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Feedback: Guild Wars 2 Mac 64-Bit Client

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Posted by: MehWhatever.1248

MehWhatever.1248

Thanks for the answer. Any chance of it coming further down the line, or maybe even a native Linux client?

Definite no on the latter. For the former I wouldn’t expect it.

Thank you.

You may or may not know me as K900.

Feedback: Guild Wars 2 Mac 64-Bit Client

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Posted by: MehWhatever.1248

MehWhatever.1248

Given that wine users (like me) are not actually running Windows (but usually Linux), and that MacOX is essentially a Unix system: how difficult would it be to provide a native Linux client, based on the OSX client? It sounds like most of the necessary work has already been done with the OSX client.

As much as I want this to be true, it’s really not. Porting from OSX to Linux is … trickier than you think it is. Both systems being “Unix” is not really helping here – the graphics, input and audio stacks are all different.

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Feedback: Guild Wars 2 Mac 64-Bit Client

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MehWhatever.1248

I know it’s kind of off topic, but there is no way to use the OpenGL renderer on Windows, is there? Us Wine players would really appreciate that… There’s dozens of us! Dozens!

Currently there is not. Despite OpenGL being cross-platform there are a lot of differences between platforms (available extensions, API conformance, etc). We tried it briefly but additional work would be required to get it working properly, and we already have our hands full with the macOS client.

Thanks for the answer. Any chance of it coming further down the line, or maybe even a native Linux client?

You may or may not know me as K900.

A client for Linux

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MehWhatever.1248

I’ll start by being honest, I stopped reading after the third or forth page, but I can say that Linux can’t be that far off. Mac clients and Linux clients both use OpenGL, so porting isn’t impossible, by any stretch of the imagination. In the meantime, if you’re needing to play on Linux, I have a friend who said that the Windows client works fine via WINE on the Play on Linux software.

The problem is, the Mac client uses Cider. Cider is a proprietary Wine fork-based (from the days of yore when Wine was MIT licensed) wrapper that only runs on OS X. Even if the current OS X client gets “ported” to Linux, it will still be a wrapped Windows version, which is better than nothing, but isn’t really good, especially with all the bugs that are already present in the OS X client.

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A client for Linux

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Posted by: MehWhatever.1248

MehWhatever.1248

The one big problem I’m having is that wine doesn’t use more than one CPU. Else, everything is fine. I’ve been playing GW2 on Ubuntu since November. I use Playonlinux, as they have a patched version of wine that took care of the most annoying bugs.

The FPS can get bad, usually it’s at 20-25 FPS, lower when there is a lot of effects going on, but almost never crashing. As my computer only reaches a bit over the minimum requirements, my graphics aren’t too shiny, but that’s not Linux’s or GW2’s fault.

I don’t think some “Linux” version that reaches beyond wine/cedega will be coming. I don’t even see what should be programmed there. Take the standard windows file and put it into a wrapper/emulator*. It’s the wrappers that need working on, and steadily, they’re getting better. Apart from slideshow playing inside a zerg, I can do everything in GW2.
——
*whatever the technical term might be. Some stuff that translates between program’s windownese and linuxian, including those things about DirectX and opengl.

No wrapper will ever be as good as a true native version, because even if the wrapper itself is literally perfect, it will still introduce overhead just by being there. There’s also no reason to make a wrapper that’s better than Wine, because you can spend the time making Wine better instead.

@ALL: There’s a rather interesting patchset available that should help with the FPS drops, or at least it does for me. No benchmarks because I’m a lazy piece of kitten.

You may or may not know me as K900.

A client for Linux

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MehWhatever.1248

(cont’d)

as to any comments about lack of malware on linux…..thats a good one….you should tell security firms that one, they will laugh till they pass out……as will anybody who deals with pc’s in large numbers…

That is a major factor, yes. But breaking a Linux system is actually rather difficult, and definitely much more difficult than breaking a Windows system, be it via malware or otherwise (source: personal experience, Linux kernel CVEs in 2013, Windows 8 CVEs in 2013 — compare the amount of critical ones).

the fact is, even linux developers admit linux isnt by its nature more secure, and hasnt been for a long time(even before UAC)

Source please.

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A client for Linux

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MehWhatever.1248

Another person who Googled “Why Linux Sucks” and found this? It’s a talk given by a Linux developer to Linux developers, about things that can be made better. The same guy’s next talk was “Why Linux DOESN’T Suck”, and you can watch that here.

1. driver update hell: all gaming hardware uses “evil binary blobs” for drivers, due to the design of linux, even minor kernal patches can totally fubar drivers.(drivers tied directly to the kernal=bad)

WHAT. I mean, like, WHAT. Kernels are not binary compatible? Yep. But you only need to recompile the driver, or even let something like DKMS do it for you, in a way that’s completely transparent to the user. But kernel drivers use a very specific API that’s stable and doesn’t actually break too often. The last time something broke inside NVIDIA’s proprietary driver was because of an error in their build scripts that was fixed by all major distributions, and then by NVIDIA itself in the next release. (source: Arch package commit, another Arch package commit soon after)

2. no equivalent to directX, and before somebody trys to say “opengl” that would be the closest thing to direct 3d, directx also covers direct input, direct draw, direct sound, and a few other things, all of them supported to a specific level by a specific windows version.(xp has dx9, vista/7/8 have dx11)

OpenGL for graphics, SDL2 for windowing/input, OpenAL for sound. DirectDraw is deprecated, even though its functionality can be implemented with either raw OpenGL or SDL2’s 2D primitives (source: personal experience, additional references: MonoGame-SDL2 by Ethan Lee – Eversion, Waveform, Fez, etc., Porting Source to Linux by Valve – Team Fortress 2, etc., Linux as a gaming platform, ideology aside by Leszek Godlewski – Painkiller Hell and kitten ation).

