5 ms·

Now if we can only get semi-stable, long-term graphics driver support for Linux to be able to play these games. I think there may be light at the end of that tu

by rinon 13y ago

Now if we can only get semi-stable, long-term graphics driver support for Linux to be able to play these games. I think there may be light at the end of that tunnel, since hardware vendors seem to be providing more support for Linux now.

thejosh 13y ago
It's gotten so much better since Valve started to port over their games and they launched Steam for Linux which helped bring other Linux games to light. This forced a good update to nVidia cards that helped boost all cards performance under Linux to be actually playable. Once they port over DOTA2 (currently one of their most popular games that makes $$ after Team Fortress 2) this should also cause a large kickstart in driver performance as more users play their games on Linux.
- pudquick 13y ago
  Valve had exactly this effect on Apple's included video drivers when Steam was originally released for the Mac: http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-20014102-263.html http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-20014102-263.html
hdra 13y ago
when that day comes, I am sure many would switch to Linux, especially among the developers. In the past few years using Windows, I have stopped thinking about device drivers at all, I just expected them to work. I am looking forward to the day where this comes to desktop Linux.
- ChrisAntaki 13y ago
  Once Linux has good device drivers, someone will release a highly optimized distribution for gaming. Afterwards, I think Linux will start to become the leading desktop OS.
  - zanny 13y ago
    I have no problems with the Nvidia driver on Arch, and haven't had an issue in over a year. Everything runs rock solid, I've never had the display freeze or crash, and it runs a truckload of games in Wine. Linux becoming a leading desktop OS is all about defaults. Unless it is sold in Best Buy on laptops as a default option, priced below the Windows variant license costs, it will always be a niche product because it requires users to go absurdly out of their way to find or install it. The Steambox is much more likely to rectify that. Consumer Linux PCs in the guise of game consoles will get it wide deployment.
    - gizmo686 13y ago
      Linux does have some competitive advantages that may encourage stores to sell it pre-installed. First, it is cheaper, so the store can advertise lower prices. Second, many Linux distros look really nice, so if they have them set up on display their will be people who by it for that reason. Then, the first mover would get a reputation as the place that sells that awesome looking computer (and cheaper than the others). Third, their is little direct cost to trying. They can install it on a few laptops, then if it doesn't work, re-image windows on them. Of course, (I suspect) the main reason this has not happened yet is the (legitamite) fear that customers would be the computer and then say 'it doesn't work', when it cannot run software X, or open file Y.
- fps 13y ago
  I feel like your and my experiences are completely reversed. I've been using Linux as my primary desktop OS for 14 years, and in the past 8 years the idea of downloading drivers or hardware not working out of the box has become completely alien to me. The last driver I had to download for Linux was for a Lexmark printer in 2005. Everything since then has just worked. When I get in front of a windows machine, though, I'm always ripping through original packaging looking for network, graphics or peripheral drivers, even in Windows 7. I remember Windows XP SP2 didn't ship with drivers for the Intel Etherexpress line of network cards when it came out after 5 years of the eepro being one of the most popular network cards on the market. Insane. My normal trick became to boot the system onto a linux live cd or USB drive, download the drivers and then boot back to windows to install them.
- zanny 13y ago
  I run Arch on a GTX 285 and never had graphics driver issues. All I ever had to do was tweak on coolbits in the xorg.conf to enable fan control and overclocking (which you have to do manually on Windows as well). The lack of any support of Nouveau makes me not want to buy an Nvidia product in the future, but Catalyst really is the elephant in the room - if only AMD would ditch it, make radeon work really well and embrace the kernel people to make it as good as the Intel driver, they would be in a really good spot. But the drivers are there. If you are running any modern distro worth its salt, your graphics will work out of the box with the FOSS driver, and switching to the proprietary one is little more than a package get. Which is even easier than on Windows where you have to manually get the graphics driver if Windows doesn't recognize the card (sometimes it does).
- grecy 13y ago
  I've been using Mac OS since OS 7.1 when I was ~14. All through high school and my Bachelor of Software Engineering degree, and now working full time, I'm completely dumbfounded when Windows or Linux users talk about device drivers. What a shocking waste of time.
  - kibibu 13y ago
    OSX still doesn't support OpenGL 3.3 or 4.0, both of which are >3 years old. Perhaps with a driver update from the vendor... oh wait, no.
    - grecy 13y ago
      I was talking about not having to worry about device drivers and things "just working", you're talking about being on the latest and greatest version. Those are two different discussions. Obviously when Apple controls the hardware and software there are going to be some trade-offs, one of which, as you pointed out, is a lack of frequent updates. I, personally, am just fine with that.
      - kibibu 13y ago
        I know this is a few days old now, but by (lucky?) coincidence, I was recommended to install this on my Mac to fix Pixelmator today: http://www.nvidia.com/object/macosx-cuda-5.0.45-driver.html http://www.nvidia.com/object/macosx-cuda-5.0.45-driver.html
- girvo 13y ago
  I've had the completely opposite experience. Windows is where I have to go hunting around for drivers on vendors crappy FTP servers. Linux on the other hand, over the past 7 years I've been running it, works OOTB for all hardware I've ever thrown at it, especially lately. Weird.
  - TikiTDO 13y ago
    What area do you work in though?
    - girvo 13y ago
      These are my personal laptops I'm talking about :) FWIW, I'm a web developer, but I've been playing with Linux since I was 11 years old (2001).
kbenson 13y ago
Valve collects a lot of stats on systems that use their software, including hardware, driver versions, and installed libraries (I think?). They have the power to really drill down and find out which hardware and/or drivers are causing problems, and I expect they'll use it to good effect.
lmm 13y ago
The nvidia drivers have been rock solid for about a decade now.

