Should come in handy for future Feral ports! ;D

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Nice! Will wait for DRM-free release though. They are actively seeking suitable store now (in case nothing will work they promised to distribute themselves).

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Quoting: EhvisMaybe Alm88 missed the "_fd" versions for non-Windows operating systems.

No, I did not miss them. I just imagined the situation of a developer writing a game for Windows and using VK_KHX_external_memory_win32 everywhere in the code. And then, when the time to port on Linux comes (s)he needs to replace all those occurrences with VK_KHX_external_memory_fd counterparts! Or to use #IFDEF / #ELIF directives everywhere. And that's provided that "win32" and "fd" versions are equivalent for the code and not require some vastly different usage.

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Quoting: liamdaweHumble Bundle may have done a small push with a few small indie games, but they didn't really push the platform forward at all.

They pushed the system out of its cursed equilibrium and that's what matters the most.

Quoting: liamdaweAll they did was continue the race to the bottom for indie developers finances with cheap bundles, now they hardly ever do them.

Those "indie developers" were quite happy to play along. Up to the point of Tommy Refenes eating his words of "Linux can f*ck off for all I care". Anyway, you are right, it has nothing to do with Steam Machines' flop.

Quoting: liamdaweNo, there's a few loud people. You don't get a good idea of how people feel based on a minority of a few people bashing ports.

Here is another proverb: "There is no smoke without fire". If we are getting a constant inflow of negative port responses then something is definitely off there.

Quoting: liamdaweIf they weren't performing well enough for the majority to be happy enough to continue buying ports, these porting houses would have stopped porting by now.

Well enough to be profitable? Probably true. Well enough for the majority? That's just pure speculation without the "number of buyers to total number of Linux users" ratio.

Quoting: liamdaweI am just surprised by the absolutely determined pessimistic attitudes by some, it makes me wonder why they visit if only to downplay our progress, it's strange. :)

No one's negative or pessimistic here! We just did not agree on the cause of said progress.

Quoting: liamdaweFeel free to keep arguing, but I don't see a point in continuing it on with you. We have obviously very opposing views here and I do have other work to do :)

Yes, articles won't write themselves! I feel I already wasted enough of your time. Thank you! ;)

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Quoting: kellerkindt

Quoting: Alm888VK_KHX_external_memory_win32

VK_KHX_external_semaphore_win32

What?.. And this was somehow standardized by Khronos?! So, now we have OS-specific functions as part of the standard or what? I'm confused, seriously confused!

The extension - and therefore the optional support including bahvaior definitions - has been standardized. Before using those, one needs to check whether the extension is supported since its not core Vulkan.

???

Then why do I see "VK_KHX_external_memory_win32" here? Does it not stand for Khronos? In case of OpenGL additional extensions were labeled "GL_EXT_someting", not "GL_ARB_someting".

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VK_KHX_external_memory_win32

VK_KHX_external_semaphore_win32

What?.. And this was somehow standardized by Khronos?! So, now we have OS-specific functions as part of the standard or what? I'm confused, seriously confused!

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Quoting: LeopardAhh,i remembered you. You are the guy who thinks SteamOS is not Linux.

Well, that's probably me, yes. :-) With one correction: while SteamOS is Linux (for now, at least), Linux is not SteamOS.

Quoting: LeopardIf you're doing all compares with Windows,then we must ditch Linux.

??? Ah! You probably have meant "comparisons". No, I do not agitate for Windows. On the contrary, in fact. But let's not self-delude ourselves. We need a clear view of where we are, our strengths and weaknesses in order to use the former and eliminate the latter. It is no point to tell "performance is fine" and "works for me" to ourselves while it is clearly not the case.

Quoting: LeopardYou're expecting these millions of users of Windows to migrate Linux,...

In fact, yes, I am. I dare to ask what are the other alternatives to gain more Linux users? Shall we... breed?

Quoting: Leopard...you're very wrong.

We shall see...

Quoting: LeopardFirst of all, most of these users are don't know the existence of Linux.

Are you telling this to me? Seriously? Well, I myself described the situation in our education system on the previous page here, so rest assured, I am well aware.

Quoting: LeopardSecond thing is,Steam Survey is false.I have done so many Linux installations to many computers and set them with "must have" programs.Like Steam.And every time i do this i only confronted two Surveys out of twenty machine.

Just twenty? That's hardy the pool of measurements for analysis. In the case of Steam we are talking about millions of surveys.

Quoting: LeopardAlso i know Windows and some people asking me for a help for Windows.I did so many formats etc. and every single time we installed Steam,every time that fucking Survey pops up.Every time.

