Alien: Isolation Officially Confirmed For Linux, Releasing On September 29th

Quoting: kernelhavokMaybe we can return to this nvidia/ATI war once linux has a larger share of the gaming market. As it stands, in it's current state, I cannot blame developers for ignoring linux and just focusing on WIndows with third-parties, like Feral, going back to Mac.

Agreed, we are still about 1%, we're just splitting a hair having this debate. 20% AMD of 1% Linux is 0.02% AMD/Linux or about 200,000 machines, I think our zealot activities are better suited to first get people on Steam Machines & Linux. After that happens in 2 years then we make sure the market is healthy by nvidia having true competition for our $$$.

Quoting: ElectricPrismSo far I gather from all this that people have their magnifying glasses out and are trying to put AMD, nVidia, Intel & Developers under a microscope to understand exactly why AMD Cards aren't selling well and how this will effect the future market landscape of PC Gaming Video Cards.

In my opinion those that are saying that AMD cards simply fail to deliver in performance and stability are painfully correct. This can be dissected to reveal AMD's Linux Drivers are said to be cumbersome & nonperformance. If you really wanna split a hair and dissect the situation further you can say that game developers producing butchered code makes unstable and nonperformance problem worse by making AMD Hardware do less than it was designed to do. (You'd be at least partially correct that that element is co-morbid to other primary issues.)

I think in the case of Alien Isolation it's safe to say that Ferrel Interactive probably had a discussion that went something like this

QuoteFI: "The base package is $80,000-$120,000 which includes a estimated X hours towards the port project."

FI: "This will get you nVidia support which covers about 70-80% of the market"

FI: "AMD & Intel optimizations will cost an extra $10,000 - $20,000 depending on the complexities which our team is ready to do if you'd like, however the market share is only 20% of gamers as of present."

Client: "Lets just start with the base package and if / when we need to add AMD support. We'll tackle that later after we get a better idea of the return on this investment."
FI: "You got it - 2 developers will begin the project as soon as we get payment."
[Client hands Ferrel Interactive $100,000 check]

I just bought a second nVidia GTX 970 for my other Steam Linux Rig - you know why?

1 ) It's stable, 2 ) I expect the 9xx series to be supported fully by nVidia as it'll launch with SteamOS 3 ) I don't wanna d1ck around fixing my GPU or hacking my games to work properly when Linux already requires high maintenance, 4 ) When a Windows Gamer tries to bash on Linux I can instantly make Linux look super bad-ass because of being built with bad-ass gaming hardware & running a 4k monitor with it. (No I'm not a nvidia fanboy or whatever, I just choose the best, and maybe some Linux people would dump Linux if they could afford to get Apples, but I for one use Linux because it's technically superior to OSX and Windows, not because its the economical choice.)

If AMD was further along in the race and had their driver at a more stable & reliable state I would have happily thrown my $800 into their bank account as I love to support the underdog. Hopefully, my next upgrade cycle will be AMD (2x Linux).

Hopefully my Client (1x Linux) & Family's (3x Linux) gaming systems will be AMD (upgrading in 12 months). If AMD proves themselves worthy, they will be selected.

Time and again for the last 3 years I've contacted AMD's support pleading for better Linux drivers and after going through a 30 question contact form that was more difficult and cumbersome to fill out than a job application - I don't even recall getting a reply.

Their overly complicated contact form was simply a symptom of major infrastructure issues which is now evident by their financial crisis & bad market consumer opinions.

In fact, I hypothesize their recent chip maker leaving may have been contributed to by the infrastructure and internal politic issues of the company.

I just hope in 12 months the future is bright, we all have to vote with our wallets by buying steam games and video cards to make Linux & SteamOS succeed.

Yes AMD have make many errors like as you said performance, stability, support launch day, performance/watt relation is lower

And you said too amd have tiny part of market if only count catalyst as supported then amd only have around 8% of market meanwhile nvidia have around 80% of market

For this reason main objective is games run on nvidia because them have most potential buyers compared to amd

However intel must be stay in better form (them must be have now complete support for opengl 4.5 and below) because them have much much resources maybe than nvidia and amd united

In my case use nvidia for similar motives: compatibility, performance, stability, support, low consume and dont need lastest kernel/llvm compiler*

*This point is very complicated because them are critical system components, maybe next year amd stabilize this situation

Hopefully amd shows good new cards and drivers next year and improve issues on existent game catalog

^_^


Last edited by mrdeathjr on 25 September 2015 at 3:23 pm UTC

@mrdeathjr agreed.

On the other hand if someone is building a Media Center PC with a modest budget I would absolutely recommend the AMD A10 APU Kaveri as someone mentioned earlier in this discussion.

Cores - 12 Compute Cores (4 CPU + 8 GPU)
Operating Frequency - 3.7 GHz
Max Turbo Frequency - 4.0GHz
L2 Cache - 2 x 2MB
Manufacturing Tech - 28nm
Integrated Graphics - AMD Radeon R7 series
Graphics Base Frequency - 720 MHz
Thermal Design Power - 95W

Due to the AMDGPU Kernel Driver which uses the HSA design, it's a real winner for integrated graphics potentially in a Mini ITX or Micro ITX form factor.

