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Vulkan being around to compete with DirectX was supposed to break down the last big barrier stopping Linux from being able to game as well as Windows. I guess t

Vulkan being around to compete with DirectX was supposed to break down the last big barrier stopping Linux from being able to game as well as Windows. I guess that only works if game companies are willing to code up the Linux version to begin with, though.

jandrese 7y ago
More than not coding up a Linux version, some games will actively refuse to run under Wine.
sudosysgen 7y ago
Wine and Proton are the last solution, and work exceedingly well, but companies such as EA are banning people that use those solutions for well no good reason.
- Narishma 7y ago
  They do so for very good reasons as you can easily cheat in multiplayer games using those technologies.
  - sudosysgen 7y ago
    You can easily cheat in a multiplayer game no matter what. There is currently no counter to driver/ring 0 cheats. If you wanted to cheat there are much easier ways than a complete Linux install. Also there is an EAC version made for Wine. Obviously it can't counter cheats executing at Ring 0 or something similar, but it's the same for every OS.
uncle_j 7y ago
Adding support for a Graphics API isn't that difficult. What is difficult is adding support for all your internal tooling. This can be anything from existing scripts, build processes to the tooling itself. It simply isn't worth it when the percentage of players that are using Desktop Linux to play PC games is ~1% of the player base.
- disintegore 7y ago
  That 1% has consistently shown that they are willing to perform that extra work themselves. While less than ideal, the status quo is nothing to lament. It is so much to ask for these publishers not to go out of their way to sabotage it?
  - uncle_j 7y ago
    The game is supported on Windows not on Linux. I would wager their anti-cheat stuff detects "their OS looks weird, they are probably doing odd stuff so they are likely to be cheaters". If you want to play the game you should be running it on a supported operating system. If the software doesn't work (which is what is really happening here) with an unsupported configuration then that is on you not EA. Also buying games that aren't supported on your OS and jumping through the hoops is just telling companies like EA that they will get the Linux sales because the customer will do the effort of getting it working for them.
ryukafalz 7y ago
Or even just willing to not interfere with Linux users - I think Vulkan software generally works pretty well through Wine.
DaiPlusPlus 7y ago
It's more than just graphics APIs - Linux has long supported old-school OpenGL, so that wasn't really the problem. The state of audio libraries and systems on Linux is worse and OpenAL is now proprietary. Even if you're making a desktop-environment game (E.g. using GTK without SDL) there isn't a good, widely-supported Linux API for audio. Don't forget the other difficulties with porting Windows games (and software in general) to Linux that libraries like SDL can't help with, like file-system locations, deciding if you want to only support X or Wayland if you need window-manager integration, etc (granted, these concerns are less relevant today as games send to be filesystem-silod, single-window or exclusive-mode applications - but think about how games were in the mid-1990s with the multi-window SimCity 2000 or those desktop amusement minigames.
- Tsarbomb 7y ago
  The difference between X and Wayland is way more than needing window-manager integration. You are forgetting that keyboard and mouse inputs run through Xorg so the problem goes way deeper.
  - cycloptic 7y ago
    You don't have to worry about that if you use GTK or SDL. They support both. The other really important thing in the age of console ports is support for game controllers, and that isn't handled by the display server at all. It has a separate API, which SDL provides a nice high-level interface for.
  - jessant 7y ago
    I think there are some similarities because libinput can be used on X as well as with Wayland.
- coldpie 7y ago
  > Even if you're making a desktop-environment game (E.g. using GTK without SDL) there isn't a good, widely-supported Linux API for audio. Depending on PulseAudio is fine now. The amount of people not running PA is negligible. If you don't want to do that, use an intermediary API like SDL or PortAudio.
ahupp 7y ago
"In the end [linux users] accounted for <0.1% of sales but >20% of auto reported crashes and support tickets (most gfx driver related)." -- https://twitter.com/bgolus/status/1080213166116597760 https://twitter.com/bgolus/status/1080213166116597760 Vulkan would plausibly help the driver instability issues, but I'd imagine the Linux support costs will still be higher just given how little consistency there is between distributions.
thrower123 7y ago
The market-share just isn't there to justify any investment in Linux support. It's sad, but that's where things are. Even in cases where it should be low-friction (Unity/Unreal games) the friction is still too high to be really financially viable.

jandrese 7y ago

More than not coding up a Linux version, some games will actively refuse to run under Wine.

sudosysgen 7y ago

Wine and Proton are the last solution, and work exceedingly well, but companies such as EA are banning people that use those solutions for well no good reason.

