5 ms·

From what I hear, the Stadia version is actually really good. The solution to their problem might be porting that version around.

est31 6y ago
But it's a homogenous platform instead of the mad set of different driver versions/-implementations, desktop environments, windowing protocols, audio protocols, etc. that is colloquially referred to as the GNU/Linux desktop. If Google brought out a stadia console with one consistent OS image, hardware, and driver, it might become easier for devs to support it.
- arcturus17 6y ago
  I hear the PC version is also OK and it’s only the consoles that are atrocious. And they are rather homogeneous targets...
  - est31 6y ago
    Indeed, good point. I too heard that the consoles are buggy. I think it's mainly a problem of the team not having spent time on fixing them. Note that consoles also are a much larger share of the market than GNU/Linux, so they are more likely to put focus on fixing the bugs in the future. For GNU/Linux though, such a task is insurmountable.
    - shmerl 6y ago
      Nothing insurmountable, they can make one Linux version and make it work on all distros.
  - kmonsen 6y ago
    Last generation consoles are really far behind today’s PCs. Like not comparably. Sure you can optimize them a ton since they are all mostly the same, but at some point you hit the limits.
- mhh__ 6y ago
  Valve maintain a steam runtime which aims to smooth over a lot of the bumps.
  - est31 6y ago
    That steam runtime still runs on top of gazillions of driver/hardware combinations. Especially Linux GPU drivers are highly buggy though.
    - shmerl 6y ago
      Valve contribute directly to Mesa. It's pretty high quality. Less buggy than Windows graphics drivers I'd say.
      - est31 6y ago
        This year alone I had two different bugs with my GPU drivers. First in the Laptop with AMD graphics where the screen would be black on resuming after suspend. After updating I'm not getting the bug any more. Then I got another bug on the desktop with a builtin Intel GPU. Those are usually regarded as the ones with the best driver support on Linux, but that didn't save me. After waking up after it has went to sleep, sometimes, that means often, parts of the screen would flicker. It happened directly after the update from Ubuntu 20.04 to 20.10, or kernel 5.4 to 5.8. Now I've manually installed 5.10 and the bug is gone, but without my manual intervention the bug would have continued for months.
        shmerl 6y ago
        Nothing is bug free. But overall experience with AMD is very good for me. And you should always use the latest kernel if you want to avoid stuff like that.
    - implr 6y ago
      On AMD the GPU driver stack is unlikely to be materially different from Stadia, I doubt Google is using anything else than (possibly customized/patched) amdgpu+mesa.
- account42 6y ago
  > mad set of different driver versions/-implementations Just support the lates driver version that Nvidia/AMD/Intel recommend. Same as on Windows. > desktop environments, windowing protocols, audio protocols All abstracted by available open source libraries, notably libSDL. Besides, Windowing is a laughably trivial part of a game and audio isn't that much more complex when it comes to the OS interface. The decision to port/not port to desktop Linux is not a technical one when the renderer has already been ported to Vulkan and the rest of the game already compiles on a POSIX-like platform.
mhh__ 6y ago
The game itself is so far away from "really good" I can't even begin to explain. It's a "film critic who doesn't believe games are art"'s idea of a game - a pretty world with few meaningful choices, dumb AI, huge swathes of features obviously ripped out, very little aesthetic customisation etc. The world is quite nice, but I feel more interested in (and more engaged by) Fallout 4 (and that's something because Fallout 4 isn't particularly good either and barely an RPG). There is more to it's problems than just performance.
- heyoni 6y ago
  That’s what it might be now, but I feel very strongly as though it was meant to be way more complicated and probably got really overwhelming.
  - mhh__ 6y ago
    That is 100% what happened. They aren't Bethesda i.e. they aren't quite cynical enough to Funnel shit without at least trying. The game has already made it's money back, I hope that they bring it up to spec. I want to like it, it's just a bit dull to me (But it's probably a bad sign when the most recent CoD game has a more interesting plot)
    - hutzlibu 6y ago
      "But it's probably a bad sign when the most recent CoD game has a more interesting plot" But thats subjective, right? The plot does seem interesting to me, but I will wait some time, before buying a new gaming PC and play a less buggy version of it, to see for myself.
- pixel_fcker 6y ago
  I’m having a great time with it. To each their own I guess.
- Daho0n 6y ago
  Good thing people are all different eh? I've completed the main story and is at my second play-through now. First play-through was main quests only basically, second is a few main and then every single non-main quest I can get at and only then main quests. It is by far the best made open-world game I have ever played and while there are a lot of bugs it is nowhere near "Bethesda level buginess". Fallout and Elder scrolls -some of my favorite games- was worse than this even after the first 5-10 updates, since at least 90% of the bugs I saw was game breaking, same-game-corrupting or crash-to-desktop stuff. I have had zero crashes and zero bugs that required me to reload. 100% of bugs have been cars floating a few centimeter above ground, a weapon falling a few centimeters below ground (but I can still pick it up), the GPS not taking the fastest route, etc. Basically not a single bug that is cause for all the yelling and shouting I'm seeing. In a few patches it is everything GTA could only dream of and I'm sure this will be a cash-cow. A cash-cow for the only anti-DRM and customer-friendly big developer out there is a huge win. That I can play it at high settings (using Digital Foundry's recommended settings) at my not at all brand new PC is just icing on the cake.