3. no universal installer package type, you have RPM, DEB, DMG, TAR, exct(dozens), dosnt matter what package type you use, not all linux distro’s are going to support it.

Make the launcher a single binary (heck, it is a single binary already), download the game to $HOME, just like Steam does. It’s not the best way, but it’s easy and absolutely workable for most distributions.

4. the linux community: this one will be hard for alot of you to swallow but, a large chunk of the linux community are very militant and belligerent if they dont get their way, if you give them an opening they will be allover you to open source everything, as well as insulting you for not doing things thier way, and not giving them top support priority………

I don’t know where you see this “large chunk”. From my experience, there are a lot less RMS/FSF/GNU zealots than there were a few years ago (source: Arch community, /r/linux, some local resources).

the fact is, linux has such a small market share for a reason, its just really not ready for the average desktop user.

How exactly?

bsd is closer(desktop bsd/free bsd) but, its still not really ready for joe sixpack type users.

In which ways?

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A client for Linux

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Posted by: MehWhatever.1248

MehWhatever.1248

Very very very few percentage of the people use Linux, what makes you think that they would spend money developing a client for such a small userbase?

Them getting more money back. There are no MMORPGs on Linux. It’s a whole new market that is for once ready to pay for any game that gets a port.

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A client for Linux

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MehWhatever.1248

In this case, I don’t think it is so much a funding problem as it is a time problem. Anet has stretched themselves pretty thin. Kickstarter would only act as a medium to show how much the community cares about a linux client (and I don’t think it is meant for that). Even then, I highly doubt the devs will even think about anything beyond a cedega port.

As a side note, Valve has said that Dota 2 will be out “soon” for linux (and mac). Not that that is entirely surprising. Still, it’s another popular title that is soon to work on linux, and maybe that’s enough to get Anet to think about linux again.

Well, Dota runs on Source. Not surprising really.

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A client for Linux

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Posted by: MehWhatever.1248

MehWhatever.1248

arena net, seriously… make it happen!!!!!!!!!!
tired of playing on wine/POL with crappy fps.
i tried to start a kickstarter project for Anet/Ncsoft to hire a dev or two to porting, but since im not a us/uk resident i can’t start it. would love for someone else to start it tho!
cheers!

Kickstarter won’t accept such things. You’ll need ANet to agree to do the porting with the money raised before starting a campaign.

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A client for Linux

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Posted by: MehWhatever.1248

MehWhatever.1248

Linux is sooo awesome Can someone make a gaming distribution? As to say an OS without any software unnecessary to gaming and optimized for it? Give it a neat UI and I bet pro gamers will stick to it when ever possible. The performance boost on an OS like this would kick… I bet even with windows native software… Winjunk out of its boots.
I have games written for windows running faster in wine on my stripped-down-mint then on windows 7.
If all the professional gaming runs via wine companies might start thinkin about linux native versions, thus giving an even larger performance thus making more companies turn. MS would have to pay companies to make games compatible with windows. Howd that be?

Ofc this is pumped up with ridiculous optimism.
Most likely this will never happen

Mostly useless. Linux is much smarter about scheduling background processes, so the performance boost would be rather minor, especially on Wayland.

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A client for Linux

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Posted by: MehWhatever.1248

MehWhatever.1248

A native Client for Linux would be awesome and Anet already done the biggest step, the developers ported the Client to Mac, now the Linux Client is just a bit more work. You would make a lot people very happy. :-)

Well, the Mac version runs under a Mac-specific proprietary fork of what once was Wine, so it’s not really a small step. And the wrapper itself is kinda terrible….

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A client for Linux

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Posted by: MehWhatever.1248

MehWhatever.1248

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.

Click here.

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A client for Linux

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MehWhatever.1248

Games designed around DirectX need to either port those calls to openGL or emulate them. There are both Wine and Cedega (which is wineX btw) based wrappers for Linux based platforms. Being an open OS, with many different kernal flavors, you run into low level call issues that can easily break the code without using an emulator system. There still are very few games that are coded directly for linux based systems, most of them use emulation wrappers.

Wine’s translation layer is kitten. Cedega’s is not as kitten, but still not even close to native. OpenGL is an open standard that has a fixed specification, and all the ‘low level call issues’ are abstracted into libGL itself.

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A client for Linux

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Posted by: MehWhatever.1248

MehWhatever.1248

MSDN subscriptions for the win. Have a job, get 10 legal windows licenses for free, per Windows release starting at win3.11. That’s ten licenses for win8 basic, pro, enterprise and ultimate each.

Free? MSDN subscriptions cost money, even if your employer is the one who’s paying.

On the other hand, the public at large are not computer hobbyists, which means they don’t have the hundreds of hours required to learn install a basic word processor on a computer, or to dig through hundreds of threads debating Vi and Emacs. Anyone can work with Windows in a matter of minutes. That’s a fact.

Oh really? Any Linux distro I’d ever recommend to a beginner comes with a complete office suite. Vi vs Emacs is a long story, and average users need not care.

Edit: I had a Netrunner VM, so here’s some pics about me installing a word processor. It was actually installed, but I removed it beforehand for science.

Sure you’re right in theory, but if the public at large knew how to make decent clothing, Abercrombie&Fitch would be out of business too. Same goes for McDonald’s if the public knew how to make affordable food. The boon of windows is simplicity. It works out of the box. That’s simply not true for linux.

