Linux Request sign up sheet

[Frogboy]

With the Vulkan work coming to an end, we are considering the port to Linux.

If you are interested in a Linux version, please sign here.

Update: 9/29/2019:
Ok we have it ported now. So good news and bad news. We have it running Debian and we presume it'll work on others. But the bad news is that the performance is just not acceptable. This is mainly due to the game being developed prior to Vulkan. It's all doable to fix but we don't have the budget to make those kinds of changes for one platform.

The difference based on the video card set up is pretty drastic too (not blaming any video card drivers here but the variance is pretty huge and would result in some unhappy people).

The good news is that Ashes II (and our other new titles) should, in theory, ship with Linux support off the bat thanks to this effort.

Those of you who are familiar with Stardock know we came from the OS/2 world back in the day so we are very much motivated to make our games work on Linux too. Just a matter of having enough resources to do it.

Thank you for your support on this. The sign up sheet helped us push through getting budget to do the initial port which should have benefits long-term for all our games not being so tied to Windows in the future.


Update: 12/28/2018:

We now have the core engine compiling under Debian Linux and running via Vulkan. We still have a long, long way to go but this is a major step. Thanks for your continued interest and support!

[Omega]

Originally posted by NoXPhasma:

If you can't make it work properly on Linux native - which I can understand, as porting it afterwards is always a bigger task than doing it right away - could you at least look into making it working properly with Proton then?

Game generally already runs really well with Proton. Only issue is the launcher which is invisible and that Vulkan doesn't work.

[ripper81]

Vulkan works with the nvidia driver but not with the MESA Drivers (RADV) for AMD GPU.

[LiNuX-leillo]

Originally posted by Draginol:

With the Vulkan work coming to an end, we are considering the port to Linux.

If you are interested in a Linux version, please sign here.

Update: 9/29/2019:
Ok we have it ported now. So good news and bad news. We have it running Debian and we presume it'll work on others. But the bad news is that the performance is just not acceptable. This is mainly due to the game being developed prior to Vulkan. It's all doable to fix but we don't have the budget to make those kinds of changes for one platform.

The difference based on the video card set up is pretty drastic too (not blaming any video card drivers here but the variance is pretty huge and would result in some unhappy people).

The good news is that Ashes II (and our other new titles) should, in theory, ship with Linux support off the bat thanks to this effort.

Those of you who are familiar with Stardock know we came from the OS/2 world back in the day so we are very much motivated to make our games work on Linux too. Just a matter of having enough resources to do it.

Thank you for your support on this. The sign up sheet helped us push through getting budget to do the initial port which should have benefits long-term for all our games not being so tied to Windows in the future.

About Ashes I, I think you could upload the Linux Build as an Open Beta, without official support.

About Ashes II, is good to read your words. I would like to thank all your efforts

[Cxpher]

Originally posted by ripper81:

Vulkan works with the nvidia driver but not with the MESA Drivers (RADV) for AMD GPU.

I agree. I think if performance tuning is needed and there is no budget, there are several ways to tackle the problem.

Be very clear and open in your communication and everyone would appreciate it. Even if the performance is less than stellar, i'd still buy it.

[Safe Da Erf]

Originally posted by LootPanda:

Originally posted by ripper81:

Vulkan works with the nvidia driver but not with the MESA Drivers (RADV) for AMD GPU.

I agree. I think if performance tuning is needed and there is no budget, there are several ways to tackle the problem.

Be very clear and open in your communication and everyone would appreciate it. Even if the performance is less than stellar, i'd still buy it.

I agree, as a Linux user I care about my computer a lot and that's why I stuff it with premium parts. Vega 64, $900 CPU with 16 cores, $400 B-Die 32GB Ram, $400 Motherboard, 3x 50" 4k Displays etc...

I think there is a general unspoken rule that Linux Gamers and users on average try to buy hardware with at least 150% the performance of windows to offset these potential performance dips in various titles when the software just hasn't/can't be optimized as much as the dev would like it to be.

Additionally as stated above, the open source graphics drivers now support game-profiling where the community and driver can identify and apply a optimization profile per game which is helpful too.

[Patola [Linux]]

Originally posted by Kandarihu:

Uh, "lied"? "broken promise"? Was this officially cancelled or something? Or has the extended periods of radio silence somehow led you to believe that nothing is happening?

So, Kandarihu, as you can see, I was right. And to be frank - I would not think it would be very useful for them to optimize their linux build as of today. On the other hand, since in proton it works only for NVIDIA cards, at least they could have a minimum support attitude and fix the game for AMD cards under proton...

[boltronics]

I too think it would be great to have it listed as a permanent beta option people can opt-in to install, even if it required a password from the forums so you know people have read a disclaimer. If nothing else, there might be some value there for free software driver developers.

[boltronics]

BTW, it works fine for me under Proton on an AMD Fury X with Debian Buster and Mesa 19.1.4. The launcher works fine, the game works fine... at maximum possible GPU settings at 2560x2440 I'm still getting around 25 FPS (obviously I'll turn some settings down a notch when I actually play it). No graphical corruption, sound problems or any issues I can immediately see.

The only thing that doesn't work is selecting Vulkan, and I haven't touched Debian's default Vulkan libraries so not too surprising. DX11 mode is good enough to play.

[Patola [Linux]]

Originally posted by boltronics:

BTW, it works fine for me under Proton on an AMD Fury X with Debian Buster and Mesa 19.1.4. The launcher works fine, the game works fine... at maximum possible GPU settings at 2560x2440 I'm still getting around 25 FPS (obviously I'll turn some settings down a notch when I actually play it). No graphical corruption, sound problems or any issues I can immediately see.

