The Witcher 3 for Linux

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

The Witcher 3 for Linux

In the parallel thread OP asked whether CDPR treats Xbox exclusively in comparison to other platforms.

MM360 of CDPR was kind to respond to that:

Hello,

First of all I apologize in the name of our moderating team for making your topics invisible. We value our fans' opinions and we really appreciate when you guys share your concerns and feedback with us directly - without that, our work wouldn't make sense.

If you prefer PC or Playstation 4 over Xbox One, The Witcher 3 will also be released on those systems, so there will be various options to choose from. I can assure you that here at CD Projekt RED we are all gamers and when making a game, we treat all devices equally - there's no favourism. We just want to deliver the best experience possible. Hope this clears things up a bit.

As per advice from moderators since other thread was narrowly focused, I'm opening a broader topic.

Since CDPR are interested in feedback and opinions and claim they don't treat platforms with favoritism, what about other major PC systems besides Windows - Linux and Mac OSX? In the past, CDPR released Witcher 1 and Witcher 2 for Mac OSX at least (the first using Wine wrapper, and the second as native OpenGL 3 based build).

Just for the reference - Playstation 4 is claimed to have OpenGL 4 support. Mac OSX is getting OpenGL 4 in the upcoming 10.9 "Mavericks" (scheduled for Q3 - Q4 of 2013). Linux has OpenGL 4 support already.

The situation is also different in comparison with TW1 and TW2. Since Windows version of TW3 is using DirectX 11 (as CDPR confirmed multiple times already), users of Linux and Mac OSX won't be able to use the Windows version with Wine, since DX11 support there is not likely to arrive any time soon. So Linux and Mac OSX users will be simply locked out from playing TW3. This hardly can be seen as a lack of favoritism. So would CDPR be interested in working on OpenGL 4 based Witcher 3 for these platforms, may be as a second step after the main release? Did CDPR consider this issue at all or didn't even decide about such plans yet? This is a concern from the users who would like to play TW3 but won't be able to if it won't come out with native ports to those platforms. If you are really listening to feedback, please comment on this issue.

 

[volsung]

Good topic Gilrond. As everybody knows by now, I would also like CDPR to support Linux gaming. Heck, I'd rather they use OpenGL in Windows too.

CDPR is an excellent company, respectful of their customers and aware of our needs and wants. The have spearheaded the campaign for high profile DRM-free gaming, through their own Witcher franchise and their sister company, GOG.com. Ironically, many games on GOG and both Witchers require PC platforms with DRM to run, even if the games themselves are DRM-free. Wouldn't it be great to not have to add DRM to our games? How about running them in a 100% DRM-free environment?

The question about whether Linux-based systems are appropriate for gaming has been raised and answered before. Smaller efforts like the Humble Bundle manage to offer native Linux clients of most (if not all) of their games, and they run on a variety of systems mostly with excellent performance and results. Linux-based systems in particular are an interesting scenario for games, since these operating systems can be optimized to levels unthinkable for Windows or Mac OS X. Valve has already started doing business under Linux with a native Steam client and Source Engine, and they have reported excellent results.

CDPR is normally ahead of everyone else in most things: game quality, customer relations, community support, DRM-free gaming. But there are still steps that could be taken to make their games more accessible. Make them truly multi-platform! And truly DRM-free!

 

[ShivaSi]

They might treat all devices equally but until doing some math regarding the revenues each device can generate.

 

[Licaon_Kter]

+1 Linux, hehe
Since both the XbOne and the PS4 run x86 hardware the point should be moot since there is no more port to speak of, there will be only PC and PC(DX11 XbOne) and PC(OGL4 PS4) so OGL4 MacOSX and Linux are right there already. q e d

 

[volsung]

gotta love the maturity of other forum members for downvoting a legitimate concern. Not like it means anything really (not anymore) but it goes to show there is some prejudice.

Edit: ha ha! OK so someone PMed me saying DirectX has "better libraries" than OpenGL! How silly of us, trying to promote a standard when a closed proprietary technology is obviously superior because, well, their selling agents I mean expert creators said so

It was worth a good laugh. This person also requested support for all DX past and future before

Guys, read the whole post!

 

[SystemShock7]

gotta love the maturity of other forum members for downvoting a legitimate concern. Not like it means anything really (not anymore) but it goes to show there is some prejudice.

Edit: ha ha! OK so someone PMed me saying DirectX has "better libraries" than OpenGL! How silly of us, trying to promote a standard when a closed proprietary technology is obviously superior because, well, their selling agents I mean expert creators said so />/>

It was worth a good laugh. This person also requested support for all DX past and future before />/>

Guys, read the whole post!

