7 ms·

Gog.com Now Supports Linux

225 points by oal 12y ago

ekianjo 12y ago
Flatout s running on Linux for the first time as well with this announcement
exterm 12y ago
Can't wait for them to give more of their extensive back catalog the linux treatment. With this and steam linux edition, the future looks bright for linux gamers. Playing colonization on linux this evening :-)
- Nemcue 12y ago
  Pro tip: never trade guns or horses with indians.
wink 12y ago
I've been using Linux for work for years (software developer) but my main machine at home is still running Windows 7 because for me, the state of gaming is still kind of horrible on Linux. Am I the only one who just gave up because of video and sound driver issues? That's for 3d, of course - as stated above, everything in a window manager usually works just fine. That said, this is awesome news, maybe I'll come around to try dualboot again (after many, many years) because it could be easier to get my Radeon working under Linux than some of the other chips (especially on laptops) in the past.
- mercurial 12y ago
  It depends. I'm playing Enemy Unknown without a hitch with an older Nvidia card. The beta of Sunless Sea (arguably not a demanding game, but Unity seems to have a bad rep on Linux) runs well on Intel graphics. Gaming on Linux has improved by leaps and bounds, to the point where I gave up on dualbooting Windows a few years ago (though I'm not a avid gamer). PS: don't know why you get downvoted. I wish it was possible to flag unwarranted downvotes...
- untrothy 12y ago
  Nowadays native games usually don't have issues and for the other ones wine often works, even with a somewhat unusual tiling window manager (Xmonad). Performance is still not as good as on Windows though. For example I can't play Dota 2 because of low fps on linux but on windows it is playable.
- ekianjo 12y ago
  > Am I the only one who just gave up because of video and sound driver issues? No issues here. I guess you may be running AMD hardware hence the video drivers issues, but I haven't had sound issues in games for years.
  - grimgrin 12y ago
    Nvidia. Installed System Shock 2 (through Steam) on my Linux machine at work. Ran it, cool, left the game and resolution was stuck at a really weird one (on 1 of 2 monitors) and I had to fix a problem. Same game on Windows, likely no problem to fix. Issues for sure still happen with Linux gaming. Many games are fine though, of course.
    - pdpi 12y ago
      To be fair, dual screen setups and games have a history of trouble (even on Windows)
      - zanny 12y ago
        I have a dual screen desktop running Arch and I play games a lot, on the radeonSI Gallium driver and Intel driver. The funny thing with multi-screen gaming on Linux is that the "default" target SDL picks is not your primary monitor, it is the monitor on the left. It doesn't matter what input order its in, or anything else, I can reconfigure my screens however I want but "full screen" always means leftmost panel.
    - pdpi 12y ago
      To be fair, dual screen setups and games have a history of trouble (even on Windows)
    - binarycrusader 12y ago
      That's more likely an issue with the game, the desktop, or some other component than the video driver.
- pachydermic 12y ago
  You're not alone. Things are getting better, though. Drivers are definitely still an issue, but I think because of Steam's movement in the Linux market a lot of progress is going to be made... of course, maybe all this SteamOS stuff is just a hedge against Windows (to dissuade a move to a 100% app-store model on desktop). Laptops and wireless are still definitely a big issue. I think desktops have a much better chance of working. Whether they work as well as Windows or not is a different question.
- BankingAnon 12y ago
  I dunno, this morning I was able to get minecraft, sims 3 (via wine) and steam (playing xcom) on an Arch/BridgeLinux liveUSB playing without issues in about 45 minutes. Kernel 3.12.x means the 3d was slower than I'd want (AMD free drivers are waaay faster in the new kernels), but I didn't want to do a full pacman -Syu on the liveUSB. Performance was decent, and had I installed to hard drive, would've been competitive with windows even without the catalyst drivers installed (which is a yaourt install away).
bachmeier 12y ago
Unfortunately I don't see a lot of kids games. Not for me, of course, but for my son. As he gets older, these Linux game release announcements will be more meaningful.
endgame 12y ago
I'm surprised that Papers Please is missing, given that the game has already been released on GNU/Linux release through the developer's website. I wouldn't be surprised if there is other such low-hanging fruit in their catalogue.
- exterm 12y ago
  I agree, there will be lots of low hanging fruits. But I guess GOG is playtesting every single one of them so it could take a while. The linux testing team is probably smaller than the windows and mac teams. Just speculation ;-)
- ekianjo 12y ago
  There are many others. First, many games that can run on DOsBox on Linux (probably several hundreds from their catalog) and many other indie ones. And Witcher 2 (however the port/wrapper used was horrible).
  - tormeh 12y ago
    It had low performance, but once I figured out that the keybindings were all empty and you had to restore them to default everything kinda worked ok. Low FPS, but playable on my Nvidia GTX760M laptop.
drdaeman 12y ago
Why they're using Ubuntu logo in "Works on: X + Y + Z" instead of Tux or GNU symbols?
- exterm 12y ago
  Because they officially support only ubuntu and mint. The provide a tarball for other distros but don't officially support them.
  - drdaeman 12y ago
    But they say "Linux" nearly everywhere, not "Ubuntu" or "Mint" (even though they're the only supported distros and the rest is best-effort tarball). There's inconsistency between iconic and textual data. Obviously, one can't support "Linux" - that's abstract shortcut title for plethora of various GNU/Linux-based OSes. Yet, I think Tux is universally recognized symbol for those.
    - scrollaway 12y ago
      I have to ask: Why do you care? This is great news, why care about the small, completely irrelevant things? Why make it look like the Linux community is blasé, whiny and will complain about anything?
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
bussiere 12y ago
i love you gog.
rythmshifter 12y ago
you just emptied my bank account
clarry 12y ago
