Switching to Linux as a Game Developer: surprisingly workable
Switching to Linux as a Game Developer: surprisingly workable
I recently found that modern Linux distros are actually up to speed for almost all game development tasks and also gaming! Some notes on my experience transitioning.
The Godot game engine runs natively on linux as one of the developers is a linux user
Unfortunately it can never be the year of Linux on the desktop because game developers are in constant crunch. Quarter of Linux on the desktop, then?
Seriously though, I’m not surprised it’s a good experience now - valve did some excellent work getting stuff up to par with windows.
Windows is so terrible now that game devs are trying Linux
what’s really surprising is how well it all works, as someone who originally switched to Linux because I’d given up on PC gaming. I’ve watched a friend decide they’re done with windows, install Linux, and play an uncompromised brand new game from their steam library in the span of about 10 minutes. there’s also a ton of games that perform better on Proton, because its implementation of a few Windows APIs (specifically around filesystem IO) is just faster than the version in the Windows kernel
a lot of it is thanks to valve’s relatively quiet open source contributions to Proton and DXVK, and the steam deck’s an amazing demo for it — the only push some of my friends needed to switch to Linux was a reminder that the same tech that makes the deck good will be even better on their gaming desktops, and it’ll work on any distro they’d want to use too
The only reason Windows is still the default for gaming is because of history, and you can’t convince me otherwise.
Most games run great on Linux, even on older systems. If you’re mostly into smaller and indie titles, I don’t think you ever need to touch Windows at all these days.
And even macOS can play the few games that are optimized for it very well. Hell, I played Baldur’s Gate 3 in high quality on my MacBook while friends struggled with getting it so run without stuttering on their beefed-up gaming rigs.
Well, history being that '32 bit windows executable' ended up being one of the most popular and widespread platforms that had any kind of longevity because unlike Apple which makes sport of breaking legacy applications, and for all of their many faults, Microsoft caters to business who actually want a stable platform. Stable enough that Linux can target it for compatibility too!
If Microsoft decides to go the way of Apple, it's going to trash the Linux gaming ecosystem too unfortunately. I'm little worried that WINE has lead to a kind of complacency where we don't ask for native anything because the compatibility layer is so good. I thought the Surface and it's weird ARM chip was a sign that we were getting rugged, but it looks like not yet.
Microsoft is an enterprise software supply company, so it can't fuck around with the Windows API even when it really desperately wants to.