So, I have this laptop. The very ASUS N55SF I’m writing this on. I install Windows 7. Right from the box, fully legal, yada yada. No WiFi, no Bluetooth, no compositing, no external GPU/Optimus support whatsoever, no external subwoofer, no webcam, no SDcard reader, no touchpad gestures, no nothing. Out of the box my kitten . I install Linux Mint. It just works. It just freaking works. WiFi? Check. Bluetooth? Check. Compositing? Check, and it’s smoother than Windows (which is impressive, given X11’s horrible legacy). Optimus? Well, not really, but I can install a program to make it work. With just a few clicks. External subwoofer? Had to turn it up in the mixer, but anyway. Check. Webcam? Check. SDcard reader? Check. Touchpad gestures? Check. That’s a single not working feature, compared to Windows 7’s eight.

So let linux be what linux is for … enthousiasts, and let the public at large use something which is made for the public at large… windows. Why try square the circle all the time.

Yeah, sure. Let’s leave Microsoft without any competition.

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(edited by MehWhatever.1248)

A client for Linux

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Posted by: MehWhatever.1248

MehWhatever.1248

maybe it will help, if we all ask anet HERE and also at https://www.facebook.com/GuildWars2 and http://twitter.com/guildwars2/ and https://plus.google.com/111625076038687128618 for a linux client. EVERY DAY or EVERY HOUR. we can call it linuxstorm.

Call it whatever you want, I call it spamming.

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A client for Linux

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Posted by: MehWhatever.1248

MehWhatever.1248

Re: having to pay MS to get on the Windows Store: I don’t know the terms of that, but Google also has a $25 one time fee that lets you publish on the Play Store. That’s done to prevent people from spamming the store with malware and bad apps, and it works quite well, because it’s not too expressive for pretty much anyone, but expensive enough to think twice before submitting.

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A client for Linux

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Posted by: MehWhatever.1248

MehWhatever.1248

i would rather see more content rather then a new client for those 3 extra players

The engine is mostly made by programmers. The new content is mostly made by designers and artists. The engine needs to be ported. The content does not.

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A client for Linux

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Posted by: MehWhatever.1248

MehWhatever.1248

Honestly, I have always believed that the distros broke down into three basic trees, the Debian tree (headed by Ubuntu), the Fedora tree, and the Arch tree. As far as newer distros are concerned, the only one that has impressed me at all has been Majaro linux, which I only found out about this past week. It does everything I would want in a nooby distro and more. If they don’t port to ubuntu, they should port to Arch (or Majaro, I guess). Tar files can be opened by everyone.

Also. If Anet ever does port to linux, I might also request (somewhat humbly) a penguin pet and/or minipet.

Don’t want to go into detail (we don’t need a distro flamewar here in addition to the Windows one, right?), but Manjaro’s maintainers have proved themselves to be extremely incompetent multiple times in the past. If you want an Arch respin that’s easier to install, check out Bridge Linux. I’d also suggest Sabayon, which is basically Gentoo with binary packages (but you still can use ebuilds/USE flags/all the Gentoo stuff for packages you want to modify).

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A client for Linux

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Posted by: MehWhatever.1248

MehWhatever.1248

lmao MAC OS X is NOTHING like linux. Its a BSD based kernel. It has a drastically different scheduler. Its a completely different OS. Its as different as Windows NT and OS2 Warp. The graphic libraries are nothing like those in Linux. A port of this game to Linux wouldn’t be any easier already having a prot for OS X.

Wrooooong. OS X is POSIX compliant, it uses OpenGL and OpenAL, which are all open and cross platform standards by design.

Personally Linux doesn’t get much support because everyone that runs linux also runs windows. Also the ATI and NVidia linux drivers have always been just an after thought and perform very poorly under heavy 3D-type loads. Even if they ported this game to Linux you wouldn’t be happy with the performance.

Wroooooong. For example, Left 4 Dead 2 actually runs faster on Linux .

I use Linux 100% at work as a developer. I use it 100% of the time at home except for gaming. So I run Windows 7 and with VMWare I run my linux VM’s for work. One I use for writing/compiling code, the other runs an Oracle database and some other components. I can run both Linux VM’s, including having the database up and running, and play this game at the same time with no problems… This on a rig that is now 4 years old.

Not sure where you’re going for with that. That’s not because Windows is so cool, it’s because Linux is lightweight, and VMWare adds little overhead.

Oh and by the way Ubuntu is dying. Its fallen from the most popular distro every year for the past 3 years.. mainly because no one can stand their new window manager.

People move to Mint and other similar distributions. The fact that Ubuntu is dying doesn’t mean Linux as a whole is dying.

Ubuntu has always been the “linux for noobs” and most people move on once they get more skilled with the OS.

Data or GTKO.

Problem with Mint is their arrogance and Google hate.

If you mean the fact that they use Yahoo search, that’s because Yahoo pays them to use their search. You can switch to Google in a single click, and the developers earn their (much needed) money that way.

Not to mention a multitude of quirky things with the distro. I wasn’t able to use Mint as my work desktop, just too many issues, even after ripping out a lot of their poorly engineered packages like firefox and java.

And yet you haven’t described a single one in detail. I’m also going to assume you didn’t report bugs.

Honestly I’m a little disappointed in the current Linux distros.. Things seemed to be picking up for all distro’s and now the last 2 years most have gotten sloppy.

And Fedora.. omg.. have no idea what happened to that project but you have to go back 3 releases just to get something quasi-stable.

Same here. Lots of personal bias, no data.

