11 ms·

Playability Test of 100 Humble Bundle Games on Linux

159 points by unhammer 10y ago

unhammer 10y ago
Results at https://docs.zoho.com/sheet/published.do?rid=nc4und89223056a4745c0adeb0002b7fb3325 https://docs.zoho.com/sheet/published.do?rid=nc4und89223056a... (the embed didn't show in my browser)
- douche 10y ago
  This page has a poor layout to be showing a spreadsheet in anyway - half the horizontal width is taken up by a big static title/header element.
  - kagamine 10y ago
    I call this "the other UX" pattern: Useless Experience
ajuc 10y ago
Distributing binaries in Linux is PITA. Compiling a game staticaly with all dependencies is nontrivial (couldn't get it to work last time I've tried), and if you leave some libraries dynamicaly linked - in a few years it won't work. I made that mistake by using now abandoned libparagui in my game ~10 years ago. It uses old libsdl, which doesn't work with many modern resolutions, and it doesn't even compile on modern GCC without patches. Every time I install new system and then want to compile it - I spend a few evenings to get it to run...
- pluma 10y ago
  A good example is Unreal Tournament (1999). I don't think it's even possible to get the Linux version to run on a modern install of Ubuntu even if you track down all the 32 bit versions of all the libraries it uses. But using WINE the Windows version just works out of the box. EDIT: Dropped "Classic". Not sure where that came from.
  - NTripleOne 10y ago
    Y'know... I don't think I've ever heard anyone refer to UT99 as UT Classic.
    - pluma 10y ago
      Hm... you're right. Not sure where I got that from. Most people seem to call it UT99 and personally I used to just call it Unreal Tournament (no qualifier). I don't like putting the year on it because it makes me feel so damn old. EDIT: Hey, fun fact: there's an upcoming free Unreal Tournament game simply called "Unreal Tournament" and apparently it's being developed somewhat openly: https://www.epicgames.com/unrealtournament/ https://www.epicgames.com/unrealtournament/ (code is visible on GitHub for Unreal Engine 4 subscribers)
      - ajuc 10y ago
        I hate it when people do remakes with the same title.
    - buster 10y ago
      UT99 is a common abbreviation. Classic was used for "Unreal Classic" as opposed to Unreal - Return To Na Pali.
  - voltagex_ 10y ago
    If anyone would like to try to get the "original" binary to run, it's available at http://www.liflg.org/?catid=6&gameid=51 http://www.liflg.org/?catid=6&gameid=51. I'd read the write up on what's broken, even if the entire thing is a failure.
  - dmichulke 10y ago
    FWIW, I think the term was used often in e-sports to distinguish between it and 2k3/2k4. Before the release of 2k3 there was no 99 attached to it and I know quite a few people including me who used the term "UT classic".
- pawadu 10y ago
  Lets hope Snappy changes this situation!
  - ajuc 10y ago
    You mean this? https://developer.ubuntu.com/en/snappy/ https://developer.ubuntu.com/en/snappy/ Interesting.
    - pawadu 10y ago
      Yes, that one
- duozerk 10y ago
  A lot of games now simply ship the shared libraries with the game and use LD_LIBRARY_PATH to at least partially fix that issue; it works OK in most cases (as long as you don't have a glibc that's too old).
  - jandrese 10y ago
    The glibc issue is a sticky one though. This is why your typical gamer system on Windows has hundreds of copies of the msvc runtime installed.
  - ajuc 10y ago
    Yes my problem was with glibc among other things.
douche 10y ago
Wine has gotten so good that it's almost not worth bothering trying to run native Linux versions of games.
- ORioN63 10y ago
  Yes, it has suffered major improvements, but it still doesn't run everything. Also, online games with frequent updates, break often. Just my personal experience.
  - douche 10y ago
    > suffered major improvements I think I'm going to start using this phrase
- veli_joza 10y ago
  Wine is great, but I hate having both native and Wine version of Steam just to access Windows versions of games I have in my library. I wish Steam platform check could be overridden. I guess that's just one more reason to choose alternatives like GoG, Desura and Itch.io.
- coldpie 10y ago
  Thanks! We work hard on it. If you like Wine and want to support its development financially, the best way is to buy a copy of CrossOver from my employer, even if you don't use it. Our salaries don't come from nowhere ;)
- pbhjpbhj 10y ago
  I'm using Kubuntu (just up-ed to 16.04 now), PlayOnLinux seems pretty good at getting things running but straight up WINE, for me, seems to take so much fussing with to get it to run stuff.
- paines 10y ago
  Also I read, that e.g. Wine+Tomb Raider blows the native Linux TombRaider out of the water, in regards of performance.
kzrdude 10y ago
I'd like an explanation of the recommendable column
- uberalex 10y ago
  I was a bit surprised to see FTL not recommended, for example. I would describe it as a very good, very accessible game.
  - unsignedqword 10y ago
    That isn't a "does the author like this game" column. It's a "should you try playing this game on Linux natively" column.
    - vintermann 10y ago
      Add "Outside Steam". FTL just works in Steam.
    - uberalex 10y ago
      Thanks for clarifying
- abricot 10y ago
  From the document: "Anyone should be able to use the games they buy, no matter their technical provess. That means it has to install via deb or snap, register in the OS menu and package manager and run without any issues."
