Elite:Dangerous for Linux?

[drakmaniso]

A big +1 for supporting Linux on the final release.

Each distro is subtly broken in different and interesting ways.

But it's very easy to support all of them by packaging a few libraries whith your binary... Just like what is done in windows. A *lot* of games have done that for many years. You can also choose to use Valve's base system, which makes it even easier.

Having to support Linux in a research environment for work using the 3D graphics drivers I can tell you that they're all very broken, both the open source ones and the proprietary ones.

The open source drivers are not meant for intensive 3D. The Nvidia proprietary driver is almost the same as its windows counterpart, and works great. AMD has some issues, and Intel is lagging in its support. Most of the problems only relate to advanced techniques, I'm not sure FD would be even affected. And again, a lot of people have made it work for years.

Every new version of the drivers and new version of the kernel breaks things again differently. And sometimes the kernel developers specifically target a proprietary graphics driver to break due to political reasons. It's a nightmare.

I can see why Frontier Developments wouldn't want to touch it with a barge pole as it would be a support nightmare, even if they went for the "Steam Box" system as a target.

And this is just pure FUD... None of the above is true. So I guess you are either trolling, or very angry for some personal reason.

Linux is a very different ecosystem than windows, not better, nor worse.

I totally agree that FD should focus on the PC release for now (since I know they're already taking into account cross-platform issues, no need for more at this point).

 

[stephen_usher]

The open source drivers are not meant for intensive 3D. The Nvidia proprietary driver is almost the same as its windows counterpart, and works great. AMD has some issues, and Intel is lagging in its support. Most of the problems only relate to advanced techniques, I'm not sure FD would be even affected. And again, a lot of people have made it work for years.

Having run and supported Linux in a research environment (and at home) since version 0.99 (or was it earlier? 1994 anyway) I have rather a lot of experience with it and other UNIX-like systems. I even did a small amount of kernel hacking back then in colaboration with my friend (Warning! Name drop alert!) Alan Cox. So, you can see I'm definitely not anti-linux as such.

If you've ever had to support complex 3D rendering systems in a production environment you would discover just how badly behaved the interface between the kernel and the graphics drivers are and how badly they can break. This is form a great deal of first-hand experience and pain I'm afraid.

The nVidia drivers are specifically problematic with Matlab and other complex (correct) OpenGL rendering, both on consumer graphics cards and Quadra high end ones. Thankfully the number of kernel panics has decreased recently. Linux kernel patch releases can seriously break the build and installation process too.

The AMD drivers are tetchy as hell and are a bit of a pain to maintain as well.

And this is just pure FUD... None of the above is true. So I guess you are either trolling, or very angry for some personal reason.

Linux is a very different ecosystem than windows, not better, nor worse.

I totally agree that FD should focus on the PC release for now (since I know they're already taking into account cross-platform issues, no need for more at this point).

Unfortunately, there are one or two kernel maintainers who are rather religious about open source vs. binary blob and now and again at least one has intentionally changed the kernel API/ABI just to break the (I think) nVidia drivers because he thought them ideologically impure. Linus sometimes manages to herd the cats in the right direction but not always.

In some ways the situation with "shiny-shiny" over engineering correctness is getting worse in the Linux kernel, but that seems to be a trend happening in all open source (and some proprietory) software at the moment unfortunately.

 

[drakmaniso]

So, you can see I'm definitely not anti-linux as such.

I admit that it was one of my impressions. The other was that you had just a lot of bad experiences trying to work with 3D under linux.

If you've ever had to support complex 3D rendering systems in a production environment you would discover just how badly behaved the interface between the kernel and the graphics drivers are and how badly they can break. This is form a great deal of first-hand experience and pain I'm afraid.

I totally understand that. I only did some really basic 3D programming, so my experience doesn't even come close. However, it's a fact that there is many working games out there, coming from both small and big developers, and ranging from very simple 3D to incredible looking.

My guess is that your field of work is very different from game development. The fact that you refer to Quadra cards hints at that. I totally agree that the state of current drivers (all platform included, even on Windows) is a mess, but it's a mess that is functional for game development.

There is also the fact that OpenGL, though with some great qualities, also have a number of issues. Nvidia chose to wander at the fringe of the norm, and provides a driver that is easy to use... again, for game developers. I think that AMD is more strict in its OpenGL implementation. Since game development have a history of favoring Nvidia, this creates an unhealthy situation where the best development option is biased.