What hardware platforms are supported? Give it one, three, five, ten or fifteen years. When will these proprietary binaries stop working? I look forward (probably in vain) to the day when game developers want their games to be playable by anyone on any system, any time, even long after release. Played by everyone. I mean, who wouldn't want his work to be loved by everyone and forever? Why? Freeing the code is a first, inevitable step.
- scrollaway 12y ago
  Funny how often, musicians and directors feel the same about their work and encourage people to "illegally" download their products. I don't think developers are the problem. I've played World of Warcraft a lot. It's a game that has affected tens of millions of people directly, and hundreds of millions indirectly (through WoW's influence on other games, game models and so on). It has built careers, businesses, companies, and so on. Yet one day, it'll close down and nobody will ever be able to play it. All that'll be left will be the game files - 3d models - and a lot of screenshots. Sad.
  - clarry 12y ago
    I agree about WoW. I've never played it, but I could imagine loving it. Chances are I never will though. > I don't think developers are the problem. It depends on the project. So I guess big commercial titles have other problems. Smaller groups though -- whether indie game studios or just individuals making freeware games (Dwarf Fortress, anyone?) -- they're usually what the developers make of it. And it very often is the case that the developers do not care about others' freedoms or portability and all that. It's too much work, nobody uses that platform, we don't care about minority users, whatever. The same old excuses, which are mostly BS.
    - pjmlp 12y ago
      Because you know, the baker, the supermarket, the landlord all accept the said BS as payment. It is very easy to wave BS to software developers. Now try to earn a steady income from FOSS desktop software.
pervycreeper 12y ago
Not to minimize the accomplishment, but most of those "first time on Linux!" titles were previously playable via Dosbox, or free software source ports. That said, can't wait for Rollercoaster Tycoon.
- jenscow 12y ago
  I don't think it's the technical accomplishment that's significant - more the fact that producers are increasingly recognising Linux as an emerging gaming platform.
  - pervycreeper 12y ago
    I agree. I should have said something more like "diminish their efforts" rather than "minimize their accomplishment". My point is the marketing claim that these titles are appearing on Linux for the first time is a stretch.
aktau 12y ago
Oh man, there goes my time. I remember FlatOut 1 fondly from when I was a kid and was still using Windows (great soundtrack too, I remember sending No Connection an e-mail and they even replied). Now I couldn't resist buying FlatOut 2, even if just to show my support. I read on the forums they're wine wrappers though (officially supported, but still). Native ports would be the best, of course.
- ekianjo 12y ago
  Wine wrappers are fine, for such "old" software the performance should be plenty sufficient anyway, and as long as there's no bugs in the implementation, why not.
- jenscow 12y ago
  The DOS games I've seen are DOSBox wrappers. I wonder if they've made the games work (if they didn't already) by hacking DOSBox, rather than the game.
  - Narishma 12y ago
    FlatOut is a Windows game. As for DOSBox, if a game works on it in Windows it will work on it in Linux as well.
thristian 12y ago
I will probably keep downloading Windows binaries for backup purposes (I expect Win32 and Wine will still be a thing long after glibc 2.17.3 binaries are no longer supported on any distro), but it's super-encouraging to have a reliable vendor of DRM-free, cross-platform games.
tormeh 12y ago
What's the state of AMD Radeon cards for gaming on Linux right now? I think I'll soon upgrade my desktop computer's graphics card, and I wonder if I'll have to restrict myself to Nvidia only. (Intel's not an option because of performance)
- bryanlarsen 12y ago
  The open source version of the AMD drivers have gotten a lot better for very recent versions of the Linux Kernel. Is it better enough? Good question. http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=linux316_radeon_boost&num=1 http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=linux316_...
  - tormeh 12y ago
    Yeah, I've heard complaints about short support periods, weird bugs and games that just crash, but performance seems as good as Nvidia's from what I've read. This seems to suggest that Nvidia's drivers are vastly superior on new OpenGL 4 features, though they do come from Nvidia: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=amd_apitest_nvidia&num=1 http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=amd_apite... It's probably cherrypicking benchmarks a bit, but cherrypicking shouldn't have that dramatic results... Seems like I'll be sticking with Nvidia.
- karlgrz 12y ago
  I put together a linux machine around tax return time this year with this video card: http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=8573830&tab=7&SRCCODE=WEBLET101SATSFY&cm_mmc=Email-_-WebletMain-_-WEBLET101SATSFY-_-Satisfy&utm_source=EML&utm_medium=main&utm_campaign=WEBLET101SATSFY http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-det... It's been working great for me. I haven't tried Crysis or FarCry yet, but I can play Half Life 2 at maxed out settings at 60 fps steady and stable. I play a lot of older games, but Bastion, Shadowrun Returns, Rust, Beatbuddy, Fez, Portal (2), Dust, Civ5 all run beautifully. I realize these aren't latest power games, but considering the topic I think this is ok. Then again, I am very, very comfortable messing around with drivers and settings. Every time I upgrade the kernel I have to recompile my drivers (using AMDs Catalyst beta 14.6 currently). I don't mind, but you might.
mladenkovacevic 12y ago
I would recommend Normality as an oldie but a goodie. Quirky story and an amazing atmosphere. This was also one of the first games where it didn't feel like it consisted of static sets or levels where you had to solve a puzzle then move onto the next one but you were more or less freely roaming like a Grand Theft Auto game and having to solve puzzles within a larger environment.
rogerbinns 12y ago
Note that many of GOG's Windows games will work on Linux under Wine too. The good news is you don't have to figure anything out - use PlayOnLinux which will prompt you for the games setup executable and then do everything else. Start at http://www.playonlinux.com/en/supported_apps-1-0.html http://www.playonlinux.com/en/supported_apps-1-0.html and scroll down to the ones beginning GOG.com.

