A small update on the status of BATTLETECH for Linux

In these cases it would always be interesting to hear why it's proven more difficult than expected. Make it an automated reply, Liam :)

But a core component of Unity is it being cross platform. Had this been just about any other engine I'd just file it under just another of them hassles that a new platform can provide, but Unity... It's more or less their entire business idea, isn't it?

So, the cause for this, and all other similar cases, would be interesting to know! Not to point fingers, but simply out of curiosity. Also it would work as a current state of affair in regards to how platform independent Untity really is at this stage.

This makes me also worry about the coming 7 days to die alpha 17 ... didn't the fun pimps switch to the new version of unity too? Does it help when we send feral-marc-now-at-unity some love in form of cookies? :D


Last edited by fryk on 14 August 2018 at 12:34 pm UTC

Thanks for the update.

And yeah, Beamboom is right. It’s hard to make Unity games perform right on any OS (BattleTech for example drops to single digit fps every time something explodes) and if the engine is not as easy to make multiplatform games with… Why bother? There are other free game engines out there.

Quoting: AlthorionAnd yeah, Beamboom is right. It’s hard to make Unity games perform right on any OS

I didn't draw that conclution though :) I just ask because it's interesting to know. There could be other reasons, 3rd party middleware is one major suspect.

Quoting: AlthorionThere are other free game engines out there.

With comparable complexity of development suite, ecosystem, and the same level of potential visual quality - who compiles to the same amount of platforms, including VR? Not that I know of...

I wouldn't really hold it against them if multiplat development in Unity still requires some competence in multiplat development in order to work properly. I'm just curious as to exactly what the challenges they meet are... Are they mundane, type "mouse behaves differently" type of annoyance, or are they more complex?


Last edited by Beamboom on 14 August 2018 at 12:55 pm UTC

Quoting: BeamboomI'm just curious as to exactly what the challenges they meet are...

99% sure it's some middleware plugin that's causing their problems.

Would be easy enough to check if someone owned the thing and therefore could check what additional software it uses.

A bit dissapointing to hear. You´d think these issues that many developers have, would be reported back to the "unity team" and at some point the engine would be patched to adress the majority of problems. Unless, of course, the game engine is just something to blame while the real problems can be found elsewhere.

On that note, I wonder what´s taking "Life Is Strange: BtS" so long. I´d expect that game shouldn´t be much different from the original title, which is already ported.

QuoteWe are still working on Linux but it's proving to be more difficult than we expected.

God... Again and again. (We need a Facepalm smiley Liam!)
And soon: "The Linux release is cancelled because of too many difficulties... Sorry guys but thanks for your money!"

All of their previous games are released on Linux except their last one "Necropolis" and it's made with Unity too...
I mean their 5 games are all on Unity, they should know these problems now.
If BATTLETECH won't have a Linux version, I think they won't be Linux friendly anymore.
But I hope Necropolis was an exception...

I wonder what the difficulty is, exactly? Is it the Unity Engine itself, or did they use some proprietary middleware that is poorly/not supported for Linux?

You'd think that if it isn't really Unity causing problems and it's actually the middleware, Unity would step in because in reality it's pretty bad press for the Unity engine.

Thinking of reaching out, it's starting to seem like maybe somebody should be reaching out to the Unity people to find out what their plan is for improving the cross-platform usability of the engine, which seems to have been declining lately.

I don't think that Mono runtime in Unity gets very much love these days...

Quoting: FeistOn that note, I wonder what´s taking "Life Is Strange: BtS" so long. I´d expect that game shouldn´t be much different from the original title, which is already ported.

LiS was made with Unreal Engine, LiS:BtS was made with Unity.

I personally dig this game, looks like a riot of fun, so hopefully they get their technical challenges sorted and we're on our way soon.

Quoting: wintermute

Quoting: FeistOn that note, I wonder what´s taking "Life Is Strange: BtS" so long. I´d expect that game shouldn´t be much different from the original title, which is already ported.

LiS was made with Unreal Engine, LiS:BtS was made with Unity.

Oh...crap! I did not know that, I just took it for granted that it was a prequel that could be considered "Life is Strange 1.5". I didn´t expect that they´d change engine until possibly the sequel.

Quoting: BeamboomIn these cases it would always be interesting to hear why it's proven more difficult than expected. Make it an automated reply, Liam :)

But a core component of Unity is it being cross platform. Had this been just about any other engine I'd just file it under just another of them hassles that a new platform can provide, but Unity... It's more or less their entire business idea, isn't it?

So, the cause for this, and all other similar cases, would be interesting to know! Not to point fingers, but simply out of curiosity. Also it would work as a current state of affair in regards to how platform independent Untity really is at this stage.

Honestly, since it's using Unity do we really need to know? I mean, sure, technical points are nice to know, but my wider point is this...

As posted in another comment, there's now just too many game developers using Unity saying they're having issues with their Linux builds.

This is why I am choosing to cut them all some slack, something is obviously up with Unity lately.

I played with Unity 3D a few years back, and I wouldn't be surprised if there was an issue with an Engine/Editor plugin. I had a terrain generator plugin, and when I tried it on Linux, I found all sorts of issues with path strings used to refer to resources that had different case in different places. It was a sloppy practice, but not a problem on Windows (nor I assume OSX, which does not use a case-sensitive filesystem by default).

Although its just an example of a simple problem, its likely that more complex plugins have more complex platform-specific bugaboos like that.

I've also heard of issues with recent versions of Unity breaking Linux support. I believe that Rust recently stopped supporting Linux because of Unity issues. So, I'm with Liam - if it was easy for the devs to give us the Linux version (Unity behaved nicely, no plugin/middleware issues) they'd probably do it and take the nerd-cred.

UE4 has similar issues with Linux support- for example we're limited to 16 textures per material because of a limitation of OpenGL 4.3. I've had *very* many materials in content packs developed under Windows fail to work because D3D let's you multiplex your materials such that you can have something like 192 per material or somesuch. So it can be a lot of work to re-engineer a shader, and after doing so the results may still not look that good. And to reach a niche market, it's probably not that attractive for a small business.

As we all know Valve has an interest in Linux as an alternative to Microsoft closing up the Windows platform. The best thing Valve could do is *finally* finish up Source Engine 2 (and make it indie-friendly), offer it free with no strings attached (no Steam publishing requirement), and make sure it has absolutely bullet-proof compatibility for both Editor and Runtime on Linux.

If the engine could achieve greater market penetration by being excellent and free, and also have bullet-proof Linux compatibility, it'd increase all of our odds of getting high-quality games :) Unlike either Unity Technologies or Epic Games, Valve has a vested interest in the viability of their SteamOS / Linux platform to protect their business.

jonbitzen

Quoting: GuestMeh. I could say a lot about this, but I don't know if care anymore.

I reluctantly agree. :(

:'(

1.2 Beta update out - no news on Linux.....

Also what I don't understand is where the issues are arising from as the beta ran errorless for me, combat only...