Quoting: anthWhen Aspyr or Feral port a game they publish it too, and for purchases on Steam which publisher gets paid depends on the platform. If a port is coming but isn't out yet then they aren't going to be paid; I hope that the SteamOS sale a while back with as-yet unported games was an exception but there is no evidence of that. Other stores get Steam keys from a certain publisher so we need to care care that this was the company we want to support.

Virtual Programming aren't a publisher so things are a bit different, and we don't know how it works with them. The publisher is going to be able to see what platforms a game is used with on Steam but only VP and the companies they work for know if that affects how much they are paid.

A perfect explanation. +1

Additionally, in might be worth noting that mobile purchases (ie android steam app) count towards windows, unless overridden due to playtime within the first two weeks I'd assume.

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Quoting: MGOidSo, witch version of OpenGL it needs? Another Feral ports need 4.3, but if this only need 4.0 or 4.1 it should be playable with AMD OSS drivers.

Even if it's not solely using <=opengl4.1 radeon users might still be able to play the game by overriding opengl extension support, depending on whether the opengl4.2+ extensions it requires are finished in mesa or how trivial they are for the game to render properly.
That's how people initially got shadow of mordor running on the radeon.

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Quoting: alex

Quoting: tuubi

Quoting: melkemindOther than that, shouldn't common OpenGL functions work the same on both cards? These are open standards that both drivers should meet...right?

My understanding is that Nvidia hacks around a lot of common mistakes and bad practices in OpenGL code. Basically it'd be better for compatibility if games were primarily (but not exclusively) tested and optimized on an AMD gpu, as this would - at least in theory - result in cleaner code that would most likely run just fine on Nvidia's drivers as well. Although coding strictly to spec without great documentation and tooling (test suites etc.) is really hard and time-consuming.

Your understanding is incorrect. Nvidia has always been the top quality company when it comes to OpenGL implementation.

https://sv.dolphin-emu.org/blog/2013/09/26/dolphin-emulator-and-opengl-drivers-hall-fameshame [External Link]

OpenGL is not some pizza dough you can just squish in any way you want and get things to work. That's not how software development works.

His understandment seems quite right, OpenGL is a specification, its drivers are not strictly controlled by anyone other than the vendors themselves.

Nvidia does use some shady techniques in order to achieve greater performance "in exchange" for breaking opengl's specification.

Most devs are developing with nvidia in mind and thus nvidia ends up "defining" the actual protocol in use.

Nvidia is the one to screw up everybody...

Here [External Link]'s a nice read

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Quoting: Imants

Quoting: subDoesn't this statement, again, shows that many developers develop on Nvidia first, then try with an AMD card and are disappointed - or even blame AMD for bad performance?

And what did you expect develop on AMD and the see that performance on NVidia where your most of the profit will come from is sub par. I don't think so. Of course you develop on card which will give you most profit and then test on secondary cards which would be nice to work but not mandatory.

This way of thinking got us this far...

Secondary cards? There's no such thing as secondary hardware, there's only miscalleneous hardware and amd is still a long way from getting kicked out of the market.

Amd support not being mandatory now? I honestly can't believe I'm reading this, almost sounds like a fanboy reply.

With such a consumer-friendly comment coming out of the keyboard of a linux (minority) user I'm starting to wonder how come devs still release linux games for us to play...

I agree with sub on this one, they indeed do seem to be developing specifically for nvidia. Then they complain about amd and after a while they decide to drop amd support in their games, that's always the plan. Let's applaud them (everyone) for it, shall we?

I'm not saying amd (fglrx/radeonsi) can currently compete with nvidia when it comes to which driver offers the most opengl performance (illegal implementation or not) and up to a great percentage that's due to amd's own support, though developing a linux game without ever testing on amd (if that was indeed the case) and expecting it to its whole, already lesser, potential is just infuriating to say the least.

They don't have to test on a single system throughout development and in any case switching between nvidia and amd once in a while is not that hard either. It's their job after all, right?

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Quoting: Ivancillo

Quoting: Eike

Quoting: Beta VersionAnyone know if GOG counts Linux purchases?

AFAIR that's one of the companies (Humble is another one), that does count them separatly.

But how?

HumbleBundle has a checkbox to select OS on purschase.

GoG.com doesn't.

Could be done in a couple of ways. Your browser reports your platform (user agent) so they could be solely relying on that. It could also be that they base their assumptions regarding your platform of choice based on the platform versions downloaded of the games purchsed (if downloaded soonish), a combination of that and the browser platform or even your platform history/preferences from previous purchases.

I believe liam has tweeted them [External Link] regarding this in the past. sadly they wouldn't reply :/

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Quoting: hardpenguinWasn't there that other factor deciding if the game counts as a Linux purchase? The platform you will use the most to play the game for 2 weeks after the purchase? Surely BundleStars won't be able to track that, but Steam, and thus the publisher, will.

This is the case with games purchased directly from the steam store, not all-purpose steam keys.
Keys can be setup to act as a specific platform's purchase and therefore count towards this platform's purchases but windows keys (which is what some of these stores solely distribute) only count towards windows no matter the game being purchased supports steamplay and therefore can be played in all three platforms.

Quoting feral's edddeduck [External Link] from /r/linux_gaming:

With keys outside of Steam the revenue is counted at point of purchase so unless they have been specifically setup they will record as Windows. For it to record as a Mac or Linux key is needs to be part of a Mac or Linux key batch.

Steam and therefore game publishers can still consider their users' system graphs IF they care to do so.

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It should be pointed out that there are some significant limitations, which we'll detail along with the start of the beta.

I'm not even sure whether I'd be happier with those limitations being performance/visual ones or feature-related, though it's probably going to be some form of the latter :/

I guess performance variations are something that's to be expected anyway and I don't expect vp to omit any visual settings (especially since they're wrapping direct3d rather than reimplement the engine for opengl). I can only assume that the content editor is to be left out of the linux/mac versions +some 3rd party mods might be useless too.

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Great news, though indeed nought too surprising.

I expect them to include a -vulkan launch option, at least till they prioritize it after the drivers stabilize, just like they do for direct3d versions in windows.

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Quoting: EagleDeltaAs much as this will be easier for some users, it removes the ability to have the package manager control the updates.

I personally would prefer Galaxy, Deb or a PPA. While GOG can do whatever they want as a vendor, going outside of package managers is generally seen as bad practice on both the Desktop AND Server side.

What you suggest would make the lives of non-debian-based users slightly more complicated without any reason whatsoever, users would be required to unpack those deb files and then proceed to move the files to their desired installation directory.

I know gog only officially supports ubuntu and mint, though there's no reason to hinder/exclude anyone else.

I doubt gog would keep updating package dependencies for all of their linux titles (I doubt they'd include package dependencies anyway) so, since those scripts can handle moving the archive contents to the default installation directories, the only benefit of using .deb installers (version control) would be eliminated.

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Quoting: Crazy PenguinWell, to pitchfork one developer wouldn't be enough. Meanwhile I have 300+ Games for Linux on Steam and my Homedir is a bloody mess :/ Some save in My\ Games, others in .local/share, other create their own (Dot-)Directories and so on.

I think thats something which should be discussed with Valve &amp; the Developers, esp. if there is an useful Standard.

On the other hand, it's on my gaming machine, so I'm not really bothered by it. :D

That's the main reason why I'm running steam under a separate user in my main session... Even if valve wanted to strengthen support for xdg or made their own standard they still wouldn't be capable of forcing the devs to support it :/

Judging by the steam greenlight I wouldn't expect them to create any strict rules regarding steamos games or add any other quality requirements for a game to be released under steam.

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