by rinon 13y ago

thejosh 13y ago

It's gotten so much better since Valve started to port over their games and they launched Steam for Linux which helped bring other Linux games to light. This forced a good update to nVidia cards that helped boost all cards performance under Linux to be actually playable. Once they port over DOTA2 (currently one of their most popular games that makes $$ after Team Fortress 2) this should also cause a large kickstart in driver performance as more users play their games on Linux.

pudquick 13y ago
Valve had exactly this effect on Apple's included video drivers when Steam was originally released for the Mac: http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-20014102-263.html http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-20014102-263.html

hdra 13y ago

when that day comes, I am sure many would switch to Linux, especially among the developers. In the past few years using Windows, I have stopped thinking about device drivers at all, I just expected them to work. I am looking forward to the day where this comes to desktop Linux.

ChrisAntaki 13y ago
Once Linux has good device drivers, someone will release a highly optimized distribution for gaming. Afterwards, I think Linux will start to become the leading desktop OS.
- zanny 13y ago
  I have no problems with the Nvidia driver on Arch, and haven't had an issue in over a year. Everything runs rock solid, I've never had the display freeze or crash, and it runs a truckload of games in Wine. Linux becoming a leading desktop OS is all about defaults. Unless it is sold in Best Buy on laptops as a default option, priced below the Windows variant license costs, it will always be a niche product because it requires users to go absurdly out of their way to find or install it. The Steambox is much more likely to rectify that. Consumer Linux PCs in the guise of game consoles will get it wide deployment.
  - gizmo686 13y ago
    Linux does have some competitive advantages that may encourage stores to sell it pre-installed. First, it is cheaper, so the store can advertise lower prices. Second, many Linux distros look really nice, so if they have them set up on display their will be people who by it for that reason. Then, the first mover would get a reputation as the place that sells that awesome looking computer (and cheaper than the others). Third, their is little direct cost to trying. They can install it on a few laptops, then if it doesn't work, re-image windows on them. Of course, (I suspect) the main reason this has not happened yet is the (legitamite) fear that customers would be the computer and then say 'it doesn't work', when it cannot run software X, or open file Y.
fps 13y ago
I feel like your and my experiences are completely reversed. I've been using Linux as my primary desktop OS for 14 years, and in the past 8 years the idea of downloading drivers or hardware not working out of the box has become completely alien to me. The last driver I had to download for Linux was for a Lexmark printer in 2005. Everything since then has just worked. When I get in front of a windows machine, though, I'm always ripping through original packaging looking for network, graphics or peripheral drivers, even in Windows 7. I remember Windows XP SP2 didn't ship with drivers for the Intel Etherexpress line of network cards when it came out after 5 years of the eepro being one of the most popular network cards on the market. Insane. My normal trick became to boot the system onto a linux live cd or USB drive, download the drivers and then boot back to windows to install them.
zanny 13y ago
I run Arch on a GTX 285 and never had graphics driver issues. All I ever had to do was tweak on coolbits in the xorg.conf to enable fan control and overclocking (which you have to do manually on Windows as well). The lack of any support of Nouveau makes me not want to buy an Nvidia product in the future, but Catalyst really is the elephant in the room - if only AMD would ditch it, make radeon work really well and embrace the kernel people to make it as good as the Intel driver, they would be in a really good spot. But the drivers are there. If you are running any modern distro worth its salt, your graphics will work out of the box with the FOSS driver, and switching to the proprietary one is little more than a package get. Which is even easier than on Windows where you have to manually get the graphics driver if Windows doesn't recognize the card (sometimes it does).
grecy 13y ago
I've been using Mac OS since OS 7.1 when I was ~14. All through high school and my Bachelor of Software Engineering degree, and now working full time, I'm completely dumbfounded when Windows or Linux users talk about device drivers. What a shocking waste of time.
- kibibu 13y ago
  OSX still doesn't support OpenGL 3.3 or 4.0, both of which are >3 years old. Perhaps with a driver update from the vendor... oh wait, no.
  - grecy 13y ago
    I was talking about not having to worry about device drivers and things "just working", you're talking about being on the latest and greatest version. Those are two different discussions. Obviously when Apple controls the hardware and software there are going to be some trade-offs, one of which, as you pointed out, is a lack of frequent updates. I, personally, am just fine with that.
    - kibibu 13y ago
      I know this is a few days old now, but by (lucky?) coincidence, I was recommended to install this on my Mac to fix Pixelmator today: http://www.nvidia.com/object/macosx-cuda-5.0.45-driver.html http://www.nvidia.com/object/macosx-cuda-5.0.45-driver.html
girvo 13y ago
I've had the completely opposite experience. Windows is where I have to go hunting around for drivers on vendors crappy FTP servers. Linux on the other hand, over the past 7 years I've been running it, works OOTB for all hardware I've ever thrown at it, especially lately. Weird.
- TikiTDO 13y ago
  What area do you work in though?
  - girvo 13y ago
    These are my personal laptops I'm talking about :) FWIW, I'm a web developer, but I've been playing with Linux since I was 11 years old (2001).

kbenson 13y ago

Valve collects a lot of stats on systems that use their software, including hardware, driver versions, and installed libraries (I think?). They have the power to really drill down and find out which hardware and/or drivers are causing problems, and I expect they'll use it to good effect.

lmm 13y ago

The nvidia drivers have been rock solid for about a decade now.