Narishma 7y ago
They do so for very good reasons as you can easily cheat in multiplayer games using those technologies.
- sudosysgen 7y ago
  You can easily cheat in a multiplayer game no matter what. There is currently no counter to driver/ring 0 cheats. If you wanted to cheat there are much easier ways than a complete Linux install. Also there is an EAC version made for Wine. Obviously it can't counter cheats executing at Ring 0 or something similar, but it's the same for every OS.

uncle_j 7y ago

Adding support for a Graphics API isn't that difficult. What is difficult is adding support for all your internal tooling. This can be anything from existing scripts, build processes to the tooling itself. It simply isn't worth it when the percentage of players that are using Desktop Linux to play PC games is ~1% of the player base.

disintegore 7y ago
That 1% has consistently shown that they are willing to perform that extra work themselves. While less than ideal, the status quo is nothing to lament. It is so much to ask for these publishers not to go out of their way to sabotage it?
- uncle_j 7y ago
  The game is supported on Windows not on Linux. I would wager their anti-cheat stuff detects "their OS looks weird, they are probably doing odd stuff so they are likely to be cheaters". If you want to play the game you should be running it on a supported operating system. If the software doesn't work (which is what is really happening here) with an unsupported configuration then that is on you not EA. Also buying games that aren't supported on your OS and jumping through the hoops is just telling companies like EA that they will get the Linux sales because the customer will do the effort of getting it working for them.

ryukafalz 7y ago

Or even just willing to not interfere with Linux users - I think Vulkan software generally works pretty well through Wine.

DaiPlusPlus 7y ago

It's more than just graphics APIs - Linux has long supported old-school OpenGL, so that wasn't really the problem. The state of audio libraries and systems on Linux is worse and OpenAL is now proprietary. Even if you're making a desktop-environment game (E.g. using GTK without SDL) there isn't a good, widely-supported Linux API for audio. Don't forget the other difficulties with porting Windows games (and software in general) to Linux that libraries like SDL can't help with, like file-system locations, deciding if you want to only support X or Wayland if you need window-manager integration, etc (granted, these concerns are less relevant today as games send to be filesystem-silod, single-window or exclusive-mode applications - but think about how games were in the mid-1990s with the multi-window SimCity 2000 or those desktop amusement minigames.

Tsarbomb 7y ago
The difference between X and Wayland is way more than needing window-manager integration. You are forgetting that keyboard and mouse inputs run through Xorg so the problem goes way deeper.
- cycloptic 7y ago
  You don't have to worry about that if you use GTK or SDL. They support both. The other really important thing in the age of console ports is support for game controllers, and that isn't handled by the display server at all. It has a separate API, which SDL provides a nice high-level interface for.
- jessant 7y ago
  I think there are some similarities because libinput can be used on X as well as with Wayland.
coldpie 7y ago
> Even if you're making a desktop-environment game (E.g. using GTK without SDL) there isn't a good, widely-supported Linux API for audio. Depending on PulseAudio is fine now. The amount of people not running PA is negligible. If you don't want to do that, use an intermediary API like SDL or PortAudio.

ahupp 7y ago

"In the end [linux users] accounted for <0.1% of sales but >20% of auto reported crashes and support tickets (most gfx driver related)." -- https://twitter.com/bgolus/status/1080213166116597760 https://twitter.com/bgolus/status/1080213166116597760 Vulkan would plausibly help the driver instability issues, but I'd imagine the Linux support costs will still be higher just given how little consistency there is between distributions.

thrower123 7y ago

The market-share just isn't there to justify any investment in Linux support. It's sad, but that's where things are. Even in cases where it should be low-friction (Unity/Unreal games) the friction is still too high to be really financially viable.