Quoting: CFWhitman

Quoting: 3qET7rL9BdI might be misunderstanding but it doesn't look like a clean room implementation like OpenRA, CorsixTH, OpenMW and GemRB. Instead they've reversed engineered the binaries to get the source code.

QuoteAs long as it's not linux/cross-platform skeleton/compatibility layer, all of the code on the repo that's not behind a preprocessor condition(like FIX_BUGS) are completely reversed code from original binaries.

Clean room re-implementations are reverse engineered. Of course, a clean room re-implementation is done as follows:

Someone analyzes the original program to figure out how it works/interfaces with other software. They document this as they go along without any references to actual code.

Someone else takes the documentation and writes compatible code without ever directly seeing how the original code works.

The information presented here doesn't actually reveal whether this reverse engineering was done in a "clean room" manner or not.

Another way it so simply observe how the original application/game works and try to recreate it from there. In this particular case it does look like they just went with a decompiler (see my post two posts up).

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Quoting: monyarm

Quoting: 3qET7rL9BdI might be misunderstanding but it doesn't look like a clean room implementation like OpenRA, CorsixTH, OpenMW and GemRB. Instead they've reversed engineered the binaries to get the source code.

Ya, that's not how that works. Literally all open source implementations reverse engineer the original binaries. (even Zdoom, as the support for games like strife and the like had to be reverse engineered). That's how it's done. ScummVM for example recommends that new contributors should use a combination of debuggers and IDAPro (A tool for reverse engineering). And even then, reverse engineering doesn't give you the source code, rather it gives you c-like pseudocode for a given function, pseudocode which lacks names, types, structs, and has plenty of mistakes. It's a long and arduous process to reverse engineer anything.

Huge difference here is that ScummVM only reverses either public domain games or with

Quoting: monyarm

Quoting: 3qET7rL9BdI might be misunderstanding but it doesn't look like a clean room implementation like OpenRA, CorsixTH, OpenMW and GemRB. Instead they've reversed engineered the binaries to get the source code.

Ya, that's not how that works. Literally all open source implementations reverse engineer the original binaries. (even Zdoom, as the support for games like strife and the like had to be reverse engineered). That's how it's done. ScummVM for example recommends that new contributors should use a combination of debuggers and IDAPro (A tool for reverse engineering). And even then, reverse engineering doesn't give you the source code, rather it gives you c-like pseudocode for a given function, pseudocode which lacks names, types, structs, and has plenty of mistakes. It's a long and arduous process to reverse engineer anything.

Big difference there is that both Zdoom and ScummVM does this with the blessing of the copyright holders. Strife was reversed when the original author discovered that all the source code had vanished due to the servers it being held on had been sold.

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Claim 28 is quite damaging to the reverse-engineering team:

Quote28. Papenhoff has admitted that the source code developed via the re3 and reVC
projects is not original, but rather is (and was intended to be) a copy of the original. In fact,
Defendants have bragged that their derivative source code was created by working backwards
from Take-Two’s final “machine” code to re-create the human-readable code in which GTA was
programmed:

“GTA 3 and Vice City were originally written in [programming
language] C++ . . . The compiled executables that are shipped are in
machine code. So the general task is to go from machine code back to
C++. . . . To go back to C++ is by no means a simple 1:1 mapping, but
over the last 10 or so years decompilers have appeared that help with this
process. . . . So what we typically do is work with the output of the
decompiler and massage it back into readable C++.” Id.

If this is true and it appears to be so, then this is in fact copyright infringement and not something that any of us really can defend.

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Quoting: Samsai

QuoteDefendants have sought to exploit a potential market that belongs exclusively to Take-Two.

Market which belongs exclusively to one party is called a monopoly, so I guess this means that Take-Two needs to pay antitrust fines or be broken up. :P

They have a monopoly on their copyrighted assets which is what they are talking about here. What they mean is that T2 have exclusive rights to port their own games to whatever system they want to and that this reverse-engineered port infringes on that right, aka T2 alone have the right to port GTA3 to say the Switch.

