ROCKFISH Games have now launched EVERSPACE 2 and it looks awesome! One of their original Kickstarter promises did not make it though, with Native Linux support being cancelled as they will support it with Proton instead.
Despite repeatedly mentioning a Native Linux build would come, even as recently as mid February, they decided not to go through with it. Why? They said Vulkan support in Unreal Engine 4 is "broken and incomplete" and it gave between "50% - 80%" of the performance compared with just running the Windows version in Proton. There were other issues, like VRAM leaks causing crashes. After they spoke with Epic Games, they said it's clear Unreal Engine 4 won't get fixed up with the focus now on Unreal Engine 5 and ROCKFISH don't have the time to fix up the game engine.
They shared a screenshot as a quick example showing the Native build with Vulkan, their Windows build with DXVK and the Windows build with VKD3D-Proton and the performance difference speaks for itself really:
The good news is they plan to ensure it does work well with Proton and they will continue to optimize it there. Any Kickstarter backers not happy can request a refund too which is good to see.
As for Steam Deck, dedicated optimizations for it are also still planned.
For players on other stores like GOG, it does make things more complicated, since Steam is the only store to officially support a translation layer like Proton. However, you can try with Heroic Games Launcher.
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Quoting: EagleDeltaQuoting: ArtenI'm not happy about this. I trusted them because they have xp from Everspace 1. I don't think i support Everspace 3, if they try go with it on kickstarter...
The problem is related to bugs in UE4 and Vulkan that Epic refuse to fix because they've "Moved all focus to UE5". This is not something Rockfish could've planned for.... especially if Epic originally told them they planned to fix those bugs.
Everspace 2 is fundamentally different from Everspace 1, so while the experience of porting on Everspace 1 is valuable, it may not be 100% transferable either.
Which is all irelevant. They promissed Linux support. I know they are not main reason and we can blame epic, but this is all irelevant. I dont have promiss from epic, I have promiss from them.
It's not about specific code. It's about processes. Why they didn't know about this sooner? I did not expect linux to have same priority as windows, but what I expect is t least some testing basic testing in development. If there is fundamental problem with engine, how come they only knows about it now?
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Gents… new game suffering from performance issues is not exactly hot news. Give it some weeks 👌
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Sad statement to make but if you look at native ports that became broken over time due to 3rd parties porting them and it not being done inhouse by the devs themselves at least for those I rather prefer the devs ensuring it runs good on Proton/Wine instead. Even more so if that happens the Linux version usually just stays around on Steam even if the game runs well through Proton/Wine so Linux players get something totally broken instead, sometimes even the game versions lack behind without any clear notice that you get a worse experience with the Linux version. And if you require legacy (steam-)runtimes to run games on Linux there's not much difference than running it through Proton in my humble opinion. We still have way too many things getting broken on Linux through time, just remember the Steam/EAC glibc issue(s), or Indirect Branch Tracking (IBT) with the kernel and NVIDIA driver and so on.
I welcome all the work Valve has done to improve Wine with their Proton fork and for now I'm just happy when I don't need to boot into Windows to play a game. Though there's another storm on the horizon with games running on the deck but not on desktop Linux (Persona 5 on launch and Pentiment being recent examples - which got either fixed in the meantime or workarounds being implemented on the Proton side) but it's another thing worrying me.
Promising something in a Kickstarter campaign and then not fulfulling the promise is another cup of tea though but at least they offer refunds. I'd generally not believe in any peoples talks these days and rather wait for release.
Edit: To mention a real positive title in this regards and in regards to space games: X4: Foundations which is native, utilizing Vulkan and runs beautifully on Linux, they have their own custom engine though so they know their stuff and also do everything inhouse and with the latest (Beta) update they move their physics engine to the open-source Jolt Physics engine (developed on GitHub) which is also used in Horizon Forbidden West.
Last edited by tgurr on 7 April 2023 at 6:46 pm UTC
I welcome all the work Valve has done to improve Wine with their Proton fork and for now I'm just happy when I don't need to boot into Windows to play a game. Though there's another storm on the horizon with games running on the deck but not on desktop Linux (Persona 5 on launch and Pentiment being recent examples - which got either fixed in the meantime or workarounds being implemented on the Proton side) but it's another thing worrying me.
Promising something in a Kickstarter campaign and then not fulfulling the promise is another cup of tea though but at least they offer refunds. I'd generally not believe in any peoples talks these days and rather wait for release.
Edit: To mention a real positive title in this regards and in regards to space games: X4: Foundations which is native, utilizing Vulkan and runs beautifully on Linux, they have their own custom engine though so they know their stuff and also do everything inhouse and with the latest (Beta) update they move their physics engine to the open-source Jolt Physics engine (developed on GitHub) which is also used in Horizon Forbidden West.
Last edited by tgurr on 7 April 2023 at 6:46 pm UTC
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Quoting: ArtenQuoting: EagleDeltaQuoting: ArtenI'm not happy about this. I trusted them because they have xp from Everspace 1. I don't think i support Everspace 3, if they try go with it on kickstarter...
The problem is related to bugs in UE4 and Vulkan that Epic refuse to fix because they've "Moved all focus to UE5". This is not something Rockfish could've planned for.... especially if Epic originally told them they planned to fix those bugs.
Everspace 2 is fundamentally different from Everspace 1, so while the experience of porting on Everspace 1 is valuable, it may not be 100% transferable either.
Which is all irelevant. They promissed Linux support. I know they are not main reason and we can blame epic, but this is all irelevant. I dont have promiss from epic, I have promiss from them.
