I’m asking because I just bought Cronos: The New Dawn on Steam because it has a native Linux port. To be fair, I would have bought it at some point anyway but I got excited when I saw it had a Linux port. The game is missing features that the Windows version has, It runs horribly at any setting other than very low. I think they only bothered testing for the SteamDeck. But if that’s the case, why does it support FSR 4.0? To be fair, the Windows version doesn’t run amazing either if you enable ray tracing but it still performs way better than the Linux port. Why do devs keep doing this? I’ve bought many Linux games that have problems that the Windows versions don’t have. Why even make a port if you’re not going to bother testing or optimizing it?

  • rtxn@lemmy.worldEnglish
    321·
    5 months ago

    From the sole developer responsible for Factorio’s Linux-native port: https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-408

    “Why don’t most games support macOS and Linux?” is a sentiment I often see echoed across the internet. Supporting a new platform is a lot more than just changing some flags and hitting compile. Windows, macOS, Linux, and the Nintendo Switch all use different compilers, different implementations of the C++ standard library, and have different implementation quirks, bugs, and features. You need to set up CI for the new platform, expand your build system to support the new compiler(s) and architecture(s), and have at least one person on the team that cares enough about the platform to actively maintain it. If you are a video game, you will likely need to add support for another graphics backend (Vulkan or OpenGL) as well, since DirectX is Windows-exclusive.

    Many developers will take one look at the Windows market share and decide that it is not worth the trouble to support other platforms. Also, with the meteoric rise of the Steam Deck and Proton, it is easier than ever for game developers to ignore Linux support because Valve does some black magic that lets their game run anyway.

    The list of Linux-first games is so short it’s not even a factor. It’s very difficult to justify the additional effort of implementing a platform that serves exclusively the playerbase with a ~3% market share, especially when a different method exists to serve that same playerbase that works just as well and also serves the 90%+ with no additional effort.

    The article I linked also contains an explanation as to why GNOME’s decision to drop server-side decorations is fucking stupid.

    • woelkchen@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      5 months ago

      It’s very difficult to justify the additional effort of implementing a platform that serves exclusively the playerbase with a ~3% market share

      And yet there are many games that have a native Mac port and no native Linux port, such as the recently released Ball Pit: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2062430/BALL_x_PIT/

      How is it to justify that a platform with an even smaller install base gets the native port? Two ports, actually, because ARM and Intel are both natively supported. Why aren’t Mac users expected to use Whisky to play Windows games but Linux users are expected to rely on Proton’s battery munching API translation? Apple is even worse in breaking compatibility, so game developer cannot even expect their Mac games to still run in five years.

      The problem isn’t “the playerbase with a ~3% market share” because 3% is still millions upon millions users in absolute numbers given the massive PC install base. According to https://www.theverge.com/pc-gaming/618709/steam-deck-3-year-anniversary-handheld-gaming-shipments-idc there were 6 million Steam Decks sold last February and Linux is still rising in Steam’s Hardware Survey. According to a bit of googling, Steam hat 1.5% Linux users that month, a third of that using SteamOS.

      I’m too lazy right now to extrapolate even a rough ballpark of the overall Linux user base on Steam but even if we assume that a big number of Steam Deck buyers doesn’t use their device, I don’t think a user base north of 10 million is too far fetched.

      So the problem isn’t the 3% number, it’s the developer’s / publisher’s attitude to expect that Proton just works without any QA and that Mac users are somehow valuable while the Linux peasants are not.