4 ms·

It's only a better experience because developers spend all their efforts on the Windows build and the Linux build is just an afterthought.

bitwize 5y ago
The Linux build isn't an afterthought, it's deliberately ignored because the costs of supporting Linux vastly exceeds the returns from Linux gamers. If you want to sell your game, the smart money is in putting all your resources into the Windows version.
only_as_i_fall 5y ago
I haven't seriously tried to game on Linux in a number of years so this may have changed, but every time I've tried I get some kind of horrid tearing or stutter or low frame cap across a number of games that seems to be caused by inferior graphics drivers. If by "developers" you mean the ones working on the unity engine or Nvidia proprietary graphics drivers then you're right, but in my experience there are a number of problems and pitfalls further down the stack which game developers can't reasonably be expected to mitigate.
- arp242 5y ago
  I've been running Linux exclusively for years, and never had any problems. For the most part, everything Just Works™. My previous laptop had just integrated Intel graphics, which worked well enough. My current is a Ryzen integrated graphics, which also works well enough. The only problem I ever had was in Wasteland 2 where the second part of the game there was some bug with the fog on the world map with Intel drivers. Setting some obscure environment variable fixed that.
- vbezhenar 5y ago
  I recently installed Fedora on laptop with Intel GPU, I'm playing Factorio and it just works, smooth and nice.
  - slezyr 5y ago
    Well, no surprise. It's not resource hungry and there is a hard 60 FPS lock for everyone, so no tearing as well. There is a 60-80 FPS difference for me in CS:GO between Linux and Windows with AMD graphics.
    - account42 5y ago
      > and there is a hard 60 FPS lock for everyone, so no tearing as well That's not how tearing works.
bee_rider 5y ago
Also because people (justifiably) don't want to distribute their games as source, so they can't be packaged sanely.
badsectoracula 5y ago
It is also because on Linux developers above the kernel have very little concern in keeping their APIs and ABIs stable and improving (it isn't just keeping some 29839283 year old library around that never receives any updates, you need to keep stuff up to date - imagine, e.g. SDL1.2 without support for HiDPI - though sadly most of the time not even that keeping around happens with distros dropping older libs left and right). Notable exception being Xorg, so of course the CADT model ensured that it has to be abandoned in favor of Wayland which while being barely usable has already managed to break compatibility with itself.
- pjmlp 5y ago
  Back in the Loki days I used to believe, even lost a good opportunity at SCEE for being stupidly focused into FOSS game development. Nowadays I don't care, Windows, macOS and mobile OSes FTW.
- zxzax 5y ago
  I wish people would not use the phrase "CADT" like this, it's not relevant, and it's insulting and ableist. Nobody wants to maintain legacy software for free in their spare time. That's all it is. It has nothing to do with the age of the person or the status being "attention deficit," which is a real condition that people actually have and suffer from. If you disagree, you're welcome to spend your spare time working on it. I support you doing that. I really doubt anybody will though, because outside of servers and Android, there is very little interest in doing anything on Linux. If you're willing to listen, I could describe to you the technical reasons why Xorg was abandoned. But I also doubt the answer will please you, because the reality is that the reason it's perceived as being "stable" is because it's not being improved anymore -- if people were still hacking on Xorg instead of Wayland, then your Xorg would be breaking left and right too.
  - badsectoracula 5y ago
    > I wish people would not use the phrase "CADT" like this, it's not relevant, and it's insulting Yes, that's the point of an insult. > Nobody wants to maintain legacy software for free in their spare time. That's all it is. This is 100% false, a lot of people do. In fact a language (Free Pascal) and framework (LCL) i am using has a very good track record for preserving backwards compatibility while at the same time continuously improving. I have code i wrote two decades ago that work fine with it and will automatically get the new features introduced just with a recompile. The same can't be said for, e.g. Gtk: Gtk2 apps not only wont get any new features from Gtk3, but they wont even compile. Same with Gtk4, because making the mistake twice wasn't enough. > If you're willing to listen, I could describe to you the technical reasons why Xorg was abandoned. There are no technical reasons, Xorg is code, code can be modified. It is all political reasons at best and people wanting to rewrite stuff they'd rather not bother learning about. As JWZ writes in his CADT page: <<Fixing bugs isn't fun; going through the bug list isn't fun; but rewriting everything from scratch is fun (because "this time it will be done right", ha ha) and so that's what happens, over and over again.>> > the reason it's perceived as being "stable" is because it's not being improved anymore -- if people were still hacking on Xorg instead of Wayland, then your Xorg would be breaking left and right too. Xorg improved all the time over the years going back to the XFree86 days, adding new features consistently without breaking existing code and applications. If it suddenly started breaking now it wouldn't be because it is impossible to not break but because the developers somehow started breaking it.

