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 [External Link] is bad [External Link], it is bad [External Link]. 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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Quoting: Alm888Rest assured, you've understood my comment just right. :) No need for apologies.

That was my assumption too.. though it would be a nice gesture if you would answer my question.

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Quoting: ArdjeActually, I am not sure if that is meant negative or positive. I know outrageously good, I haven't heard outrageously bad, and I know that "that's an outrage" is meant negative.
I'm not a native (any) english speaker, but I assumed he meant it positive.
As in: the good ports only get on Steam and not on Gog.

Good point :). I'm not a native speaker either. I'll offer my apologies if I understood that original comment wrongly.

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Quoting: Alm888Just FYI, I have none.

Then why and on what grounds are you stating in public that the work from Feral or Aspyr is "of outrageous quality"? Being jealous? Are you just a simple soul that repeats random stuff read somewhere else?

Come'on! I guess you don't need that. You alone made the decision to keep Steam out, no one else. Be a men and accept the consequences or revise your decision.

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Bought the game, very cool, thanks!

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Quoting: Alm888Well… Let's pretend for a minute I am using Steam (and in reality nothing short of threats of execution will force me to do that). So, according to the benchmark I am forced to buy twice as expensive hardware (or even make an upgrade in the first place!) compared to Windows version!

This is bad. Like, really bad! Feral should be disallowed from trashing Linux reputation with its "Feral-ports" any further.

Really, I'm on my last leg here trying not to swear. Really. Hope this is the last "port" from this studio. We don't need such piss-poor "ports", ever.

P.S. Sorry for the rant. Hope I didn't insult anyone.

Please stop this rant. I guess you even haven't actually played the game, so you are in no position to judge the quality. It is fine for you that you don't like Steam, but please accept that it is really just your own decision that keeps you out of enjoying work from Feral or Aspyr.

Get a beer and take a deep breath! :)

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Quoting: Alm888

Quoting: ShmerlAspyr never properly explained, why they don't want to release it on GOG.

It seems Feral and Aspyr will never release anything outside of Steam just because.
This, coupled with the fact that their "ports" are of outrageous quality nearly makes these two companies my personal sworn enemies. Their actions are more harmful than beneficial to Linux ecosystem (IMO).

Thank you for stating that this is just your opinion.
May I ask how many Feral/Aspyr ports you have actually played to make such a bold statement?

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Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: ShmerlThat's great, especially Wayland plans.

This is a thing that I haven't seen talked about a whole lot, but I am so glad Ubuntu dropped Mir. Everyone talks about them dropping Unity for Gnome, but frankly that doesn't matter much. There's lots of those things and one more or less is no biggie.
But Wayland is the kind of infrastructure it's so much better if there's only one of it, and going forward it could matter quite a lot to Linux gaming that we didn't end up with both Wayland and Mir making things complicated.

Yes, I think both are important to remove some of the fragmentation in Linux world, whereas the decision to drop Mir is the more important one. I would even say this applies to systemd and friends too, they are may be not perfect but it helps a lot if there is just one de-facto standard for certain things.

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