(edited by John Yanez.5486)
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I think I read somewhere that the SteamOS is a modified version of Linux.
Shhhhh!!! What’s wrong with you? You’re going to blow my cover!
I expect Debian Linux ultimately to be to SteamOS as Darwin or BSD is to OS X.
It’s my understanding that SteamOS games won’t necessarily run on other Linux based operating systems.
It’s true that Valve has said they won’t be making any exclusive titles for their new platform however, other game developers won’t be required to follow suit although Valve is discouraging them from making exclusive titles.
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I don’t think that making an RPM that works with all of the popular GNU/Linux distributions would be too difficult although I would expect NCSoft to target a specific family of distros, most likely Ubuntu or Debian and if they choose the former then it should also work on Linux Mint.
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I wonder if there’s anyone here who can honestly say that they’ve played Guild Wars 2 under WINE and consistently get more than 50 fps while standing in the bank at Divinity’s Reach and if ‘Yes’ if any of those people are using an ATI video card.
I’m lucky if I get just 15 fps.
I think our best bet would be to put pressure on the WINE developers to improve the performance of games that are designed take advantage of multicore CPU’s.
NCSoft has pretty much ruled out making a Linux client but maybe if we keep the pressure up they’ll reconsider.
That said, if and when they get around to developing a Linux client, I think they should consider making it for Wayland instead of X so that all the video frames run sequentially.
My understanding is that X sometimes runs video frames out of sequence so frame 200 can come before frame 199 and that can make the game appear buggy when the real problem is with the X server which NCSoft has no control over.
This is already happening. The CSMT patches are being integrated into the main branch. But don’t expect it to help much, most of the problem is not Wine but that GW2 has a very terrible engine performance-wise.
It runs bad even on Windows, and even if you have a really good PC.
We’re hitting up to 250% CPU usage (2.5x cores) with the latest release of WineGW2 and NVIDIA threaded optimizations, which is pretty much the maximum that most games can use and still only running about 30 FPS in Rata Sum on low to medium settings on a AMD 1100T at 3.3GHz and Intel Core i7 at 2.2GHz and GTX480 video card which is still very powerful by MMO standards….
By the way the problem you listed does not exist anymore. NVIDIA’s OpenGL library sends commands directly to their kernel driver, only using the X server as a conduit. Performance in Linux is pretty much optimal now.
You can see this in “pure” OpenGL games that get very high FPS.
When I had Windows 7 (before my 1TB Seagate Barracuda called it quits), this game was awesome, now that I have to use WINE, this game is awful.
I have a ATI Radeon HD 5770 and if I use the open source drivers the fan runs at full speed and temperature exceeds 75C so I use the proprietary drivers.
I think our best bet would be to put pressure on the WINE developers to improve the performance of games that are designed take advantage of multicore CPU’s.
NCSoft has pretty much ruled out making a Linux client but maybe if we keep the pressure up they’ll reconsider.
That said, if and when they get around to developing a Linux client, I think they should consider making it for Wayland instead of X so that all the video frames run sequentially.
My understanding is that X sometimes runs video frames out of sequence so frame 200 can come before frame 199 and that can make the game appear buggy when the real problem is with the X server which NCSoft has no control over.
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As we’re all aware, Valve is working on a new game console and they’re getting some big names, Alienware for instance, to make their Steam Machines for them.
Here are some reasons why I think NCSoft should consider creating a Guild Wars 2 client for SteamOS:
If NCSoft gets in on the action before all the specifications are set, it should possible for NCSoft and Valve to meet each other half way and create a platform and game that are perfectly matched for each other. This will be much harder to accomplish once the first Steam Machines are available for purchase.
Some people would prefer to play Guild Wars 2 on a nice soft sofa instead of a firm office chair and it would be easier for those people to use a game controller instead of a keyboard and mouse.
It’s easier to move a gaming console to different parts of the house than it is to move a desktop computer.
Gaming consoles boot faster than regular PC’s.
Gaming consoles are less likely to have their performance degrade over time so Guild Wars 2 will always have smooth animation and the machine will be more responsive than a Windows 8 computer that’s been in use for a few years (sure your new Windows 8 PC/tablet is running smoothly right now but will it suffer the same performance degradation as PC’s running previous versions of Windows?).
I’m curious what other Guild Wars 2 players, as well as the developers for this game, have to say.
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I wonder what percentage of Steam users would use GNU/Linux if Steam supported other Linux distributions besides Ubuntu.