225 points by oal 12y ago

Flatout s running on Linux for the first time as well with this announcement

Can't wait for them to give more of their extensive back catalog the linux treatment. With this and steam linux edition, the future looks bright for linux gamers. Playing colonization on linux this evening :-)

Nemcue 12y ago
Pro tip: never trade guns or horses with indians.

wink 12y ago

I've been using Linux for work for years (software developer) but my main machine at home is still running Windows 7 because for me, the state of gaming is still kind of horrible on Linux. Am I the only one who just gave up because of video and sound driver issues? That's for 3d, of course - as stated above, everything in a window manager usually works just fine. That said, this is awesome news, maybe I'll come around to try dualboot again (after many, many years) because it could be easier to get my Radeon working under Linux than some of the other chips (especially on laptops) in the past.

mercurial 12y ago
It depends. I'm playing Enemy Unknown without a hitch with an older Nvidia card. The beta of Sunless Sea (arguably not a demanding game, but Unity seems to have a bad rep on Linux) runs well on Intel graphics. Gaming on Linux has improved by leaps and bounds, to the point where I gave up on dualbooting Windows a few years ago (though I'm not a avid gamer). PS: don't know why you get downvoted. I wish it was possible to flag unwarranted downvotes...
untrothy 12y ago
Nowadays native games usually don't have issues and for the other ones wine often works, even with a somewhat unusual tiling window manager (Xmonad). Performance is still not as good as on Windows though. For example I can't play Dota 2 because of low fps on linux but on windows it is playable.
ekianjo 12y ago
> Am I the only one who just gave up because of video and sound driver issues? No issues here. I guess you may be running AMD hardware hence the video drivers issues, but I haven't had sound issues in games for years.
- grimgrin 12y ago
  Nvidia. Installed System Shock 2 (through Steam) on my Linux machine at work. Ran it, cool, left the game and resolution was stuck at a really weird one (on 1 of 2 monitors) and I had to fix a problem. Same game on Windows, likely no problem to fix. Issues for sure still happen with Linux gaming. Many games are fine though, of course.
  - pdpi 12y ago
    To be fair, dual screen setups and games have a history of trouble (even on Windows)
    - zanny 12y ago
      I have a dual screen desktop running Arch and I play games a lot, on the radeonSI Gallium driver and Intel driver. The funny thing with multi-screen gaming on Linux is that the "default" target SDL picks is not your primary monitor, it is the monitor on the left. It doesn't matter what input order its in, or anything else, I can reconfigure my screens however I want but "full screen" always means leftmost panel.
  - pdpi 12y ago
    To be fair, dual screen setups and games have a history of trouble (even on Windows)
  - binarycrusader 12y ago
    That's more likely an issue with the game, the desktop, or some other component than the video driver.
pachydermic 12y ago
You're not alone. Things are getting better, though. Drivers are definitely still an issue, but I think because of Steam's movement in the Linux market a lot of progress is going to be made... of course, maybe all this SteamOS stuff is just a hedge against Windows (to dissuade a move to a 100% app-store model on desktop). Laptops and wireless are still definitely a big issue. I think desktops have a much better chance of working. Whether they work as well as Windows or not is a different question.
BankingAnon 12y ago
I dunno, this morning I was able to get minecraft, sims 3 (via wine) and steam (playing xcom) on an Arch/BridgeLinux liveUSB playing without issues in about 45 minutes. Kernel 3.12.x means the 3d was slower than I'd want (AMD free drivers are waaay faster in the new kernels), but I didn't want to do a full pacman -Syu on the liveUSB. Performance was decent, and had I installed to hard drive, would've been competitive with windows even without the catalyst drivers installed (which is a yaourt install away).