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(edited by MehWhatever.1248)

A client for Linux

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Posted by: MehWhatever.1248

MehWhatever.1248

If that’s the case, then make gw2 for any one linux distro. i would be happy to get any linux and play gw2, as opposed to buying windows (again). Besides alot of linux distros use similar builds, any one with sense should be able to make it work if a-net just makes a basic distro for one of the most popular ones.

Yup, target a specific distro. The Steam beta was supposedly Ubuntu only, but in a few hours after released it was already up and running on Arch Linux, and it’s not even Debian-based. The community is a community full of hackers and will gladly make it work on their own distro one way or another; the community does that work for you.

Don’t target a specific distro. Support a specific distro. You can say ‘we only test it on Ubuntu’, but don’t make it so it only runs on Ubuntu.

And yet that’s how it usually ends up. It’s impossible to support all distros. So either you choose, and get the wrath of all other distro fanboys, or leave linux and get the wrath of all linux fanboys. There’s no winning scenario here for anyone. The costs vs profits on Linux are not in Linux’ favor. Last time I checked, a.net was still a for-profit company.

Steam.

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A client for Linux

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Posted by: MehWhatever.1248

MehWhatever.1248

If that’s the case, then make gw2 for any one linux distro. i would be happy to get any linux and play gw2, as opposed to buying windows (again). Besides alot of linux distros use similar builds, any one with sense should be able to make it work if a-net just makes a basic distro for one of the most popular ones.

Yup, target a specific distro. The Steam beta was supposedly Ubuntu only, but in a few hours after released it was already up and running on Arch Linux, and it’s not even Debian-based. The community is a community full of hackers and will gladly make it work on their own distro one way or another; the community does that work for you.

Don’t target a specific distro. Support a specific distro. You can say ‘we only test it on Ubuntu’, but don’t make it so it only runs on Ubuntu.

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A client for Linux

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Posted by: MehWhatever.1248

MehWhatever.1248

If that’s the case, then make gw2 for any one linux distro. i would be happy to get any linux and play gw2, as opposed to buying windows (again). Besides alot of linux distros use similar builds, any one with sense should be able to make it work if a-net just makes a basic distro for one of the most popular ones.

Yup, target a specific distro. The Steam beta was supposedly Ubuntu only, but in a few hours after released it was already up and running on Arch Linux, and it’s not even Debian-based. The community is a community full of hackers and will gladly make it work on their own distro one way or another; the community does that work for you.

I also have to hand it to you on that one. That is a sound strategy, and would be plausable. That kind of brings it into a whole different light.

On a slightly different note, of which I do not know the answer, has anyone checked out the GW2.dat file? It’s certainly no Elder Scrolls or other game that was content-port friendly. GW2 also ignores half the settings/instructions DirectX sends it. It’s certainly a creature of its own. I don’t know if the way Anet wrote it makes it more Windows-dependent or less Windows-dependent than other titles. Is anyone familiar with its build design?

And I apologize, I stand corrected. This is NOT a Windows vs. Linux forum. It’s a Linux forum; Windows isn’t the issue. This stands independent of Windows. I think I understand the distinction of what a “Native Linux” client really would be.

GW2.dat (and a lot of the stuff inside) has been succesfully reverse engineered. If someone was to write an unofficial client, the main problem will be the protocol and the implications of using it. Re: DirectX: GW2 uses threading somewhat agressively, so it might just be using this data on a different thread. I’m not too sure, I haven’t messed with it too much. Or maybe it’s just some dark optimization voodoo.

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A client for Linux

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Posted by: MehWhatever.1248

MehWhatever.1248

@Elusive

The thing is that you’re approaching Unix from a Windows point of view. You see Linux as a certain specific distribution and its internals. But in fact, it’s exactly what Linux (and Unix in general) is not. It’s a set of standards with different internals. Ubuntu, Fedora, Gentoo, OpenBSD – any Unix you take will have the same APIs available. You don’t care what’s inside. In fact, you shouldn’t care what’s inside. Just like DirectX.

Graphics? OpenGL. Sound? OpenAL. Multithreading? POSIX threads. Network? Unix sockets. Input? Well, there’s no standard for input. But there is SDL, which does it. It also does windowing, sound, font loading, you name it.

Put it all together, and you’ll have an extremely portable (even Windows!) software stack that basically does everything DirectX can do in a cross platform way on any system that is supported by SDL. And…

SDL supports Linux, Windows, Windows CE, BeOS, MacOS, Mac OS X, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, BSD/OS, Solaris, IRIX, and QNX. The code contains support for AmigaOS, Dreamcast, Atari, AIX, OSF/Tru64, RISC OS, SymbianOS, and OS/2, but these are not officially supported.

There you go. Also, regarding the ‘translation layer’ part: it is the original Windows executable wrapped in a third party wrapper that translates all of WinAPI. And let’s just say it’s not really a good idea. If they do a native port, even with a translation layer (but just for DirectX calls), it’ll run way better.

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A client for Linux

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MehWhatever.1248

If I’m walking around gathering or w/e it’s about 30 fps, fighting with others about 15 fps.

Yuck. I mean, if it works for you, that’s your call, but I’m not going to accept anything below 60.

Your tone of voice sounds like “well that’s your choice, but you should play on windows because it will have a better framerate”.

It doesn’t.
The framerates are the same for me both on windows and linux. I verified this many times.

And what choice do I have, when I play on a 2009 laptop with just a dual core and a gtx 260M? I mean, it’s not some amazing gaming rig.