Honestly, I don’t feel like the percentage would increase too greatly. Most of the time, if there is a port to one distribution, the other distribution’s software centers have the same package in a matter of hours. That being said, linux is still new to the gaming world. I’m sure once bigger games are ported, there will be more players coming to linux. Actually, now that I think about it, I bet there are quite a few players sitting on windows, just waiting for their favorite game to make the switch (such as many players on this thread).
Even though steam says only ~1.5% of players play on linux, I’m not worried. We need to give it time and push for big games to make a big deal about supporting linux. We also need to support companies who support us. Eventually the market will shift and allow linux to be an OS contender.
Well I haven’t played Team Fortress II since switching from Lubuntu 12 to Debian 6.0.
I’m sure there’s a way to get Steam to work with Debian and one day, when I’m not feeling lazy, I might give it a try.
Ok, whoever keeps bringing up the “1% Linux Marketshare” should stop now. All of those numbers are misleading. In a world where 98% of laptops and 85-90% of Desktops are all preloaded with either Windows or Mac OS X, then it doesn’t matter if I buy a laptop and put Linux on it, it will STILL count as a Windows/Mac “Marketshare”. I have 3 Computers at home – 1 Linux Media Center, 1 Windows “Steam Box”/Media Center, and one Laptop running both Linux and Windows. Not a single one of those counts as a “Linux” share because….. Windows came with them. The Marketshare % doesn’t give accurate details any more then the Humble Bundle Numbers (that default to whatever OS you purchase the bundle on – since I do so at work a lot, it shows as windows, though I install most on Linux)
Market share isn’t always counted from sales. There is a service that looks at about 5000 websites, that sees the information from 33+ million users and can see what OS they are using, there you will see that Linux is used less then 2% out of that 33 million users, and there is more then 1 service like that out there.
There there is Steam, it shows about 2% of their users use Linux.
I wonder what percentage of Steam users would use GNU/Linux if Steam supported other Linux distributions besides Ubuntu.
I loved gw… can no longer play as i do not have windows anymore… only linux (mint), gw neeeddds a client for linux users! i would purchase the game again if it were more available on linux. Installed succesfully using wine… but during patch i guess it is? it always crashes and im only able to get about 1/10000th of total files.
I miss my game
If you’re talking about the original Guild Wars, I strongly recommend installing PlayOnLinux with Synaptic then installing Guild Wars from PlayOnLinux. I had to do some tweaking but I eventually got everything but the tar lakes in Ascalon and the Guild Hall to look right. I even got 60+ fps. You can even play Guild Wars 2 but, as other people here pointed out, the frame rate is atrocious.
Perhaps aNet should make an OpenGL option for their Windows client and then tell WINE users to use the -opengl argument. I’m curious as to what the more Linux/UNIX savvy people in this forum have to say to my idea.
I think the “people of color” will come with an expansion pack in the future.
I think increasing the maximum items per slot from 250 to 65530 would help with your situation far more than allowing you to purchase additional storage space. But adding more bank tabs would help too, so I support this idea. Besides, from the looks of that attachment, I’m sure you more than pay your fair share to help keep aNet in business.
It would be nice if name changes were free unlike in Guild Wars 1 or could be acquired through spending karma and gold instead of just through spending gems.
I would love to see Linux support…
Now when Steam is coming to Linux more gamers will come over….. even tho it’s a long way to go.+1 Linux
Steam already has a Linux client. They just need to port more games to work with their Linux client.
If you make a Penguin friendly version of your software, I would think that would be like killing multiple birds with only one stone since my understanding is that FreeBSD, Solaris and their derivatives allow the more seasoned users to run Linux applications. I don’t know if that includes 3D games.
I’m thinking the staff could attempt to create this feature during a slow work period. The people at Google have created some interesting things during slow work periods and some of those things are real winners.
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Allow people with a Guild Wars Prophecies account to log in to Guild Wars 2 with their Guild Wars character as an Ascalonian ghost and let them attack anything (or anyone) an ordinary npc ghost can attack. GW2 players would also be allowed to attack them. Keep the player operated ghost confined to the same locations as their npc counterparts (not allowed to leave their patrol area). Make this option available for a limit time maybe as an April Fools event and give each character only one life. If the player ghost dies that character is removed for the duration of the event and a npc ghost with a generic name respawns to take the place of the player ghost until a new GW1 character logs in.
All of my hardware works just fine on both Windows and Ubuntu. It’s only when I try PC-BSD or OpenIndiana that I start to run into problems since I can’t find any decent FreeBSD or Solaris drivers for my Radeon HD 5770.