Nice, why don't you send your report to protondb? It would help people know what to do to run with an AMD. :-)

Originally posted by boltronics:

The only thing that doesn't work is selecting Vulkan, and I haven't touched Debian's default Vulkan libraries so not too surprising. DX11 mode is good enough to play.

Really? Man, you are missing SO MUCH due to lack of vulkan. Since dxvk/proton I have bought almost a hundred games that I wouldn't be able to play otherwise.

[Frogboy]

The key thing on these games going forward is simply to have a Linux build at all times going.

This is what we have going in our new titles we're working on. We have a Cmake option for DX11, DX12, and Vulkan.

Vulkan support in Ashes 1 was pretty...iffy. And that, in turn, make things on Linux a lot iffier when combined with how hard we push the drivers.

For instance, the #1 crash problem in Ashes is in the drivers for NVIDIA cards because we have so many light sources.

These days, making a modern games that isn't using Unity or Unreal means you need to work with the video card leaders can it's a lot easier to get support if it's before the game ships.

Luckily, this effort did lead to good things for the future. It was, as you can imagine, a fairly expensive endeavor for us to port to Linux in the first place, especially since we won't end up being able to recoup that investment with an actual shippable product.

But on the other hand, it allowed us to eliminate the varoius Windows dependencies that were in the code and get our Vulkan support up to snuff.

This in turn made it possible for us to begin supporting Stadia because porting to Linux was the first step on that path.

[Briggs]

Originally posted by Draginol:

The key thing on these games going forward is simply to have a Linux build at all times going.

This is what we have going in our new titles we're working on. We have a Cmake option for DX11, DX12, and Vulkan.

Vulkan support in Ashes 1 was pretty...iffy. And that, in turn, make things on Linux a lot iffier when combined with how hard we push the drivers.

For instance, the #1 crash problem in Ashes is in the drivers for NVIDIA cards because we have so many light sources.

These days, making a modern games that isn't using Unity or Unreal means you need to work with the video card leaders can it's a lot easier to get support if it's before the game ships.

Luckily, this effort did lead to good things for the future. It was, as you can imagine, a fairly expensive endeavor for us to port to Linux in the first place, especially since we won't end up being able to recoup that investment with an actual shippable product.

But on the other hand, it allowed us to eliminate the varoius Windows dependencies that were in the code and get our Vulkan support up to snuff.

This in turn made it possible for us to begin supporting Stadia because porting to Linux was the first step on that path.

I think most of us understand this. I'm sorry you feel this post was even necessary, but I hope it reaches people. Us Linux gamers don't do ourselves any favors by being unreasonable.

[fabry]

Originally posted by Draginol:

The key thing on these games going forward is simply to have a Linux build at all times going.

This is what we have going in our new titles we're working on. We have a Cmake option for DX11, DX12, and Vulkan.

Vulkan support in Ashes 1 was pretty...iffy. And that, in turn, make things on Linux a lot iffier when combined with how hard we push the drivers.

For instance, the #1 crash problem in Ashes is in the drivers for NVIDIA cards because we have so many light sources.

These days, making a modern games that isn't using Unity or Unreal means you need to work with the video card leaders can it's a lot easier to get support if it's before the game ships.

Luckily, this effort did lead to good things for the future. It was, as you can imagine, a fairly expensive endeavor for us to port to Linux in the first place, especially since we won't end up being able to recoup that investment with an actual shippable product.

But on the other hand, it allowed us to eliminate the varoius Windows dependencies that were in the code and get our Vulkan support up to snuff.

This in turn made it possible for us to begin supporting Stadia because porting to Linux was the first step on that path.

Good Job thanks for your support!

[thetargos]

Thanks for the honesty. I look forward future Stardock products on Linux.

[x_wing]

Originally posted by Draginol:

The key thing on these games going forward is simply to have a Linux build at all times going.

This is what we have going in our new titles we're working on. We have a Cmake option for DX11, DX12, and Vulkan.

Vulkan support in Ashes 1 was pretty...iffy. And that, in turn, make things on Linux a lot iffier when combined with how hard we push the drivers.

For instance, the #1 crash problem in Ashes is in the drivers for NVIDIA cards because we have so many light sources.

These days, making a modern games that isn't using Unity or Unreal means you need to work with the video card leaders can it's a lot easier to get support if it's before the game ships.

Luckily, this effort did lead to good things for the future. It was, as you can imagine, a fairly expensive endeavor for us to port to Linux in the first place, especially since we won't end up being able to recoup that investment with an actual shippable product.

But on the other hand, it allowed us to eliminate the varoius Windows dependencies that were in the code and get our Vulkan support up to snuff.

This in turn made it possible for us to begin supporting Stadia because porting to Linux was the first step on that path.

I really appreciate your honest feedback. I'll proceed to buy your game now, I believe that you deserve my money based on your hard work (not to mention that your game works with proton after using some tweaks... or at least that's what protondb says :P).

[boltronics]

Originally posted by Patola Linux #L2G:

Nice, why don't you send your report to protondb? It would help people know what to do to run with an AMD. :-)

There's not really anything to say. There is no bug - I just clicked it and it ran. :)

Originally posted by Patola Linux #L2G:

Really? Man, you are missing SO MUCH due to lack of vulkan. Since dxvk/proton I have bought almost a hundred games that I wouldn't be able to play otherwise.

I do have Vulkan (vulkaninfo output looks correct AFAICT) but it's just that Ashes wasn't working for me when I tried to relaunch using that setting. Since it doesn't impact my ability to play, I'm not that worried about it.