  - jandrese 10y ago
    This skirts a little too close to "2016 Doom doesn't run on my computer (A 12 year old Core Solo with first generation Intel graphics), don't give me a bunch of technical mumbo jumbo, I want to play it now!" Also, if you want super easy game installs, use Steam. Either suck it up and accept the DRM or teach yourself enough Linux to understand how to deal with all of the myriad weird game installers. It's not like the Windows versions are any better on the DRM front.
reidrac 10y ago
Looking at the results, I don't think installing via deb or snap should be a requirement to make a game "recommendable". In my experience Linux gamers aren't just Linux users and they're quite happy with tarball files and clicking on a executable. All self-contained and without getting all over the place with an installer. List requirements (if any), and it works. Personally I don't like installing games as root, because the game developer doesn't have the level of trust that my Linux distributor has earned over the years. Good effort anyway. It is true that Linux support is usually poor. If the game plays OK with WINE I usually don't bother trying the Linux version.
- maccard 10y ago
  > Personally I don't like installing games as root, because the game developer doesn't have the level of trust that my Linux distributor has earned over the years. Unfortunately, that's probably a holdover from game dev on Windows. In theory, you're supposed to install to Program Files (or Program Files (x86)) and store any user config data in My Documents. But most games just install with full admin privileges, and dump everything in Program Files. Many modern games are more than just games too, they come with patchers/installers that may require extra permissions, and they also tend to run extra anti cheat softare in the background that require elevated privileges.
  - SpaceManiac 10y ago
    Few games actually need those admin priveleges: Windows since Vista has a feature called VirtualStore which maps underprivileged writes to Program Files to a location inside AppData (which is also where games and apps should save their non-user-facing runtime files - not in My Documents, which is an annoying antipattern). Your point about patchers is salient - but I know that, say, Steam puts everything in Program Files and does not run itself or games as admin. Other games like League of Legends and World of Tanks work around the issue by installing outside Program Files.
    - maccard 10y ago
      I wasn't aware of Virtual Store, that's actually quite nifty! And I was wrong about My Documents being the preferential place to store it. According to [0] it's AppData, as you say. I never meant to imply that the elevated features were necessary for the reasons mentioned, but it's _why_ it happens. In general, a company publishing a game isn't going to put it's top engineers on writing the installer. Those engineers will be fixing engine bugs or perf upgrades or have moved on to the next project by the time that point comes around, so chances are the installers are written by not necessarily the best people for it, which exacerbates the issue. Finally, it doesn't help that gamers are conditioned to granting admin priveleges to their games and installers. [0] https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/patricka/2010/03/18/where-should-i-store-my-data-and-configuration-files-if-i-target-multiple-os-versions/ https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/patricka/2010/03/18/where-s...
erikb 10y ago
Side note: It's a lot less painful with Steam. graphics drivers sometimes are a problem, depending on your hardware setup. But if it works it works smoothly.
- spatulan 10y ago
  Not in my experience
- Freak_NL 10y ago
  Most of the games available in the Humble Bundles and the Humble Store come with a Steam key as well. The process for every game is the same: buy game, get Steam key, add game to Steam library, play. It just works.
- pluma 10y ago
  I have an nvidia card because I naively thought having a proper graphics card would be an advantage. I have to run Steam from the shell with an LD_LIBRARY_PATH env to make it work at all. A recent steam update for no apparent reason moved the steam folder so I had to manually move my steamapps (i.e. installed games) to the new location. Then I upgraded to Ubuntu 16.04 and Steam wouldn't work anymore at all, so I had to reinstall it using steamcmd (because the regular installer did nothing). Oh, and some games still cause trouble: Wasteland 2 won't launch if I have Google Chrome open. It's a known issue although it sounds completely made up. It's less painful but it's certainly not foolproof at any level comparable to the experience on Windows.
  - voltagex_ 10y ago
    That's interesting. I wonder what an strace of the crashing Wasteland 2 would show. I'm guessing Chrome tries to take control of some GPU feature for some reason.
    - pluma 10y ago
      AIUI it has something to do with Unity3D and graphics acceleration in Chrome, so I guess you're right.
richardwhiuk 10y ago
The key here is that games on Windows don't target the NT Kernel, they target Windows 7, or Windows 8.1 or Windows 10, which are full distributions. To have any reasonable chance that this will work, you have to target Ubuntu 16.04, or CentOS 7, not just any random Linux distribution.