I think many Linux users would pay more money to aNet if there was a native Linux client simply because they would play more often and run out of bank/inventory space necessitating a visit to the gem store. Let’s face it: playing Guild Wars 2 with Wine stinks compared to playing it on Windows 7. There are some games that run great with Wine including the original Guild Wars (though you would need the brains of an Asura [or a whole army of Skritt] to spend less than a week figuring out how to tweak it), Guild Wars 2 simply isn’t one of those games…yet.
I’m getting the exact same message as the player who started this thread.
Edit: It looks like this issue has been resolved.
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MehWhatever.1248 says :
2013 will be the year of the Linux desktop and linux gaming.
After having played Team Fortress 2 beta, I’m now a believer.
A native Linux Guild Wars client would give me peace of mind when I’m using Windows because I’d know that no matter how much Windows rot I got on my hard drive I could always boot into Ubuntu and play Guild Wars 2. I think the biggest problems with Windows are its EULA and its inability to work with Ext4 partitions. If those two issues were resolved then I’d have far less motivation to use Linux since could place multiple copies of Windows on VirtualBox and rumor has it that Ext4 is highly resistant disk fragmentation.
I’ve found Windows 7 to be quite stable.
I know how our software behaves in a functional windows environment. If that environment has been altered too much, I will indeed tell them to try with a fresh install. Microsoft is kind enough to give a free VM XP with every legal copy of windows 7 pro so testing this is very easy (eg over Teamviewer). In Linux there is no common baseline.
I tried Windows 7 in the emulator that comes with Windows 7 Professional edition. The graphics were slow. When I use the Windows version of VirtualBox to run Linux Mint or OpenIndiana, most things run smoothly. By the way VirtualBox also has a Linux version but the ipv6 much faster in the Windows version.
Perhaps using a commercial Linux distro would alleviate some of the issues marnick.4305 has mentioned?
Seeing as ANet can just poll the clients to see which of them are running on Wine, I still don’t see the point of an online petition.
…Except that Wine may be providing such a lousy gaming experience that players just give up and spend the day and a half that it takes to properly set up Windows.
I too would like to see a linux client for GW2. I’ve toyed with linux in the past, but the two things keeping me tied to windows are GW and photography. There have been a few key advances in linux for photographers lately so a full transition seems plausible at this time, assuming GW were to put out a linux client.
For me, the Guild Wars Prophecies works great with Playonlinux (after some tweaking), although the tar lakes and rivers in Ascalon become transparent. Something I also want to add which is a bit off topic: Some games that I have been unable to run through Playonlinux including Age of Mythology: Titans expansion and Sim City 4 work great when I install Steam then install the non steam games using the Steam client.
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I think that players should be able to duel anywhere they wish in the PvE Guild Wars 2 universe. If a player runs out of hit points during a duel, instead of going into “fight to survive”, (s)he should lose the duel and be restored to full health. Losing should not count as a death.
If the Mac version uses OpenGL then perhaps aNet should add an option to allow the Windows version to use OpenGL as well. Then maybe the Windows client would run better under Wine (after the Wine team for Guild Wars 2 tweaks the settings).
Why not just add a hot key that toggles between whether or not the character automatically switches into combat gear when taking damage?
@rebelkhaotic.7329: linux is monolithic whereas Windows (depending on the version) can be monolithic or hybrid. Linus Torvalds and Andrew S. Tanenbaum had a famous debate way back in 1992 because Torvalds favored a monolithic kernel whereas Tanenbaum favored a microkernel.
Edit: I double posted due to an unknown glitch possibly triggered an unexpected Internet outage at my home. I’ve now deleted the duplicate post.
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UNIX is a trademark that belongs to The Open Group. Modern Mac operating systems are examples of UNIX; GNU/Linux, as its name implies, is “unix like”. Remember, the name GNU is a recursive acronym which stands for “GNU is not UNIX”.
UNIX: OS X, Solaris, etc. Unix like: Linux, Minix 3, etc.
I wish there was a single generic term that defined all Unices and unix like operating systems without stepping on any trademarks.
I would love play this game with a native Linux client. I think that aNet should develop their Mac client, Windows client and any Linux client at the same time so that they can make good use of the #ifdef directive. Meanwhile I think that if aNet ported their Windows client to OpenGL and avoided using system calls that Wine has problems with, us Linux users would have a more enjoyable gaming experience. The frame rate is atrocious so I boot into Windows 7 when I want to play.