Oh, right, this calls for the ice fishing joke.
OK, so this guy decides to go ice fishing. So he goes out onto the ice with his fishing pole and hatchet and whatnot, and starts chopping a hole in the ice. But then a voice booms out of nowhere, "THERE'S NO FISH DOWN THERE!"
He looks around startled, doesn't see anybody . . . so he moves a little ways off and starts chopping again. But then the voice calls out, "THERE'S NO FISH DOWN THERE, EITHER!"
He looks around, wondering what's going on, eventually shrugs and moves a bit further. This time before he can even start the voice booms out, "THERE'S NO FISH DOWN THERE, EITHER!!"
So he yells back, "WHO ARE YOU?"
And the voice calls out,

Spoiler, click me

"THE ARENA MANAGER!"

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You know, if you had asked me a few years ago whether anyone was ever likely to say about Linux "We have gained a few fishing titles in the last year or so" I would have laughed hysterically. We used to be more like hoping to be able to say "We have gained a few titles in the last year or so."

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How do you even have turn-based MMOs? Wouldn't everyone spend the entire time waiting for other people to take turns?

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Quoting: amonobeax

Quoting: AnxiousInfusion

Quoting: BlackBloodRumMaybe now we will find out just how well Vulkan can really perform on wait hang on what OS? oh yeah. GNU/Linux! :woot:

Hold up, it's still going to be just a port. We will only truly know once a game has been built from the ground up for Vulkan.

Exactly.

I really hope I'm wrong but I doubt that Feral's Vulkan versions will have Doom level performances.

In order to have that kind of an impact Vulkan need to be implemented at the GAME ENGINE level, which Feral can't/won't do AFAIK (would be too costly probably). Almost all their ports currently using wrappers also indicate the same.

In other words the "Vulkan" version of the game will most likely benefit those gamers that have poor OpenGL performance (cough AMD owners) because of subpar drivers.

If I'm right NVIDIA users won't feel much perf difference between OpenGL and Vulkan, sadly

Far as I'm concerned it's not really about any of that. What it's about is:
--Feral showing that Vulkan is real and viable for real games that people really buy commercially and play
--Feral acquiring and demonstrating expertise with Vulkan, such that if anyone out there develops a Vulkan game initially for Windows only, Feral will be able to easily and cheaply tweak it for cross-platform use
--Same to a lesser extent for DX12 games, which by all accounts will be easier/better ports to Vulkan than to OpenGL

Basically, this move helps increase Vulkan's general viability and mindshare and the future efficiency of Linux ports and cross-platform development. It's not about whatever existing games they happen to port using Vulkan instead of or as well as OpenGL.

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Quoting: MaCroX95

Quoting: HoriIt's unfortunate that many games perform worse on Linux than Windows but it's to be expected! We're a new platform (in the gaming industry), so it WILL TAKE TIME for developers to get used to it, for the graphics APIs to evolve to support the demand, and for developer tools to evolve as well but mostly to appear in the first place, because many needed tools are simply inexistent here.

I personally am for more ports even if they perform worse... as long as they are playable and, as you said, they offer a good experience. There's no other way!

It will not just take time, it will take PEOPLE and PURCHASES to force developers to do something good for their greedy pockets. If they prduce for a few thousand people they will never even consider Vulkan as they didn't OpenGL for games...

Well, in general I'd agree that for Linux gaming to succeed it's gonna need Linux gamers, a chicken-egg problem we keep hoping Valve will help us break.
But Vulkan is a somewhat different issue--Vulkan isn't only for Linux (as such) it's for things like Android, form factors like phones and tablets. The total market size of the non-Windows platforms Vulkan will run on and be useful to is very large and would be even if the Linux desktop somehow disappeared entirely. So, Vulkan has a good chance of success independent of Linux, and Linux gaming should be able to piggyback on that success.

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I suspect it's way too hard for me, which is a pity because it looks so cool.

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I know this question is kind of pointless, but . . .
Why does a crow in a dark fantasy setting shoot stuff that looks like bullets and blaster bolts and lasers and sometimes get a force field? Shouldn't it shoot, like, arrows or snapping crow beaks or lightning bolts or the energy spirits of dead bugs that home on your enemies and zap/exorcise them so they turn transparent and fade out, or stuff like that? And instead of a forcefield get surrounded by a glowy pentagram thing or something?

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Still possible. Great. But is it still plausible?

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There definitely seems to be a learning curve when it comes to porting games. Feral has gotten very good at it; as a result, they can probably do it cheaper than most big game companies who don't develop cross-platform could do it for themselves. And so it's very likely that many games Feral ports would not have been ported in-house, since it wouldn't have been worth it if developers did it who hadn't learned how and would take a bunch of time/money to get the job done.
Hurrah for Feral, what I'm saying.

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Quoting: ElectricPrism

Quoting: MblackwellThe track pad is far superior to a stick for FPS.

Wut? No seriously I would like to hear your argument? For me I'm a billion times faster and preciser on twin joysticks.

Of course I know this is probably a case of "what works for me" and "what works for you" are totally different.

I have no personal experience on such things, but my understanding is that
--it depends on what you're used to and trained on, so that someone who's got muscle memory for years of twin joysticks will find them better
--but generally, for FPS those with about even experience with both typically find mouse + keyboard significantly more precise for things like aiming
--and mouse users have found that the Steam controller's trackpad mimics the mouse experience much more closely than any other controller

So, one would expect that for those with mouse experience the Steam controller would be better than a twin-joystick controller for FPS.

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