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AAA Gaming on Asahi Linux

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Re: AAA Gaming on Asahi Linux

#311

Post by michaelmrose »

pjmlp wrote: post #300
sandworm101 wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Close, but the root is more nuanced. Once upon a time, Microsoft was talking about regulating "apps" on windows like Apple does for the iPhone. Valve saw the writing on the wall: a potential ban on violent or otherwise adult-themed games. So Valve started the steambox project. Get the games running on linux/WINE and they could tell Microsoft to push off. Years later, we have the steamdeck as a revolutionary product a…

Running Windows games on top, which will work until it doesn't.

What trouble do you foresee?

Re: AAA Gaming on Asahi Linux

#312

Post by michaelmrose »

pjmlp wrote: post #295
talldayo wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Because people love to celebrate Proton as if it was doing anything for GNU/Linux games, when in reality is another OS/2 take on Windows.

The practical implication is that one can click one button and buy install and play thousands of games on Linux. Only MS stockholders are liable to care about the implications for Windows.

Re: AAA Gaming on Asahi Linux

#313

Post by kbolino »

pjmlp wrote: post #299
kbolino wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a small part of it, I think. They've almost certainly spent a lot more on pouring time and effort into Linux than they ever would have saved on license fees. It seems like Valve doesn't want to be beholden to Microsoft in any way. They support Windows because that's where the users and the games are, but they don't want Microsoft to be able to rug-pull them either.

Except that they are, to the extent they depend on Microsoft technologies for the games that run on Proton.

As far as I am aware, neither Valve nor the independent Wine/Proton developers are bound by any licensing agreements with Microsoft. They are clean-room implementing the same technologies, but they are not beholden to Microsoft in any legal way. Of course, drastic changes in laws or policy regimes could alter this dynamic, but those are out-of-context risks.

In order for Microsoft to rug-pull the technology (which is quite different from rug-pulling the business model), they'd have to break compatibility on Windows itself. Video games remain a major reason for home users to run Windows. Making ABI-breaking changes to Win32 or DirectX is just not very likely to happen. And if it did happen, it would be a boon to Valve and not a harm.

The biggest risk (and this would be a classic Microsoft move, to be fair) I can foresee is aggressive API changes that make it hard for Valve/Wine/Proton to keep up but also make it hard for game developers not to. I'm not exactly sure what this would look like, and a lot of the core technologies are pretty stable by now, but it's a possibility. It's not, however, going to harm anything that already exists.

Re: AAA Gaming on Asahi Linux

#314

Post by sweeter »

talldayo wrote: post #308
pjmlp wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because people love to celebrate Proton as if it was doing anything for GNU/Linux games, when in reality is another OS/2 take on Windows.

It doesn't have to do anything for GNU/Linux games, that's been an option for years and it's a ghost town a-la Metal-native games. Valve (and the community) are doing the right thing by ignoring the Apple strategy of enforcing distribution terms they will abandon within the decade. Developers that want to program for Linux still can. It's just as stupid as it was when the first Steam Machine rolled out. By supporting…

Yea. You either have to pump a ton of money into it like Apple tries to do to get devs to target your OS, or you can take matters into your own hands and do the unthinkable with Wine and Proton. Its unironically a silver bullet solution. Otherwise we'd all be waiting for years to make 1/1000th the progress

Re: AAA Gaming on Asahi Linux

#315

Post by achandlerwhite »

dagmx wrote: post #154
achandlerwhite wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Mac efforts rely on MoltenVK for and Vulkan needs which itself relies on the underlying Metal API. As I understand it Asahi/Honeykrisp driver for Vulkan does not rely on the Metal API so it actually can do more conformant Vulkan than Crossover/Whisky can. For example tranform feedback and other geometry shader stuff will work on Asahi. MoltenVK is working on it, but not there yet.

You’re ignoring D3DMetal which is what is most commonly going to be used and equivalent to what Proton is doing to convert D3D to VK. Most games are D3D. A very small minority are Vulkan from the get go.

On many games I have tried DX => DXVK => MoltenVk => Metal is significantly faster than DX => D3DMetal. For example XCOM2 is about twice the frames per second (yeah it has an official Mac version but it is even slower).

Re: AAA Gaming on Asahi Linux

#316

Post by echoangle »

vundercind wrote: post #301
jakogut wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, the successor to CS:Go is...Counter-Strike 2.

Oh damn I got the order on those mixed up. Was probably thinking of CS Source. Regardless, point stands: they hate the number 3.

They’re probably doing it on purpose as a joke at this point.

Re: AAA Gaming on Asahi Linux

#317

Post by rowanG077 »

pjmlp wrote: post #300
sandworm101 wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Close, but the root is more nuanced. Once upon a time, Microsoft was talking about regulating "apps" on windows like Apple does for the iPhone. Valve saw the writing on the wall: a potential ban on violent or otherwise adult-themed games. So Valve started the steambox project. Get the games running on linux/WINE and they could tell Microsoft to push off. Years later, we have the steamdeck as a revolutionary product a…

Running Windows games on top, which will work until it doesn't.

I mean practice has shown it's not a problem. What else is there?

Re: AAA Gaming on Asahi Linux

#318

Post by shmerl »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #50

> Tessellation enables games like The Witcher 3 to generate geometry. The M1 has hardware tessellation, but it is too limited for DirectX, Vulkan, or OpenGL. We must instead tessellate with arcane compute shaders > Geometry shaders are an older, cruder method to generate geometry. Like tessellation, the M1 lacks geometry shader hardware so we emulate with compute. Is this potentially a part of why Apple doesn't want…

That might be an excuse, but that's hardly a reason. They are simply extreme lock-in proponents and don't want to support cross platform graphics API. That's the real reason.

Re: AAA Gaming on Asahi Linux

#319

Post by p_l »

pjmlp wrote: post #276
scheeseman486 wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wine and DXVK are already running on Android and they play Windows games with the rendering and computational complexity of Fallout 4 at playable framerates on many of the latest smartphone SoCs. It's still WIP, but it's already gone beyond proof of concept, people are using them. Valve don't need the developers to be on-board in order to run their games on anything else, that's why Proton exists. What Valve want is…

It looks more like how to avoid paying Windows licenses for the SteamDeck to me.

I don't remember how officially it was stated, but original push by Valve for steam on Linux with Proton was to remove their dependency on Microsoft - a hedge against possible future ecosystem-impacting decisions in Redmond.

Making SteamDeck use windows wouldn't impact prices much, Microsoft is really friendly for putting windows by OEMs. Could even run modified to act like current steam deck.

Instead, SteamDeck is there to drive up testing on Proton or straight forward porting to Linux, which just availability on Linux and the previous steam machine didn't drive up

Re: AAA Gaming on Asahi Linux

#320

Post by shmerl »

ribit wrote: post #209
miohtama wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why Apple does not just implement it? They have more resources than anyone in the world. Patents?

Are you talking about Vulkan or about geometry shaders? The later is simple: because geometry shaders are a badly designed feature that sucks on modern GPUs. Apple has designed Metal to only support things that are actually fast. Their solution for geometry generation is mesh shaders, which is a modern and scalable feature that actually works. If you are talking about Vulkan, that is much more complicated. My guess i…

Nothing stops them from providing their own API and Vulkan both. So your arguments only make sense for why they might want other API but they don't make sense on the part reasons for completely denying Vulkan support alongside it. There is no good reason for that and the apparent reason is lock-in.
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