This reminds me of an off-site at my place of work. The Architecture team sent this young lady to talk to this group of engineers about our new IT program, and how RHEL was going to be our "go-forward" *nix. She said "when someone comes with a request for Solaris or AIX host, we will show them why it runs better on a RHEL VM". After my laughter had subsided, being the smartass that I am, I asked her, "so what do you do when someone comes with a request for a Windows host? Do you also show'em why it runs better on RHEL?" The expression on the poor girl's face was priceless... and the kick I got on the ankle from my boss did hurt.

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

They might treat all devices equally but until doing some math regarding the revenues each device can generate.

They could say that. But they said they don't have favoritism. So let's see what CDPR says about this issue. They avoided responding to this concern so far.

Since both the XbOne and the PS4 run x86 hardware the point should be moot since there is no more port to speak of, there will be only PC and PC(DX11 XbOne) and PC(OGL4 PS4) so OGL4 MacOSX and Linux are right there already. q e d />

It's more complicated than that I guess. PS4 might have OpenGL 4, but network layer can be different from POSIX one for example. Of course if they stick to cross platform libraries they'll avoid writing too much platform specific code, but again - I have no idea what's available on PS4 middleware wise. Testing all that most surely will involve each platform separately, so understandably it increases the burden.

gotta love the maturity of other forum members for downvoting a legitimate concern. Not like it means anything really (not anymore) but it goes to show there is some prejudice.

It's hard to understand why someone would not like concerns and feedback when CDPR explicitly said they are interested in it. Let those people express their own concerns if they want.

OK so someone PMed me saying DirectX has "better libraries" than OpenGL! How silly of us, trying to promote a standard when a closed proprietary technology is obviously superior because, well, their selling agents I mean expert creators said so />

Yeah, how "silly" for everyone except MS to use open standard. Some people still have notions from the past wars of OpenGL vs DirectX. But as a rule these people have no clue about actual current developments in technology - so no point to pay attention to that.

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

SystemShock7: I'm not sure I really understood your story. Did you mean that lady was upset that you have no customers who demanded Windows? Or that you don't offer them support?

 

[Demut]

Yes, please. I’m tired of having to deal with Windows solely because gaming on Linux is still such a bother right now.

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

It's not really a bother. The main issue now is the lack of games in comparison with Windows. And with DX11 becoming more common this problem will become stronger until Wine will catch up. That's the concern, to which CDPR so far didn't answer.

 

[Demut]

What I mean with “such a bother” is the lack of optimization for Linux - meaning you’ll run into far more performance-related problems than on Windows if you don’t have super-duper hardware (which I don’t).

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

Do you mean that using Wine is less optimal than playing Windows games on native Windows, or that developers who release cross platform games polish their Linux releases less than Windows ones? In general Wine's overhead is pretty minimal.

 

[Demut]

The former. When developers do release games with Linux in mind then that usually takes care of that issue.

 

[volsung]

What I mean with “such a bother” is the lack of optimization for Linux - meaning you’ll run into far more performance-related problems than on Windows if you don’t have super-duper hardware (which I don’t).

When was the last time you played a game on Linux?

If anything you can get better performance based on the simple fact that, in Linux, you can reduce OS overhead almost as much as you want.

 

[Demut]

About two years ago when my HDD with Windows conked out and I couldn’t find my Windows CD.

 

[volsung]

The former. When developers do release games with Linux in mind then that usually takes care of that issue.

Then that's not really Linux gaming. It's Windows gaming in Linux.

 

[Demut]

Well, yeah, but isn’t it a given that this is what I was talking about when you consider the small number of “big” games for the latter ?

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

The former. When developers do release games with Linux in mind then that usually takes care of that issue.

Some games play in Wine very well, some have performance issues. For example I tried to play Guildwars2 with Wine and it was an inferior experience. It used just one CPU core with Wine which probably created a performance bottleneck for the game. On Windows it's supposed to use all cores. On the other hand, many other games play on Wine just fine. The overhead of the Wine layer isn't major and even moderate hardware handles it well.

 

[volsung]

I remember playing Doom 3 in Linux with amazing performance. Back then, the base install (4 GB or so) was exactly the same files for Windows, but you had to download a Linux binary of about 50 MB. Doom 3 used OpenGL of course. Why can't this be done anymore??

I read something about a compatibility layer for Mac OS X binaries in Linux, similar to Wine for Windows. Maybe it will be more efficient to run non native games that way.

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

Why, Doom 3 for Linux is still available for download straight from id Software (playable if you have original Doom 3 game files):

http://zerowing.idsoftware.com/linux/doom/Doom3FrontPage/