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Quoting: slapinWell, either Take-Two lawyers are extremely unprofessional or it is total fraud/freevolious.

"irreparable harm" means it can't be fixed by money, which is totally not
the case here even in worst case scenario. Unless they will bribe judge I don't see
how this claim won't get dismissed.

No this is common language to use in copyright cases in the US and have a special meaning:

QuoteCourts have found irreparable harm in cases where the plaintiff has proven that:

Plaintiff has suffered a loss that is difficult to compensate or measure.
Plaintiff has a limited time period to exploit its work or is experiencing other market disadvantages.
Plaintiff has lost the ability to control its copyrights.
Defendant's copyright infringement is harming plaintiff's reputation or brand.
Defendant's infringement interferes with plaintiff's exclusive license agreements.

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Quoting: dubigrasuNot impressed with the new additions, well, talking about ARK and Darksiders.
I can live somewhat with the ARK graphics while playing on a TV, but those 1 sec hangs from time to time, damn.
Darksiders looks OK, but both games are running at 30 FPS (or even less sometimes, to my eyes at least), which is ridiculous. I'm not a gazillion fps snob, but come on.

I don't think they're running any game through Proton/Wine/etc (though they do use DXVK), but sometimes I wish they did, because at least: a) some game would run better (ARK in this case) and b) less work and time required to get the games ready.
At this pace they'll be unable to deliver those 100 games in 2021 as they're promised. Not sure what's the hold up (porting time or publishing rights?) but it doesn't seem to be happening.

Darksiders II was locked to 30fps on PS4 and going by the steam discussions it seems to have huge frame rate problems on Windows.

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Quoting: CatKiller

Quoting: F.UltraWhile I feel your frustration, I do think that such a move would decrease the number of native ports even more since Linux now would become not only a fringe market but also a dangerous one.

How so dangerous? That they should give the money back when they don't provide the goods they said they'd give in exchange? I'd want the same thing for Windows users if a dev took their money and then flatly refused to provide the product that had been paid for. Developers need to use their whole arse, and Valve need to maintain customer confidence in their marketplace.

Valve automatically protecting customers from rogue devs is the nice option. Being forced to do it in every country with consumer protection laws is the less nice, and much less easy, option.

Dangerous in the way that if you in the unforeseen future for some reason are no longer able to support Linux then you have to suddenly redeem all those sales. Note that I'm not claiming that this would make Linux dangerous, just that publishers would see Linux as dangerous so when making a business decision then a Linux port would have a high risk (possibility of 100% refunds) vs low reward (small user base).

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Quoting: CatKillerSince developers like this suck so much at customer service, Valve should force them to do better: give automatic refunds to affected customers, to make them whole, and withhold revenue until the cost of that has been recovered. That's what other retailers do. I'm only ever going to buy a handful of games from any particular game dev, but I buy hundreds overall from Steam; my confidence in buying things on Steam becomes less every time a developer pulls this kind of scam, which harms Valve.

While I feel your frustration, I do think that such a move would decrease the number of native ports even more since Linux now would become not only a fringe market but also a dangerous one.

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Quoting: slaapliedje

Quoting: F.Ultra

Quoting: TheBardI'm really sad for the people at Feral. They did a wonderful job with all their ports. They made among the best native ports and their support is excellent. I only had to contact the support once. They managed to find that my keyboard was making the game crash. I don't even understand now how they were able to find it but they were right.

But the next step for Linux gaming is definitely Proton so I guess we will see lesser and lesser native ports. Maybe if the Steam Deck becomes a massive success and the next version Proton's compatibility isn't perfect, then native ports may become a thing again.

I'm quite sure that native ports or rather native versions from the ground up will be a thing again. We are now in the middleground where things like proton is good enough but the userbase is still too small, at some point IF our userbase raises then some publisher will move away from being dependent on a 3d party (proton) to be in better control of their own software as well as being able to push things to their technical limits.

