want to write yet another backend. They were hoping to use their existing Vulkan one.
The fact they have one, and still no Linux support is a sign of low engineering resources.
Last edited by Jmsnz on 18 June 2018 at 11:15 pm UTC
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TheRiddick Jun 18, 2018
Nevermind, seems they know. Didn't know that MoltenVK had critical missing features, figures. Maybe progress will be made eventually.
Last edited by TheRiddick on 18 June 2018 at 11:31 pm UTC
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PublicNuisance Jun 19, 2018
Any progress is good progress. I'm glad that Apple making dumb API decisions isn't harming the Linux version.
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slaapliedje Jun 19, 2018
Quoting: numasanQuoting: LinasGraphical design, 3D modeling, and video editing tools is a bigger problem for game development on Linux. At least if you are developing a game from scratch, and not making a port.Actually, Linux is the defacto standard in the movie (post-production/VFX) industry, and basically every AAA blockbuster movie since the early 2000's up to today have been made on Linux workstations and rendered on Linux servers. Because of this, all relevant commercial 3D suites are available for Linux (except 3dsmax, but who cares.. even game studios use Maya nowadays). 2D (compositing and grading in this context) is done on Linux aswell. Of course Photoshop-ninjas won't change, but Krita is used by some studios and artists for concept art/graphics/textures, and even primarily game-dev apps such as Substance Painter is available for Linux (because it wants appeal to the VFX industry). Video editing, like sound design, have a harder time moving to Linux, even though commercial offerings are available. Commercial game engines and editors exists in some form (I guess Unity is in better shape than UE4.. don't know about CryEngine or Unigine).
In open source, we have Blender, Krita, GIMP (which is very capable despite its stigma), Ardour, Godot, Shotcut, Darktable, etc.
The notion that Linux is not a platform for graphical/"creative" work needs to stop. It is simply not true anymore, and haven't been for well over a decade. Next time you watch "Avengers" or "Star Wars" or whatever, enjoy the thought that all the CG/VFX was powered by Tux :)
I still recall all the articles about ILM ditching SGI for Linux machines oh so long ago. Also know WETA used it for Lord of the Rings. And those two are a huge majority of who studios hire for CGI.
Now if the stigma of 'Linux is hard' would end for the desktop so I did not have to defend myself for using it for work, where everyone has a mac or Windows laptop. Though weirdly I hear more issues with the mac users than the Windows ones..
Stuff like 'my battery drained because it didn't suspend and now it won't start up..' is pretty common.
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I think the Linux is a neutral platform to push out to other platforms yeah if you dial in vulkan to linux there is minimal work required to tweak the games to push it out to windows and android (if capable) Apples insistance on using Metal rather than straight vulkan is going to end up to bite either Linux or Mac in the ass currently happily its Apple so thumbs up there.
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Really hope that one gets released on linux some day. I really want a RTS game :-)
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cookiEoverdose Jun 19, 2018
Love it, still have this game on ice from a past Humble monthly.
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Quoting: cookiEoverdoseLove it, still have this game on ice from a past Humble monthly.I just checked to see if I do as well, and found 3 other games that have a Linux version that I didn't know about.
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I can see the argument of using Linux as the standard development environment, because most Linux tools and graphics are open source, and so are ported to every possible gaming platform. Particularly Vulkan, SDL2, language compilers and debuggers. Even with 3rd party proprietary tools and libraries, I imagine you will typically avoid lock-in if they are available under Linux.
I used to be a C++ developer in a large company, never on games, but we would always develop on Unix and port our applications to Windows or whatever after. This approach was to some extent done for games in the mid 1990's. I worked in Dallas Texas in the mid 1990s, and my American colleagues had friends at ID Software down the road, so we were given an unofficial Unix version of Doom around the time it was initially released. After working hours, we would often have 6 or more player games of Doom on our office network of SUN SparcStations (expensive Unix development workstations). I was told that the Unix version was there because ID developed the game on Unix, before porting it to DOS and Windows. So it would be ironic if some modern game development moved to Linux.
I used to be a C++ developer in a large company, never on games, but we would always develop on Unix and port our applications to Windows or whatever after. This approach was to some extent done for games in the mid 1990's. I worked in Dallas Texas in the mid 1990s, and my American colleagues had friends at ID Software down the road, so we were given an unofficial Unix version of Doom around the time it was initially released. After working hours, we would often have 6 or more player games of Doom on our office network of SUN SparcStations (expensive Unix development workstations). I was told that the Unix version was there because ID developed the game on Unix, before porting it to DOS and Windows. So it would be ironic if some modern game development moved to Linux.
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