So I completely understand that trying to do intensive 3D in some field outside gaming can be an inextricable pain, though I wonder, is it that much better under Windows? Maybe with DirectX?

Unfortunately, there are one or two kernel maintainers who are rather religious about open source vs. binary blob and now and again at least one has intentionally changed the kernel API/ABI just to break the (I think) nVidia drivers because he thought them ideologically impure. Linus sometimes manages to herd the cats in the right direction but not always.

But none of this have a real impact on the main desktop distributions, since it's their role to either solve or work around this issues. I really don't see more drivers issues for linux gamers than for windows users. (But if there is an issue, it takes sometimes a really long time to have it solved under Linux.)

In some ways the situation with "shiny-shiny" over engineering correctness is getting worse in the Linux kernel, but that seems to be a trend happening in all open source (and some proprietory) software at the moment unfortunately.

I also happen to disagree with that (I heartily welcome the shift from a pure engineer point of view to a more user-focused one), but I don't think this has anything to do with our main topic here.

And to come back to it, you have to remember that FD will port the game to OS X. Which means OpenGL, and, as far as I know, a rather bad implementation of it. I they can achieve that, I really doubt they'd have any kind of difficulties with Linux.

 

[Brianetta]

Assuming for a moment that you're just wanting a space game, and not an effective and profitable bitcoin mining operation, you don't need to target the drivers or the kernel. You just need to target OpenGL. That's what we do with Pioneer (with SDL for sound and input). This is portable across Linux distributions, and even across to OS/X (as long as somebody familiar with the build tools in Mac-land is available to actually build it).

Most Linux distributions are fairly mature now. One Linux distribution (Android) is remarkably so. The desktop distributions might all have their own package managers and their own desktop environments, but I never have to wonder if Steam will run or if Chrome will work properly with WebGL. Ten years ago, maybe I did. Not now.

Twenty years ago, of course, 3D was laughable - I began with Linux 1.0.9 in 1994, upgrading to 1.2.13 that autumn. Linux has been my principal operating system ever since. I did have a couple of dual-booting machines when I was working on the X series with Egosoft, but even then it was Linux first for me, because Windows was a bit alien and had no decent editor.

In my case, as I'm on record here already, the first version of Elite: Dangerous that I buy will be the Linux version.

 

[lennoni]

ED on Linux.

Good to see this discussion going on. Brings a little hope to a long time Linux user!

A linux client is unlikely for some time, I'd guess. I've tried using Codewavers Wine to install ED under openSuse. no luck so far (installed the launcher fine, but it will not run so far, despite installing .net which seems needed.

However, as this game builds to final release, we might see some further movement towards it working under wine, and then, who knows...

 

[FitzJames]

I pledged Elite: Dangerous on kickstarter even though I knew that I'll won't be able to play ED for a very long while, because I'm running linux. (unless I buy Windows 7 or 8)

So, yes; I too, want E: D for linux.

I couldn't get E: D launcher to work under wine.
My work around was to use Win XP to download the game files.

I had to manually cabextracted C++ 12 and placed them in the system / system32 folders:

cabextract vcredist_x86.exe
cabextract a2
cabextract a3
renamed F_CENTRAL_atl110_x86 to atl110.dll
renamed F_CENTRAL_mfc110_x86 to mfc110.dll
renamed F_CENTRAL_mfc110u_x86 to mfc110u.dll
renamed F_CENTRAL_msvcp110_x86 to msvcp110.dll
renamed F_CENTRAL_msvcr110_x86 to msvcr110.dll
renamed F_CENTRAL_vcomp110_x86 to vcomp110.dll
(there might be a winetricks vcrun2012 or something to do this)

I'm now stuck on Wine's problem with DirectX 11 or the lack of support for DirectX 11, which I believe E: D needs.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

I pledged Elite: Dangerous on kickstarter even though I knew that I'll won't be able to play ED for a very long while, because I'm running linux. (unless I buy Windows 7 or 8)

So, yes; I too, want E: D for linux.

I couldn't get E: D launcher to work under wine.
My work around was to use Win XP to download the game files.