The huge problem with native ports now is not really proton, it's the fact that our userbase is still so small. Proton just made it more apparent/transparent.

I hate to be 'that guy', but I think what Linux needs, and I know this is a gaming site, but for it to truly be something people migrate toward, we need a 'killer app' that is only available on Linux, or is somehow gimped by being used on other platforms. Unfortunately (fortunately?) due to most software being 'good enough' to cover the bases, and being open source, means that even if we did get a superior program for whatever, it'd just be ported over and people could remain on whatever non-Linux desktop they use.

1) Great usability? Check!
2) Simplified software installs and updates? Check!
3) Game compatibility or native? Check!
4) Cost of ownership? Check!
5) Reason why people should learn something new, even one program that requires Linux/GTK/QT/Xorg/Wayland? ...

One of Linux's greatest strength is also it's greatest weakness. While I agree with Valve, and say that exclusives are terrible, after all the hardware is all the same and can run the same software. It is the reason people buy a PS5 over an xbox-whatever. Halo fan? You buy an Xbox. God of War? Playstation. You want to run Final Cut? You buy a Mac. You don't know what you want to run yet? You end up with Windows...

Well you are not wrong, once upon a time Apache/MySQL/PHP was the killer app that turned basically every server into a Linux server.

The desktop is hard though, Microsoft fought hard and dirty to get their monopoly and once you get there, alternatives are near impossible to make a dent since you will be the "strange kid", and there will always be some small thing with "this word documents does not really work", "this Photoshop plugin does not work" to keep the majority at bay. At work every one exuding the sales team use elusively Linux on our desktops/laptops because sales have to exchange documents with customers and prospects and they are always in some .doc or .docx.

Not to mention that there are no pre-installed Linux machines for purchase in stores where people en masse does their purchases. Which also means that there are no company drive behind Linux, and this I have written about before, in where a publisher with a big AAA title will be given free marketing, a huge spotlight on conferences and paid interviews by the likes of Nintendo, Sony or Microsoft while zero of that exists for Linux so there are no marketing incentive to make a Linux port either, you will get zero airtime for doing that.

We will see though how well the Steam Deck will play out, if they manage to actually solve all the problems with EAC et al and have close to every single steam game playable in Proton AND releases SteamOS3 with those changes AND does so before W11 gets out of preview then at least there is a high chance that some portion of gamers will make the jump (W11 obseletes a lot of working hardware and places like Linus Tech Tips are talking more and more about Linux as a possible alternative).

This is where it sucks that one is not as rich as Bezos or Musk to pour into the development of some Linux exclusive killer apps or games. I know that we normally does not look too kindly at exclusives but then again Linux is both open and free so any one can dual boot and is therefore not excluded from the exclusive :)

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Quoting: jrt

Quoting: F.Ultra

Quoting: jrtCompetition is good. But why are companies so incapable of naming products?
Intel ARC vs. Intel ARK. There will be no confusion at all!

Quoting: jrtCompetition is good. But why are companies so incapable of naming products?
Intel ARC vs. Intel ARK. There will be no confusion at all!

Almost as good as their coming cpu naming scheme: 10nm -> Intel 7 -> Intel 4 -> Intel 3 -> Intel 20A (lower is better until higher is better again).

Not as bad as Nvidia with "Shield". I think they had 3 products named that and changed the name of the product to something else when they needed the name for a new Product.
"Nvidia Shield" -> "Nvidia Shield Portable"
"Nvidia Shield" -> "Nvidia Shield Tablet K1"
"Nvidia Shield" -> "Nvidia Shield Android TV"

Or the "Titan X" GPU. Where they had a second "Titan X" on a new architecture (pascal). So the community called it "Titan Xp" to differentiate, just for Nvidia to launch a new "Titan XP".

Missed opportunity for Teen Titans :)

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