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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

#101

Post by theandrewbailey »

Ace17 wrote: post #23
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 fictive grand kids will be able to play those games long after the worms have gnawed my bones. I would love that you be right. And by far, I strongly prefer physical media. However, physical media is no guarantee either. - Sometimes, the pain is on purpose: some apps require an online activation, and the corresponding service, 30 years later, is not available anymore. - Sometimes, it's a lack of foresight from t…

I agree, and add:

Sometimes bits rot, and the media becomes unreadable. Sometimes you're able to back it up, sometimes not.

Sometimes hardware and software incompatibilities appear. I built a late 90s/2000 era PC for that period of PC gaming (Windows 98, CRT). Other times, you get lucky and it's fixed: Freelancer won't run on Vista, but will on 7.

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

#102

Post by m-p-3 »

aeternus wrote: post #100
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.

It works both ways, and I do not think buying stuff from Epic Games is worth the cost anymore.

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

#103

Post by naikrovek »

zrobotics wrote: post #94
ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Unreal Engine 4 is a fresh codebase I believe; not a descendant of UE3.

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

#104

Post by quantumfoam »

I bought an HP x360z Envy recently and added PlayOnLinux which seems to be similar to going through the whole WINE setup of installer -- easy to do. The Android MOBAs I play with desktop client support work without issue. Getting Radeon driver support for VEGA 8 is an entirely different matter though. I'm running Fedora 30 and before that 29, before it's release, the Cheese camera app would flip through and flicker with the IR camera with no easy way to resolve it and thus, making it unusable. It sucks, because the only thing tying me to my Razer Stealth is gaming and that in turn, to Windows. I can't say Razer is hardware I could recommend though, think of it as the Apple of gaming hardware. Steep price with bloatware and in my case, the ocassional repair that leaves you without a laptop for days (my laptop case warped due to heat generated). Rather than replacing it because of fault, they just swapped the case and sent it back. I can expect this issue to happen in a few months again. Razer support is OK -- I've gone through a few cases where I had to talk to a x-tier technician who resolved a problem with the Razer Core e-GPU. Will gaming on Linux ever work? who knows. I'm excited for Google Stadia and hope it doesn't go the way of OnLive.

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

#105

Post by greenhatman »

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.

I already can't play anything on physical media. I don't have an optical drive anymore.

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

#106

Post by Sabinus »

HissingMachine wrote: post #73
pjmlp wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1% of desktop market is counting pennies for AAA studios.

Before 2007 mobile gaming might have been pennies for AAA studios. A wise business move isn't about closing doors but peeking through them, the next stage might very well be gaming on the cloud and cloud rarely runs on windows. This is just my few pennies about that train of thought.

Imo no one will game on the cloud. The latencies involved are too great for fluid gameplay.

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

#107

Post by likeclockwork »

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.

So. Your old (2011), low tier, graphics hardware doesn't work on Linux because AMD scrapped their old terrible driver and abandoned it in their new driver? The company you bought your APU from dropped support for you, what has that to do with Linux? How is that not just another case of another company dropping support for Linux on a product after they already have your money? (Pennies on the dollar, I think you called it.)

AMD's low-middle tier hardware is known to be mediocre, their drivers are known to be poor, and they're also known to drop support for hardware much faster than their competitors.

Yeah, you can run Linux on nearly anything.. but that doesn't mean you should try to sit in front of an old machine running old low quality components from manufacturers that don't support their low margin products.

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

#108

Post by h1d »

m-p-3 wrote: post #102
aeternus wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It works both ways, and I do not think buying stuff from Epic Games is worth the cost anymore.

Both ways at very different amount of benefit and loss.

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

#109

Post by pjmlp »

likeclockwork wrote: post #107
pjmlp wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So. Your old (2011), low tier, graphics hardware doesn't work on Linux because AMD scrapped their old terrible driver and abandoned it in their new driver? The company you bought your APU from dropped support for you, what has that to do with Linux? How is that not just another case of another company dropping support for Linux on a product after they already have your money? (Pennies on the dollar, I think you calle…

Yet the Windows driver is still supported, go figure.

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

#110

Post by scjosh »

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…

Would you mind sharing your VM setup with PCI passthrough? I had looked into this previouly, but guides I saw seemed to only let you pass it through depending on settings at boot of the host OS. From what I understand, this means that if I wanted to pass the GPU through to the VM, I would lose it in the host OS until I reboot again. Does your setup let you hotswap it w/o a reboot?
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