bachmeier 12y ago

Unfortunately I don't see a lot of kids games. Not for me, of course, but for my son. As he gets older, these Linux game release announcements will be more meaningful.

endgame 12y ago

I'm surprised that Papers Please is missing, given that the game has already been released on GNU/Linux release through the developer's website. I wouldn't be surprised if there is other such low-hanging fruit in their catalogue.

exterm 12y ago
I agree, there will be lots of low hanging fruits. But I guess GOG is playtesting every single one of them so it could take a while. The linux testing team is probably smaller than the windows and mac teams. Just speculation ;-)
ekianjo 12y ago
There are many others. First, many games that can run on DOsBox on Linux (probably several hundreds from their catalog) and many other indie ones. And Witcher 2 (however the port/wrapper used was horrible).
- tormeh 12y ago
  It had low performance, but once I figured out that the keybindings were all empty and you had to restore them to default everything kinda worked ok. Low FPS, but playable on my Nvidia GTX760M laptop.

drdaeman 12y ago

Why they're using Ubuntu logo in "Works on: X + Y + Z" instead of Tux or GNU symbols?

exterm 12y ago
Because they officially support only ubuntu and mint. The provide a tarball for other distros but don't officially support them.
- drdaeman 12y ago
  But they say "Linux" nearly everywhere, not "Ubuntu" or "Mint" (even though they're the only supported distros and the rest is best-effort tarball). There's inconsistency between iconic and textual data. Obviously, one can't support "Linux" - that's abstract shortcut title for plethora of various GNU/Linux-based OSes. Yet, I think Tux is universally recognized symbol for those.
  - scrollaway 12y ago
    I have to ask: Why do you care? This is great news, why care about the small, completely irrelevant things? Why make it look like the Linux community is blasé, whiny and will complain about anything?
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

bussiere 12y ago

i love you gog.

rythmshifter 12y ago

you just emptied my bank account

clarry 12y ago

What hardware platforms are supported? Give it one, three, five, ten or fifteen years. When will these proprietary binaries stop working? I look forward (probably in vain) to the day when game developers want their games to be playable by anyone on any system, any time, even long after release. Played by everyone. I mean, who wouldn't want his work to be loved by everyone and forever? Why? Freeing the code is a first, inevitable step.

scrollaway 12y ago
Funny how often, musicians and directors feel the same about their work and encourage people to "illegally" download their products. I don't think developers are the problem. I've played World of Warcraft a lot. It's a game that has affected tens of millions of people directly, and hundreds of millions indirectly (through WoW's influence on other games, game models and so on). It has built careers, businesses, companies, and so on. Yet one day, it'll close down and nobody will ever be able to play it. All that'll be left will be the game files - 3d models - and a lot of screenshots. Sad.
- clarry 12y ago
  I agree about WoW. I've never played it, but I could imagine loving it. Chances are I never will though. > I don't think developers are the problem. It depends on the project. So I guess big commercial titles have other problems. Smaller groups though -- whether indie game studios or just individuals making freeware games (Dwarf Fortress, anyone?) -- they're usually what the developers make of it. And it very often is the case that the developers do not care about others' freedoms or portability and all that. It's too much work, nobody uses that platform, we don't care about minority users, whatever. The same old excuses, which are mostly BS.
  - pjmlp 12y ago
    Because you know, the baker, the supermarket, the landlord all accept the said BS as payment. It is very easy to wave BS to software developers. Now try to earn a steady income from FOSS desktop software.

