Quoting: Shmerl

Quoting: jensStated differently, wine shouldn't compete with Feral or Aspyr titles, that would hurt the Linux market.

For me it doesn't :) I barely see any Feral or Aspyr titles on GOG ;)

But you do know that it is kind of hypocrite if you are advocating Linux everywhere but would buy lets say Tomb Raider 2013 for Windows when there is a Linux port? I know Feral/Aspyr games are not on your favorite distribution channel, but would your Linux support end when it concerns a title like this?
Note that I didn't say that you did this ;)

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Quoting: adamhmI think there is a balance to be struck here though; it's not a problem IMO if people wait & buy such games when they're old & deeply discounted enough (and ideally DRM-free since DRM tends to cause a lot of hassle with Wine, plus getting such games DRM-free at least supports that cause), and save the full/high price purchases for titles that do support Linux.

Yes, I agree. Personally I don't buy any windows games anymore but I occasionally use dosbox for my nostalgic moments which is basically similar. The question then is how old is "old", 10 years would be my point of balance ;). Stated differently, wine shouldn't compete with Feral or Aspyr titles, that would hurt the Linux market.

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Quoting: Shmerl

Quoting: jensMost owners and Executives I have spoken have my deepest respects. It is really not so easy to ensure that a company survives and to bear their responsibility.

I have no respect for control freaks who push DRM everywhere, while knowing it has nothing to do with increasing profits. I suspect Linux situation falls in the same irrational behavior category.

Start your own company and do it better ;)

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Quoting: Shmerl

Quoting: jensBut from their point of view it is still about just making money, or in case of publishers: trying everything they think is needed to max out their investments.

Urge for power is different from urge for money. They can combine together, but they can actually be conflicting. I.e. these execs can even rationally understand, that something they do would mean lost profits, but they still would do it, to feel more control. That's quite irrational from the pure financial point of view. That's why I said, don't just use common sense logic with them - it won't explain their behaviors in certain cases.

Here is a good example of this.

Yeah ok, obviously CEO's are found of their positions and accept a short-term loss for a long-term win. There are always political fights and different agenda's at the top of an organisation. That said, they are still normal people that just want to make the best out of their lifes. Their viewpoint is just completely different :). Most owners and Executives I have spoken have my deepest respects. It is really not so easy to ensure that a company survives and to bear their responsibility.

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Quoting: edddeduck_feral

Quoting: wleoncio

Quoting: edddeduck_feralWe worked with Fanatec to get full support for their wheels on Mac and Linux starting with F1 2017, this includes Force Feedback, LED shift support and speed details on the LED display if you have an F1 style wheel. As far as we know we're the only game developer to have full Linux support for these wheels right now so we're pretty excited to see what everyone thinks!

That is such great news! I've been meaning to purchase a Fanatec wheel (mainly because of how easy they can be disassembled), but I wouldn't pull the trigger on such an expensive setup before being basically 100% sure it would work on all my racing games.

Right now only F1 2017 is supported with Force Feedback etc on Linux. But going forward we'll have it in our future racing games. :D

I have pretty cool Force Feedback effects on my G25 with Dirt Rally on Linux too :)

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Quoting: Shmerl

Quoting: jens

Quoting: ShmerlTheir mindset is not something you should evaluate using common sense.

It's actually pretty easy, it's just about making (lots of) money. Really, that's the only motivation. ;)

Not necessarily. You are again using common sense approach with them. Sure, normal business strives to make money. But legacy publishers are dominated by backwards thinking execs who more often than money covet control. Urge for power can lead them to do things that cost them money, rather than the opposite.

But from their point of view it is still about just making money, or in case of publishers: trying everything they think is needed to max out their investments.

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Quoting: Alm888The typical Windows-Joe does not have GTX 1080Ti, (s)he uses crappy laptop with integrated GPU and wants to play cool games now.

Yes, this is what I said. The average Joe is happy when the game is playable and enjoyable, they don't care (or care less) that not all settings are maxed out. Thus the current performance penalty with ports is not that tragic than one might think. And next to that performance will increase over time.

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Quoting: ShmerlTheir mindset is not something you should evaluate using common sense.

It's actually pretty easy, it's just about making (lots of) money. Really, that's the only motivation. ;)

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Quoting: Alm888

Quoting: jens…it would be a nice gesture if you would answer my question.

Yes, it would be. :)

Sorry, this excessive politeness is kinda funny. Now, onto the question itself.

