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Quoting: liamdaweAnd yes, we need our money counted for Linux and not Windows. This is a good stepping stone to show developers and publishers there is money in Linux.

To what end?

What does it matter?

Think about it for a sec.

If I'm a developer, and I make a Windows game, let's call it Cool Shooter, and you buy it and play it in Wine. I got your money. I don't give a shit what platform you run it on, I care that I got your money. OK, so you bought it through GoG as a "Linux" game. I can now see that some Linux gamers gave me their money even though I didn't bother with Linux.

The time comes to make the sequel. Cool Shooter 2, let's say. I code it with DirectX for Windows because Linux users bought it last time with zero effort on my part.

And what happens? They buy it again.

The only incentive for a developer to support Linux is MONEY. id had the warm fuzzies for a while, but even they abandoned us. So, keep buying Windows games and running them with Wine. It really doesn't matter to devs if you use Wine, so long as they don't have to make any efforts and you keep opening your wallets.

"Oh, but the devs will probably do native after seeing Linux dollars roll in."

No, they won't. There is NO REASON TO. You buy the Windows versions anyhow. They get the money either way.

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waiting for wayland??
:D

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You think they actually thought the game would meet expectations? Who ever made that decision should be fired, at best it should of been put in the beta tab. They have to know it's bad right? Could anyone have tried it and thought, yep this is ready for our fans. lmao

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Quoting: Speedster

Quoting: km3kIf anyone from GOG is reading, feel free to use my work on getting Return to Zork, Zork Nemesis and Zork Grand Inquisitor running on Linux with ScummVM, Dosbox and ZEngine. http://www.thezorklibrary.com/installguides/

Good work! Those are such fun games :D

Thanks!

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Quoting: SkullyThe devs who do this clearly don't give a ****, and will serve you up crap after crap while you all beg for more. This **** has been going on for MAC users for ages now, go look and see if any them seem happy with the wrapped titles after all this time. The real mac gamers are dual booting windows, I only just stopped dual booting bout a year ago. I don't want to do it again in future.

Maybe you haven't heard that this same company is already working on a new engine that will be more cross-platform for their new games. This wrapper thing was for an old game where they couldn't afford to rip the engine apart and fix its single-platform-ness.

In situations like this, people who really care about Linux gaming should either politely explain that the "wrapper port" did not meet their expectations and request a refund, or file bug reports and engage with the developers trying to fix the thing. Going all outraged on somebody who is finally making some effort for Linux gamers can so easily backfire. In particular, CD Projekt is anti-DRM, not known for disrespecting their users (unlike certain other AAA game title publishers), so why do people have to start out assuming they "don't give a ****"???

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I got 374 games on steam, only 168 of them for linux. 2 of em are wrapped bought by mistake like finding out that The witcher is wrapped 5mins after I already bought it. That means I have bought 206 games that I can no longer play. And a over 100 of em I have never played, thanks to having to get like 5 windows games in a bundle to get 1 linux game. I am happy for all 206 of them to sit and rot if they arn't native. I do miss some of them, but have had plenty of games to keep me busy. Like you say we have loads of games now, we don't need this and shouldn't accept it. We can moan all we wan't to get a wrapped port fixed but hey, it alot of people already handed over their money. If they really are willing to put time/effort/money into fixing these things, they would of just put time/effort/money into porting it properly.

I don't feel I have anything else constructive to say about it now, so I am done with this thread.

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I already made a Steam Machine and using an xbox controller and wireless keynoard/mouse. Will be great when the controller is released though. Guess delaying it and making it a good launch is better than rushing it.

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Thats another good point, something that is already out is already been through the "new game purchase" phase. I didn't buy witcher 2 when it came out for Linux,I got it in some god forsaken steam sale event yonks ago.

So in essence, me having Witcher 2 on Linux earnt the company _nothing_, I didnt spend a penny on the effort of porting it. Now I know others won't have had it and will now buy it so we expect some quality in that regard (no way am I letting them off the hook), but how much can we expect from a game that already is out?

As previous said, its new games built from ground up to be cross-platform that shouldnt go near wrappers, but some companies dont have the experience to do proper native ports. If youre a windows dev house, doing Linux sometimes might be too hard for the expected returns.