You can consider yourself lucky! One time i threw game dice and managed to get even numbers 29 times of 30. That's how real random numbers work.

Quoting: LeopardI think there is some shit going on with Survey,that can't be a coincidence.

Please! Everyone is innocent until proven guilty. And Valve has no motive to garble the results against its own "Steam for Linux". What's the point?! All those rumors are just pure speculation without substance.

Quoting: tmtvlThe unfortunate thing is that they won't be willing to put the money into the meager amount of potential extra sales (don't look at absolute numbers, those are deceiving, look at percentages).

Nobody is willing to put in 10% more funds to get a potential 1% more sales. And we come back in our vicious circle (not enough platform selling games -> not many people want to switch -> not many devs want to port their games -> not enough platform selling games).

You should probably tell this to Liam, not me.

But let's stay positive! While the big AAA-devs are gonna dismiss us, it is not the case with "indies" and Kickstarter projects. After all, money invested early, when the team desperately needs to build at least semi-working Alpha for conference, are 10 times more valuable to the project than money from the "Steam Sale". And we are willing to go twice the distance than Windows users who can just go to Steam and get a game for their tastes without any risk.

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Quoting: liamdaweI still stand by what I say, if it wasn't for Valve most if not all companies would have likely stopped doing Linux versions by now.

Sales from Humble Bundle to Linux gradually dropped lower. Look at say HIB1 where Linux was $317K to HIBX where Linux was $123K.

Well, to "pay you with your own coin": as you can see here over the time the absolute number of Linux customers raised, not fell (starting from 22k and towards 41k by the "HIB V" ).

Quoting: liamdaweHumble didn't show anything other than initially showing there was a small market for Linux.

Humble showed faith in Linux when Valve had dismissed it as insignificant. If it was not for HIBs, we could be still arguing over "1%" which now obviously untrue to everybody. Yet, you somehow praising Valve. Please, give the credit where it is due! (It is a pity HB degraded into simple Steam-keys reseller).

Quoting: liamdaweAs for Feral ports, people like to claim lots of things about their ports, yet I've seen plenty of people on pretty rubbish hardware massively enjoying their ports. You just seem to be one of the people who choose to repeatedly trash-talk them.

And lots of people who complaining about poor performance. Individual perception is subjective by definition. But hard numbers measured by Phoronix are (hopefully) objective.

I do not hate Feral or other porters. In fact, I myself enjoyed a lot of ports made by Timothee Besset, Ryan C. Gordon, Ethan Lee, Aaron Melcher and others (mostly for Humble titles).

I personally am not invested in any of Feral-ports (in fact, I do not even using Steam and Feral does not publish outside of Steam) so I'm judging only based on what resources like Phoronix or YouTube users provide. As are the majority of Windows users who are considering switching to Linux.

I know, you are in good terms with Feral, constantly chatting and lifestreaming with them and that's great that they are nice and communicative guys and gals who are eager to stay in touch with the community. So, please, do not take my criticism personally. It is just the objective data that highlights overall inferiority of their ports. It would be great to be not the case but alas, we have what we have.

The only way to get a Linux version at 100%+ of Windows performance is to work directly with developers and persuade them to build their games with Linux in mind from the ground-zero. And that's my point by which I stand.

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Quoting: liamdawe

Quoting: Alm888

Quoting: liamdaweTorment: Tides of Numenera

It has nothing to do with either Valve or Feral. It was financed on Kickstarter and made on Unity3D engine.

I never said it did, I was talking about how healthy Linux gaming is.

Yes, I agree, now we are in a better position than in the 2012 when all that Kickstarter movement began.

Quoting: liamdaweThe fact still is most developers would still be ignoring Linux or would have stopped doing Linux versions by now if it wasn't for Steam.

And that's where we diverge. Current improvement has nothing to do with either Valve or Feral.

The reasons are:
1) We showed our strength at Humble Bundles in the 2010;
2) We were heard by "inXile", "Harebrained Schemes", "Double Fine" at Kickstarter in 2012. Even the projects that utterly failed ("The Banner Saga" ) helped us in the end;
3) In order to win inXile's contract (and many others, like "Dreamfall Chapters", "Pillars of Eternity" etc.) Unity3D devs hastily ported their engine to Linux which became a turning point for us as it enabled game developers to create a lot of high-profile Day-1 releases.

And Valve... well, "Faster Zombies", the proven feign swing towards Microsoft used as the leverage in Valve's bargain on "Microsoft Store".

