Battlefield Director: Linux Only Needs One 'Killer' Game To Explode

[codeape]

Found this at several sites this morning:

http://linux.slashdot.org/story/13/10/12/2342219/battlefield-director-linux-only-needs-one-killer-game-to-explode

 

It took Halo for the first Xbox to kick off and go crazy — usually, it takes one killer app or game and then people are more than willing to adopt it.

 

I guess the developer of the killer app could be a Leadwerks 3.1 developer in the end

[Marcus]

I'm guessing a limited time exclusive of Half-Life 3, Portal 3, or Left 4 Dead 3 on SteamOS. Doing a combination of all three would definitely help with adoption.

[Rick]

But that's sure to hurt the immediate sales numbers for those games. We live in a world where your first day sales numbers makes a statement. I would be shocked if Valve took that risk. HL 3 starting out exclusively for SteamOS would kill their starting sales numbers.

[codeape]

But that's sure to hurt the immediate sales numbers for those games. We live in a world where your first day sales numbers makes a statement. I would be shocked if Valve took that risk. HL 3 starting out exclusively for SteamOS would kill their starting sales numbers.

 

Indeed a gamble but it could be worth it if you are doing a statement, like Valve is trying to do.

 

Another interesting thing you could do for a Linux exclusive release is to bundle the game on a Linux live cd. Then a interested gamer could download an iso, burn the iso to cd, boot it and try the game. This would of course not work for games that require a lot of resources like BF4 etc.

[Josh]

Well, I am installing an OpenGL 4 - capable Intel CPU now to make it happen!

[codeape]

Well, I am installing an OpenGL 4 - capable Intel CPU now to make it happen!

 

Cool =). Are there other drivers than the Intel Mesa drivers to that one? I found this complete Mesa GL3/GL4 status article a week ago :

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTQ3ODY

 

I am considering Radeon for my dev station right now. The AMD Radeon Performance Is Incredible On Linux 3.12 over 3.11. Some games improved with just low double-digit gains while other Linux games were nearly 90% faster:

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=amd_linux312_major&num=1

[Josh]

At this time I recommend an Nvidia card. AMD cards might or might not work, I just haven't tested them on Linux yet.

[codeape]

At this time I recommend an Nvidia card. AMD cards might or might not work, I just haven't tested them on Linux yet.

 

Thanks for the tip.

[zester]

On Linux it's best if you use an Nvidia Card with the Nvidia Binary Drivers, performance and stability will be as good or better than Nvidia on Windows or Mac.

 

If you don't have an Nvidia Card then second best is an Intel GPU, But generally most linux users will be using Intel CPU's and a Nvidia GPU.

 

Avoid AMD/ATI there OpenGL support is just terrible on all platforms.

[Josh]

I have had absolutely no problems with AMD drivers on Linux, I am happy to say.

[Guppy]

Avoid AMD/ATI there OpenGL support is just terrible on all platforms

 

And you base this on?

 

From personal experience ( using linux for some 15 years now ) I've never had an issue with either nvidia or amd on linux - unless you count their drivers being binary only

[Josh]

And you base this on?

 

From personal experience ( using linux for some 15 years now ) I've never had an issue with either nvidia or amd on linux - unless you count their drivers being binary only

I similarly doubt that. There was a dark period in the mid 2000s when OpenGL drivers on Windows were largely nonfunctional.

[codeape]

I have been a linux user/developer since 1998 and must say that I've never had an issue with either nvidia or amd on linux.

[Josh]

Did you play any games that used shaders?

[codeape]

Doom 3

[zester]

Valve says...

 

How does driver performance compare between Ubuntu and Windows?

 

Proprietary Nvidia drivers are comparable to Windows in terms of stability, performance, and features. Proprietary drivers for both ATI and Intel are also available but their current performance and stability are lower than equivalent Windows drivers.

 

In terms of Linux performance, it differs depending on the video card and driver type (open-source vs. proprietary) being used. Typically, proprietary drivers out-perform open-source drivers and have a larger feature set. In addition, the age of the driver can vary between proprietary and open-source versions.

[Josh]

After this work, Left 4 Dead 2 is running at 315 FPS on Linux. That the Linux version runs faster than the Windows version (270.6) seems a little counter-intuitive, given the greater amount of time we have spent on the Windows version. However, it does speak to the underlying efficiency of the kernel and OpenGL

http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/linux/faster-zombies/

[zester]

http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/linux/faster-zombies/

 

I have two older system's 1. AMD/ATI and 2. Intel Core 2 Duo with Intel GPU of some kind. Anyways the point is that there is software that uses OpenGL that will run on Linux but not Windows. I couldn't run unity on ether of the two systems above, even thou I could kinda get unity working in wine on both of those systems. I think Microsoft sabotages OpenGL on windows, to push DirectX.

[Rick]

Is it really sabotage? I mean they don't have to support OpenGL if they don't want to. I think they just don't put as much effort into OpenGL vs DX which is understandable given they own DX and not OpenGL.

[Josh]

I have two older system's 1. AMD/ATI and 2. Intel Core 2 Duo with Intel GPU of some kind. Anyways the point is that there is software that uses OpenGL that will run on Linux but not Windows. I couldn't run unity on ether of the two systems above, even thou I could kinda get unity working in wine on both of those systems. I think Microsoft sabotages OpenGL on windows, to push DirectX.

• Until recently, Intel was doing a good job of sabotaging PC gaming with bad drivers.
  
• OpenGL prior to 4.0 was a bloated complex mess with lots of legacy features from the fixed-function pipeline days. OpenGL4 is streamlined and dumps all the old/bad ways of doing things. So driver support for OpenGL 4 is very good, even from Intel. So you get good driver support combined with the more efficient nature of OpenGL.