Space Engine on Linux

[koyrts]

This Spring I switched to Linux, specifically Pop!_Os, Windows was tiring me out and I began hating it. I was kinda scared by the possibility of not being able to play Space Engine, believe it or not, as this game is actually in my top 10 list of games I love, mostly because I have been a huge astronomy nerd since I was 8 or 9. Funnily enough, I must say this game not only runs flawlessly using Steam's Proton, but exactly the same as Windows (I did run some tests and didn't notice any difference). I wonder if they are planning to make a Linux port of this game, but in my opinion it doesn't really need one. Anyways, what I want to know is if there are more people out there playing this amazing game on Linux, if you are one of them, what has your experience been like? I'd love to hear it!

[HarbingerDawn]

Yes, a native Linux version is planned, though as you said, it works just fine via Proton (at least with Nvidia GPUs).

[Lapis]

Originally posted by HarbingerDawn:

Yes, a native Linux version is planned, though as you said, it works just fine via Proton (at least with Nvidia GPUs).

Red team phoning in! I have a Gentoo ~amd64 system with a 2700X and RX 570. SpaceEngine runs almost perfectly, I forgot it's running in Proton.

By the way, thank you for this amazing game. First Steam title in a long while I bought instantly without looking at the price, after spending so much time in 0.980 :P

[koyrts]

Originally posted by Lapis:

Originally posted by HarbingerDawn:

Yes, a native Linux version is planned, though as you said, it works just fine via Proton (at least with Nvidia GPUs).

Red team phoning in! I have a Gentoo ~amd64 system with a 2700X and RX 570. SpaceEngine runs almost perfectly, I forgot it's running in Proton.

By the way, thank you for this amazing game. First Steam title in a long while I bought instantly without looking at the price, after spending so much time in 0.980 :P

Yes! This game is amazing and even though it is still in it's beta it is really well optimized!

[Tiefflieger]

I I may add my 2cents:
SpaceEngine runs *perfectly* on Proton/Linux. It also works fine with ATI graphic cards. The specs of my system are below. The only issue I've encountered so far is that the directory where the screenshots are saved is buried deep in the Wine/Proton directory structure. But that's a minor thing.

Operating System: Manjaro Linux
OS Type: 64-bit
Processors: 8 × AMD FX(tm)-8350 Eight-Core Processor
Memory: 15.6 GiB of RAM
AMD Radeon HD 7970 Series (TAHITI, DRM 3.35.0, 5.4.6-2-MANJARO, LLVM 9.0.0)

[FT]

Great to hear a native version is planned. It does run well on WINE/Proton, there is the odd small bug and performance loss but overall it's decent.

[kay_D]

I will buy it as soon as a linux version is out. SpaceEngine is awesome.

[Marcus Astronomius]

I can confirm that on Proton Space Engine works good with Mint as well as Manjaro. The only issue I have is that when warp/felt resolution is set to 4096, when I press F2 with a star system selected, the planets flicker in that menu as if the models were reloading. It only happens in there. When turned down to 2048 the flickering goes away.

I am able to click and drag it in windowed mode and expand it across all three monitors on Mint; but it would be nice if there was a fullscreen option that allowed for multi-monitor support. If anyone knows a trick to make Space Engine expand to all monitors in fullscreen I will be in your debt!

[higuita]

some window manages (almost all except gnome) allow alt+right click and drag to resize the window (left click will move the window by the way)
So try to have a non-maximized window and try to resize using this X11 shortcut.

Gnome also have this, but they decided that is would be better to hide it in alt+shift+right click, if i recall correctly ... i may be wrong, you will have to search if you use gnome..., i stop using gnome because of this kind of decisions

[Marcus Astronomius]

Yeah i'm not on GNOME, I am using Cinnamon, which at least allows me to expand in windowed mode, but the border kind of takes some space on the top of the displays which is why a fullscreen or borderless windowed trick would be great.

[higuita]

Some window manager allow one to set borderless windows, others you can tools to request for the window manager to change the window settings:

http://www.nongnu.org/devilspie2/
https://github.com/kamranahmedse/pennywise

#!/bin/bash
xprop -name "$1" -f _MOTIF_WM_HINTS 32c -set _MOTIF_WM_HINTS "0x2, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0"
wmctrl -r "$1" -b toggle,above
wmctrl -r "$1" -e 0,0,0,-1,-1

[Tchey]

Originally posted by HarbingerDawn:

Yes, a native Linux version is planned

Good to know, thanks

[3Dreamension]

Hey guys! SO envious here...im on the latest 21.04 pop_os with everything updated and cant run space engine! It wont even load anything, no splash screen no anything. just a black window and the instant crash back to steam...tried several proton versions from the drop down menu to no avail. ANy help would be immensely regarded! THANK YOU

[Tiefflieger]

Originally posted by 3Dreamension:

Hey guys! SO envious here...im on the latest 21.04 pop_os with everything updated and cant run space engine! It wont even load anything, no splash screen no anything. just a black window and the instant crash back to steam...tried several proton versions from the drop down menu to no avail. ANy help would be immensely regarded! THANK YOU

This looks like a problem with your graphics drivers or with the graphics card itself. Can you print the output of the following command:

glxinfo | grep -i opengl

This should print information whether your graphics card is set up properly

[T6J2E5]

I'll echo the earlier sentiment of, "I'll buy it when there's a native Linux version." I'm running Ubuntu Linux 20.04 LTS exclusively---I refuse to use Windows---and WINE tends to be sketchy, at best. I've never heard of Steam Proton; might need to look into that.

TL;DR I'll buy this when there's a native Linux client.

[Tiefflieger]

@T6J2E5 : what if there will never be a "native Linux client" because the Wine/Proton experience is excellent?