I had to manually cabextracted C++ 12 and placed them in the system / system32 folders:

cabextract vcredist_x86.exe
cabextract a2
cabextract a3
renamed F_CENTRAL_atl110_x86 to atl110.dll
renamed F_CENTRAL_mfc110_x86 to mfc110.dll
renamed F_CENTRAL_mfc110u_x86 to mfc110u.dll
renamed F_CENTRAL_msvcp110_x86 to msvcp110.dll
renamed F_CENTRAL_msvcr110_x86 to msvcr110.dll
renamed F_CENTRAL_vcomp110_x86 to vcomp110.dll
(there might be a winetricks vcrun2012 or something to do this)

I'm now stuck on Wine's problem with DirectX 11 or the lack of support for DirectX 11, which I believe E: D needs.

Hmmm, but you still need launcher to log in to launch the game. How to you work around that?

Nice to see someone else interested in Linux, we are many here

David had one short and nice interview regarding Linux gaming. They said they are extremely interested in Linux port, they are porting game to Mac OS X so they know it's technically doable thing, however he pointed out that it all goes down to numbers and how much it costs and can they get that money back even in long term.

I play Steam games a lot at home, and it's slowly getting there. We have lot of infrastructural issues to fix on Linux desktop for it to be perfect warrior for gaming (like having open source Nvidia/AMD drivers up to OpenGL spec and fast as their binary parts).

 

[burzum]

Don't waste resources on an ever changing wild growing system that is used by a minority and comes in 1000 flavors. Please focus on extending the game and adding new features instead of supporting an OS that is around the 1% mark on the overall PC market. Waste of money IMHO because it doesn't make sense economically.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Don't waste resources on an ever changing wild growing system that is used by a minority and comes in 1000 flavors. Please focus on extending the game and adding new features instead of supporting an OS that is around the 1% mark on the overall PC market. Waste of money IMHO because it doesn't make sense economically.

So Valve must be wasting money and time then? All FD would have to do is port COBRA to SteamOS. It would be enough for rest of Linux systems

First, get your facts straight about ever changing platform. It is very stable and I can run very old applications on Linux via various means. Second, there are only two main flavors Fedora/OpenSUSE and Debian. Everything else is almost exact copy underneath and and 99% of stuff is standardized.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Addition to the port - interesting question - what will be base line for OS X port. If newest OS X then it's good news and bad news. Good news for Mac version and potential Linux version, because then they aim for OpenGL 4.1 - 4.3, bad news for old Mac laptops and machines.

OpenGL 3.3 which majority of the games gets ported is not bad, but it can lack lot of features to make ED look good on non-Windows machines. OpenGL 3.3 however is universally supported at this point across Mac and Linux. OpenGL 4.1/4.3 however up to par with DirectX 11. OpenGL 4.1 is supported by latest Mac OS X, and by latest Nvidia drivers (in several cases 4.3) for relatively new cards on Linux. However for Linux there are other drivers which aren't so well supported regarding OpenGL version.

 

[FitzJames]

Hmmm, but you still need launcher to log in to launch the game. How to you work around that?

After I launched EDLaunch.exe under WinXP, it installed game files in folders called:
*EDLaunch folder*/Products/FORC-FDEV-D-1002
in FORC-FDEV-D-1002, I run EliteDangerous.exe, bypassing the EDLaunch.exe

I get a letterbox, black window, and then it crashes.
I doubt there's a workaround for wine's directx 11 issues, I've done some checking at Winehq.

Wine error messages:

fixme:nls:GetUserGeoID GEOCLASS_REGION not handled yet
fixme:ver:GetCurrentPackageId (0x1b4e438 (nil)): stub
fixme:d3d11:D3D11CreateDevice stub: adapter (nil), driver_type D3D_DRIVER_TYPE_HARDWARE, swrast (nil), flags 0, feature_levels (nil), levels 0, sdk_version 7, device (nil), feature_level 0x30c0fb9c, cfixme:win:EnumDisplayDevicesW ((null),0,0x1f4e3c8,0x00000000), stub!

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

After I launched EDLaunch.exe under WinXP, it installed game files in folders called:
*EDLaunch folder*/Products/FORC-FDEV-D-1002
in FORC-FDEV-D-1002, I run EliteDangerous.exe, bypassing the EDLaunch.exe

I get a letterbox, black window, and then it crashes.
I doubt there's a workaround for wine's directx 11 issues, I've done some checking at Winehq.