- luchs 10y ago
  But the thing is that a game targeting Windows XP or even Windows 98 still has a good chance of running on Windows 10. On the Linux side, good luck getting binaries made for Ubuntu 14.04 run on Ubuntu 16.04.
  - augustl 10y ago
    Interesting relevant tidbit by Linus Torvalds himself about the packaging and distribution of Linux "desktop apps". Basically, Linus has made a desktop app, and the website distributes binaries for Windows and OS X, but not for Linux. Link goes to 4:50, relevant rant starts at around 5:58 :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PmHRSeA2c8&feature=youtu.be&t=290 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PmHRSeA2c8&feature=youtu.be...
  - creshal 10y ago
    Only because Microsoft pours a lot of effort into their compatibility modes, emulating older API versions for old programs.
- InclinedPlane 10y ago
  Seriously? This is just wrong. If you pull down a game for Windows on Steam it doesn't matter if you're running Windows 7, 8, or 10, the likelihood that it'll run fine on any of those is high. The PC games market is decidedly not all running just one version of Windows, some folks are still running XP. But the underlying systems are well designed enough to enable games, and apps, to run just fine across those different platforms. If that's your excuse for games not running well on linux, then you need to find another excuse.
zokier 10y ago
These results are from Ubuntu, which afaik is pretty close to best-case scenario for gaming. It'd be interesting to see similar test done on e.g. Fedora or Arch. It also will be interesting to see how well these games will continue to run in future. My guess is that they will eventually bit-rot and we'll end up using ancient versions of Ubuntu in containers to run the games. I hope that Snappy/Flatpak/etc would make the situation better once the landscape settles down a bit. The idea behind them seems good enough, and I think this post validates their raison d'être which I have seen people question.
- sevensor 10y ago
  I've played the HB Linux versions of Jamestown, Night Sky, VVVVVV, Voxatron, Super Meat Boy, Bit.Trip.Runner, and FTL with no issues on 64-bit Arch, using a 2011 Thinkpad x120e, with zero problems. I remember being disappointed that Crayon Physics and Shank didn't work. The other games in those bundles either didn't work or I wasn't interested enough to try them. (My bar is pretty high as I can't spend a whole lot of time gaming.)
- vamur 10y ago
  Snappy/Flatpak are overly complicated solutions. Easier solution is to distribute using Steam or use an installer (e.g Mojosetup) that will deploy a zip/tar archive with executable, data, dynamic libraries and necessary desktop entries.
pawadu 10y ago
This is awesome work! I am extremely pleased to see someone do some QA - since the devs and the humble team obviously aren't doing any. Also, if you think this is bad you should see their Android games. For example the extremely high profile Android game Desktop Dungeons crashes at start (this is 100% reproducable on Google reference devices) and has been like this since the bundle was sold over a year ago. The bug thread for the game is 300 pages long still the game has not received a single update from humble bundle. Humble Bundle is not a charity anymore, it is a scam.
- dogma1138 10y ago
  Why should Humble Bundle do QA? do you expect gamestop to do QA also? They rely on what the developer/publisher tells them, if they say it runs on Linux Humble Bundle classifies it as a Linux title.
  - pawadu 10y ago
    So HB has zero responsibility for selling stuff that do not work?
  - jakobegger 10y ago
    Because they sell you the game? If you go to a store, buy a lamp, and it doesn't work, can they just say "our supplier said it works"?
    - dogma1138 10y ago
      If something doesn't work you can return it in the case of some of the bundles it might be a bit more problematic since you aren't buying a single product but a bundle and you can pay as little as like 0.01$ for it: Not a single store verifies any product to be functional prior to selling it, if you have a problem they'll exchange it or refund you, if they have a problematic product which simply does not work they will usually stop selling it (it's not worth dealing with angry customers) and contact the supplier to figure out what's going on. So I don't know what expectations you have when you go to a store but when I buy a lamp while I do have a general expectation for it to work I don't blame the store for not verifying that it does before selling it to me.
the_af 10y ago
Regardless of whether my own experience agrees with the author (some of the games he had trouble with I could run more or less trouble-free), I definitely approve independent reviews of playability/ease of installation. I mostly only buy games on Humble Bundle, GOG or Steam now, with emphasis on the first two because they are less invasive than Steam. I sometimes have to deal with 32 bit libraries or problems with the default installation; it's no big deal for me, but I can see it's a problem for non-power users (then again, some drivers used to cause problems for Windows games a few years ago, I don't know what the situation is now. Didn't console gamers use to argue that they were better than Windows games because of this?). The positive side is that I can play hundreds of games, some AAA, on Linux. The situation is not dire anymore, in my experience. The downside is that sometimes the games require some tweaking to install or play. Occasionally there's a game I cannot play at all (e.g. I bought but cannot play the Linux remaster of Day of the Tentacle: my dedicated GPU is fried, and the game simply doesn't run on Ubuntu 14.04 with integrated Intel graphics. Go figure). Again, I approve of this effort to review the difficulties involved. It's helpful to Linux gamers!