It's not about specific code. It's about processes. Why they didn't know about this sooner? I did not expect linux to have same priority as windows, but what I expect is t least some testing basic testing in development. If there is fundamental problem with engine, how come they only knows about it now?
This.
And as stated by Liam in the news "Despite repeatedly mentioning a Native Linux build would come, even as recently as mid February".
Come on...
0 Likes
ExpandingMan Apr 7, 2023
I definitely find the epic side of this story much more worrying than anything the developer did. Proton is a good approach for running games, but there being a positive long-term trajectory for games on open computer systems is contingent on vulkan becoming more widely used. This article makes it sound like epic's attitude to this is basically "meh, fuck it" which makes proton seem unsustainable.
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Quoting: ArtenNope, maybe Vulkan.Quoting: kokoko3kOne less game to play.You spelled epic wrong...
Thanks proton.
I can't see why, since they did not explained, they want E2 to run on Vulkan where Opengl worked so well in the first episode.
And, as I said, I already tried E1 under proton and performace was night and day versus opengl, in favour of the latter.
So thank you proton to help me cut my playlist.
Last edited by kokoko3k on 7 April 2023 at 6:32 pm UTC
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EagleDelta Apr 7, 2023
Quoting: CyrilQuoting: ArtenQuoting: EagleDeltaQuoting: ArtenI'm not happy about this. I trusted them because they have xp from Everspace 1. I don't think i support Everspace 3, if they try go with it on kickstarter...
The problem is related to bugs in UE4 and Vulkan that Epic refuse to fix because they've "Moved all focus to UE5". This is not something Rockfish could've planned for.... especially if Epic originally told them they planned to fix those bugs.
Everspace 2 is fundamentally different from Everspace 1, so while the experience of porting on Everspace 1 is valuable, it may not be 100% transferable either.
Which is all irelevant. They promissed Linux support. I know they are not main reason and we can blame epic, but this is all irelevant. I dont have promiss from epic, I have promiss from them.
It's not about specific code. It's about processes. Why they didn't know about this sooner? I did not expect linux to have same priority as windows, but what I expect is t least some testing basic testing in development. If there is fundamental problem with engine, how come they only knows about it now?
This.
And as stated by Liam in the news "Despite repeatedly mentioning a Native Linux build would come, even as recently as mid February".
Come on...
I disagree. As I work in Software Development you have two competing problems as a company:
1. Make promises to get buy-in ahead of time or the project never gets off the ground.
2. You simply don't know what you don't know until you get to that point. The reality being that UE5 was not available when Everspace 2 started development and they were able to port Everspace 1 to Linux before. Imagine the surprise when you finally get to that work, only to find that the promise you had to make to get funding now no longer is viable from a technical standpoint without starting the entire project over on a new engine.... which is infeasible this late.
This issue doesn't happen as much in Tech due to the fear of customer churn on very expensive services. By comparison, once Game Devs (and Engine Devs) get their money, it's on to the next project since that up-front revenue does nothing but fade off over time. And, sadly, this part of the issue falls squarely on gamers' shoulders. As long as gamers continue to pay for things despite what GameDevs and Engine Devs do, there won't be any incentive to stop.
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Quoting: shawnsterpMy takeaway from this is that — once again — Epic Games is playing a role in the quality of Linux gaming.I'm going to be pleased when Godot and other open source game engines eat that space. And I think they will.
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And this is yet another reason studios need to stop using Unreal.. Unreal is destroying the industry slowly but surely.. most the half baked broken games we get now days are unreal games because with Unreal devs get lazy af and don't code squat.. more reasons to go back to the days of having actual programmers work along side artists to create games. Unreal has done nothing but make devs lazy over all and harms the industry
Last edited by tohur on 7 April 2023 at 7:24 pm UTC
Last edited by tohur on 7 April 2023 at 7:24 pm UTC
1 Likes, Who?
Quoting: EagleDeltaI disagree. As I work in Software Development you have two competing problems as a company:
1. Make promises to get buy-in ahead of time or the project never gets off the ground.
2. You simply don't know what you don't know until you get to that point. The reality being that UE5 was not available when Everspace 2 started development and they were able to port Everspace 1 to Linux before. Imagine the surprise when you finally get to that work, only to find that the promise you had to make to get funding now no longer is viable from a technical standpoint without starting the entire project over on a new engine.... which is infeasible this late.
This issue doesn't happen as much in Tech due to the fear of customer churn on very expensive services. By comparison, once Game Devs (and Engine Devs) get their money, it's on to the next project since that up-front revenue does nothing but fade off over time. And, sadly, this part of the issue falls squarely on gamers' shoulders. As long as gamers continue to pay for things despite what GameDevs and Engine Devs do, there won't be any incentive to stop.
Sorry but you don't understand, the point isn't only a technical one.
You seem to find excuses where there are none...
When you promise a Linux version (or macOS), you do it from the start to avoid the maximum of issues, that was repeatedly said on this website from many people.
You don't start to "port" your game on Linux 1-2 months before the full release.
They never spoke about their difficulties about the Linux version, and yet they announce on the release day that there won't be Linux native, it's just dishonest.
They lied to us dude, it's simple.
Bonus (as I posted in the forum "Crowdfunding page suggestions"): https://www.youtube.com/live/CxYPVee36sY?feature=share&t=3250
Dare to tell me this guy is honest...
But yeah, this time I learned the lesson: never a trust a dev even if they released their previous game on Linux. I'm tired of it and, UE4 issues or not, I don't think I'm the only one.
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