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Do you think Linux will ever be the leading OS for gaming?

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Madbones
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22 Feb 2012, 7:07 am

mglosenger wrote:
Whenever a new generation of graphics cards comes out, I buy one, and I've always had issues with Ubuntu supporting these cards (ATI/AMD anyway, never tried Nvidia). Sometimes the drivers simply don't boot, though usually they kind of work but I can't set the resolution properly or use both monitors, etc etc etc

Until whatever needs to happen happens to make the latest hardware regularly be supported, Linux won't be a primary gaming OS - this means AMD/Nvidia? releasing more code publicly, and/or the Linux groups doing.. something.

Agreed.
ATI is a pain beyond belief with Linux.
I cannot install the 11.10 ATI drivers. So I have to revert to 10.10 :( .


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AngelKnight
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26 Feb 2012, 5:55 pm

@Madbones:

I've given up on fglrx a long time ago. Then again, my needs are fulfilled with basic framebuffer and xvideo or a workalike, so the open-source Xorg drivers do the job.

@OP:

No, fundamentally because not nearly enough people have that much interest in making GNU/Linux particularly friendly for the large game publishers. Note I mentioned the GNU part. Not just because of the "it's the whole operating system" principle (which I agree with), but to make a point:

You don't generally build, or port, an application to the kernel and call it "designed for $OS"; the rest of the OS comes into play. This includes stuff like:

  • system libraries
    • Windows: WIN32, NTLL, COM, etc.
    • Linux: libc, SDL/DirectFB/whatever, PulseAudio/ALSA/JACK/whatever
  • userland bits
    • Windows: HAL, SAM, CSRSS, Services, also COM (this is complicated), etc.
    • Linux: xorg, sysvinit/upstart/whatever, whatever window manager of the week the user is using, etc..


For better or worse, there's (mostly) just one set of these to code to in Windows. You have many variegated versions, in various combinations, on Linux. Think compatibility between Win98 and WinME, but much worse.

If a game publisher put about the same work into a "triple-A Windows" game into a "triple-A Linux 3.2 kernel, GNU Libc 2.12, libsdl 1.2, libalsa 1.0.2x, Xorg 1.9.x" game, the Windows game would (thoeretically) have millions of potential customers. The Linux game might have about 50,000 potential customers on earth running that exact software stack.



Jono
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28 Feb 2012, 4:57 am

AngelKnight wrote:
@Madbones:

I've given up on fglrx a long time ago. Then again, my needs are fulfilled with basic framebuffer and xvideo or a workalike, so the open-source Xorg drivers do the job.

@OP:

No, fundamentally because not nearly enough people have that much interest in making GNU/Linux particularly friendly for the large game publishers. Note I mentioned the GNU part. Not just because of the "it's the whole operating system" principle (which I agree with), but to make a point:

You don't generally build, or port, an application to the kernel and call it "designed for $OS"; the rest of the OS comes into play. This includes stuff like:
  • system libraries
    • Windows: WIN32, NTLL, COM, etc.
    • Linux: libc, SDL/DirectFB/whatever, PulseAudio/ALSA/JACK/whatever
  • userland bits
    • Windows: HAL, SAM, CSRSS, Services, also COM (this is complicated), etc.
    • Linux: xorg, sysvinit/upstart/whatever, whatever window manager of the week the user is using, etc..

For better or worse, there's (mostly) just one set of these to code to in Windows. You have many variegated versions, in various combinations, on Linux. Think compatibility between Win98 and WinME, but much worse.

If a game publisher put about the same work into a "triple-A Windows" game into a "triple-A Linux 3.2 kernel, GNU Libc 2.12, libsdl 1.2, libalsa 1.0.2x, Xorg 1.9.x" game, the Windows game would (thoeretically) have millions of potential customers. The Linux game might have about 50,000 potential customers on earth running that exact software stack.


It's not necessarily true that a game developer would have to support thousands of different libraries for their game to be able to run on many systems, regardless of what software stack they're using. For instance, OpenGL is it's own library and if your game uses OpenGL, it shouldn't have to call functions from other rendering libraries. You can also minimize your library dependancies by statically linking to your own libraries in compile time (static linking creates self-contained programs). There may still be some library problems but if your executable only depends on a basic minimum number of libraries (OpenGL and libsdl being some), then it should theoretically run on most Linux distros.



Oodain
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28 Feb 2012, 5:12 am

yet even rage that was made in pure opengl as i recall can be run on linux because graphics is far from the oly part to videogames, even if they were opengl allowws for a huge variance in functions used within it so opengl is not neccesarily compatible with opengl, (the reason RAGE suffered from graphical issues on all platforms)


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Jono
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28 Feb 2012, 7:56 am

Oodain wrote:
yet even rage that was made in pure opengl as i recall can be run on linux because graphics is far from the oly part to videogames, even if they were opengl allowws for a huge variance in functions used within it so opengl is not neccesarily compatible with opengl, (the reason RAGE suffered from graphical issues on all platforms)


Firstly, I never said that graphics were the only part to video games. Secondly rage already has a Linux version in the works. In fact, Id Software ports most of their games to Linux, so mentioning any game developed by them just proves that it's possible to develop games for Linux.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rage_(video_game)



Oodain
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28 Feb 2012, 8:21 am

yes i know there are rumors it is being ported, and i wanted to emphasize that even when the graphical package is sorted there is a huge difference.

also the RAGE port is still at large (little actual confirmation not even on the wiki, if you know where to find it that would be brilliant :o ) on linux yet the game has been out for half a year or so on the pc,

for linux to be the leading game platform it would have to be the first choice not something done after the game has been out for 6 months (despite the first one being used for patching bugs and graphical issues)

no one is disputing the possibility of linux gaming, EVE runs perfectly well on linux and there are some good indie titles as well.


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scubasteve
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09 Mar 2012, 1:37 pm

Seems to me the best chance for this to happen is if all games start using portable code. Java is too slow to produce anything much more sophisticated than Minecraft, but a better solution may come out as technology improves.