Wine error messages:

fixme:nls:GetUserGeoID GEOCLASS_REGION not handled yet
fixme:ver:GetCurrentPackageId (0x1b4e438 (nil)): stub
fixme:d3d11:D3D11CreateDevice stub: adapter (nil), driver_type D3D_DRIVER_TYPE_HARDWARE, swrast (nil), flags 0, feature_levels (nil), levels 0, sdk_version 7, device (nil), feature_level 0x30c0fb9c, cfixme:win:EnumDisplayDevicesW ((null),0,0x1f4e3c8,0x00000000), stub!

Well but you can't bypass login as far as I know. Granted, DirectX 11 is lacking too, but game won't authenticate and won't run I guess.

 

[mid_gen]

Who's have thought an Elite game would have some many *nix fans hehe

Not a linux user (at home anyway), but would be keen to see a port to SteamOS.

 

[FitzJames]

Well but you can't bypass login as far as I know. Granted, DirectX 11 is lacking too, but game won't authenticate and won't run I guess.

You're probably right about the authentication. Not having a working game, I can't be sure. Window users will be able to enlighten us on this matter.

I was hoping it was like WoW, it has a Launcher now, but you can bypass it by running the main program.

 

[Greebie]

You're probably right about the authentication. Not having a working game, I can't be sure. Window users will be able to enlighten us on this matter.

I was hoping it was like WoW, it has a Launcher now, but you can bypass it by running the main program.

If you try to run EliteDangerous.exe direct you get an authentication error message that tells you to start the game by using the launcher.

 

[graham.reeds]

After I launched EDLaunch.exe under WinXP, it installed game files in folders called:
*EDLaunch folder*/Products/FORC-FDEV-D-1002
in FORC-FDEV-D-1002, I run EliteDangerous.exe, bypassing the EDLaunch.exe

I get a letterbox, black window, and then it crashes.
I doubt there's a workaround for wine's directx 11 issues, I've done some checking at Winehq.

Wine error messages:

fixme:nls:GetUserGeoID GEOCLASS_REGION not handled yet
fixme:ver:GetCurrentPackageId (0x1b4e438 (nil)): stub
fixme:d3d11:D3D11CreateDevice stub: adapter (nil), driver_type D3D_DRIVER_TYPE_HARDWARE, swrast (nil), flags 0, feature_levels (nil), levels 0, sdk_version 7, device (nil), feature_level 0x30c0fb9c, cfixme:win:EnumDisplayDevicesW ((null),0,0x1f4e3c8,0x00000000), stub!

Hey being Linux you can implement these yourself!

Or you can get a copy of Win7 off eBay.

 

[FitzJames]

If you try to run EliteDangerous.exe direct you get an authentication error message that tells you to start the game by using the launcher.

Thanks for the info.

 

[FitzJames]

Hey being Linux you can implement these yourself!

Or you can get a copy of Win7 off eBay.

Me using Linux proves that you don't have to be a genius to use Linux. Another example of Linux would be Android.

Unfortunately, it's beyond me to fix these errors.

I have been thinking about buying Windows 7, however, it's hard thinking about buying an OS when the one I use is free and is supported by a brilliant community.

Also, I'd rather use my money for the Oculus Rift (and maybe a joystick).
Oh, and I'd rather give my money to Frontier Developments than Microsoft.

 

[graham.reeds]

I have been thinking about buying Windows 7, however, it's hard thinking about buying an OS when the one I use is free and is supported by a brilliant community.

But doesn't do what you want which is play Elite.

Every few years I look at Linux and it is always several years behind what I want it to do, most recently is watch bluray movies.

If a free version exists then great, but I much prefer to pay and use immediately than to hang around waiting.

 

[greenbird]

not working on WindowsXP either

After finding that it does not work in wine, first with mono problems and then with
wine: Unimplemented function d3d11.dll.D3D11CreateDeviceAndSwapChain

I tried it in a Windows XP VM in VirtualBox with 3D, but there is no D3D11.DLL and four other missing DLLs... hope, they wont take too long to port it to Linux, so that I can finally enjoy it.

Btw: the native Linux/SDL port of FFE works great here and my son loves it