John Carmack: Linux is not the right platform for video games

Valve's Gabe Newell is pretty excited about the potential of Linux for video games however id Software's John Carmack counters this by saying that Linux does not have what it takes to be the right platform for video games. Carmack believes it makes more sense to create a special emulator for Linux rather than to port video games to Linux, which is used by just 1.21 percent of PC users, he stated on reddit.

John:

I wish Linux well, but the reality is that it barely makes it into my top ten priorities (Burn the heretic!); I use Linux for the flight computers at Armadillo Aerospace, but not for any regular desktop work. I was happy to hear that Rage ran in Wine, but no special effort was made to support it.

I do get tempted to port to Linux for technical reasons I would like to use Valgrind again, and Nvidia has told me that some experimental GPU features I would like to use for R&D would be easier to prove out on Linux. Working on open source Linux OpenGL drivers again would also be fun if I ever had the time.

However, I dont think that a good business case can be made for officially supporting Linux for mainstream games today, and Zenimax doesnt have any policy of unofficial binaries like Id used to have. I have argued for their value (mostly in the context of experimental Windows features, but Linux would also benefit), but my forceful internal pushes have been for the continuation of Id Softwares open source code releases, which I feel have broader benefits than unsupported Linux binaries.

I cant speak for the executives at Zenimax, but they dont even publish Mac titles (they partner with Aspyr), so I would be stunned if they showed an interest in officially publishing and supporting a Linux title. A port could be up and running in a week or two, but there is so much work to do beyond that for official support. The conventional wisdom is that native Linux games are not a good market. Id Software tested the conventional wisdom twice, with Quake Arena and Quake Live. The conventional wisdom proved correct. Arguments can be made that neither one was an optimal test case, but they were honest tries.

If you fervently believe that there is an actual business case to be made for Linux ports, you can make a business offer to a publisher offer a guarantee and be willing to do the work and support. This is what Aspyr does for the Mac, and what Loki did for Linux. However, you probably cant even get an email returned if you are offering less than six figures to a top ten publisher. This may sound ridiculous Who would turn away $20,000? but the reality is that many of the same legal, financial, executive, and support resources need to be brought to bear on every single deal, regardless of size, and taking time away from something that is in the tens of millions of dollars range is often not justifiable.

I truly do feel that emulation of some sort is a proper technical direction for gaming on Linux. It is obviously pragmatic in the range of possible support, but it shouldnt have the technical stigma that it does. There really isnt much of anything special that a native port does we still make OpenGL calls, winsock is just BSD sockets, windows threads become pthreads, and the translation of input and audio interfaces dont make much difference (XInput and Xaudio2 are good APIs!). A good shim layer should have far less impact on performance than the variability in driver quality.

Translating from D3D to OpenGL would involve more inefficiencies, but figuring out exactly what the difficulties are and making some form of D3D interop extension for OpenGL to smooth it out is a lot easier than making dozens of completely refactored, high performance native ports.
Ideally, following a set of best practice guidelines could allow developers to get Linux versions with little more effort than supporting, say, Windows XP.

Properly evangelized, with Steam as a monetized distribution platform, this is a plausible path forward.
John Carmack 3d Guru

http://www.guru3d.com/news_story/john_carmack_linux_is_not_the_right_platform_for_video_games.html

How do you like them apples freelosers?

kuraimen is not going to like this,he claims to be a linux PC gamer.

It would be difficult porting all Windows-based DX games to Linux and OGL considering Windows + DX are the industry standards to whom all (PC) developers conform.

Still, OGL & Linux is a much faster, more efficient combination than DX & Windows where you can achieve more with less.

It requires some skills to develop for tho.

Thread

Trying to understand the Steambox?

Clyde, do you remeber this ? ;)

[QUOTE="jhonMalcovich"]

[QUOTE="Mrmedia01"]

 

Awwwww sounds like no big deal then. Probably won't compete with the console market then.

clyde46

I have another theory. Valve came up secretly with its own version of Wine application, the one that can run Windows games on Linux without performance drop.

Linux is sh!t for the end user, it's more for developers and advanced/power users who know what they're doing. It'll never be the right choice for the vast majority of people, I don't see that changing soon or ever really.locopatho

Disagreed.

With a simplified user interface, Linux would be very much appealing to any user.

Android OS is based on UNIX after all.

Gabe said the Steambox will be open and the user can install any OS they want. I think they main reason Valve is using Linux with the Steambox is so they don't have to pay licensing fees to Microsoft and Apple.

