An update on the status of porting Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation for Linux

QuoteNo Linux port, no console versions because you need a "clean slate" version of it.

Interesting statement. Very interesting statement indeed. I'd love to know what exactly they mean by that.

It will be very interesting how Ashes of the Benchmark Vulkan performance compares between Linux and Windows. I've heard Stardock literally set the bar on performance optimizations in the Windows version of the game, so it should give us another interesting comparison between different Vulkan drivers.

And obviously, it's lovely to hear about their "Linux as a bridge to consoles" approach and I hope more studios take it - more games are always welcome

Quoting: YoRHa-2B

QuoteNo Linux port, no console versions because you need a "clean slate" version of it.

Interesting statement. Very interesting statement indeed. I'd love to know what exactly they mean by that.

I suppose they mean that they're separating the Windows only stuff from the rest of the game so they only have a back end to port. Seems like something you would want to do from the start though.

Quoting: YoRHa-2B

QuoteNo Linux port, no console versions because you need a "clean slate" version of it.

Interesting statement. Very interesting statement indeed. I'd love to know what exactly they mean by that.

First, Japanese consoles are using BSD and llvm. And many "Open source" libraries".
Then you have to optimise everything. You know, to be very honest, on Desktop, there are many hardwares, softwares and people setting them up differently. People don't usually get angry if everything is not... well "perfectly in order". Most of the time, you can even publish a game with some useless remnants of assets you removed. You don't really care. Destop players buy new hardware. Sorry, it's not disrespectfull, at least from me, it's just the bare truth.
On Console, people expect your product to be veeeery well optimised.

Quoting: YoRHa-2B

QuoteNo Linux port, no console versions because you need a "clean slate" version of it.

Interesting statement. Very interesting statement indeed. I'd love to know what exactly they mean by that.

If you've written a game against Windows, using the Windows API's directly, then you need to build a "clean slate" version where you strip away all direct calls to the Windows (or POSIX/Linux if that's where you started) API. Instead replacing all of it with either cross-platform APIs (like SDL) or a platform abstraction layer of your own making.

Porting a game between platforms while there's still direct calls into platform-specific APIs is going to be a mess and not sustainable for future development.

Most software development tends to start with talking to the development platform APIs directly, to keep the dependency list light and avoid potentially blocking away customers in the future due to the dependency choices. This also means that unless the development started on a platform-agnostic base then it'll just continue to dig itself firmer and firmer into the starting platform the further development goes.
This is also just as true for development of things on Mac or Linux, where if you start developing directly against the platform-specific APIs then you'll have a harder time making it cross-platform in the future.

Admittedly, Linux is a much lesser example as many of the APIs you get there can be used in lesser extents on both Windows and Mac, though it would still require actual work to port your software between them as the Windows and Mac implementations of POSIX APIs are not 100% identical to the Linux ones.

is this game able to be played with dxvk/wine?

Quoting: PikoloIt will be very interesting how Ashes of the Benchmark Vulkan performance compares between Linux and Windows. I've heard Stardock literally set the bar on performance optimizations in the Windows version of the game, so it should give us another interesting comparison between different Vulkan drivers.

I'm not sure what "Ashes of the Benchmark" means. I know that I tested AotS and it was one of the worst performing games I've ever seen. I had to play on the lowest settings in order to get playable frame rates. The game looked like some kind of badly done remaster of a decade old game. Just one explosion of a building resulted in single digit frame rate. It was awful. Did it get better?

Quoting: ShoNuff!!!is this game able to be played with dxvk/wine?

apparently not. Interestingly, I didn't find it on WineHQ. I also learned that the game had a DX11 renderer, I thought it was only DX12/Vulkan. If it's borked on spcr it could be due to one of two things:

• The users didn't know how to force the vulkan renderer before starting the game trough a config file or argument (it might not be possible?)
• Wine itself broke something.

Last edited by MayeulC on 22 September 2018 at 2:10 pm UTC

Quoting: Doc Angelo

Quoting: PikoloIt will be very interesting how Ashes of the Benchmark Vulkan performance compares between Linux and Windows. I've heard Stardock literally set the bar on performance optimizations in the Windows version of the game, so it should give us another interesting comparison between different Vulkan drivers.

I'm not sure what "Ashes of the Benchmark" means. I know that I tested AotS and it was one of the worst performing games I've ever seen. I had to play on the lowest settings in order to get playable frame rates. The game looked like some kind of badly done remaster of a decade old game. Just one explosion of a building resulted in single digit frame rate. It was awful. Did it get better?

I hadn't even heard mention of this game in at least a year. It used to be a benchmark queen but I never see it showing up in benchmarks these days.

I was interested in this, but by the time they bring it to Linux it will be so old the interest will have faded. Maybe they're doing work for future projects. I'm surprised it doesn't work using the Vulkan renderer through wine/proton.

Wasn't this a Spring mod? I doubt the dev actually cares about supporting linux, if he used a base game that was cross platform and came out with a mod that is MSW only.

Quoting: dvdWasn't this a Spring mod? I doubt the dev actually cares about supporting linux, if he used a base game that was cross platform and came out with a mod that is MSW only.

I am not sure what's what you call a "spring mod", but this is a full game by stardock, with their own in-house engine. They were involved early on in the Mantle Cabal as well.

If referring to the "Escalation" part, that was an extension at some point, but was merged back with AoTS at some point, to avoid splitting the small playerbase further, kind of what happened with Planetary Anihilation: Titans (or not, I'm notsure, I can't find it on the Steam store anymore :/)

Think last time trying ashes with dxvk was version .72
At least with amd anyway.
on stock default without flagging vulkan so running in dx 11 it crashes while loading.
With vulkan flagged, it just says your vulkan drivers are out of date and you need to update them and would you like to revert back to safemode.

QuoteNow, someone might argue why support Linux? Here's a reason you can share: You really can't port your engine to consoles without going to Linux first. It's really that simple. No Linux port, no console versions because you need a "clean slate" version of it.

Which begs the question, Why not just start with a "clean slate" instead of making a Windows version and then having to "clean it up" before you can port to other systems?

Quoting: Doc AngeloI'm not sure what "Ashes of the Benchmark" means.

It's pretty commonly accepted among Windows/PCMR types that no one actually plays this game for the gameplay. It has a VERY robust built in benchmark tool, so EVERYONE buys the game just to run the benchmark, similar to how everyone runs Firestrike.

However, since it's built first as a game, any claims against synthetic benchmarks where someone wants to dismiss the scores and say "oh a real game isnt like that, reals games don't do XYZ" are less valid.

Thanks for the answer! I think I'll take a look at the benchmark tool of it.

But honestly, I'm not sure how much this benchmark is able to say about a configuration and tuning. From my memory, it was very badly optimized and looked quite shoddy for its performance. Anyway, I love me some benchmark from time to time. Gonna check that out.

Quoting: MayeulC

Quoting: dvdWasn't this a Spring mod? I doubt the dev actually cares about supporting linux, if he used a base game that was cross platform and came out with a mod that is MSW only.

I am not sure what's what you call a "spring mod", but this is a full game by stardock, with their own in-house engine. They were involved early on in the Mantle Cabal as well.

If referring to the "Escalation" part, that was an extension at some point, but was merged back with AoTS at some point, to avoid splitting the small playerbase further, kind of what happened with Planetary Anihilation: Titans (or not, I'm notsure, I can't find it on the Steam store anymore :/)

For some reason I thought this game was the one based on the RTS engine Spring.