Feral? Lots of un-optimized ports of three-year-old games requiring top-of-the-line hardware in order to run acceptably.

Quoting: liamdaweI...don't think you understand how percentages work my friend. A very basic example: 0.8% of 100 million and 0.8% of 115 million is a different number, you know that right? A basic example, but it should make my point very clear.

No thank you, I've got my university education and I am well aware that 0.2% from 1 million is better than 10% from 10000. But it does not change the fact that Linux share is shrinking relative to other OS-es. By the time Linux gained additional 10000 users Windows secured another million, if

Quoting: liamdaweYou cannot wipe away my argument by using something outright idiotic like the amount of humans on Earth. Steam IS growing, every time Valve talk about it the number is significantly higher. If you choose to ignore that or try to wipe it away with an outright ludicrous argument then you just cannot be reasoned with.

Truth can not be idiotic. Increase in population automatically means increase in Linux users as well. But let's speak numbers. By the October of 2013 there were 65mil. of active Steam users. Among them were (assuming "Other" is Linux, which is debatable):

Ubuntu 13.10 64 bit 0,15%
Ubuntu 13.04 64 bit 0,35%
Ubuntu 13.04 0,09%
Ubuntu 12.04.3 LTS 64 bit 0,18%
Ubuntu 12.04.3 LTS 0,08%
Linux Mint 15 Olivia 64 bit 0,11%
Linux 64 bit 0,10%
Other 0,66%
--------------------
Total:
1,72%(with "Other" )
1,06%(without "Other" )

Which gives us somewhere between 689k and 1118k of Linux users. I can not find the data for total number of users for 2016 but if we get the 7mil. of concurrent users in 2013 and extrapolate the proportion to 13,1mil. in 5th of November, 2016, we get approx. of 122mil. of total users. So, if the percentage stayed the same, we could get somewhere between 1,29mil and 2,09mil. of Linux users. But instead we got only 1,07mil (0,88%).

Yes, Linux user base grew, but slower than expected. It only got, like, 381k users while Windows got another 54,5mil. of customers (from 94,71% to 95,40%).

So, how is that for the absolute numbers you are advocating so much? I dunno... 0,38mil vs. 54,5mil. of absolute growth...

Quoting: liamdawe...why on earth would Valve be continuing to invest in Linux including paying people to fix up our drivers if they weren't going to continue? It would be a massive waste of time and money for them.

Well... maybe for the same purpose it used it for "Faster Zombies" argument? Valve will keep it on "life support" as long as it helps them keep Microsoft in check. It is called "contingency plan", not "waste of money".

But that does not mean Valve will come and save us all and make right everything that was wrong.

We must act ourselves, not wait for some Messiah to bring us the "Age of Linux Gaming".

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Quoting: m2mg2Feral ports are native. I think what you meant is that we need games developed for Linux, not ported to Linux from another platform as an afterthought.

Yes, you are correct, of course.

Quoting: m2mg2It isn't about being on par with Windows, not for me. If I wanted to be on par with Windows I would be on Windows. It is about being able to play games I like on a platform I like, a platform that respects me as a user and that I actually have control over.

But it is for general gamer. We are talking about Linux expansion and for this we need to persuade Windows users (I, for one, do not know a Linux user who did not start on Windows -- that's just how our education system works: everyone gets his/her "first dose" of Windows in the elementary school up to the point that the majority does not know Linux exist at all). And your "average John Smith" has "middle-end" (how the middle can have an end? :-) ) cards like GeForce GTX 950(Ti)/1050(Ti), not monsters like dual "GTX 1080" ot "Titan". One can say "it runs great on my 1080" as much as (s)he wants, this will not help the cause.

Quoting: m2mg2Windows use just happens to be growing faster, which when you look at it from a total percentage makes it look as though Linux use is shrinking.

Exactly! And this is what matters during "business decision" time for game developers. They are aiming for the most profitable market segment and Linux is getting less and less appealing.

Quoting: m2mg2Hopefully we will become a more appealing one as time goes by.

This will not happen automatically without our involvement.

Valve will not guide us towards the brightest future. And definitely, it will not be Feral either (sometimes I am thinking we could be doing better without Feral and its "ports" as they are doing disservice in advertisement).

We need to take more direct approach: to reach out to developers, persuade them we matter and we are passionate, starting from the small ones from Kickstarter or "indie" developers (we have the weight there as was shown by Humble Bundles) and aggregate the "critical mass" up to the point where even AAA-devs will not be able to dismiss us.

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