[quote=Orkultus]In 1999, i gave up pc gaming to use Linux. (...) Also PC gaming wasn't all that big back then./quote]

You must be kidding. :D

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I don't care much about the moral side when it comes to games I have to admit. By that I mean if there is a game that I want to play and it is available on Windows only then I'll probably buy it - in particular if there's a sale - and play it. Plain and simple.

But this is not the only reason. Currenty, for instance, I play the Windows version of Borderlands 2 (which runs smooth like butter) because the Linux port by Aspyr performs abysmal on my system.

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The XCOM port is great.

However, bear in mind that this game has rather static scenes where performance is not that important.
So when it comes to performance we still have to see how good Feral does with fast action games.

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Quoting: burnallSince the Starcraft 2 battles are the most popular streamed matches in game industry, I belive there is a big love between Valve and Blizzard and chance of porting their games to SteamOS (Linux). As it was already mentioned and Newell himself has publicly announced on GDC that Blizzard is one of the supporters of Vulkan, so I belive there is a big chance to see Starcraft 2 on Linux. Otherwise it doesn't make much sense at all with Valve attempts to stream the public battles, if SteamOS doesn't get a piece here.

In that recent Video, Newell mentioned the supporters of Vulkan to be "Valve and Blizzard and Epic and Unity...". Could be completely random but maybe there is a reason why he named Blizzard right after Valve. :)

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Quoting: neffo

Quoting: subIf the target really ist just WinXP - which I doubt - they could just use OpengGL 4.x for modern graphics features, couldn't they AFAIK the drivers are available.

Yes, which is what UE4 does (it still runs on XP). You missed my point though.

The advantage right now is that DirectX works out of the box. The implementation of DirectX is by Microsoft, not the hardware vendors (unlike OpenGL). Have you not used the AMD drivers? (Or Intel for that matter.) DirectX 9.0c is a better target to aim for at the moment, even if it's holding back those games visually.

The reason that Direct3D (mostly) works out of the box, is that hardware vendors put lots and lots of money in the development of their drivers. The hardware vendor (NVidia, AMD) implement the important bits in the driver not Microsoft. Microsoft only does the specs of the Direct3D API and a bit more.

I have a AMD 7950 HD. And yes, the Windows Direct3D 9,10,11 drivers are excellent. The OpenGL implementation not so much, mainly lacking performance at this time. However, the main reason is the amount of work/money you put into the development. I see a good chance for improvements with Vulkan.

Yes, maybe you have point. I still doubt it.

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Quoting: neffo

Quoting: subWell, Newell said (see the GDC interview) Blizzard is a Vulkan supporter.
Why should they support it, if they're not aiming for SteamOS?
If they stick to Windows, they could just stay with Direct3D 12.

It's got nothing to do with Linux. The reason for the support is because of Windows XP.

Windows XP will never support DX12, Windows Vista and 7 might not either (although the later not getting support is unlikely). Blizzard games are net cafe favourites, and keeping the licensing requirements (and subsequently costs to the cafes) lower is important. It's much like the opposite of a Microsoft-published game (when they used to do that) Halo on PC required DX10 (although didn't show much for it). Vista was new and rubbish, but I'm sure some people installed Vista for the game. Take every Blizzard game, every Valve game (but notably even the recent ones), LoL, Quake Live - what do they have in common? They all have XP as a minimum requirement. DirectX 9.0c. An ancient (2004) API.

Vulkan could bring modern graphics to those machines.

If the target really ist just WinXP - which I doubt - they could just use OpengGL 4.x for modern graphics features, couldn't they? AFAIK the drivers are available.

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Sure, as I said it's no prove.

BTW, I wonder what Apple does with its Metal API, more or less a Mantle clone IIRC?

From what Newell said, we can expect Apple to support Vulkan.
But since Apple writes large parts of the GPU drivers on their own,
will they really maintain all three big APIs, i.e. OpenGL, Vulkan and Metal?

I don't think so.

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Quoting: STiATAs much as I'd like to see especially games like SC2 on Linux, I'm unsure this is to happen anytime soon. There is a petitition, there is this forum post - and I may even post there, but I don't think Blizzard will ever give us Linux support. I'd say the chance at the moment is 1 %.

It's up to them to prove me wrong.

Well, Newell said (see the GDC interview) Blizzard is a Vulkan supporter.
Why should they support it, if they're not aiming for SteamOS?
If they stick to Windows, they could just stay with Direct3D 12.

Sure, that's not a prove - but a very strong hint if you ask me.

Maybe we see SC2 - Legacy of the Void for SteamOS?
Beta starts in March and Blizzard betas usually take very long until the final release happens.
This could perfectly match the official SteamMachines/SteamOS launch in autumn
and sounds like a good time scale for the GPU vendors to get their first drivers out.

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I bet the only reason for this move is Vulkan - with all its compute stuff that now gets streamlined with the pressure of Valve. Listen to what Gabe Newell says in the video of one of the previous posts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-ayB6U3l2g&t=263 (4:23)

"We're supporting Vulkan. So, Vulkan is previously known as OpenGL Next. It was... From my POV, you have a lot of interesting things happen in graphics technology right now. But it tends to be restricted to a specific platform or to a specific vendor's hardware products - and Vulkan solves that problem. It is a cross platform - you know it works on Mac, Linux, Windows, SteamOS. It's gonna be supported by Valve, Blizzard, EPIC and Unity and it works with NVidia's graphics hardware and Ati's graphics hardware."

Sounds like the last breath for PhysX from NVidia, trying to keep their API covered in games.
Sure, it won't work...

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I totally love how Valve came up with lots of great stuff at this GDC.
In particular that they didn't tease (better say hype) those things upfront.
Way to go.

I bet it will be similar for HL3.

BTW, that interviewer is amazing. He basically didn't move for almost 6 minutes.
That must be an enormous compression ratio for the left half of the video. :D

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