For those of you curious on what's happening with EVERSPACE 2 for Linux, ROCKFISH Games have given an official update on what to expect.
In a post on Steam and Kickstarter, they made it clear that Linux support and Steam Deck are priorities for them to be supported. As they said having it playable "natively on Linux is high on our priority list" although there can always be unforeseen issues as they learned porting the first game to Linux but "overall Unreal Engine 4’s Linux support is in a much better state, now".
However, they're clear that "PC" (they mean Windows…sigh) is their "top priority" right now since it's the biggest set of users and a few weeks will still be spent on Windows players before shifting over to Linux. They're "reasonably confident" on Linux support at the 1.0 launch.
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As for Steam Deck specific support they said they're also hoping for that at the 1.0 release but it's a lot more work due to optimizations needed, and changes needing to be made to the text size and UI for the smaller screen. Plus, Steam Deck was not part of their Kickstarter promises so it's a lower priority. They said trying it on Steam Deck right now is a "pretty OK time" but they want to aim for the experience to be of a higher quality.
If I hear of any changes, I'll let you know.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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18 comments
"UE4 supports Linux very well, we've never tested it, but it's going to be fiiiiiine"
You can tell how wrong this is by the fact that UE4 has better windows support, yet they still have to put so much time in to make it work well.
Then reality hits and they're going to whine about Linux.
You can tell how wrong this is by the fact that UE4 has better windows support, yet they still have to put so much time in to make it work well.
Then reality hits and they're going to whine about Linux.
1 Likes, Who?
Except for that "PC means Windows" nonsense too many people still proclaim, this sounds generally positive.
Honestly, if I had to pick between hitting a release date and delaying it for a few weeks for a small userbase, I'd go with hitting the release.
As long as they don't do the CA way of "patches on Linux arrive a few months after they arrive on Windows" (making the Linux native version essentially useless for anyone using mods), all is good.
Honestly, if I had to pick between hitting a release date and delaying it for a few weeks for a small userbase, I'd go with hitting the release.
As long as they don't do the CA way of "patches on Linux arrive a few months after they arrive on Windows" (making the Linux native version essentially useless for anyone using mods), all is good.
1 Likes, Who?
benstor214 Feb 15, 2023
Could it be that with “larger audience of PC players” they just mean that more gamers are playing on Windows?
As in “of the two audiences of PC players (Linux + Windows) the one that uses Windows is larger”?
I may point you to the fact that English is not my native language, so I could be mistaken.
As in “of the two audiences of PC players (Linux + Windows) the one that uses Windows is larger”?
I may point you to the fact that English is not my native language, so I could be mistaken.
3 Likes, Who?
"UE4 supports Linux very well, we've never tested it, but it's going to be fiiiiiine"
You can tell how wrong this is by the fact that UE4 has better windows support, yet they still have to put so much time in to make it work well.
Then reality hits and they're going to whine about Linux.
They support linux in EVERSPACE 1, so I expect they know what supporitng linux means.
3 Likes, Who?
Then reality hits and they're going to whine about Linux.
Not fair towards this particular developer since they proved with the first one that even if it is a non-trivial task, they still do it. Unlike a lot of other developers that simply cancel the port.
7 Likes, Who?
doesn't ue4 work very well on proton? Sometimes I wonder, if that is the case, is it even worth it for them to do a native release? Or is that blasphemy to say? I'm just thinking dev time to upkeep two independent platforms maybe could be better spent on the game itself if it works exactly the same in proton vs native.
0 Likes
doesn't ue4 work very well on proton? Sometimes I wonder, if that is the case, is it even worth it for them to do a native release? Or is that blasphemy to say? I'm just thinking dev time to upkeep two independent platforms maybe could be better spent on the game itself if it works exactly the same in proton vs native.
The more games that support Linux the better the developer ecosystem becomes.
2 Likes, Who?
doesn't ue4 work very well on proton? Sometimes I wonder, if that is the case, is it even worth it for them to do a native release? Or is that blasphemy to say? I'm just thinking dev time to upkeep two independent platforms maybe could be better spent on the game itself if it works exactly the same in proton vs native.
The more games that support Linux the better the developer ecosystem becomes.
I suppose you're right ... oh how nice it'd be for linux native to be the default, then "windows support" later on lol.
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Plus, Steam Deck was not part of their Kickstarter promises so it's a lower priority.I appreciate people who think that "what they promised" is an important factor.
