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Epic Games is killing Linux support for games and software it acquired

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Re: Epic Games is killing Linux support for games and software it acquired

#91

Post by Const-me »

FullyFunctional wrote: post #6

It makes me feel old to remember buying physical media that will still work today, 30 years later. My fictive grand kids will be able to play those games long after the worms have gnawed my bones. Whereas my library of virtual assets will probably evaporate into ether before I'm even retired.

> my library of virtual assets will probably evaporate into ether before I'm even retired.

That’s why I prefer gog over steam, downloading complete offline installers, and keeping them backed up. This way is even more reliable than buying games on physical media. Due to anti-piracy measures, often you can’t easily back up CDs or DVDs.

Re: Epic Games is killing Linux support for games and software it acquired

#92

Post by Const-me »

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #83
FullyFunctional wrote: post #6

It makes me feel old to remember buying physical media that will still work today, 30 years later. My fictive grand kids will be able to play those games long after the worms have gnawed my bones. Whereas my library of virtual assets will probably evaporate into ether before I'm even retired.

> It makes me feel old to remember buying physical media that will still work today, 30 years later. If it uses GPU rendering, possessing physical media doesn't mean much. GPU vendors aren't that diligent about making sure old games run properly on their current hardware offerings. Even for physical media for console games, patches DLC are delivered through the console's online service. Once that ends, as it has for…

> GPU vendors aren't that diligent about making sure old games run properly on their current hardware offerings.

The compatibility situation has improved a lot, thanks to Vista. Windows Vista required D3D9-capable GPU, actually used it to render desktop, and Microsoft’s GUI stack uses the hardware too, e.g. modern WPF is still based on DX9 because compatibility reasons.

While GPU vendors indeed don’t care about gamers running 10 years old games, they can’t ignore business customers running 10 years old LoB software. As a side effect, even very slow (by modern standards) integrated Intel GPUs are usually quite good at running older DX9-based games.

Re: Epic Games is killing Linux support for games and software it acquired

#93

Post by zrobotics »

touristtam wrote: post #86
baud147258 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see the link between interest in the Eastern market and not supporting Linux.

Windows penetration on those regardless of official licenses installed on machine? A good few years ago, MSFT came out saying they didn't care if over 80% of the machine were running unlicensed version of Windows as long as the market share in East Asia for Windows OS was so dominant that no-one would be familiar with anything else.

Why would that matter, though? Even with better support, people gaming on Linux is still a tiny fraction worldwide, Asia is no different there.

I can only think of 2 possible reasons-- (1) the support costs are too high for the number of players (online competitive game, I'm sure there's quite a bit of dev time involved in securing the clients & preventing cheating that is Linux-specific) (2) Valve is supporting Linux, epic is busy feuding with valve, and this is similar to a petty toddler breaking their toy so they don't have to share.

Could be either, but I don't see how market penetration of windows in Asia could explain it

Re: Epic Games is killing Linux support for games and software it acquired

#94

Post by zrobotics »

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #84
Mirioron wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UE4 itself can build to Linux, so this move just baffles me. If anything, I thought Epic was going to push harder on Linux.

> UE4 itself can build to Linux, so this move just baffles me. That could be to support Android or game consoles like the Switch.

I doubt it, unreal tournament 99 had a Linux build. Assuming their engine has been iteratively developed, there has likely always been the ability to build for Linux, even before Android existed.

Re: Epic Games is killing Linux support for games and software it acquired

#95

Post by pjmlp »

jnurmine wrote: post #89
pjmlp wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't support my AMD card, which was doing perfectly fine with fxgl, and DX11 on the Windows side.

I take it your card is pretty old. There's always an option of staying at an older OS (like Ubuntu pre 16.04) to keep fglrx. What is your AMD card, by the way?

Brazos APU.

So the solution is to stay on a legacy kernel, with the security risks it entails, while my Windows 10 can perfectly make use of the DX 11 drivers.

Re: Epic Games is killing Linux support for games and software it acquired

#96

Post by robdachshund »

pjmlp wrote: post #95
jnurmine wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I take it your card is pretty old. There's always an option of staying at an older OS (like Ubuntu pre 16.04) to keep fglrx. What is your AMD card, by the way?

Brazos APU. So the solution is to stay on a legacy kernel, with the security risks it entails, while my Windows 10 can perfectly make use of the DX 11 drivers.

That APU is from 2011. Can't imagine whatever rig this is has much life left. Maybe drivers don't play nice with it because it's nearly a decade old.

Re: Epic Games is killing Linux support for games and software it acquired

#97

Post by vokep »

eswat wrote: post #65
LeoNatan25 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since UT04, what good titles have they done anyway? They have a good engine, but their games have been terrible for a very long time.

They’re starting to acquire more titles now though, so a good chunk of Epic titles will have some quality to them than the ones they were producing themselves since the UT days.

So they're vacuuming up things that are good...and ruining them...great.

Re: Epic Games is killing Linux support for games and software it acquired

#98

Post by chatmasta »

LeoNatan25 wrote: post #31
mistrial9 wrote: post #7

note to self, avoid Epic titles

Since UT04, what good titles have they done anyway? They have a good engine, but their games have been terrible for a very long time.

Fortnite is quite popular, I hear.

Re: Epic Games is killing Linux support for games and software it acquired

#99

Post by sosborn »

qmarchi wrote: post #70
Tsiklon wrote: post #9

There will be a non-zero number of people who will have purchased those games precisely due to there being a linux client available for them. Pulling support for a client of a competitive online game like Rocket League is fundamentally closing the game to those players - as they will be unable to compete online with other players (be it on PC or on the other platforms). I really don't like Epic's change in behaviour…

Sony is in the same class for this. They removed the option for "Other OS" on the PS3, and they suffered dearly for it. https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/10/you-can-now-claim-you...

suffered dearly?

There was a lot of complaining online, but the class action was a minor inconvenience and they now have a pretty solid lead with the ps4.

Re: Epic Games is killing Linux support for games and software it acquired

#100

Post by aeternus »

KingMachiavelli wrote: post #19

While I don't normally make too big of an issue when games lack Linux support, Epic games seems openly hostile to the platform as seen by removing support where it already exists. I have invested the time in setting up a Windows VM w/ PCI passthrough in order to play some games with friends. So I am not a hardline free software user or unwilling to use Windows for playing games. But when a distributor and developer i…

Is this really hostility? Supporting an additional platform is expensive in terms of dev, qa complexity, and support. Maybe this is just a case of looking at the numbers, and the benefit not being worth the cost.
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