onli 10y ago
Some of these results are off. Shadow Warrior, Shadowrun Dragonfall and Shadowrun Returns are marked as not working, but they definitely work, I just played them on Linux (with an AMD gpu and the free driver). They even worked really well. It seems the author does not have a dedicated gpu, I doubt those games would run well on windows with that laptop. Some other game that worked for me and marked red there: Spaz, Jamestown and Crayon Physics (I think, might have been another version). To start those games in window mode is a good way to mimize potential errors resulting from Fullscreen mode, especially in different OSs, and something that many Indie games also do on Windows. Linux sure is not a perfect gaming platform yet, but this article paints a darker picture than necessary.
- rawfan 10y ago
  Yep.. I just tried a couple of the games marked red and they all worked for me without problems..
- szatkus 10y ago
  That iGPU (HD 4400, 20 EU) is more than enough for most of these games. I guess Intel's Linux driver is more buggy than AMD.
  - jandrese 10y ago
    The driver that ships with Ubuntu is almost certainly old and even though the chip has enough raw computation power to run games the actual support may not be there. For what it's worth, I've only ever run across one game that didn't work properly in Linux. Eador has badly fubared graphics and apparently the developer doesn't even care. He only did the Linux port to get on a Humble Bundle I think. It's a shame too because it is an interesting game, even if the developer has a somewhat insane notion of how long people are going to want to keep playing a single campaign.
  - creshal 10y ago
    Intel's linux driver isn't necessarily buggy, but doesn't support the same OpenGL version/extensions. If a game needs those, tough luck on Intel.
rawfan 10y ago
I really think this is an awesome effort. I have completely different results, though. Many of the games listed were played recently on my machine and all worked and installed fine. My machine has Ubuntu 16.04 64bit with 16gigs of RAM and an nvidia 750ti card. Just for fun I downloaded Aquaria. I tried the mojo installer, which worked without any problems. I tried the 32bit deb and had no problems, either. The 64bit deb is just the 32bit binaries with an additional ia32-dependency. Since Ubuntu is multiarch now, that won't work. These packages should be removed by humble to avoid confusion. EDIT: So far I haven't been able to find a single game on the list, that doesn't work.
ingenieros 10y ago
Most of those ports are being done by one lone developer named Ryan C. Gordon who runs icculus.org Here's a talk he did about porting games to Linux with SDL 2.0 during a Steam Dev Days event: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeMPCSqQ-34 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeMPCSqQ-34 One interesting thing to note is that most of those Linux ports can only be purchased through a Humble Bundle. (Playdead's Limbo is a case in point.) It goes without saying that the grand majority of those ports would have never happened if it weren't for Humble Bundle in the first place.
- pjmlp 10y ago
  Yes, some of us still remember Loki Games.
- ekianjo 10y ago
  > Playdead's Limbo is a case in point What do you mean ?　Limbo is on Steam for Linux as well... http://store.steampowered.com/app/48000/ http://store.steampowered.com/app/48000/
  - ingenieros 10y ago
    I stand corrected. I last checked 2 or 3 years ago when that was not the case.
- andrioni 10y ago
  And most of the ports that weren't done by icculus were done instead by flibitijibibo (Ethan Lee), who is also pretty amazing.
raverbashing 10y ago
Two games from Humble Bundle that are not on the list and I recommend (and have played on Linux): World of Goo and Crayon Physics Deluxe
- CaptSpify 10y ago
  I see CPD on there. If WoG works, then agreed, highly recommended
qwertyuiop924 10y ago
SpaceChem, Spaz, and Jamestown all worked fine for me back when I was running way lower specs than he was. Actually, all of the Humble games did, save Psychonauts, because my machine wasn't powerful enough to run it. Yes, it was that bad.
paines 10y ago
Thanks for the effort. I have a Clevo W650RC running Ubuntu 16, almost the same hardware as the author but with an extra gtx950m gpu. I own 4-5 Humble bundles and claimed all Steam keys, which makes installing those games, installable, playable and therefore recommendable. Sometimes I would run with the Intel gpu, and most of the games still ( I am pretty sure all of them) run, but of course much slower. I also bought an Steam controller and really like the setup, most games would pick up the button mapping. The only thing which sucks donkey balls at the moment is tearing under Nvidia + Linux, either in videos games, browser etc..- Also I want to add, that I own Serious Sam 3, Tomb Raider and Shadow Warrior, and I must say that the ports of these games is just top notch.