Quoting: jensThen why and on what grounds are you stating in public that the work from Feral or Aspyr is "of outrageous quality"?

The reasoning is quite simple. Porters such as Virtual Programming (hello, "The Witcher 2" ), Aspyr (hello, "Observer" ) and Feral (hello, "Tomb Raider 2013" ) generally do ports that:

• are late (sometimes several years after initial release);


• have reduced performance compared to Windows™ originals;


• lack certain graphical features (again, compared to original);


• do not support some hardware (typically AMD or Intel cards) on Linux while Windows™ originals have no problems with that.

I don't know, maybe you are living in the land of happy penguins where nobody is a Windows user or saw performance of the originals, but where I live literally everyone besides me is a rabid Windows user. And YouTube shows the same trend. To counter this we need to persuade these uses Linux is better than Windows™.

Now, if Feral and Co. ported some TBS, of Visual Novels, nobody would notice 40% difference in performance. But they are porting shooters and racing games, the most demanding genres! And they have the audacity (due to the caliber of the titles) to represent Linux gaming in general among less savvy audience and are making Linux basically a laughing stock of gaming!

Don't take me wrong, I'm not against porters. Ethan Lee, Ryan Gordon and other competent porters are heroes: they are reworking game engines, basically tearing them apart and resurrecting from the ashes, making games better than on Windows (see FNA project). We need more "Faster Zombies" from Valve, we need examples of gaming on Linux is better than on Windows. No matter the rationale, we do not need poor "Feral-ports"! Nobody cares whether it is "indirectX", "toGL", "eON" or some other wrapper. If [the game does not support AMD cards, it is not OK](https://www.gamingonlinux.com/articles/cyberpunk-horror-game-observer-releases-for-linux-today-no-amd-support-at-release.10599). If the port [lacks functionality, it is not OK (see the description)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojKC5kXopCs). If the performance is bad, it is bad. End of story.

It has nothing to do with Steam, it is about quality. We don't need the constant stream or rushed ports of yesterday's blockbusters. We need examples of Linux superiority.

That is what personally I firmly believe.

Thanks for your answer. That's an interesting view, I give you that. It also explains some of your comments.

That said, I do believe you are making one major mistake in your reasoning. Based on your comments you seem to be convinced that people would switch to Linux because it is technically superior and faster. That applies imho just to the small minority of tech-savy people. I think this is wrong. People will never switch because something is "just better". The mass of people (where unfortunately the most money is) cares only about content. The mass of people don't care that an OS is better and faster, they care that they can read their emails, listening to their music/streaming services, watch their movies/stream videos, open their documents (yes, docx), play their games etc.. That's it. Make this possible and you have a much better chance to attract people than having a few indie game that nobody cares about (I'm exaggerating) that demonstrate that Linux can do faster and is "potentially" better. Don't worry to much about performance. Sure, a game should be very well playable, but being 10% or 30% slower is really just interesting for the top gamers or tech people. Furthermore performance issues will be resolved over time cause of newer hardware. Once you can offer the same content on Linux people are much more willing to switch and also start spending money for games on Linux. When earning money on Linux is possible you will attract the big publishers. That in turn will get Linux earlier on the radar for gaming studios, engine developers etc which should attract even more people. Once Linux has a considerable market share you should see more native games and not just ports. You need Feral, Aspyr and friends to get the train in motion. They do a great job imho considering the difficulties on Linux as a publishing platform. I never had a problem with one of their games, not in terms of performance, not in terms of stability.

About wine, that one is a double-edged sword. I'm using wine for two applications (no games) and I appreciate that it works. That said, contrary to your views I think wine seriously hurts the Linux position for gaming, simply because wine gaming counts as windows gaming and does nothing to increase the number of sold game for Linux. Thus it keeps the status quo and makes sure that Linux will stay as a toy only for tech-savy people but no serious OS on the desktop market.

My view.

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I have spend some time now with the game. My verdict: Really a cool game and a very strong port from Feral. Thanks a lot.

Settings are maxed out, FPS seems around 60 (3440x1440) within a race, this is absolutely fine for me. Responsiveness to input is really good. I'm using a Logitech G25. Force feedback etc works just nice. Note that I had to adjust the steering saturation to 50 to have a better match between the in-game wheel and my wheel.

I had some texture glitches (stripes on the tarmac, very greenish grass), these issue were resolved with downgrading my nvidia driver from 387.22 to 384.90. It never crashed, seems rock-solid.

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