pervycreeper 12y ago

Not to minimize the accomplishment, but most of those "first time on Linux!" titles were previously playable via Dosbox, or free software source ports. That said, can't wait for Rollercoaster Tycoon.

jenscow 12y ago
I don't think it's the technical accomplishment that's significant - more the fact that producers are increasingly recognising Linux as an emerging gaming platform.
- pervycreeper 12y ago
  I agree. I should have said something more like "diminish their efforts" rather than "minimize their accomplishment". My point is the marketing claim that these titles are appearing on Linux for the first time is a stretch.

aktau 12y ago

Oh man, there goes my time. I remember FlatOut 1 fondly from when I was a kid and was still using Windows (great soundtrack too, I remember sending No Connection an e-mail and they even replied). Now I couldn't resist buying FlatOut 2, even if just to show my support. I read on the forums they're wine wrappers though (officially supported, but still). Native ports would be the best, of course.

ekianjo 12y ago
Wine wrappers are fine, for such "old" software the performance should be plenty sufficient anyway, and as long as there's no bugs in the implementation, why not.
jenscow 12y ago
The DOS games I've seen are DOSBox wrappers. I wonder if they've made the games work (if they didn't already) by hacking DOSBox, rather than the game.
- Narishma 12y ago
  FlatOut is a Windows game. As for DOSBox, if a game works on it in Windows it will work on it in Linux as well.

thristian 12y ago

I will probably keep downloading Windows binaries for backup purposes (I expect Win32 and Wine will still be a thing long after glibc 2.17.3 binaries are no longer supported on any distro), but it's super-encouraging to have a reliable vendor of DRM-free, cross-platform games.

tormeh 12y ago

What's the state of AMD Radeon cards for gaming on Linux right now? I think I'll soon upgrade my desktop computer's graphics card, and I wonder if I'll have to restrict myself to Nvidia only. (Intel's not an option because of performance)

bryanlarsen 12y ago
The open source version of the AMD drivers have gotten a lot better for very recent versions of the Linux Kernel. Is it better enough? Good question. http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=linux316_radeon_boost&num=1 http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=linux316_...
- tormeh 12y ago
  Yeah, I've heard complaints about short support periods, weird bugs and games that just crash, but performance seems as good as Nvidia's from what I've read. This seems to suggest that Nvidia's drivers are vastly superior on new OpenGL 4 features, though they do come from Nvidia: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=amd_apitest_nvidia&num=1 http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=amd_apite... It's probably cherrypicking benchmarks a bit, but cherrypicking shouldn't have that dramatic results... Seems like I'll be sticking with Nvidia.
karlgrz 12y ago
I put together a linux machine around tax return time this year with this video card: http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=8573830&tab=7&SRCCODE=WEBLET101SATSFY&cm_mmc=Email-_-WebletMain-_-WEBLET101SATSFY-_-Satisfy&utm_source=EML&utm_medium=main&utm_campaign=WEBLET101SATSFY http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-det... It's been working great for me. I haven't tried Crysis or FarCry yet, but I can play Half Life 2 at maxed out settings at 60 fps steady and stable. I play a lot of older games, but Bastion, Shadowrun Returns, Rust, Beatbuddy, Fez, Portal (2), Dust, Civ5 all run beautifully. I realize these aren't latest power games, but considering the topic I think this is ok. Then again, I am very, very comfortable messing around with drivers and settings. Every time I upgrade the kernel I have to recompile my drivers (using AMDs Catalyst beta 14.6 currently). I don't mind, but you might.

mladenkovacevic 12y ago

I would recommend Normality as an oldie but a goodie. Quirky story and an amazing atmosphere. This was also one of the first games where it didn't feel like it consisted of static sets or levels where you had to solve a puzzle then move onto the next one but you were more or less freely roaming like a Grand Theft Auto game and having to solve puzzles within a larger environment.

rogerbinns 12y ago

Note that many of GOG's Windows games will work on Linux under Wine too. The good news is you don't have to figure anything out - use PlayOnLinux which will prompt you for the games setup executable and then do everything else. Start at http://www.playonlinux.com/en/supported_apps-1-0.html http://www.playonlinux.com/en/supported_apps-1-0.html and scroll down to the ones beginning GOG.com.