est31 6y ago

But it's a homogenous platform instead of the mad set of different driver versions/-implementations, desktop environments, windowing protocols, audio protocols, etc. that is colloquially referred to as the GNU/Linux desktop. If Google brought out a stadia console with one consistent OS image, hardware, and driver, it might become easier for devs to support it.

arcturus17 6y ago
I hear the PC version is also OK and it’s only the consoles that are atrocious. And they are rather homogeneous targets...
- est31 6y ago
  Indeed, good point. I too heard that the consoles are buggy. I think it's mainly a problem of the team not having spent time on fixing them. Note that consoles also are a much larger share of the market than GNU/Linux, so they are more likely to put focus on fixing the bugs in the future. For GNU/Linux though, such a task is insurmountable.
  - shmerl 6y ago
    Nothing insurmountable, they can make one Linux version and make it work on all distros.
- kmonsen 6y ago
  Last generation consoles are really far behind today’s PCs. Like not comparably. Sure you can optimize them a ton since they are all mostly the same, but at some point you hit the limits.
mhh__ 6y ago
Valve maintain a steam runtime which aims to smooth over a lot of the bumps.
- est31 6y ago
  That steam runtime still runs on top of gazillions of driver/hardware combinations. Especially Linux GPU drivers are highly buggy though.
  - shmerl 6y ago
    Valve contribute directly to Mesa. It's pretty high quality. Less buggy than Windows graphics drivers I'd say.
    - est31 6y ago
      This year alone I had two different bugs with my GPU drivers. First in the Laptop with AMD graphics where the screen would be black on resuming after suspend. After updating I'm not getting the bug any more. Then I got another bug on the desktop with a builtin Intel GPU. Those are usually regarded as the ones with the best driver support on Linux, but that didn't save me. After waking up after it has went to sleep, sometimes, that means often, parts of the screen would flicker. It happened directly after the update from Ubuntu 20.04 to 20.10, or kernel 5.4 to 5.8. Now I've manually installed 5.10 and the bug is gone, but without my manual intervention the bug would have continued for months.
      - shmerl 6y ago
        Nothing is bug free. But overall experience with AMD is very good for me. And you should always use the latest kernel if you want to avoid stuff like that.
  - implr 6y ago
    On AMD the GPU driver stack is unlikely to be materially different from Stadia, I doubt Google is using anything else than (possibly customized/patched) amdgpu+mesa.
account42 6y ago
> mad set of different driver versions/-implementations Just support the lates driver version that Nvidia/AMD/Intel recommend. Same as on Windows. > desktop environments, windowing protocols, audio protocols All abstracted by available open source libraries, notably libSDL. Besides, Windowing is a laughably trivial part of a game and audio isn't that much more complex when it comes to the OS interface. The decision to port/not port to desktop Linux is not a technical one when the renderer has already been ported to Vulkan and the rest of the game already compiles on a POSIX-like platform.

mhh__ 6y ago

The game itself is so far away from "really good" I can't even begin to explain. It's a "film critic who doesn't believe games are art"'s idea of a game - a pretty world with few meaningful choices, dumb AI, huge swathes of features obviously ripped out, very little aesthetic customisation etc. The world is quite nice, but I feel more interested in (and more engaged by) Fallout 4 (and that's something because Fallout 4 isn't particularly good either and barely an RPG). There is more to it's problems than just performance.

heyoni 6y ago
That’s what it might be now, but I feel very strongly as though it was meant to be way more complicated and probably got really overwhelming.
- mhh__ 6y ago
  That is 100% what happened. They aren't Bethesda i.e. they aren't quite cynical enough to Funnel shit without at least trying. The game has already made it's money back, I hope that they bring it up to spec. I want to like it, it's just a bit dull to me (But it's probably a bad sign when the most recent CoD game has a more interesting plot)
  - hutzlibu 6y ago
    "But it's probably a bad sign when the most recent CoD game has a more interesting plot" But thats subjective, right? The plot does seem interesting to me, but I will wait some time, before buying a new gaming PC and play a less buggy version of it, to see for myself.
pixel_fcker 6y ago
I’m having a great time with it. To each their own I guess.
Daho0n 6y ago
Good thing people are all different eh? I've completed the main story and is at my second play-through now. First play-through was main quests only basically, second is a few main and then every single non-main quest I can get at and only then main quests. It is by far the best made open-world game I have ever played and while there are a lot of bugs it is nowhere near "Bethesda level buginess". Fallout and Elder scrolls -some of my favorite games- was worse than this even after the first 5-10 updates, since at least 90% of the bugs I saw was game breaking, same-game-corrupting or crash-to-desktop stuff. I have had zero crashes and zero bugs that required me to reload. 100% of bugs have been cars floating a few centimeter above ground, a weapon falling a few centimeters below ground (but I can still pick it up), the GPS not taking the fastest route, etc. Basically not a single bug that is cause for all the yelling and shouting I'm seeing. In a few patches it is everything GTA could only dream of and I'm sure this will be a cash-cow. A cash-cow for the only anti-DRM and customer-friendly big developer out there is a huge win. That I can play it at high settings (using Digital Foundry's recommended settings) at my not at all brand new PC is just icing on the cake.