The Linux version of Civilization VI should get cross-platform online play in the next few weeks

Wow, that's pretty huge, isn't it? Cross-platform play has been an issue with ports for...ever. I was led to understand that it's basically impossible (for a ported title). I wonder how they overcame it?

In my personal experience, one of the biggest factors driving away newcomers to adopting Linux gaming is high profile games which divide online play between users of Linux and Windows. I understand there are technical hurdles but it makes us look really bad.

i.e. newcomers who aren't well versed in the subject matter simply use that to assume that all other Linux games are cordoned off into their own little multiplayer ghettos.


Last edited by GustyGhost on 20 July 2018 at 7:56 pm UTC

Cross platform has been a thorn for ages. Yammered about extensively in the linux threads on steam for the game/platform.

I'm just glad this means we're finally getting the latest patch. yay!

Yayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!

Wow, that's pretty huge, isn't it? Cross-platform play has been an issue with ports for...ever. I was led to understand that it's basically impossible (for a ported title). I wonder how they overcame it?

Why would it be basically impossible? I was under the impression that several titles have cross-platform play?

Wow, that's pretty huge, isn't it? Cross-platform play has been an issue with ports for...ever. I was led to understand that it's basically impossible (for a ported title). I wonder how they overcame it?

Why would it be basically impossible? I was under the impression that several titles have cross-platform play?

As far as Aspyr has revealed about Civillization VI porting, at least one of the big issues has been third party floating point math library and trying to behave exactly same way in all cases.

Computers are not very good at accurate floating point math, so covering all the corner cases in same way is not that trivial.

That has caused random desyncs. Which means that public release of the cross platform has been delayed quite many times.

I guess with multiplayer code difficulty varies. With clean network code platform doesn't really matter (if that wouldn't be possible, we wouldn't have Internet). But in worst case communication is done with some odd binary protocol that one of the games DLL:s just spews out.

That's something that Samba had to deal with it until Microsoft agreed to meet them half way and make things work bit more like real network protocol.

Okay, so you are talking specific issues with particular games? I mean I get that crossplatform-play presents challenges, but the wording "practically impossible" made me think it was almost unheard of and a major breakthrough by Aspyr.

Edit:

I mean breakthrough in general, not breakthrough with this particular port.


Last edited by Kristian on 20 July 2018 at 8:57 pm UTC

This is one of the games that doesn't get on my wish list because I have too many games. I bought Civ V earlier this year I think and have yet to play it. :( If Civ VI had cross-platform MP on launch day, I might have bought & played it for hype reasons. Hype is like a prioritization sledgehammer.

Instead, my friends and I clocked 100 hours of Stellaris.


Last edited by 14 on 20 July 2018 at 9:32 pm UTC

Okay, so you are talking specific issues with particular games? I mean I get that crossplatform-play presents challenges, but the wording "practically impossible" made me think it was almost unheard of and a major breakthrough by Aspyr.

Edit:

I mean breakthrough in general, not breakthrough with this particular port.

I was talking about things in general, I was just using Civilization VI as an example. I would suppose what Aspyr has done helps only Aspyr as form of experience. So if they run into same kind of problems, they have better idea of how to tackle them.

But main point was that if with some games cross platform multiplayer is there right from the start, game itself might have implemented accidentally things in portable way. Unless all the supported platforms have been taken into account during the game development, which is rare.

And if cross platform multiplayer takes forever to implement, there might be good reasons for that.

Aspyr didn't give up though, which is why we might get actually cross platform multiplayer.

Okay, so you are talking specific issues with particular games? I mean I get that crossplatform-play presents challenges, but the wording "practically impossible" made me think it was almost unheard of and a major breakthrough by Aspyr.

It is a major breakthrough. Ports rarely have cross-platform multiplayer unless the port was planned for the beginning. Lots of games have cross-platform multiplayer, but very few (third party) ports do, because they're often done after the original was released, so the original game has been designed with no thought as to how other platforms might perform. I think Anza explains it pretty well.

Cool, last time I tried to launch it, it wouldn't work at all...

Honestly? My reaction is "Finally!"

Okay, so you are talking specific issues with particular games? I mean I get that crossplatform-play presents challenges, but the wording "practically impossible" made me think it was almost unheard of and a major breakthrough by Aspyr.

It is a major breakthrough. Ports rarely have cross-platform multiplayer unless the port was planned for the beginning. Lots of games have cross-platform multiplayer, but very few (third party) ports do, because they're often done after the original was released, so the original game has been designed with no thought as to how other platforms might perform. I think Anza explains it pretty well.

In any case, I seem to recall that we know for sure with Civ VI that there was a problem with a closed floating-point thingie in the original Windows version that caused precisely the de-syncing problem that's been talked about here. So, as scaine wondered in the first post, how did they fix it? Aspyr had previously stated in so many words that they weren't fixing it because they couldn't. What changed?


Last edited by Purple Library Guy on 20 July 2018 at 11:15 pm UTC

Could they have gotten Firaxis/2K to agree to replace the math library on all platforms?

IF ONLY there existed a thing called an API layer. A low level system agnostic layer to send and receive the necessary basic object data. Huh, what a world that would be!

Ahh, the good old cross platform floats.
Many ways around that problem, but every workaround is kinda "meh".
I've seen special float libraries (which are then a wee bit slower) or some just decide to ditch floats entirely for the cross-platform communication part (IMO the best solution, if possible) or some just use an int/int fraction and convert if necessary (which has the advantage of way better precision).

But yes, if that isn't planned from the beginning, it IS a problem for cross-platform play later on.


Last edited by TheSHEEEP on 21 July 2018 at 6:47 am UTC

I've been waiting for this since the release.
Can't stop waiting :D

An int/int fraction? That sounds like a Ratio in Haskell: http://hackage.haskell.org/package/base-4.11.1.0/docs/Data-Ratio.html

An int/int fraction? That sounds like a Ratio in Haskell: http://hackage.haskell.org/package/base-4.11.1.0/docs/Data-Ratio.html

Yeah, pretty much.

Being a professional developer I understand how difficult it is to ensure the port behave the same way as the original. So I get why it's difficult for Aspyr. But what I don't get is why Feral did not have crossplatform issues in mind from the start. Civ5, Beyond Earth and Civ6 are on Linux so I hope they will look more closely at what could hurt porting when choosing middleware, networking protocol or everything else.

Thanks Aspyr for the continued effort in the port :)


Last edited by TheBard on 21 July 2018 at 1:30 pm UTC