I'm presently building 1 more Linux Gaming PC in addition to my other 2, AMD just has gotta get back up and put out goods products and they'll return to their golden age soon :)

Quoting: ElectricPrism@mrdeathjr agreed.

On the other hand if someone is building a Media Center PC with a modest budget I would absolutely recommend the AMD A10 APU Kaveri as someone mentioned earlier in this discussion.

Cores - 12 Compute Cores (4 CPU + 8 GPU)
Operating Frequency - 3.7 GHz
Max Turbo Frequency - 4.0GHz
L2 Cache - 2 x 2MB
Manufacturing Tech - 28nm
Integrated Graphics - AMD Radeon R7 series
Graphics Base Frequency - 720 MHz
Thermal Design Power - 95W

Due to the AMDGPU Kernel Driver which uses the HSA design, it's a real winner for integrated graphics potentially in a Mini ITX or Micro ITX form factor.

I'm presently building 1 more Linux Gaming PC in addition to my other 2, AMD just has gotta get back up and put out goods products and they'll return to their golden age soon :)

Good configuration however main problem of apus still remains: seriously lack of cpu power* caused for change cpu design since bulldozer (2 ALUs - 1 FPU for module) for this reason this cpus not are completly quad core

Quote*For this reason change my Pentium G3220 (in various test pass amd quad core apus, especially fpu is used) for Pentium G3258 + Artic Cooling 11 plus for put 4.1Ghz (around 38% improve over 3.0ghz pentium g3220 frecuency)

In my case use mainly wine (only supports vanilla or git stefan dosinger for special cases like as csmt), eon ports and some emulation, in this topics cpu have huge boost


Abyss Odyssey have huge boost with csmt like other cases as zombi or rise of the triad

Vanilla on Pentium G3220 3.0Ghz (around 30 to 33fps)

View video on youtube.com

Vanilla on Pentium G3258 at 4.1Ghz (around 40fps to 45fps*)

View video on youtube.com

CSMT (git stefan dosinger) on Pentium G3258 at 4.1Ghz (around 57 to 62fps)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cG-QRAGV7ZM


In other cases boost is more moderate case mirrors edge, bulletstorm, dead rising 2 and others


However various titles with csmt not up performance, in various cases loss fps performance like as saboteur, test drive unlimited 2, farcry 3 and others

The Saboteur

CSMT (git stefan dosinger)

View video on youtube.com

Vanilla

View video on youtube.com

*However frecuency boost in pentium g3258 is most notorious for all games

Resuming act like as dual core when FPU is used and acting like as quad core when ALU is used, However many apps needs strong fpu performance

Phenom Arquitecture (Monolithic) dont have this problems because them have 1 FPU+1 ALU for core without forget this can allow tri core cpus with 1 fpu for core

Without forget very slow cache memory (L2,L3) compared to intel, normally L2 have minor latency than L3 but in L2 in AMD is more slow than L3 on Intel cpus and lower ipc per cicle

Hopefullly zen shows true improvements in before situations described

For highlight gpu hardware are very good, only needs good drivers

:)


Last edited by mrdeathjr on 26 September 2015 at 8:32 am UTC

Quoting: GuestThe problem isn't AMD.
I can predict this game will run poorly. I've lost interest in anything from Feral after seeing the quality of previous ports.

Hard, hard evidence points to the contrary.

Quoting: ricki42This name calling is getting tiresome. Not everyone who has a nvidia card must be a fanboy, some people just want the currently best performance. In this discussion, it's already been implied that people using nvidia are braindead, now fanboys. This doesn't contribute anything, and really doesn't convince anyone of your argument.

I'm absolutely a fanboy -- of linux. I try to steer people away from AMD if they're considering buying new hardware to build a linux machine because I think their experience with an AMD card is going to be "what is this buggy linux crap and why is it so slow?"

The AMD zealots aren't doing linux any favors by recommending people use their cards at this point. If you're so stuck on AMD then I think the best course of action is to either stick with Windows or to remain silent and endure the poor drivers, and keep hoping that some day they will improve substantially. I've been using linux for sixteen years now and that big AMD improvement has never materialized.

Quoting: liamdaweI have one and only one thought about this:

QuoteFuck.

I will stream it on release day, save me. Why do I do this to myself.

I checked to see if there was a text entry box for reporting a comment. I was going to report it and have the text read "Wuss."

:P

I have a NVIDIA card, but I give zero shits about whether it's Intel, AMD or NVIDIA: as long as it works great with the latest games. I'll probably buy AMD for my next card, because the prices on the N* cards and getting ridiculous. I'm just waiting for Vulkan!

In space no one can hear you crap your pants...

Great game.

BTW I saw these just a bit ago:
http://support.feralinteractive.com/docs/en/alienisolation/latest/linux/readme/
http://support.feralinteractive.com/docs/en/alienisolation/latest/linux/faqs/

From the second:

QuoteAMD

AMD graphics cards are not currently supported by Alien: Isolation.

If you wish to play the game using an AMD graphics card, we recommend that you update your graphics driver to AMD Catalyst version 15.9 or higher. You may be able to play the game, but are likely to see graphical glitches and experience performance or stability issues.