Sorry if it came off like this. All meant was that I usually play on Windows, because on Linux I hit the CPU bottleneck at 50-55FPS, while on Windows I get 100+. The problem is definitely more evident on higher settings, my GT555M laptop gives me a stable 50FPS on both Windows and Linux with all the settings turned down as low as possible.

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MehWhatever.1248

If I’m walking around gathering or w/e it’s about 30 fps, fighting with others about 15 fps.

Yuck. I mean, if it works for you, that’s your call, but I’m not going to accept anything below 60.

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A client for Linux

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MehWhatever.1248

Interestingly enough, according to quite a few sources, Blizzard intends to release a linux game by the end of 2013. I don’t know if it will be a new game all together or just a port of an old one, but it’s still a step in the right direction (even if I’m not the biggest fan of Blizzard).

Just thought I’d throw that in there.

I’m pretty sure the only source for that Phoronix. I don’t trust Phoronix for ‘leaks’.

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MehWhatever.1248

Yeah, The mac port is technically an OpenGL port (by my standards anyway), even so, It could have been done better, from what I understand.

Well, it’s not exactly a port. More like a DirectX game wrapped in a (kitten-y) translation layer.

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Posted by: MehWhatever.1248

MehWhatever.1248

Here’s more data – 16% Linux vs. 6% Mac sales.

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Posted by: MehWhatever.1248

MehWhatever.1248

Meh is quite correct

Create a nickname they said. It’s not your visible name they said. Now I’m stuck. Meh, whatever. Also, thanks for the data links. I was too lazy and angry to look for those.

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A client for Linux

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MehWhatever.1248

Valve makes games for Linux because Valve makes games for everything in an attempt to push as much crap on as many idiots as possible.

I love you too. Sincerely, an idiot who plays crap.

People with Linux are mostly people who either don’t want to, or can’t spend money. Exactly the wrong kind of people to try to market a product to.

OK, real talk now. Take that generalization and shove it up your kitten. As a Linux user I’m offended by this and I’m not going to tolerate this any more. I pay for all my games, and most people I know do the same, no matter what platform they are on.

Instead, get the Mac client going, and then we can all go over there and be happy.

If they make a native Mac client, there will be no reason not to target Linux.

Zahld, that would be great, except developing a working version of an MMO on an OS that changes on the whims of the completely random people that make it is… well, it’s hard.

I’m not really sure who you mean, but here is what Linus Torvalds (yes, that guy who wrote Linux) thinks about binary compatibility. Also, I guess Fujitsu, IBM, Intel, HP, NEC, Oracle, Samsung, AMD, Cisco, Citrix, Google, Hitachi, Huawei, Motorola, Panasonic, Toyota, Adobe, ARM, Barnes and Noble, Broadcom, Canonical, D-Link, Dell, DreamWorks, Epson, LG, Marvell, MIPS, Nokia, NVIDIA, Qualcomm, Siemens, Sony, Twitter, VMWare, Yahoo and many others really are random people. Seriously, does anyone know any of those companies?

Most console games, from small indie titles to big Steam titles are not often updated, and are easy to port to anything. Look at Skyrim as a perfect example. It can be played on everything from the Xbox to a calculator.

How come my calculator can’t handle it? Also, I suggest you go and do some research on console architectures and SDKs. They don’t port games to consoles because it’s easy, they port games to consoles because that’s where the money is.

TL;DR Ignorance ignorance ignorance personal offence ignorance.

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MehWhatever.1248

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.

If they do that, they would have ported the most complicated part. Adding input and audio abstractions would be pretty easy, maybe even through winelib.

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I haven’t really read through the thread, but a Linux client would be really great.

There were some great posts detailing the process of porting games, and some of the complications that can arise, so give it a read if that’s interesting for you. Other then that, it’s mostly +1s (that’s good) and Linux hate (that’s bad).

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I switched to linux about 6 months ago when steam for linux came out. Couldn’t stand windows and I was willing to sacrifice Guild Wars 2 for a better system with 100 native games on steam (and counting….). My solution is this: Why don’t Arena net cut off the code for the authorise and release everything else. In that way everyone could package the game for its system. Then when you will download the client the authorize will be automatically packaged for your distro. There are not so many. The main distros which 99% of people use are just 5 which means it will be easy to package them.

That’ll be very easy to exploit. If the main client is open source, it will be impossible to produce identical binaries on all configurations, so even if the network code itself is implemented in a separate library, the client still has complete control over it, and arbitrary code can be disguised as the client quite easily.

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MehWhatever.1248

@Mehwhatever
I know opengl TODAY is much more complete than 10-20 years ago, but in computer time 10 years is like eons, and people jut create a huge directx base. So opengl will need more time to change minds. Maybe Valve change this showing the benefits of open source software, working togheter with proprietary developers but it will take time.

This makes sense, but you should remember that OpenGL is already used in many games, especially on OS X, PS3 and mobile.

And about Loki.

Try piracy on a 90% market and try piracy on a 10% market. It will be a huge money difference.

Let´s see. Let´s imagine 1 million user. 90% windows, 10% linux (like Loki´s time). And let´s imagine a 50% piracy. On the first case we will have 450.000 paying customers. If they buy a 60 bucks game they will gain 27 million dollars. It´s a lot of money to pay for development process… Now to linux. 50.000 paying customers for a 60 dollar game. 3 million dollar. Well, it´s a lot of money but i don´t know if this will pay all trouble for distribution, production, rights, etc…

So Loki went bankrupt for piracy, there aren´t enough buying customers to pay the development costs.

This I do understand. But it’s not just piracy. Many games are still ported to Linux by ex-Loki employees. Piracy always plays its part, but the main reason was that they took on too many games at once, and couldn’t release any of them to make money for the rest.