159 points by unhammer 10y ago

Results at https://docs.zoho.com/sheet/published.do?rid=nc4und89223056a4745c0adeb0002b7fb3325 https://docs.zoho.com/sheet/published.do?rid=nc4und89223056a... (the embed didn't show in my browser)

douche 10y ago
This page has a poor layout to be showing a spreadsheet in anyway - half the horizontal width is taken up by a big static title/header element.
- kagamine 10y ago
  I call this "the other UX" pattern: Useless Experience

ajuc 10y ago

Distributing binaries in Linux is PITA. Compiling a game staticaly with all dependencies is nontrivial (couldn't get it to work last time I've tried), and if you leave some libraries dynamicaly linked - in a few years it won't work. I made that mistake by using now abandoned libparagui in my game ~10 years ago. It uses old libsdl, which doesn't work with many modern resolutions, and it doesn't even compile on modern GCC without patches. Every time I install new system and then want to compile it - I spend a few evenings to get it to run...

pluma 10y ago
A good example is Unreal Tournament (1999). I don't think it's even possible to get the Linux version to run on a modern install of Ubuntu even if you track down all the 32 bit versions of all the libraries it uses. But using WINE the Windows version just works out of the box. EDIT: Dropped "Classic". Not sure where that came from.
- NTripleOne 10y ago
  Y'know... I don't think I've ever heard anyone refer to UT99 as UT Classic.
  - pluma 10y ago
    Hm... you're right. Not sure where I got that from. Most people seem to call it UT99 and personally I used to just call it Unreal Tournament (no qualifier). I don't like putting the year on it because it makes me feel so damn old. EDIT: Hey, fun fact: there's an upcoming free Unreal Tournament game simply called "Unreal Tournament" and apparently it's being developed somewhat openly: https://www.epicgames.com/unrealtournament/ https://www.epicgames.com/unrealtournament/ (code is visible on GitHub for Unreal Engine 4 subscribers)
    - ajuc 10y ago
      I hate it when people do remakes with the same title.
  - buster 10y ago
    UT99 is a common abbreviation. Classic was used for "Unreal Classic" as opposed to Unreal - Return To Na Pali.
- voltagex_ 10y ago
  If anyone would like to try to get the "original" binary to run, it's available at http://www.liflg.org/?catid=6&gameid=51 http://www.liflg.org/?catid=6&gameid=51. I'd read the write up on what's broken, even if the entire thing is a failure.
- dmichulke 10y ago
  FWIW, I think the term was used often in e-sports to distinguish between it and 2k3/2k4. Before the release of 2k3 there was no 99 attached to it and I know quite a few people including me who used the term "UT classic".
pawadu 10y ago
Lets hope Snappy changes this situation!
- ajuc 10y ago
  You mean this? https://developer.ubuntu.com/en/snappy/ https://developer.ubuntu.com/en/snappy/ Interesting.
  - pawadu 10y ago
    Yes, that one
duozerk 10y ago
A lot of games now simply ship the shared libraries with the game and use LD_LIBRARY_PATH to at least partially fix that issue; it works OK in most cases (as long as you don't have a glibc that's too old).
- jandrese 10y ago
  The glibc issue is a sticky one though. This is why your typical gamer system on Windows has hundreds of copies of the msvc runtime installed.
- ajuc 10y ago
  Yes my problem was with glibc among other things.

douche 10y ago

Wine has gotten so good that it's almost not worth bothering trying to run native Linux versions of games.

ORioN63 10y ago
Yes, it has suffered major improvements, but it still doesn't run everything. Also, online games with frequent updates, break often. Just my personal experience.
- douche 10y ago
  > suffered major improvements I think I'm going to start using this phrase
veli_joza 10y ago
Wine is great, but I hate having both native and Wine version of Steam just to access Windows versions of games I have in my library. I wish Steam platform check could be overridden. I guess that's just one more reason to choose alternatives like GoG, Desura and Itch.io.
coldpie 10y ago
Thanks! We work hard on it. If you like Wine and want to support its development financially, the best way is to buy a copy of CrossOver from my employer, even if you don't use it. Our salaries don't come from nowhere ;)
pbhjpbhj 10y ago
I'm using Kubuntu (just up-ed to 16.04 now), PlayOnLinux seems pretty good at getting things running but straight up WINE, for me, seems to take so much fussing with to get it to run stuff.
paines 10y ago
Also I read, that e.g. Wine+Tomb Raider blows the native Linux TombRaider out of the water, in regards of performance.