Either way, im not that bothered, EU4 for Linux runs beautifully <3

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I tried TransGaming's Kohan "port" back in 2002 or 2003, and compared it with Loki's real Kohan port. One of them worked well, and the other performed like shit. Too bad that the company that did it right went under, and the other is still breathing their nasty breath on Mac.

There is no reason to use DirectX other than familiarity.

The only time Wine is acceptable is when the game is older. Witcher 2 using eON or System Shock 2 using Wine, fine. I can accept that, even if I don't want to spend my money on them. But new games should be designed cross-platform from the get-go. There are several libraries out there designed specifically for this, including SDL2. Many of the big engines are now supporting Linux directly, so if a game uses one of those there's literally no reason to use Wine, period. Lack of foresight, laziness, whatever you want to call it - there is no excuse for it. If Linux is nothing but an afterthought, then they don't really need or want my money. If devs don't want to properly code multi-platform, then they shouldn't try to release their games multi-platform.

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No one here wants second rate, not sure where you picked that up front. We all want good performing games and porting titles that originally didnt have Linux next to its requirements at creation sometimes need wrappers.

If a game is using a wrapper, and its shit, we'll either moan to get it fixed or not buy it. Ive got over 180 linux games on my steam list and most are native, so its not the worst trend we could have.

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Quoting: SpeedsterThe expectation all along has been that dosemu/wine would be used to support old games on GoG, which is their primary focus at "Good Old Games". Having wine officially supported there will be wonderful for Linux users pining after classic games

* who don't want to go around buying windows games, and miss the opportunity of having their $$ count towards the growing Linux gaming market
* who don't want to waste time tinkering to find the right mix of wine version and wine config to play some old game that isn't super popular with fellow wine users

I need a "+ 1 million" button.

For games I just want them to work, I don't want to spend truck loads of time configuring wine if someone can do it for me on a game that will never get ported then fantastic.

And yes, we need our money counted for Linux and not Windows. This is a good stepping stone to show developers and publishers there is money in Linux.

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Quoting: km3kIf anyone from GOG is reading, feel free to use my work on getting Return to Zork, Zork Nemesis and Zork Grand Inquisitor running on Linux with ScummVM, Dosbox and ZEngine. http://www.thezorklibrary.com/installguides/

Good work! Those are such fun games :D

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The expectation all along has been that dosemu/wine would be used to support old games on GoG, which is their primary focus at "Good Old Games". Having wine officially supported there will be wonderful for Linux users pining after classic games

* who don't want to go around buying windows games, and miss the opportunity of having their $$ count towards the growing Linux gaming market
* who don't want to waste time tinkering to find the right mix of wine version and wine config to play some old game that isn't super popular with fellow wine users

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Yes I am sure I had it turned off, I had everything on lowest settings I am obviously very capable of changing settings in a graphics panel ;). Many people reporting the same issues.

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With attitudes like this, I hope you all enjoy ya 2nd rate experiences while paying full price. You all deserve what you get. Hope this isn't a clear picture of how most Linux gamers feel otherwise the future won't be fun at all :(

The devs who do this clearly don't give a damn, and will serve you up crap after crap while you all beg for more. This shit has been going on for MAC users for ages now, go look and see if any them seem happy with the wrapped titles after all this time. The real mac gamers are dual booting windows, I only just stopped dual booting bout a year ago. I don't want to do it again in future.

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Two things:

1) 9-10 FPS? I installed the linux version fron Steam, use the configuration I have for running it under wine and get 30-40 fps at 1280x1024. I played some of my saves, seems stable enough except for crashes on quitting. Sure you turned Ubersampling off? My gear is hardly top notch gaming stuff (AMD X2 250, GTX 260, 4GB RAM, LCD with nax res. 1280x1024, no gamepad).

2) Before we stop buying bad ports we should stop buying games without a linux port at all. As long as we manage with wine or dual booting, there's no real pressure on game companies to put any major effort in porting their titles to linux (and we'll have to see if Steam can make a difference here). That's why companies like CDProject or 4A deserve some trust that they will improve their ports over time, since they seem to believe that there's a future market for linux games and they are willing to invest in that future.

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Quoting: liamdaweSystem Shock 2 uses Wine and works flawlessly for me. I'm perfectly fine with older games coming to Linux using Wine since they otherwise wouldn't be ported.

