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Good and bad news to share this Tuesday morning. Stardock Entertainment have given an update on the status of porting Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation to Vulkan and Linux.

It's been a long road! After Stardock CEO, Brad Wardell, opened a forum post on Steam asking to see Linux requests to bring Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation to Linux back in May 2017 we've been waiting to finally see the port. That ends now though, as the latest update has basically said it's not happening.

Why? Well, Wardell said the "performance is just not acceptable" and while they could fix it, it wouldn't make sense just for Linux. Sad to hear, but it does make sense when you consider this is a game from 2016 that doesn't really have a big player-base. It also makes even more sense with what they said next…

So what's the good news? Wardell said "Ashes II (and our other new titles) should, in theory, ship with Linux support off the bat thanks to this effort" with some comments about Stardock originally coming from "the OS/2 world" and so they're "very much motivated to make our games work on Linux too".

A shame we won't see this older title after waiting so long but if they do deliver on their future titles, that's pretty great. At least now they can continue polishing up their work on Vulkan for both Windows and Linux for their next titles, to then make a bigger splash with a new release.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: Misc, RTS, Steam, Vulkan
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sub Oct 1, 2019
Quoting: Liam Dawe
Quoting: subIf they fixed all blocker issues and if it's doable without
excessive work they should release a Linux version.
Even if it won't pay by means of revenues.

It's bad business practice to simply not deliver promised products and will harm your rep.

Take it this way:

We promised, we'll deliver (even if it took years) - please consider supporting us with our next project.
They didn't promise anything, in fact they clearly said before they were not making a promise. This harms nothing. Anyone who purchased it previously did so knowingly they were getting a Windows game that *may* end up with a Linux port.

Where did they say that?
I just remember statements that they are working hard on releasing a Linux version.
And a regular reminder that they can't promise to release it soon.
Liam Dawe Oct 1, 2019
Quoting: sub
Quoting: Liam Dawe
Quoting: subIf they fixed all blocker issues and if it's doable without
excessive work they should release a Linux version.
Even if it won't pay by means of revenues.

It's bad business practice to simply not deliver promised products and will harm your rep.

Take it this way:

We promised, we'll deliver (even if it took years) - please consider supporting us with our next project.
They didn't promise anything, in fact they clearly said before they were not making a promise. This harms nothing. Anyone who purchased it previously did so knowingly they were getting a Windows game that *may* end up with a Linux port.

Where did they say that?
I just remember statements that they are working hard on releasing a Linux version.
And a regular reminder that they can't promise to release it soon.
I don't really get where people got this impression they actually confirmed 100% they would release it. They asked for requests and then over time gave an update on how they were doing. They never said with certainty that a Linux version would release just that they wanted to.

There's also this post here: "I don't want to make any promises".

Regardless, like I always tell people: Don't assume, buy it when it's released and not before.
sub Oct 1, 2019
Quoting: Liam Dawe
Quoting: sub
Quoting: Liam Dawe
Quoting: subIf they fixed all blocker issues and if it's doable without
excessive work they should release a Linux version.
Even if it won't pay by means of revenues.

It's bad business practice to simply not deliver promised products and will harm your rep.

Take it this way:

We promised, we'll deliver (even if it took years) - please consider supporting us with our next project.
They didn't promise anything, in fact they clearly said before they were not making a promise. This harms nothing. Anyone who purchased it previously did so knowingly they were getting a Windows game that *may* end up with a Linux port.

Where did they say that?
I just remember statements that they are working hard on releasing a Linux version.
And a regular reminder that they can't promise to release it soon.
I don't really get where people got this impression they actually confirmed 100% they would release it. They asked for requests and then over time gave an update on how they were doing. They never said with certainty that a Linux version would release just that they wanted to.

There's also this post here: "I don't want to make any promises".

Regardless, like I always tell people: Don't assume, buy it when it's released and not before.

Would you agree with me that there is a significant difference in quality between statements

"I don't want to make any promises but...it's looking more and more like Linux will be arriving this year."

and

"I don't want to make any promises about a Linux build."

?
Liam Dawe Oct 1, 2019
Quoting: subWould you agree with me that there is a significant difference in quality between statements

"I don't want to make any promises but...it's looking more and more like Linux will be arriving this year."

and

"I don't want to make any promises about a Linux build."

?
No because they clearly did not make a promise. An intention to do something, with it looking like something may happen is very far away from a promise.
eldaking Oct 1, 2019
I don't particularly care about Ashes, and I think they were transparent enough in this case.

But if their next games are indeed built with Linux support (rather than ported afterwards), that would be very exciting. Stardock makes some pretty good strategy games, and are one notorious gap in the otherwise great niche of "Linux strategy gameing".
Quoting: GuestYeah, full of Sh*t as usual. Removed from wishlist.

You can say what you want, simple truth is simple. Zero linux native games from stardock on steam.

Pretty much this. I mean it has been since 2016. Maybe they did the same mistakes as many others who have failed with Linux: use non-Linux friendly tools to start with and then act surprised. I could be wrong tho.
Leopard Oct 1, 2019
Quoting: Patola
Quoting: LeopardDXVK was beating their native VLK renderer
How is that possible? DXVK only works for directx 10 and 11 games, not Vulkan games. Vulkan windows games run under wine do not use dxvk. And AFAIK Ashes of the Singularity is Vulkan only.

This game has d3d11 , d3d12 and Vulkan renderers at the same time. Since that game is heavily used for benchmarking purposes they were supporting all api's they can. You can easily see Ashes of Singularity on many benchmarks.
Leopard Oct 1, 2019
Quoting: GuestIndependently from this news just today I tried their Vulkan release on Proton, but the game just claimed at launch that my AMD video drivers are outdated and it refused to start at all... but I do use Mesa-git!
Well, maybe they should ask for their next Linux endeavors some experts :-)

It will probably work with AMDVLK , aka Stadia driver.
Boldos Oct 1, 2019
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Quoting: TheSHEEEPWell, that just makes sense.

Porting a years-old title to Linux doesn't make any sense to begin with, honestly. I never got why they did that - but at least something good may yet come from their efforts.
Believe it or not, they originaly promised a full Linux port. So I guess they did not want to say a straight 'no' afterwards...

Anyways, this leaves a very bad taste in the mouth ...
Boldos Oct 1, 2019
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Quoting: Liam Dawe
Quoting: subIf they fixed all blocker issues and if it's doable without
excessive work they should release a Linux version.
Even if it won't pay by means of revenues.

It's bad business practice to simply not deliver promised products and will harm your rep.

Take it this way:

We promised, we'll deliver (even if it took years) - please consider supporting us with our next project.
They didn't promise anything, in fact they clearly said before they were not making a promise. This harms nothing. Anyone who purchased it previously did so knowingly they were getting a Windows game that *may* end up with a Linux port.
Liam, woth all dur respect they DID pronise a Linux version when they hit EA early at the beginning. This promise then quitely disappeared from all their roadmaps.

Just to make this point clear ...
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