It seems Aspyr Media hit a small roadblock when trying to get the latest Civilization VI patch out for Linux, the one to finally give cross-platform online support.
Back near the start of August, we reported that Aspyr Media had put the patch forward to their partners to get it approved and put live on Steam. An hour ago, Aspyr-Blair commented on the Steam forum about the delay with it still not being released yet:
I've been at Gamescom since last Friday, so apologies for the delay in response. A crash bug was found on a specific chipset during final test/approval. We are fixing now, and hope to get the build back into approvals this week.
It has been a long wait, with the cross-platform patch originally due back around mid-April 2017. Honestly, I forgot all about it again because of the delay. That's what happens though, if something gets delayed again and again people do forget and move on.
Hopefully, it means the publisher only needs to re-confirm that specific issue is fixed. Otherwise, we might be in for another pause.
If you're after a copy of Civilization VI for Linux, head to Humble Store or Steam.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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The comments on this article are closed.
This is NOT the way to support GNU. Compared to this, we would be better off with Valve's Proton indeed.
The game should have been programmed from the start to be cross-platform.
The game should have been programmed from the start to be cross-platform.
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Quoting: TeodosioThis is NOT the way to support GNU. Compared to this, we would be better off with Valve's Proton indeed.
The game should have been programmed from the start to be cross-platform.
While it's not ideal, I think having the developer officially support their own product on Linux (even by way of a porting company) is superior to the "maybe it works" Proton offers - and it's not like Valve is going to expand the whitelist to 1,000 games tomorrow.
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Quoting: Xicronic- and it's not like Valve is going to expand the whitelist to 1,000 games tomorrow.
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Quoting: XicronicProton releases officialy supported by Valve (just a handful of games at the moment) are probably going to be better than most third party ports. And in the first case the developer gets directly involved.Quoting: TeodosioThis is NOT the way to support GNU. Compared to this, we would be better off with Valve's Proton indeed.
The game should have been programmed from the start to be cross-platform.
While it's not ideal, I think having the developer officially support their own product on Linux (even by way of a porting company) is superior to the "maybe it works" Proton offers - and it's not like Valve is going to expand the whitelist to 1,000 games tomorrow.
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The delay is indeed long but they are right taking QA very seriously. It's much better waiting a bit longer for a patch than having a game crashing. How many game developpers do not even test their Linux build? I've seen quite a few and Unity did prove lacking QA on Linux.
It's highly probable that Firaxis did not have cross-platform compatibility in mind. I don't understand developpers choosing platform-specific technologies. Even if they plan to release only for Windows. If you want your game to still be playable in 10 years, be as standard as possible.
That's why I really like what valve is doing with Proton. They are pushing windows developpers to use cross-platform technologies such as Vulkan.
It's highly probable that Firaxis did not have cross-platform compatibility in mind. I don't understand developpers choosing platform-specific technologies. Even if they plan to release only for Windows. If you want your game to still be playable in 10 years, be as standard as possible.
That's why I really like what valve is doing with Proton. They are pushing windows developpers to use cross-platform technologies such as Vulkan.
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well well,
Spoiler, click me
I don't mind, I just want to play to Subnautica (best game those 2/3 last years!) natively on my debian :D:D
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rustybroomhandle Aug 28, 2018
Quoting: TheBardThey are pushing windows developpers to use cross-platform technologies such as Vulkan.
I don't know why devs don't already. Vulkan is required for the super popular Nintendo Switch, so even if their mainline is Xbone/PS4, surely they should all at least have a bit of Vulkan going on the side.
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Quoting: PatolaThis seems to be an enormous development hurdle with likely lots of traps and unexpected behavior due to the small differences involved in calculations of different libraries. I just hope the knowledge that these people have accumulated due to this task is not lost being confined to the proprietary source code of this game. It would be nice if they published a document or book with 'lessons learned' from this programming experience.It's not Valve by themselves, they are pushing developers to get on board too. First of all, by using Vulkan. Step by step, the developers themselves need to be on GNU. Third party ports are always going to be late, buggier than the original, slower, or all of the three.
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Doc Angelo 
Aug 28, 2018
Quoting: PatolaThis seems to be an enormous development hurdle with likely lots of traps and unexpected behavior due to the small differences involved in calculations of different libraries. I just hope the knowledge that these people have accumulated due to this task is not lost being confined to the proprietary source code of this game. It would be nice if they published a document or book with 'lessons learned' from this programming experience.
It's not a new thing. It's well known. Apparently, some people at Firaxis just didn't give a shit or actually didn't know about it. If they wanted Civ 6 to be multiplatform from the start and used a mathematical library in a way that doesn't work the same everywhere, they (Firaxis) simply fucked up.
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Doc Angelo Aug 28, 2018
Quoting: PatolaIs there any programming literature on this problem or is it always case-by-case?
Of that particular thing? Not that I know of. But I'm sure that there are plenty of books on development where this is mentioned. Buddies of mine are devs (only partly in game industry) and from what I've heard, it is a well known thing. I've read about it myself rather often, also.
As far as I remember, floating point operations don't always get 100% exactly the same results on each platform/compiler/processor. Sometimes, they are just a teeny tiny little bit off, which may or may not throw your game logic up. If you have deterministic game logic and never check if the results are the same on each platform, you have a hard time fixing that afterwards when the game is finished.
As far as I understand, Civ 6 is deterministic. In multiplayer rounds, only the player input is synced, and every system calculates the game state for itself. If one system comes to different results, the round is out of sync. That's why there was no cross platform MP until now.
Last edited by Doc Angelo on 28 August 2018 at 10:01 am UTC
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