kzrdude 10y ago

I'd like an explanation of the recommendable column

uberalex 10y ago
I was a bit surprised to see FTL not recommended, for example. I would describe it as a very good, very accessible game.
- unsignedqword 10y ago
  That isn't a "does the author like this game" column. It's a "should you try playing this game on Linux natively" column.
  - vintermann 10y ago
    Add "Outside Steam". FTL just works in Steam.
  - uberalex 10y ago
    Thanks for clarifying
abricot 10y ago
From the document: "Anyone should be able to use the games they buy, no matter their technical provess. That means it has to install via deb or snap, register in the OS menu and package manager and run without any issues."
- jandrese 10y ago
  This skirts a little too close to "2016 Doom doesn't run on my computer (A 12 year old Core Solo with first generation Intel graphics), don't give me a bunch of technical mumbo jumbo, I want to play it now!" Also, if you want super easy game installs, use Steam. Either suck it up and accept the DRM or teach yourself enough Linux to understand how to deal with all of the myriad weird game installers. It's not like the Windows versions are any better on the DRM front.

reidrac 10y ago

Looking at the results, I don't think installing via deb or snap should be a requirement to make a game "recommendable". In my experience Linux gamers aren't just Linux users and they're quite happy with tarball files and clicking on a executable. All self-contained and without getting all over the place with an installer. List requirements (if any), and it works. Personally I don't like installing games as root, because the game developer doesn't have the level of trust that my Linux distributor has earned over the years. Good effort anyway. It is true that Linux support is usually poor. If the game plays OK with WINE I usually don't bother trying the Linux version.

maccard 10y ago
> Personally I don't like installing games as root, because the game developer doesn't have the level of trust that my Linux distributor has earned over the years. Unfortunately, that's probably a holdover from game dev on Windows. In theory, you're supposed to install to Program Files (or Program Files (x86)) and store any user config data in My Documents. But most games just install with full admin privileges, and dump everything in Program Files. Many modern games are more than just games too, they come with patchers/installers that may require extra permissions, and they also tend to run extra anti cheat softare in the background that require elevated privileges.
- SpaceManiac 10y ago
  Few games actually need those admin priveleges: Windows since Vista has a feature called VirtualStore which maps underprivileged writes to Program Files to a location inside AppData (which is also where games and apps should save their non-user-facing runtime files - not in My Documents, which is an annoying antipattern). Your point about patchers is salient - but I know that, say, Steam puts everything in Program Files and does not run itself or games as admin. Other games like League of Legends and World of Tanks work around the issue by installing outside Program Files.
  - maccard 10y ago
    I wasn't aware of Virtual Store, that's actually quite nifty! And I was wrong about My Documents being the preferential place to store it. According to [0] it's AppData, as you say. I never meant to imply that the elevated features were necessary for the reasons mentioned, but it's _why_ it happens. In general, a company publishing a game isn't going to put it's top engineers on writing the installer. Those engineers will be fixing engine bugs or perf upgrades or have moved on to the next project by the time that point comes around, so chances are the installers are written by not necessarily the best people for it, which exacerbates the issue. Finally, it doesn't help that gamers are conditioned to granting admin priveleges to their games and installers. [0] https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/patricka/2010/03/18/where-should-i-store-my-data-and-configuration-files-if-i-target-multiple-os-versions/ https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/patricka/2010/03/18/where-s...

erikb 10y ago

Side note: It's a lot less painful with Steam. graphics drivers sometimes are a problem, depending on your hardware setup. But if it works it works smoothly.

spatulan 10y ago
Not in my experience
Freak_NL 10y ago
Most of the games available in the Humble Bundles and the Humble Store come with a Steam key as well. The process for every game is the same: buy game, get Steam key, add game to Steam library, play. It just works.
pluma 10y ago
I have an nvidia card because I naively thought having a proper graphics card would be an advantage. I have to run Steam from the shell with an LD_LIBRARY_PATH env to make it work at all. A recent steam update for no apparent reason moved the steam folder so I had to manually move my steamapps (i.e. installed games) to the new location. Then I upgraded to Ubuntu 16.04 and Steam wouldn't work anymore at all, so I had to reinstall it using steamcmd (because the regular installer did nothing). Oh, and some games still cause trouble: Wasteland 2 won't launch if I have Google Chrome open. It's a known issue although it sounds completely made up. It's less painful but it's certainly not foolproof at any level comparable to the experience on Windows.
- voltagex_ 10y ago
  That's interesting. I wonder what an strace of the crashing Wasteland 2 would show. I'm guessing Chrome tries to take control of some GPU feature for some reason.
  - pluma 10y ago
    AIUI it has something to do with Unity3D and graphics acceleration in Chrome, so I guess you're right.

richardwhiuk 10y ago

The key here is that games on Windows don't target the NT Kernel, they target Windows 7, or Windows 8.1 or Windows 10, which are full distributions. To have any reasonable chance that this will work, you have to target Ubuntu 16.04, or CentOS 7, not just any random Linux distribution.