4 Likes, Who?
doesn't ue4 work very well on proton? Sometimes I wonder, if that is the case, is it even worth it for them to do a native release? Or is that blasphemy to say? I'm just thinking dev time to upkeep two independent platforms maybe could be better spent on the game itself if it works exactly the same in proton vs native.As KohlyKohl points out, without people using Linux tooling, those tools don't get tested, those tools don't get bug fixes, those tools don't get extended to do new and useful things. As people that use the Linux ecosystem we benefit enormously from lots of other people also using the Linux ecosystem. Visibly breaking that PC = Windows nonsense also builds a virtuous cycle for things like manufacturer hardware support.
From the game developer side, though, those that see testing/QA as a means to make their software better rather than as a cost centre see benefits from having a Linux build without considering any additional sales: having your software run in different environments gives you additional insight into what it's potentially doing wrong, which makes it much quicker (and therefore also much cheaper) to track down bugs that will affect all platforms. Linux gets you that for free - you don't need to buy an additional SDK, just boot Linux on the testing hardware you already have. A number of game developers have highlighted those benefits to their workflow. Plus Linux users are much better at writing useful bug reports.
Last edited by CatKiller on 15 February 2023 at 7:07 pm UTC
3 Likes, Who?
doesn't ue4 work very well on proton? Sometimes I wonder, if that is the case, is it even worth it for them to do a native release? Or is that blasphemy to say? I'm just thinking dev time to upkeep two independent platforms maybe could be better spent on the game itself if it works exactly the same in proton vs native.
They wanted money from kickstarter. It's good from them to have good relationship with linux comunity, because we don't buy if we don't know playability. But with good track record (they already released linux game) and promise of Linux build I expect we have good representation in KS. I don't know what results they have from as betatesters in early access because of wine...
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Update: Rockfish has dropped all plans for native Linux support.
From Kickstarter update today:
Last edited by dpanter on 6 April 2023 at 5:24 pm UTC
From Kickstarter update today:
The latest change is that we won’t have native Linux support even though we’ve committed to that many times. We did spend quite a lot of time and effort on a native Linux build. Still, it turned out that due to the broken and incomplete nature of the Vulkan implementation in Unreal Engine 4, our graphically complex game runs at 50% - 80% performance compared to simply running the DX12 Windows version in Proton. At the same time, some features like SSGI cause frequent crashes due to video RAM leaks.
After talking to our friends at Epic Games, there’s little hope that these issues will be fixed in UE4 since all their focus is now on UE5. As probably everyone will understand, fixing source code of the engine ourselves is completely out of question for us—even if we had the development resources, it would make future updates even more cumbersome as we’d have to build a custom engine while maintaining two separate code bases (a painful lesson we had to learn from native Linux support in the first EVERSPACE).
However, we’re still working on optimizing the experience using Proton for Linux pilots nonetheless. Any backers who pledged on the PC version not being happy with this solution can request a full refund on Kickstarter, no questions asked (refunded keys will be revoked). Native Mac OS support is next on our list, followed by Steam Deck optimization.
Last edited by dpanter on 6 April 2023 at 5:24 pm UTC
2 Likes, Who?
They also have this in their most recent "launch day" post on the steam store page. I'm not really sure I understand their claims though. They are saying that Unreal Engine is basically totally broken in linux? Don't other native linux games use ue4?
1 Likes, Who?
The German government has been very generous with its new grant program focused on supporting the video game industry in our country. Back in January, we shared that we were given 1.65 million Euros to help produce the first major expansion for EVERSPACE 2, and we plan to match that with our own funds. While our creative team isn’t yet ready to share what this new adventure will be, safe to say this will not be a small expansion.I'm not sure that taxes should be used that way.
1 Likes, Who?
Governments use tax money to bolster local entertainment industries all the time. The most common and noticeable is for the movie biz, but the principle is the same.The German government has been very generous with its new grant program focused on supporting the video game industry in our country. Back in January, we shared that we were given 1.65 million Euros to help produce the first major expansion for EVERSPACE 2, and we plan to match that with our own funds. While our creative team isn’t yet ready to share what this new adventure will be, safe to say this will not be a small expansion.I'm not sure that taxes should be used that way.
2 Likes, Who?
yeah lol - that kind of stuff happens ALL the damn time. It's good as well. There are plenty of reasons to be upset about how taxes are spent, this is definitely not one of them.
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They are saying that Unreal Engine is basically totally broken in linux?It both is and isn't. The many, many remaining issues with UE4 are not going to be fixed for obvious reasons. Devs can work around most of it but in this case Rockfish could not find a way forward. I'm not sure I buy the performance argument, 50% fps compared to Windows sounds insane. As you say plenty other games use UE4 and they don't run at half speed, but SSGI (presumably Screen Space Global Illumination) crashing from VRAM overflow definitely sounds like a UE4 thing.
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