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Good and bad news to share this Tuesday morning. Stardock Entertainment have given an update on the status of porting Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation to Vulkan and Linux.

It's been a long road! After Stardock CEO, Brad Wardell, opened a forum post on Steam asking to see Linux requests to bring Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation to Linux back in May 2017 we've been waiting to finally see the port. That ends now though, as the latest update has basically said it's not happening.

Why? Well, Wardell said the "performance is just not acceptable" and while they could fix it, it wouldn't make sense just for Linux. Sad to hear, but it does make sense when you consider this is a game from 2016 that doesn't really have a big player-base. It also makes even more sense with what they said next…

So what's the good news? Wardell said "Ashes II (and our other new titles) should, in theory, ship with Linux support off the bat thanks to this effort" with some comments about Stardock originally coming from "the OS/2 world" and so they're "very much motivated to make our games work on Linux too".

A shame we won't see this older title after waiting so long but if they do deliver on their future titles, that's pretty great. At least now they can continue polishing up their work on Vulkan for both Windows and Linux for their next titles, to then make a bigger splash with a new release.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: Misc, RTS, Steam, Vulkan
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DMG Oct 1, 2019
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TheSHEEEP Oct 1, 2019
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Well, that just makes sense.

Porting a years-old title to Linux doesn't make any sense to begin with, honestly. I never got why they did that - but at least something good may yet come from their efforts.
Generally, Linux sales only seem to be worth it from a pure business perspective if they happen right on or very close to release.
Kohrias Oct 1, 2019
Let's see if "Ashes II (and [...] other new titles)" will really come out on GNU/Linux. If not one might get the idea all this talk was just PR lies.
Furor Oct 1, 2019
With Zero-K I don't miss that game at all.
Leopard Oct 1, 2019
DXVK was beating their native VLK renderer so i think that is not a surprise. And i think their future games with VLK will always be subpar. Since those are renderers that made up with Stadia in mind , not desktop consumers. So no need for optimization, Stadia can run it up anyway.
Teodosio Oct 1, 2019
Quoting: LeopardDXVK was beating their native VLK renderer so i think that is not a surprise. And i think their future games with VLK will always be subpar. Since those are renderers that made up with Stadia in mind , not desktop consumers. So no need for optimization, Stadia can run it up anyway.
I don't think this is warranted. Actually, the opposite is true: the more optimization they can squeeze out of Stadia, the less resources needed, the more profit.
gojul Oct 1, 2019
I simply don't believe them, the same way I don't believe SMS about Project Cars... But frankly if it works with Steamplay without crashing that's fine.


Last edited by gojul on 1 October 2019 at 9:17 am UTC
Leopard Oct 1, 2019
Quoting: Teodosio
Quoting: LeopardDXVK was beating their native VLK renderer so i think that is not a surprise. And i think their future games with VLK will always be subpar. Since those are renderers that made up with Stadia in mind , not desktop consumers. So no need for optimization, Stadia can run it up anyway.
I don't think this is warranted. Actually, the opposite is true: the more optimization they can squeeze out of Stadia, the less resources needed, the more profit.

More optimization for Stadia...

I doubt they will do it given that Stadia literally have horsepower to run shittiest ports just fine. I bet AC Odyssey's VLK port was like that.

Let's say they will actually do optimizations. That will be clearly Vega 56 and AMDVLK driver specific. No need to test on another hardware and that is the actual point. On that update post Draginol hints this by saying

" The difference based on the video card set up is pretty drastic too (not blaming any video card drivers here but the variance is pretty huge and would result in some unhappy people)."

Isn't that obvious there will be never ever an intention to make it run on Linux desktop?
sub Oct 1, 2019
If they fixed all blocker issues and if it's doable without
excessive work they should release a Linux version.
Even if it won't pay by means of revenues.

It's bad business practice to simply not deliver promised products and will harm your rep.

Take it this way:

We promised, we'll deliver (even if it took years) - please consider supporting us with our next project.
Liam Dawe Oct 1, 2019
Quoting: subIf they fixed all blocker issues and if it's doable without
excessive work they should release a Linux version.
Even if it won't pay by means of revenues.

It's bad business practice to simply not deliver promised products and will harm your rep.

Take it this way:

We promised, we'll deliver (even if it took years) - please consider supporting us with our next project.
They didn't promise anything, in fact they clearly said before they were not making a promise. This harms nothing. Anyone who purchased it previously did so knowingly they were getting a Windows game that *may* end up with a Linux port.
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