luchs 10y ago
But the thing is that a game targeting Windows XP or even Windows 98 still has a good chance of running on Windows 10. On the Linux side, good luck getting binaries made for Ubuntu 14.04 run on Ubuntu 16.04.
- augustl 10y ago
  Interesting relevant tidbit by Linus Torvalds himself about the packaging and distribution of Linux "desktop apps". Basically, Linus has made a desktop app, and the website distributes binaries for Windows and OS X, but not for Linux. Link goes to 4:50, relevant rant starts at around 5:58 :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PmHRSeA2c8&feature=youtu.be&t=290 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PmHRSeA2c8&feature=youtu.be...
- creshal 10y ago
  Only because Microsoft pours a lot of effort into their compatibility modes, emulating older API versions for old programs.
InclinedPlane 10y ago
Seriously? This is just wrong. If you pull down a game for Windows on Steam it doesn't matter if you're running Windows 7, 8, or 10, the likelihood that it'll run fine on any of those is high. The PC games market is decidedly not all running just one version of Windows, some folks are still running XP. But the underlying systems are well designed enough to enable games, and apps, to run just fine across those different platforms. If that's your excuse for games not running well on linux, then you need to find another excuse.

zokier 10y ago

These results are from Ubuntu, which afaik is pretty close to best-case scenario for gaming. It'd be interesting to see similar test done on e.g. Fedora or Arch. It also will be interesting to see how well these games will continue to run in future. My guess is that they will eventually bit-rot and we'll end up using ancient versions of Ubuntu in containers to run the games. I hope that Snappy/Flatpak/etc would make the situation better once the landscape settles down a bit. The idea behind them seems good enough, and I think this post validates their raison d'être which I have seen people question.

sevensor 10y ago
I've played the HB Linux versions of Jamestown, Night Sky, VVVVVV, Voxatron, Super Meat Boy, Bit.Trip.Runner, and FTL with no issues on 64-bit Arch, using a 2011 Thinkpad x120e, with zero problems. I remember being disappointed that Crayon Physics and Shank didn't work. The other games in those bundles either didn't work or I wasn't interested enough to try them. (My bar is pretty high as I can't spend a whole lot of time gaming.)
vamur 10y ago
Snappy/Flatpak are overly complicated solutions. Easier solution is to distribute using Steam or use an installer (e.g Mojosetup) that will deploy a zip/tar archive with executable, data, dynamic libraries and necessary desktop entries.

pawadu 10y ago

This is awesome work! I am extremely pleased to see someone do some QA - since the devs and the humble team obviously aren't doing any. Also, if you think this is bad you should see their Android games. For example the extremely high profile Android game Desktop Dungeons crashes at start (this is 100% reproducable on Google reference devices) and has been like this since the bundle was sold over a year ago. The bug thread for the game is 300 pages long still the game has not received a single update from humble bundle. Humble Bundle is not a charity anymore, it is a scam.

dogma1138 10y ago
Why should Humble Bundle do QA? do you expect gamestop to do QA also? They rely on what the developer/publisher tells them, if they say it runs on Linux Humble Bundle classifies it as a Linux title.
- pawadu 10y ago
  So HB has zero responsibility for selling stuff that do not work?
- jakobegger 10y ago
  Because they sell you the game? If you go to a store, buy a lamp, and it doesn't work, can they just say "our supplier said it works"?
  - dogma1138 10y ago
    If something doesn't work you can return it in the case of some of the bundles it might be a bit more problematic since you aren't buying a single product but a bundle and you can pay as little as like 0.01$ for it: Not a single store verifies any product to be functional prior to selling it, if you have a problem they'll exchange it or refund you, if they have a problematic product which simply does not work they will usually stop selling it (it's not worth dealing with angry customers) and contact the supplier to figure out what's going on. So I don't know what expectations you have when you go to a store but when I buy a lamp while I do have a general expectation for it to work I don't blame the store for not verifying that it does before selling it to me.

the_af 10y ago

Regardless of whether my own experience agrees with the author (some of the games he had trouble with I could run more or less trouble-free), I definitely approve independent reviews of playability/ease of installation. I mostly only buy games on Humble Bundle, GOG or Steam now, with emphasis on the first two because they are less invasive than Steam. I sometimes have to deal with 32 bit libraries or problems with the default installation; it's no big deal for me, but I can see it's a problem for non-power users (then again, some drivers used to cause problems for Windows games a few years ago, I don't know what the situation is now. Didn't console gamers use to argue that they were better than Windows games because of this?). The positive side is that I can play hundreds of games, some AAA, on Linux. The situation is not dire anymore, in my experience. The downside is that sometimes the games require some tweaking to install or play. Occasionally there's a game I cannot play at all (e.g. I bought but cannot play the Linux remaster of Day of the Tentacle: my dedicated GPU is fried, and the game simply doesn't run on Ubuntu 14.04 with integrated Intel graphics. Go figure). Again, I approve of this effort to review the difficulties involved. It's helpful to Linux gamers!