bitwize 5y ago

The Linux build isn't an afterthought, it's deliberately ignored because the costs of supporting Linux vastly exceeds the returns from Linux gamers. If you want to sell your game, the smart money is in putting all your resources into the Windows version.

only_as_i_fall 5y ago

I haven't seriously tried to game on Linux in a number of years so this may have changed, but every time I've tried I get some kind of horrid tearing or stutter or low frame cap across a number of games that seems to be caused by inferior graphics drivers. If by "developers" you mean the ones working on the unity engine or Nvidia proprietary graphics drivers then you're right, but in my experience there are a number of problems and pitfalls further down the stack which game developers can't reasonably be expected to mitigate.

arp242 5y ago
I've been running Linux exclusively for years, and never had any problems. For the most part, everything Just Works™. My previous laptop had just integrated Intel graphics, which worked well enough. My current is a Ryzen integrated graphics, which also works well enough. The only problem I ever had was in Wasteland 2 where the second part of the game there was some bug with the fog on the world map with Intel drivers. Setting some obscure environment variable fixed that.
vbezhenar 5y ago
I recently installed Fedora on laptop with Intel GPU, I'm playing Factorio and it just works, smooth and nice.
- slezyr 5y ago
  Well, no surprise. It's not resource hungry and there is a hard 60 FPS lock for everyone, so no tearing as well. There is a 60-80 FPS difference for me in CS:GO between Linux and Windows with AMD graphics.
  - account42 5y ago
    > and there is a hard 60 FPS lock for everyone, so no tearing as well That's not how tearing works.

bee_rider 5y ago

Also because people (justifiably) don't want to distribute their games as source, so they can't be packaged sanely.

badsectoracula 5y ago

It is also because on Linux developers above the kernel have very little concern in keeping their APIs and ABIs stable and improving (it isn't just keeping some 29839283 year old library around that never receives any updates, you need to keep stuff up to date - imagine, e.g. SDL1.2 without support for HiDPI - though sadly most of the time not even that keeping around happens with distros dropping older libs left and right). Notable exception being Xorg, so of course the CADT model ensured that it has to be abandoned in favor of Wayland which while being barely usable has already managed to break compatibility with itself.

pjmlp 5y ago
Back in the Loki days I used to believe, even lost a good opportunity at SCEE for being stupidly focused into FOSS game development. Nowadays I don't care, Windows, macOS and mobile OSes FTW.
zxzax 5y ago
I wish people would not use the phrase "CADT" like this, it's not relevant, and it's insulting and ableist. Nobody wants to maintain legacy software for free in their spare time. That's all it is. It has nothing to do with the age of the person or the status being "attention deficit," which is a real condition that people actually have and suffer from. If you disagree, you're welcome to spend your spare time working on it. I support you doing that. I really doubt anybody will though, because outside of servers and Android, there is very little interest in doing anything on Linux. If you're willing to listen, I could describe to you the technical reasons why Xorg was abandoned. But I also doubt the answer will please you, because the reality is that the reason it's perceived as being "stable" is because it's not being improved anymore -- if people were still hacking on Xorg instead of Wayland, then your Xorg would be breaking left and right too.
- badsectoracula 5y ago
  > I wish people would not use the phrase "CADT" like this, it's not relevant, and it's insulting Yes, that's the point of an insult. > Nobody wants to maintain legacy software for free in their spare time. That's all it is. This is 100% false, a lot of people do. In fact a language (Free Pascal) and framework (LCL) i am using has a very good track record for preserving backwards compatibility while at the same time continuously improving. I have code i wrote two decades ago that work fine with it and will automatically get the new features introduced just with a recompile. The same can't be said for, e.g. Gtk: Gtk2 apps not only wont get any new features from Gtk3, but they wont even compile. Same with Gtk4, because making the mistake twice wasn't enough. > If you're willing to listen, I could describe to you the technical reasons why Xorg was abandoned. There are no technical reasons, Xorg is code, code can be modified. It is all political reasons at best and people wanting to rewrite stuff they'd rather not bother learning about. As JWZ writes in his CADT page: <<Fixing bugs isn't fun; going through the bug list isn't fun; but rewriting everything from scratch is fun (because "this time it will be done right", ha ha) and so that's what happens, over and over again.>> > the reason it's perceived as being "stable" is because it's not being improved anymore -- if people were still hacking on Xorg instead of Wayland, then your Xorg would be breaking left and right too. Xorg improved all the time over the years going back to the XFree86 days, adding new features consistently without breaking existing code and applications. If it suddenly started breaking now it wouldn't be because it is impossible to not break but because the developers somehow started breaking it.