And even most linux users will never buy a proprietary software (even without piracy).

You came dangerously to losing me at this very sentence. Not all Linux users are GNU fanatics, and most of us already use proprietary software, at least in the form of hardware drivers / firmwares.

I´m not comparing linux piracy with windows piracy, both are bad and both have a lot of users. But linux piracy is more harmful than windows piracy.

Stats or it didn’t happen.

Expanding… For an MMO game like GW2, piracy is not a problem, if you don´t pay you don´t play. But for most developers piracy is a big cut on their “game”.

Agreed.

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MehWhatever.1248

No, most companies don´t create linux games for 2 reasons
1 – Directx is a well known and documented library for game development with a huge base. Opengl was really obscure on its past and make Directx the best flavor for someone needing a more faster and stable development.
2 – Remember Loki. He went bankrupt. He was porting a lot of games to Linux and Linux Users pirated the games instead of buying the games. If it´s people forcing companies to work only with opensource games like some claimed that time I really don´t know. What I know is that it closed a huge amount of doors wanting to make good games on linux.

1) Yep, DirectX is a great API. OpenGL was pretty bad. But that time is long past, and now it’s a very viable option, as proven by many games already.
2) Loki’s bankrupcy was caused by bad management and financial decisions, not piracy. Some people like to assume that Linux is free, and therefore everyone who uses Linux only uses free stuff and pirates the rest. This makes no sense at all. Just like with Windows, there are Linux users who pirate their games, but there also are those who pay for games, and from my experience, those are the majority.

P.S. On a sidenote, thank you for expressing your opinion in a neutral, unoffensive way.

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For now, it’s just WinRT, but it’s only a matter of time (and one, maybe two subsequent Windows releases) for Microsoft to lock down the desktop, too.

This isn’t going to happen for a very long time because there are too many existing customers (mainly enterprise but not only) that depend on the current behavior of the desktop. Windows RT is a different kettle of fish since it’s new devices only, but even there I can’t predict whether it’ll last too long – does anyone really want it? Will anyone really want it two years from now as Intel CPUs continue to improve their power efficiency and there’s not much reason not to just go with Windows 8?

Anyway, there are some people who are looking at Linux due to being disillusioned with Windows 8 – not really that many in the grand scheme of things, but they’re there, and a lot of them are gamers. So this may be a conversation ArenaNet will wind up having, sooner or later.

Well, I think WinRT is pretty much dead on arrival, largely because of its complexity. WinRT still has its roots on the desktop, and for a mobile OS it’s absolutely huge. Android needs a 500MB system partition, WinRT needs gigabytes. Android needs 512MB of RAM, WinRT seems to need 2GB. It’s good for a desktop OS, but not for mobile (unless you’re aiming for the premium market only). WinRT also inherits a lot of WinAPI code that’s not used any more because the new Metro API is built on top of it. I also doubt they’re on par with Android or MeeGo or anything else Linux based in terms of hardware abstraction. So in short, WinRT is a mess, and its advantages are very few (the only thing I can think about right now is Office).

Windows on the desktop, however, is a very different beast, as is Windows in the enterprise space. Microsoft has made it quite clear that sideloading is here to stay, at least for enterprises. The future of the desktop, however, seems to be a walled garden. It will, of course, be bypassable using the same enterprise tools to sideload apps, but it will make distribution outside the Windows Store much more complicated, and not everyone will want to mess with signatures and hidden settings just to install an app. If Microsoft wants (and they likely do), they can effectively lock most not-so-tech-savvy people in. And that’s why expanding to other platforms is important pretty much for everyone now.

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Game plays fine in Ubuntu with wine. No problems… doesn’t need a special client.

Out of curiosity alone, what’s the CPU you’re running it on?

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It’s only a small step from a client for Mac to a client for Linux. Take notice ArenaNet. Linux is the future in operating systems.

Linux the future in operating systems? That is highly unlikely, and there are many many reasons why it is highly unlikely. People were saying the same about OpenGL, and look what happened there, hardly anyone uses it other then cheap indie games.

I’m sure if Arenanet feels they can actually make a profit from having a Linux version, they would do it.

Actually, a shi tload of games uses OpenGL : Brink, Starcraft II (and all Blizzard’s games actually), all Valve’s games, Neverwinter Nights, Amnesia, Doom 3, Deus Ex, Heroes of Newerth, City of heroes, City of Vilains, Far Cry, Hitman, Homeworld 2, Max Payne, Oil Rush, Penumbra series, Quake series, Red Faction, Spore, Stronghold, Serious Sam series, Wolfenstein series and so many more I can’t remember them all but they’re far from “cheap indie games”.

Notice how the vast majority of the games you mentioned are very old? Blizzard who take forever to bring out a new game, Valve who take forever to bring out a new game, and IDSoft who take forever to bring out a new game are really the only big names that use it, and then a few others. OpenGL is no where being used as much as it used to be. For the most part, indie games are the ones that use it the most, but for AAA games, yeah, OpenGL is on life support.

Thats hardly an sign that openGl is on supposed lifesupport, infact opengl run faster than directx and opengl is capable of doing anything that direcx is. direcx is used more because of microsoft business practices and clever marketing. You suppose the coding guru carmack uses opengl cuz its inferior? hardly! Idsoft isn’t as much about making games as they are creating new tech and game engines with more advanced features than most others.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MegaTexture
http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/133824-valve-opengl-is-faster-than-directx-even-on-windows

I didn’t say it was inferior, not sure where you got that from. What I did say is that OpenGL is basically being kept alive by indie developers, and then very few other developers, with the biggest ones that take a very long time to release a game.

