John Carmack: Linux is not the right platform for video games

LeonMelson

2013-02-08 09:19

Porting Application Hi I am not sure if this will be possible but how about creating an application that does the porting. If possible it should cancel out all the performance issues of emulation.

#4521843

WhiteLightning

Moderator

2013-02-08 09:33

There is already wine for that

#4521868

Veeshush

2013-02-08 10:41

The title " John Carmack: Linux is not the right platform for video games" to that makes me think that he's saying he doesn't value Linux as a gaming platform, but nothing he says even leads into the slightest bit of that being true. All he seemingly says is rather than doing resource heavy ports to instead focus more on emulation to run PC titles. It's just another method to getting games to run on Linux and one that'd have a much better chance of happening. It's a great idea, but maybe not a new one.

I truly do feel that emulation of some sort is a proper technical direction for gaming on Linux. It is obviously pragmatic in the range of possible support, but it shouldn’t have the technical stigma that it does. There really isn’t much of anything special that a native port does – we still make OpenGL calls, winsock is just BSD sockets, windows threads become pthreads, and the translation of input and audio interfaces don’t make much difference (XInput and Xaudio2 are good APIs!). A good shim layer should have far less impact on performance than the variability in driver quality. Translating from D3D to OpenGL would involve more inefficiencies, but figuring out exactly what the difficulties are and making some form of “D3D interop” extension for OpenGL to smooth it out is a lot easier than making dozens of completely refactored, high performance native ports. Ideally, following a set of best practice guidelines could allow developers to get Linux versions with little more effort than supporting, say, Windows XP. Properly evangelized, with Steam as a monetized distribution platform, this is a plausible path forward. John Carmack

I just wanted to clear that up before someone jumps in here and thinks otherwise.

#4521878

krzywyzielarz

2013-02-08 10:54

No John, you have to believe in Linux. The Mac also no one believed. I buy games for Linux, because I can play on my Linux. Steam For Linux news www.steamforlinux.com

#4521891

scatman839

2013-02-08 11:26

I just wanted to clear that up before someone jumps in here and thinks otherwise.

The sheer amount of people that read a the topic title then reply off that will anyway :/

#4521903

Lycronis

2013-02-08 11:46

No John, you have to believe in Linux. The Mac also no one believed. I buy games for Linux, because I can play on my Linux. Steam For Linux news www.steamforlinux.com

Sorry, but I disagree. The Mac still isn't a viable gaming platform, even now with Steam support. Linux is far behind Mac so this is a no-brainer. Where I think Linux will shine for gaming is for the smaller Indies type games.

#4521915

Redemption80

2013-02-08 12:12

I agree with him, from a business point of view gaming on Linux is not a very good idea. Windows is far from perfect and if this idea was tried 10-15 years ago then we would probably be in a better place if gaming was on Linux, but it's too late now. No one is going to port every PC game over so the entire back catalog is now lost, and moving forward very few people are going to develop anything for Linux unless they are doing a Mac version. PC gaming really doesn't need to be competing against itself right now, resources should not be getting split and the fact Gabe is pushing this due to spite or greed is disappointing.

#4521933

Neo Cyrus

2013-02-08 12:36

After RAGE I can't take anything this guy says seriously anymore. Oh, and that game still crashes on my PC, still unplayable, yet literally everything else I have installed is perfectly fine.

#4521937

Speed Weed

2013-02-08 12:40

Does anyone actually play good games on Linux? Once got UT3 to instal, using wine. But that's as far as I got. My system crashed severely when I attempted to run the game. 🙁

#4521978

miffywiffy

2013-02-08 13:54

There is nothing wrong with windows gaming until Microsoft try something stupid like making Windows Metro UI only.

#4522058

Redemption80

2013-02-08 15:43

He forgot that one of the main reasons why Linux is used by small portion of the market share is because games are not made for Linux. The only way to change it, is to make them available on that platform, and then, see if it is good or not, and bring more users to very good open source platform.

He didn't forget, that is the reason why he thinks it's a bad idea. The article was about emulation being a better idea as many developers would struggle to to get funding for games on a platform with such a small market share.

#4522062

Noisiv

2013-02-08 15:49

This reads almost like something Gabe wanted to say but didn't have the balls, so he asked Carmack to explain to Internets why Linux SteamBox aint going to happen. One wrong move against Internet-Hate-Machine and you're DEAD.

#4522065

Noisiv

2013-02-08 15:51

or at the very least losing tons of money.......

#4522067

GenClaymore

2013-02-08 15:56

@Speed Weed I think I tried to get Doom 3 and UT 2k4 to run in linux, but couldn't but I in up uninstalling the linux distro I was using any way, just because I stop using it, since i spent more time in windows using the programs that worked native with it. I simply don't feel like messing around with linux distro's, Unless I wanna be the few who say they have it installed just to look at it. @Neo Rage worked for me, it never did crash on me, Maybe it a driver related issue on your end, with compatibility with the game. Tho I stop playing rage but do to other games taking over.

#4522079

Redemption80

2013-02-08 16:18

Serious Sam 3 is on Steam is it not? Anyone tried it to see how it looks and performs compared to Windows/DX9?

#4522124

Mineria

2013-02-08 17:18

Sorry, but I disagree. The Mac still isn't a viable gaming platform, even now with Steam support. Linux is far behind Mac so this is a no-brainer. Where I think Linux will shine for gaming is for the smaller Indies type games.

A Mac is fully viable when you boot it up with Windows, I think you meant OSX. Also, OpenGL is viable on both Linux as the Mac, but it would require to much additional work to code both in directx as opengl, not worth the small income that may give.

#4522139

-Tj-

2013-02-08 17:35

Serious Sam 3 is on Steam is it not? Anyone tried it to see how it looks and performs compared to Windows/DX9?

I tried OpenGL in Windows and surprisingly it ran better, less streaming stutter with better memory management (also it looked the same). Idk about linux though, but atm im keeping it in OpenGL mode.

#4522149

SSD_PRO

2013-02-08 17:44

A Mac is fully viable when you boot it up with Windows, I think you meant OSX.

So it is viable if you un-Mac it? Awesome.

#4522151

Darren Hodgson

2013-02-08 17:48

After RAGE I can't take anything this guy says seriously anymore. Oh, and that game still crashes on my PC, still unplayable, yet literally everything else I have installed is perfectly fine.

I think you can blame AMD's OpenGL drivers for that then because I've never had any problems playing RAGE on my PC even when I had a GTX 580. It worked perfectly from launch, even before the patches, and has never crashed once.

#4522153

Redemption80

2013-02-08 17:49

I tried OpenGL in Windows and surprisingly it ran better, less streaming stutter with better memory management (also it looked the same). Idk about linux though, but atm im keeping it in OpenGL mode.

lol, didn't even know there was an OpenGL mode added for Windows, been quite a while since i started it up as been waiting for patches or better hardware before going back to it. Cheers, will give it a look later on.