onli 10y ago

Some of these results are off. Shadow Warrior, Shadowrun Dragonfall and Shadowrun Returns are marked as not working, but they definitely work, I just played them on Linux (with an AMD gpu and the free driver). They even worked really well. It seems the author does not have a dedicated gpu, I doubt those games would run well on windows with that laptop. Some other game that worked for me and marked red there: Spaz, Jamestown and Crayon Physics (I think, might have been another version). To start those games in window mode is a good way to mimize potential errors resulting from Fullscreen mode, especially in different OSs, and something that many Indie games also do on Windows. Linux sure is not a perfect gaming platform yet, but this article paints a darker picture than necessary.

rawfan 10y ago
Yep.. I just tried a couple of the games marked red and they all worked for me without problems..
szatkus 10y ago
That iGPU (HD 4400, 20 EU) is more than enough for most of these games. I guess Intel's Linux driver is more buggy than AMD.
- jandrese 10y ago
  The driver that ships with Ubuntu is almost certainly old and even though the chip has enough raw computation power to run games the actual support may not be there. For what it's worth, I've only ever run across one game that didn't work properly in Linux. Eador has badly fubared graphics and apparently the developer doesn't even care. He only did the Linux port to get on a Humble Bundle I think. It's a shame too because it is an interesting game, even if the developer has a somewhat insane notion of how long people are going to want to keep playing a single campaign.
- creshal 10y ago
  Intel's linux driver isn't necessarily buggy, but doesn't support the same OpenGL version/extensions. If a game needs those, tough luck on Intel.

rawfan 10y ago

I really think this is an awesome effort. I have completely different results, though. Many of the games listed were played recently on my machine and all worked and installed fine. My machine has Ubuntu 16.04 64bit with 16gigs of RAM and an nvidia 750ti card. Just for fun I downloaded Aquaria. I tried the mojo installer, which worked without any problems. I tried the 32bit deb and had no problems, either. The 64bit deb is just the 32bit binaries with an additional ia32-dependency. Since Ubuntu is multiarch now, that won't work. These packages should be removed by humble to avoid confusion. EDIT: So far I haven't been able to find a single game on the list, that doesn't work.

ingenieros 10y ago

Most of those ports are being done by one lone developer named Ryan C. Gordon who runs icculus.org Here's a talk he did about porting games to Linux with SDL 2.0 during a Steam Dev Days event: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeMPCSqQ-34 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeMPCSqQ-34 One interesting thing to note is that most of those Linux ports can only be purchased through a Humble Bundle. (Playdead's Limbo is a case in point.) It goes without saying that the grand majority of those ports would have never happened if it weren't for Humble Bundle in the first place.

pjmlp 10y ago
Yes, some of us still remember Loki Games.
ekianjo 10y ago
> Playdead's Limbo is a case in point What do you mean ?　Limbo is on Steam for Linux as well... http://store.steampowered.com/app/48000/ http://store.steampowered.com/app/48000/
- ingenieros 10y ago
  I stand corrected. I last checked 2 or 3 years ago when that was not the case.
andrioni 10y ago
And most of the ports that weren't done by icculus were done instead by flibitijibibo (Ethan Lee), who is also pretty amazing.

raverbashing 10y ago

Two games from Humble Bundle that are not on the list and I recommend (and have played on Linux): World of Goo and Crayon Physics Deluxe

CaptSpify 10y ago
I see CPD on there. If WoG works, then agreed, highly recommended

qwertyuiop924 10y ago

SpaceChem, Spaz, and Jamestown all worked fine for me back when I was running way lower specs than he was. Actually, all of the Humble games did, save Psychonauts, because my machine wasn't powerful enough to run it. Yes, it was that bad.

paines 10y ago

Thanks for the effort. I have a Clevo W650RC running Ubuntu 16, almost the same hardware as the author but with an extra gtx950m gpu. I own 4-5 Humble bundles and claimed all Steam keys, which makes installing those games, installable, playable and therefore recommendable. Sometimes I would run with the Intel gpu, and most of the games still ( I am pretty sure all of them) run, but of course much slower. I also bought an Steam controller and really like the setup, most games would pick up the button mapping. The only thing which sucks donkey balls at the moment is tearing under Nvidia + Linux, either in videos games, browser etc..- Also I want to add, that I own Serious Sam 3, Tomb Raider and Shadow Warrior, and I must say that the ports of these games is just top notch.