Gabe said the Steambox will be open and the user can install any OS they want. I think they main reason Valve is using Linux with the Steambox is so they don't have to pay licensing fees to Microsoft and Apple.

Nintendo_Ownes7

So what he's saying is not that Linux is bad, but that it isn't profitable to officially support Linux for mainstream games, and that changing this is not a priority.
I am surprised how difficult (expensive) it is to support Linux. I do think that Carmack will change his tune about finding alternatives not being a priority.

[QUOTE="Nintendo_Ownes7"]

Gabe said the Steambox will be open and the user can install any OS they want. I think they main reason Valve is using Linux with the Steambox is so they don't have to pay licensing fees to Microsoft and Apple.

clyde46

Linux is sh!t for the end user, it's more for developers and advanced/power users who know what they're doing. It'll never be the right choice for the vast majority of people, I don't see that changing soon or ever really.locopatho

How many distributions yo used to call it sh*t ?

Carmack's a firm believer of Windows' monopoly, he even abandoned superior openGL for dierectX. We can't let him keep deceiving people with his bullcrap, we need to stop this.

[QUOTE="clyde46"][QUOTE="Nintendo_Ownes7"]

Gabe said the Steambox will be open and the user can install any OS they want. I think they main reason Valve is using Linux with the Steambox is so they don't have to pay licensing fees to Microsoft and Apple.

Nintendo_Ownes7

Thread

Trying to understand the Steambox?

Clyde, do you remeber this ? ;)

[QUOTE="clyde46"][QUOTE="jhonMalcovich"]

I have another theory. Valve came up secretly with its own version of Wine application, the one that can run Windows games on Linux without performance drop.

jhonMalcovich

So what he's saying is not that Linux is bad, but that it isn't profitable to officially support Linux for mainstream games, and that changing this is not a priority.
I am surprised how difficult (expensive) it is to support Linux. I do think that Carmack will change his tune about finding alternatives not being a priority.

KungfuKitten

Exactly

Bill Gates once said that we would never need more than 64kb of memory on a computer. Big boys are not always right :P I see Linux as the future. And unless you're mentally deficient Linux can be as easy if not more than Windows you just need, you know, to use it regularly.kuraimen

One of the biggest issues with ubuntu(from a windows user perspective)is that many simple actions regarding the interface are much more complex at first,and that alone will intimidate most people that simply don´t want to take the time to learn something new when they already have acess to something they´re used to already(windows) and in the end,performs pretty much the same tasks(for the most part)in a much more simpler fashion. I mean,how many people do you think are willing to learn how to use the terminal to perform some of the most important tasks,especially when many of them can be done much more simply on windows? Even DosBox is way too complicated for a lot of people out there,learning to properly use the terminal is much harder.
I use ubuntu for most things aside from gaming but I´m not exactly a layman when it comes to software,however the majority of people out there are and in the end,they don´t even need linux anyway,all things considered.

So what he's saying is not that Linux is bad, but that it isn't profitable to officially support Linux for mainstream games, and that changing this is not a priority.
I am surprised how difficult (expensive) it is to support Linux. I do think that Carmack will change his tune about finding alternatives not being a priority.

KungfuKitten

Pretty much.

Linux could very well be a viable gaming platform in the future, but that's an uphil battle that I don't see them winning for many years.

So I'll stick with Windows 8.

[QUOTE="Nintendo_Ownes7"]

[QUOTE="clyde46"] Only to MS as Apple refuses to let you run OSX on anything other than a Mac.clyde46

[QUOTE="jhonMalcovich"]

Thread

Trying to understand the Steambox?

Clyde, do you remeber this ? ;)

[QUOTE="clyde46"] Not going to happen.clyde46

But isn´t the article speaking in favor of an emulator ? :D

[QUOTE="clyde46"][QUOTE="jhonMalcovich"]

jhonMalcovich

But isn´t the article speaking in favor of an emulator ? :D

[QUOTE="kuraimen"]Bill Gates once said that we would never need more than 64kb of memory on a computer. Big boys are not always right :P I see Linux as the future. And unless you're mentally deficient Linux can be as easy if not more than Windows you just need, you know, to use it regularly.Arach666

One of the biggest issues with ubuntu(from a windows user perspective)is that many simple actions regarding the interface are much more complex at first,and that alone will intimidate most people that simply don´t want to take the time to learn something new when they already have acess to something they´re used to already(windows) and in the end,performs pretty much the same tasks(for the most part)in a much more simpler fashion. I mean,how many people do you think are willing to learn how to use the terminal to perform some of the most important tasks,especially when many of them can be done much more simply on windows? Even DosBox is way too complicated for a lot of people out there,learning to properly use the terminal is much harder.
I use ubuntu for most things aside from gaming but I´m not exactly a layman when it comes to software,however the majority of people out there are and in the end,they don´t even need linux anyway,all things considered.