Anyways, the point is for years people have been saying that Linux is the future for PC OS and or for PC gaming, yet is has barely broke any ground, again just a few big developers, and mostly indie developers who do anything with it. Linux only has 1% of PC OS market share http://www.tomshardware.com/news/linux-windows-microsoft-android-ios,20220.html

We’ll see if Valve can actually make Linux into something more serious competitor, but personally I am not expecting more then just Valve games, indie games, and a few games here and there for Steam Linux. I can see how it can be profitable to have a Steam client for Linux games because of the indie games alone, but for a developer of a game like Guild Wars 2, that profit margin just may not be there, but that is for Arenanet to decide based on their own research.

DirectX usually offers better performance on Windows, which is to be expected from the officially supported / recommended API. Most commercial game engines (UE3, CryEngine, Unity, etc) support multiple rendering backends, but use DirectX on Windows for that very simple reason.

Also, it’s my personal opinion that Linux has only become ready for average desktop use quite recently, and it’s not quite there for gaming. Desktop Linux is undergoing massive changes right now (systemd, kernelspace D-Bus, DRM2 and DRI-Next, Wayland), and with Windows 8 there is a real incentive to switch for many.

What specifically is wrong with Windows 8? I am using it, and to me it is no difference for Gaming then Windows 7. Windows 8 feels like Windows 7 with Metro.

Metro is a matter of choice, though it seems like a complete clusterkitten of everything that could possibly go wrong and a bit more. The real issue here is that Microsoft is starting to build a closed ecosystem with Windows 8, a ‘walled garden’ similar to Apple’s. Windows RT doesn’t allow you to sideload applications, and other stores like Steam are not allowed on the Windows Store, which leaves the developers with the Windows Store itself as the only distribution channel. For now, it’s just WinRT, but it’s only a matter of time (and one, maybe two subsequent Windows releases) for Microsoft to lock down the desktop, too.

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MehWhatever.1248

It’s only a small step from a client for Mac to a client for Linux. Take notice ArenaNet. Linux is the future in operating systems.

Linux the future in operating systems? That is highly unlikely, and there are many many reasons why it is highly unlikely. People were saying the same about OpenGL, and look what happened there, hardly anyone uses it other then cheap indie games.

I’m sure if Arenanet feels they can actually make a profit from having a Linux version, they would do it.

Actually, a shi tload of games uses OpenGL : Brink, Starcraft II (and all Blizzard’s games actually), all Valve’s games, Neverwinter Nights, Amnesia, Doom 3, Deus Ex, Heroes of Newerth, City of heroes, City of Vilains, Far Cry, Hitman, Homeworld 2, Max Payne, Oil Rush, Penumbra series, Quake series, Red Faction, Spore, Stronghold, Serious Sam series, Wolfenstein series and so many more I can’t remember them all but they’re far from “cheap indie games”.

Notice how the vast majority of the games you mentioned are very old? Blizzard who take forever to bring out a new game, Valve who take forever to bring out a new game, and IDSoft who take forever to bring out a new game are really the only big names that use it, and then a few others. OpenGL is no where being used as much as it used to be. For the most part, indie games are the ones that use it the most, but for AAA games, yeah, OpenGL is on life support.

Thats hardly an sign that openGl is on supposed lifesupport, infact opengl run faster than directx and opengl is capable of doing anything that direcx is. direcx is used more because of microsoft business practices and clever marketing. You suppose the coding guru carmack uses opengl cuz its inferior? hardly! Idsoft isn’t as much about making games as they are creating new tech and game engines with more advanced features than most others.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MegaTexture
http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/133824-valve-opengl-is-faster-than-directx-even-on-windows

I didn’t say it was inferior, not sure where you got that from. What I did say is that OpenGL is basically being kept alive by indie developers, and then very few other developers, with the biggest ones that take a very long time to release a game.

Anyways, the point is for years people have been saying that Linux is the future for PC OS and or for PC gaming, yet is has barely broke any ground, again just a few big developers, and mostly indie developers who do anything with it. Linux only has 1% of PC OS market share http://www.tomshardware.com/news/linux-windows-microsoft-android-ios,20220.html

We’ll see if Valve can actually make Linux into something more serious competitor, but personally I am not expecting more then just Valve games, indie games, and a few games here and there for Steam Linux. I can see how it can be profitable to have a Steam client for Linux games because of the indie games alone, but for a developer of a game like Guild Wars 2, that profit margin just may not be there, but that is for Arenanet to decide based on their own research.

DirectX usually offers better performance on Windows, which is to be expected from the officially supported / recommended API. Most commercial game engines (UE3, CryEngine, Unity, etc) support multiple rendering backends, but use DirectX on Windows for that very simple reason.

Also, it’s my personal opinion that Linux has only become ready for average desktop use quite recently, and it’s not quite there for gaming. Desktop Linux is undergoing massive changes right now (systemd, kernelspace D-Bus, DRM2 and DRI-Next, Wayland), and with Windows 8 there is a real incentive to switch for many.

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(edited by MehWhatever.1248)

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MehWhatever.1248

Stick to Ubuntu just like Valve, force more Standards and soon we might have a platform for the future of PC gaming.

This ‘just like Valve’ part is really important guys. Valve people don’t use anything Ubuntu-specific in their code, and that makes Steam pretty much distribution agnostic. Just wanted to highlight this.

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Steam can’t be installed on Windows 8 tablets, and that’s why Gabe Newell ported source natively to linux, and steam.

