Video Games & GNU/Linux

FSHM Meetup - 04.02.2018 - Kamal talks about Video games, their place and influence in technology, Indian culture, GNU/Linux ecosystem. He puts forth the need for games on GNU/Linux as the prerequisite for major linux adoption and how free gamedev tools would help make better video games for and on Linux.

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrl7K4uxjGk

Transcript

1. Video games & GNU/Linux 1
2. Video games Interactive medium Considered ‘greatest’ kind of art as it is a melting pot of various fields - Engineering - Art - Music & Sound - Writing - Film - History Electronic sports - Dota 2 2017 ‘The International’ prize pool - $24 million / 158 crore rupees 2
3. Video games Challenge hardware limits for consumer electronics - X64 architecture came into existence only because we needed more than 4GB RAM - Better CPU - GPU for computing - AI, Cryptography, Cryptomining - GPU for smartphones - Higher quality video displays - VR 3
4. Video games - Technology Text based vs lifelike graphics and VR 4KB RAM to 16GB RAM GPUs - None to costing over 2 lakh rupees Monitors - 640x360 to 3840x2160 pixels (4K) Windows - Development, distribution & consumption 4
5. Video games - Culture - Stigma - Addiction - Depression - Identity - Expression - Misogyny 5
6. Video games - Engine Real-time systems Algorithms - AI, Rendering, Physics Uses beyond games - Visualizations, Cinema 6
7. Linux FOSS - Drivers - Algorithms - No trade secret, everyone benefits Distributions, not a single OS - Moving targets to develop for - Wide range of compatibilities to account for - No single frozen binary 7
8. Gaming on Linux - Timeline Wine - 1993 Doom - 1994 Wine v1.0 - 2008 Windows 8 - 2012 - M$ wants a walled garden Valve announces Steam for Linux - 2012 Steam & SteamOS - 2013 Exhaustive list - https://www.back2gaming.com/reviews/b2g-games/pc/milestones-of-linux-as-a-ga ming-platform/ 8
9. Gaming on Linux - 2017 1080Ti (prop) and RX Vega (mesa) released with Linux Support AMD OpenGL & Vulkan - FOSS F1 2017 - Vulkan only 2600 titles on Steam Great deal of community knowledge - /r/linux_gaming, AskUbuntu, ArchWiki 9
10. Gaming on Linux - Stack Xorg, Wayland Mesa, Nvidia, AMD OpenGL, Vulkan 10
11. 11 Source: https://www.youtube.com/w atch?v=iYWzMvlj2RQ
12. Gaming on Linux - Nvidia Nvidia - Has a proprietary driver for GNU/Linux only via Ubuntu LTS Nvidia uses hardware digital signing and refuses to help nouveau reverse engineer their stack hindering efforts to allow compatibility for other GNU/Linux distributions 12
13. Gaming on Linux - Problems Lack of AAA games - Blizzard, EA, Ubisoft Need for a rolling release distro for latest mesa, drivers, kernel All ports target steam runtime (Ubuntu LTS) but few run ‘out of the box’ ‘Ports’ release few months later than the original 13
14. Running the unrunnable Wine - Wine is not emulator - Windows compatibility layer for GNU/Linux + BSD - Supports good amount of Windows games out of box - Performance issues - Helped boost Mono (FOSSed .NET runtime) - Reason why Azure supports linux? VM - PCI pass through via virtualization - Near Windows performance 14
15. FOSS in Games Modding - Rockstar - GTA - Elder Scrolls - Skyrim - Warcraft, Starcraft Not FOSS but equivalent to ‘source available’ - Can it be called commons? Game Developers Conference 15
16. FOSS Games Requiring ‘original’ game - Adoption of abandoned games - Reskin - Roller Coaster Tycoon - Patches - Age of Empires Clones - Based on FOSSed code bases - Doom, Quake - Reimplementation - FreeCiv Adaptations - Community run, funded, going great - 0AD, TuxKart, OpenArena 16
17. FOSS in Games GPLing codebase - id Software GOG - DRM-free games 17
18. FOSS Games Engine API - Used for simulations, visualizations, agent based modeling, complexity theory Localization - Adapt local culture completely in addition to just the language - Eg. 0AD - Mauryan empire 18
19. Gamedev on Linux - (game engine) Timeline 1994 - Doom - Released as GPL few years later 2012 - Source & Unity3D - Officially support linux 2014 - GDC - Unreal & CryEngine - Become source available Dec 2014 - Godot v1.0 Jan 2017 - Godot v3.0 - Physics based 3D engine 19
20. Year of the Linux desktop Games - Last hurdle to be worked upon - Pirated versions of proprietary, paid linux games are being available showing an increase in Linux based gaming and in turn would increase adoption due to piracy - Steam, SteamOS and Steam Machine 20
21. Gamedev on Linux - Need for tools Linux based tools make better linux games Help ship linux games on the same day as Windows Native developing helps build better libraries for games 21
22. Gamedev on Linux - Godot https://godotengine.org/ (Bullet) Physics based, globally illuminated 3D engine with AI map support Fully functional 2D engine Only 20MB, supports all major platforms - Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, Web, VR 22
23. Gamedev on Linux - Language C, C++, Go, Python, Java, Lua, Mono based C#, JS Most widely used - C, C++ and LuaJIT - Performance, integration with system libraries and graphics libs/drivers, compiler optimization support, stable, developers available Go - Interoperability with C, portable, performant, native ports and bindings for most graphics libraries 23
24. Gamedev on Linux - SDL Gamedev library Not a game engine but can be used to make one 24
25. How are you gonna contribute to this ecosystem? To increase adoption of GNU/Linux and games in GNU/Linux - Buy GNU/Linux based games - GOG & Steam - Develop on GNU/Linux - Better FOSS games - File bug reports 25