[QUOTE="KungfuKitten"]

So what he's saying is not that Linux is bad, but that it isn't profitable to officially support Linux for mainstream games, and that changing this is not a priority.
I am surprised how difficult (expensive) it is to support Linux. I do think that Carmack will change his tune about finding alternatives not being a priority.

kuraimen

[QUOTE="clyde46"][QUOTE="Nintendo_Ownes7"]I though it was allowed because I could of sworn that my friend had OSX and XP on his laptop (But that was about 5 years ago so I could be remembering it wrong)

Nintendo_Ownes7

Just because you can't legally install OSX on non Apple hardware doesn't mean it's impossible to do so anyway (Google Hackintosh).

Your friend may well have installed OSX on his laptop.

[QUOTE="kuraimen"]Bill Gates once said that we would never need more than 64kb of memory on a computer. Big boys are not always right :P I see Linux as the future. And unless you're mentally deficient Linux can be as easy if not more than Windows you just need, you know, to use it regularly.Arach666

One of the biggest issues with ubuntu(from a windows user perspective)is that many simple actions regarding the interface are much more complex at first,and that alone will intimidate most people that simply don´t want to take the time to learn something new when they already have acess to something they´re used to already(windows) and in the end,performs pretty much the same tasks(for the most part)in a much more simpler fashion. I mean,how many people do you think are willing to learn how to use the terminal to perform some of the most important tasks,especially when many of them can be done much more simply on windows? Even DosBox is way too complicated for a lot of people out there,learning to properly use the terminal is much harder.
I use ubuntu for most things aside from gaming but I´m not exactly a layman when it comes to software,however the majority of people out there are and in the end,they don´t even need linux anyway,all things considered.

[QUOTE="jhonMalcovich"]

[QUOTE="clyde46"] So I was right then. clyde46

But isn´t the article speaking in favor of an emulator ? :D

I think they would. Other releasing a steambox with 10 Linux games, and expecting that an average Joe install additional Windows OS on it,  would be a very shrewd business move.

He has a good point, but I sure hope he's wrong about it. It would really be cool to see a gaming scene thrive in Linux. I personally don't like the directions MS and now Apple have been heading in there desktop OSs.

[QUOTE="jhonMalcovich"]

[QUOTE="clyde46"] So I was right then. clyde46

But isn´t the article speaking in favor of an emulator ? :D

I think they would. Otherwise releasing a steambox with 10 Linux games, and expecting that an average Joe install additional Windows OS on it,  wouldn´t be a very shrewd business move.

Anyway I agree with you. That would work only if Valve was doing a research in this area for the last 5 five year pumping in the project tons of money.

[QUOTE="clyde46"][QUOTE="jhonMalcovich"]

jhonMalcovich

But isn´t the article speaking in favor of an emulator ? :D

Emulation is not the right solution, tbh.

I'm a emulation enthusiast myself yet the fact is that accurate emulation drains far too much resources.

There would also be compatibility issues, graphical and sound glitches and such.

And this obviously isn't acceptable for retail games...

[QUOTE="clyde46"][QUOTE="jhonMalcovich"]

But isn´t the article speaking in favor of an emulator ? :D

jhonMalcovich

I think they would. Other releasing a steambox with 10 Linux games, and expecting that an average Joe install additional Windows OS on it,  would be a very shrewd business move.

He has a good point, but I sure hope he's wrong about it. It would really be cool to see a gaming scene thrive in Linux. I personally don't like the directions MS and now Apple have been heading in there desktop OSs.

organic_machine

I wouldn't make a game console using Linux as the O/S. That's probably the most bonehead move anyone could do. People who think it's smart has no idea how the market works with 3rd party companies and publishers. You have to ask yourself a few questions. i've build myself a game console using Linux as the O/S and have app and tools to make games on it. 1) Who will support it? 2) What developer will make games for it? 3. What retailers will sell the systems and games? 4) Who will make the first party games? 5) Who will convert existing Windows or other console version games to the Linux? 6) How will it be marketed? Will there be ads and TV spots? The Steambox has FAIL written all over it. It's like the PSP GO. Something that was made that no one wanted or needed. blackace

PS3 is running on a linux based OS. ;)

[QUOTE="KungfuKitten"]

So what he's saying is not that Linux is bad, but that it isn't profitable to officially support Linux for mainstream games, and that changing this is not a priority.
I am surprised how difficult (expensive) it is to support Linux. I do think that Carmack will change his tune about finding alternatives not being a priority.

kuraimen

I don't think anyone is saying that Linux can't run games well. We're saying no 3rd party company is going to support it. You thought the Dreamcast didn't get much 3rd party support? Wait until the Steambox comes out. The only one that will be support it is Valve and hopefully they have the money to convert STEAM and all it's games to run on it. Unless they actually get a license from Microsoft and put it in there are an overlapping O/S. They are going to have a hard time selling this to everyone.