SS2 works great! I agree completely.

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System Shock 2 uses Wine and works flawlessly for me. I'm perfectly fine with older games coming to Linux using Wine since they otherwise wouldn't be ported.

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I hope Valve's hardware partners are on board with wanting more time to polish, and not too miffed that they end up waiting for the controller

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Quoting: AnonymousFuck Wine. If they want any of my money, they had better have clear labeling on what is a real port, and what uses Wine or DOSbox or any other kind of not-an-actual-port "technology".

I doubt they'll label it. Many of their Windows and Mac games use dosbox and aren't labelled.

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Quoting: killxden

Quoting: predator8bitKnowledge of wine? I have a bad feeling about this...

Why? If it is good implemented, you wont notice the difference. Also 99% of their games are old, so there wont be any performance issues. This is a good thing imo. It will make the Linux games list grow with really good games.

Hmmm, you are true, yes.

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Quoting: AnonymousAs far as I know Steam OS is still aiming for a mainstream release this year. This news is about hardware, not software.

Bingo. It remains to be seen what Tropico 5 will do about it's port that is waiting on SteamOS.

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As far as I know Steam OS is still aiming for a mainstream release this year. This news is about hardware, not software.

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Quoting: Cheeseness

Quoting: SkullyWine devs themselves state that you can expect 50% performance in wine.

This is a Wine thing, and not necessarily applicable to all wrappers.

I don't think Liam is saying that anybody should put up with lesser performance on Linux, just that whether or not they're happening via wrappers is irrelevant - it's the issues themselves (poor performance, poor stability, whatver) that we should be reporting, regardless of whether it's "native" or not.

Bingo. Wine is just one example used in the article.

Don't put up with poor performance, report the bugs and make it better. Push for native if and when you can, but do not shun and talk down on developers who don't have the man-power to port natively.

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I'm no game developper but in my Wine tweaker experience the name of the game is OpenGL. It showed me that windows games which supports OpenGL performs better under wine.

If the developpers could drop DirectX it's already an awesome win.

After that, the technology that permits the port is not much of a problem. As long as it is transparent for the user, it doesn't matter for me.

I just want to play my games on Linux! :)

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Fuck Wine. If they want any of my money, they had better have clear labeling on what is a real port, and what uses Wine or DOSbox or any other kind of not-an-actual-port "technology".

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Quoting: predator8bitKnowledge of wine? I have a bad feeling about this...

Why? If it is good implemented, you wont notice the difference. Also 99% of their games are old, so there wont be any performance issues. This is a good thing imo. It will make the Linux games list grow with really good games.

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Quoting: predator8bitKnowledge of wine? I have a bad feeling about this...

Yep... Also here.

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Quoting: SkullyWine devs themselves state that you can expect 50% performance in wine.

This is a Wine thing, and not necessarily applicable to all wrappers.

I don't think Liam is saying that anybody should put up with lesser performance on Linux, just that whether or not they're happening via wrappers is irrelevant - it's the issues themselves (poor performance, poor stability, whatver) that we should be reporting, regardless of whether it's "native" or not.


Ideally we want native ports, but that's not going to happen for a lot of legacy titles. If we're being offered Linux support (proper support, with bug fixes and maintenance), then that's the important thing, and having presence on Linux will be more likely to lead to greater commitment, which I reckon will translate into more native ports longer term.

I can't see CD Projekt pulling teams off The Witcher 3 to port The Witcher 2, but having the latter out there on Wine makes the former much more sellable and could justify a native port in a way that the W2 on its own might not have been able to.

If they don't support the game, then sure, they don't deserve support from the Linux community, but if they do (and it sounds like they're working on fixing the situation up), then what value is there in shunning them?

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Good article and fine addition to the discussion.

Let us be grateful for the contributions to our platform. Wither 2 looks like a great contribution.

Publishers should not release too buggy games, for whatever reason. People will be annoyed if they buy something that does not work, or performes under par.

We should ask for native versions of good games. But lets be polite. We should also ask for rewrites of good old(er) games for the sake of utilizing new and better hardware for better experiences.

Question. I have a system. Linux 3.14, hd6970 running catalyst driver 14.10, opengl 4.4. Should I buy Witcher 2 or wait?

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