Steam can be installed on Windows 8 tablets, but not on Windows RT tablets. Of course, Valve don’t want to lose their revenue.

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Now that Steam has gotten to Linux Arena Net should definetily build a client for linux. Just look at the numbures of people being willing to change! ANd they can do it with les cost. They can release the code and let the users find bugs and fix them. In this way the bugs will be over in far less time and with lees money.

I doubt they’ll release the source any time soon. That will make finding exploits and writing bots very easy.

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Heh, I remember what Alan Cox said about that, to be quite fair I can’t understand his motivations… It’s the same reasons why I can’t use a stable (Opensolaris-like stable, at least) ZFS root on Debian. Sigh. It sucks that most of the skilled programmers are such license-extremists.
Again, I may be wrong about nVidia dropping Optimus on Windows, I just remember somebody saying they were taking into account the possibility to drop it with the coming of Ivy Bridges, but again it was a lot of time ago, and I may be remembering just some rant on the forums :p Wish I could find the post, but the old nVidia forum is a mess

Linus isn’t. And Dave Airlie isn’t. If only they could convince Alan.

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About the Optimus stuff: I’m the prowd owner of an Alienware M17x r3 laptop, and I’m not really having issues with optimus. It CAN be a problem at the start, but bumblebee solved it for me. As a proof, I can say I play GW2 with accettable fps, and native games ( Legend of Grimrock, Team Fortress 2, etc ) with at max settings with no slowdowns at all…
Also, IIRC… Didn’t nVidia announce that they’re actually gonna drop Optimus on Windows as well, to move on another project that they plan to support on both Windows and Linux? I may be wrong about this one, it’s just something I recall I’ve read somewhere on the old nvidia forums, Linux section

Never heard about them dropping Optimus on Windows, but on Linux they wanted to enable it using DMA buffer sharing like open-source drivers do it. However the last time I checked, they’ve ran into an Alan Cox issue, and you probably know this guy’s position on proprietary stuff in his kernel.

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Again off topic stuff it has nothing to do with a Linux Native Client.

As far as driver issues this will not be the responsibility of Anet. If they have a working client with any video card would be up to the Device manufacture to provide an adequate driver or use the open source driver again not Anets problem.

Ravenmoon, Nvidia is a bad example to use as Nvidia has been pretty good with their drivers for Linux. If you wanted a better argument AMD’s Linux drivers are much more vulnerable to criticisms. Even at that though they still work fine for me, even with wine when I run WoW-64 I get very good frame rates (100-200/fps). I can only imagine how well it would run with a “Native Client”.

If Main Stream Game Developers start making more Linux native clients hardware manufactures will provide better support for the games and their hardware.
In general we the consumers have much to gain when competition and ingenuity come together. This will also benefit Apple users with OS X.

The thing is, there are almost no driver issues. You can get the same performance on Linux and Windows without over-optimising either. Ravenmoon is just trying to prove that Windows is master race.

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And I see no response from nvidia. It might be just you. And if it is just you, then how about you agree that the issue is by the device behind the keyboard?

All I did was run some simple tests that didn’t involve changing anything I’m not allowed to change (just start a program that starts another program with different settings) and observe the outcome. Nothing I did could have affected the behaviour of the NVIDIA’s hooks. I’ve also confirmed this behavior on a different machine.

Edit: here’s my exact test procedure, in case you want to try and reproduce it.
0) You’ll need AutoHotkey and visualinfo.exe from GLEW
1) Create and compile an AutoHotkey script: “run visualinfo.exe”. This’ll give you a test parent executable that runs visualinfo.exe and exits.
2) Start the compiled executable. Open visualinfo.txt. Both visualinfo and your executable are set to run on integrated graphics, so you obviously see Intel data.
3) Right-click the compiled executable and run it on external graphics. Open visualinfo.txt. See NVIDIA data. Now the child process runs on NVIDIA graphics.
4) Go to NVIDIA Control panel and set the compiled executable to always run on NVIDIA graphics. Start it by double clicking. Open visualinfo.txt. See Intel data. Now the child process runs on Intel graphics.
5) (not required) Write a forum post on NVIDIA’s forum asking if the behavior is intentional.

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(edited by MehWhatever.1248)

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Yes, keep reading off the interwebz without seeing it for yourself and act smartass c:
Funny thing is I actually have a collegue here in the office, with a brand new laptop running the latest Ubuntu. And he’s pretty depressed about this whole optimus switch thing c:
Not to mention that it works flawlessly under his Windows 7. We tend to do some multiplayer gaming in our free time, you know, call of duty and stuff ^^ in which he gets worse FPS than his windows machine just FYI with the Beta nvidia proprietary driver which is rumoured to boost the linux driver performance as much as with 50%

What’s more interesting is that this is something like a trend in the new nvidia laptops. Just like Intel is trying to push touchscreens to every PC, especially in the ultrabooks (will provide a link to the article if you want)

Need a screenshot from my laptop? Also, that was me who posted that thread. And you’re talking about Wine overhead again. Try something native on both Windows and Linux, then compare.

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Nah I wanted to spare it but I really like to troll on this one.
So tell me, have you purchased a new laptop recently with nvidia gpu? How’s that optimus switch working for you xD ?
Sure you can use bumblebee from terminal, I prefer to just, you know, flip the switch and double click the icon on my desktop
Linux have great time catching up to new hardware.

Works perfectly here, you know. optidesk is your switch. Also, Optimus on Windows is not flawless, either, and has some pretty unexpected behavior.

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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.

Don’t think 3D works well enough for that. But it might be possible in the longer term.

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