[QUOTE="kuraimen"][QUOTE="KungfuKitten"]

So what he's saying is not that Linux is bad, but that it isn't profitable to officially support Linux for mainstream games, and that changing this is not a priority.
I am surprised how difficult (expensive) it is to support Linux. I do think that Carmack will change his tune about finding alternatives not being a priority.

KungfuKitten

Developing good protocols and APIs that get popular is fine but MAKE THEM OPEN. That's what Linux and GNU do. They make their programs in a way that can be run on any OS out there. Companies like Apple and M$ focus on closing protocols and APIs to their systems to create a monopoly that's why I dislike them.

[QUOTE="organic_machine"]

He has a good point, but I sure hope he's wrong about it. It would really be cool to see a gaming scene thrive in Linux. I personally don't like the directions MS and now Apple have been heading in there desktop OSs.

ShadowriverUB

Linux is sh!t for the end user, it's more for developers and advanced/power users who know what they're doing. It'll never be the right choice for the vast majority of people, I don't see that changing soon or ever really.locopatho

Then how is my mom using Ubuntu? :o

The only issue I have is compatibility and lack of drivers (sometimes). For most tasks that I want to do, it's a breeze. The only issue for a novice is that no computers get bundled with it, and there is no "quick-start" documentation. But once you get up to speed, doing novice tasks on a Linux platform is just as easy as doing them on a Windows platform.

I barely even know Linux any command line at all, but it doesn't really matter with the latest distrubutions. 

[QUOTE="blackace"]I wouldn't make a game console using Linux as the O/S. That's probably the most bonehead move anyone could do. People who think it's smart has no idea how the market works with 3rd party companies and publishers. You have to ask yourself a few questions. i've build myself a game console using Linux as the O/S and have app and tools to make games on it. 1) Who will support it? 2) What developer will make games for it? 3. What retailers will sell the systems and games? 4) Who will make the first party games? 5) Who will convert existing Windows or other console version games to the Linux? 6) How will it be marketed? Will there be ads and TV spots? The Steambox has FAIL written all over it. It's like the PSP GO. Something that was made that no one wanted or needed. jhonMalcovich

PS3 is running on a linux based OS. ;)

I'm sure there is more then just Linux on there. Didn't Sony decide to block people from using Linux on the PS3? :roll:

[QUOTE="blackace"]I wouldn't make a game console using Linux as the O/S. That's probably the most bonehead move anyone could do. People who think it's smart has no idea how the market works with 3rd party companies and publishers. You have to ask yourself a few questions. i've build myself a game console using Linux as the O/S and have app and tools to make games on it. 1) Who will support it? 2) What developer will make games for it? 3. What retailers will sell the systems and games? 4) Who will make the first party games? 5) Who will convert existing Windows or other console version games to the Linux? 6) How will it be marketed? Will there be ads and TV spots? The Steambox has FAIL written all over it. It's like the PSP GO. Something that was made that no one wanted or needed. ShadowriverUB

this.If MS will keep forcing W8 though my throat I will just buy a console for gaming, switch my PC to Linux and wait until MS die.

[QUOTE="jhonMalcovich"]

[QUOTE="blackace"]I wouldn't make a game console using Linux as the O/S. That's probably the most bonehead move anyone could do. People who think it's smart has no idea how the market works with 3rd party companies and publishers. You have to ask yourself a few questions. i've build myself a game console using Linux as the O/S and have app and tools to make games on it. 1) Who will support it? 2) What developer will make games for it? 3. What retailers will sell the systems and games? 4) Who will make the first party games? 5) Who will convert existing Windows or other console version games to the Linux? 6) How will it be marketed? Will there be ads and TV spots? The Steambox has FAIL written all over it. It's like the PSP GO. Something that was made that no one wanted or needed. blackace

PS3 is running on a linux based OS. ;)

I'm sure there is more then just Linux on there. Didn't Sony decide to block people from using Linux on the PS3? :roll: