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hunter2 ,

Interesting take. I wonder if the amount of platform dependent bugs is generally that low for games. I’m a developer, but not a game developer. I would assume that platform dependent stuff comes into play a lot more, when using shiny new tech like direct storage, which is probably used more by AAA titles and less by indie games?

uis OP ,
@uis@lemmy.world avatar

You don’t get many platform-specific bugs if you use cross-platform libraries like SDL2 for OpenGL/Vulkan context creation and human interface.

Sonotsugipaa ,
@Sonotsugipaa@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

With my limited experience with Vulkan and multiple targeted platforms, I can confirm that AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

ugo ,

In my somewhat limited but relevant experience, the amount of platform specific bugs is indeed that low. I mean, there’s of course a layer of platform-specific low level stuff which is highly subject to platform specific issues, but once you go above that layer and into game code proper, most bugs are just bugs.

I didn’t fix 400 “Linux-only” bugs, but I did fix dozens of “seems Linux specific” and “only happened when at least one Linux client was connected” bugs, and a grand total of 2 were caused by platform differences. And of those two, zero were Linux specific. The platform difference in this case was about how different compilers optimise non-crashy types of UB.

Of course, we don’t want UB at all so the fix is to remove it.

Ottomateeverything ,

If you’re an engine developer, it’s a reasonably common problem.

If you’re a game developer using a cross platform engine, it’s pretty uncommon, as the engine developer has already accounted for most of it.

If you’re somewhere in the middle, it’s probably somewhere in the middle.

It surprises me how many indie devs avoid some of the higher level / more popular engines for this reason alone. But I assume they just must enjoy that sort of stuff much more than I.

moon_matter ,
@moon_matter@kbin.social avatar

It surprises me how many indie devs avoid some of the higher level / more popular engines for this reason alone. But I assume they just must enjoy that sort of stuff much more than I.

The problem with indie devs is purely a lack of knowledge and resources. They don't feel comfortable testing and packaging binaries for distribution on Linux. A decent number of them are also self-taught and actually have almost no exposure to desktop Linux at all. So it's actually a much higher hurdle than you think.

skullgiver , (edited )
@skullgiver@popplesburger.hilciferous.nl avatar

deleted_by_author

    •
    teawrecks ,

    The difference is money. Vulkan is an incredibly terse spec compared to dx12. You’d think that would make it much more consistent to work with, but really, it’s all it can do to keep up with msft and IHVs who pour money into coaxing AAA devs to use dx12. Then, even when the app gets something wrong and causes issues for end users, the IHV just makes a special case in the driver to correct it, because having a big important dx12 title run correctly on their hw is important to sell units.

    Meanwhile, the same IHVs barely bother to support anything beyond the basic vulkan requirements, because it doesn’t gain them anything to do more. If a vulkan game experiences issues, IHVs don’t care because it won’t sell well anyway.

    skullgiver , (edited )
    @skullgiver@popplesburger.hilciferous.nl avatar

    deleted_by_author

    •
    teawrecks ,

    Yes, and the primary reason any of gaming on Linux is viable (steam deck, proton, etc) is due to Valve dumping money into it. AMD probably didn’t care about the miniscule number of chips they sold to Valve for the deck, valve just wanted a vendor who had the performance, and had decent Linux support.

    But Valve is the one eating all the vulkan costs that msft normally eats on the dx side. To be clear, it’s never out of the kindness of their hearts, it’s purely because a msft dominated gaming ecosystem on PC is steam’s biggest weakness. They don’t want steam on windows to reach the point of EGS on the apple store.

    lukas ,
    @lukas@lemmy.haigner.me avatar

    dxvk async ftw

    Blaster_M ,

    This game runs on the Godot engine, so it has a common base to work with.

    Elderos ,

    I made games primarily for Windows which we also compiled for Linux. It is mostly input/output stuff, aka hardware issues. That is, audio issues, input issues, storage issues, dependency issues. Modern game engine mostly handle the rest. It wasn’t such a big deal to fix, but most gamedev lacked experience with Linux, and most projects are already over budget and late, so fixing Linux for an extra 2-5% of sales didn’t make much sense at small scale. Proton kind off fixed all of this tho.

    Bitrot ,
    @Bitrot@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

    This went in a different direction than I expected, in a good way.

    BarrierWithAshes ,
    @BarrierWithAshes@kbin.social avatar

    I remember a gamedev complaining about this on Twitter but the outcome he came to was that he hated that Linux users submitted bug reports, stating the OS itself was broken and he refused to help any of them.

    TigrisMorte ,

    You shouldn't remember the ravings of idiot minds.

    BarrierWithAshes ,
    @BarrierWithAshes@kbin.social avatar

    Only recalled cause of this dev doing effectively the inverse.

    TigrisMorte ,

    I was not faulting you. I was advising best practices.

    leo85811nardo ,

    Good devs are good regardless of context, they may have their personal preferences but in the end welcome bug reports and feature requests, especially the helpful ones because it helps the project. Bad devs are dicks regardless of context as well, all they care about is review rate and other numbers appear in the scoreboard

    uis OP ,
    @uis@lemmy.world avatar

    Professionals have standards.

    davet ,

    IIRC it was Planetary Annihilation and the guy ranting wasn’t even a programmer.

    MonkderZweite ,

    stating the OS itself was broken

    A dependency was missing, betcha?

    buzziebee ,

    Yeah this article is a nice juxtaposition to that deranged rant. Hopefully if more game devs see it they’ll appreciate the Linux gaming community a bit more.

    winterayars ,

    I’ve seen that several times. I expected that’s where this post was going, nice to see that was wrong.

    kurodriel ,

    This made me so happy, you wouldn’t imagine.

    jackpot ,
    @jackpot@lemmy.ml avatar

    imagining right now really hard

    Mandy ,

    remember the other several occasions where developers hated actually getting feedback from these linux users cause they actually would have to fix their shit? but not many actually did

    cause i remember, they only care as far as money goes

    urshanabi ,
    @urshanabi@lemmygrad.ml avatar

    Maybe to reframe it, it’s like job security?

    lukas ,
    @lukas@lemmy.haigner.me avatar

    Nowadays, they close these bug reports as wontfix with the reason that Linux is only unofficially supported through Steam Proton.

    hiddenSin ,

    Could we do crossposts? This one is in two of my communities. If it was a crosspost then it would be only one post. Less spam.

    WatTyler ,
    @WatTyler@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

    Reflecting on my first year running solely Linux (as opposed to dual-booting), I think that this culture comes from the fact that, on Linux, problems can more often than not be solved. If not solved, then at least understood. When you want to change something on Windows, or something breaks, you have far less room to maneuver.

    When I was a Windows user, I’d barely ever submitted a bug report for anything, in spite of being very tech-literate. It felt hopeless, as my entire experience with the OS was that if a fix would come, it’d have to be done by someone else.

    Linux treating its users like adults, produces users who are more confident and more willing to contribute.

    Pantherina ,

    This is true. I also dont even know how to report actual Android bugs. On Windows its true, its simply a big “f you”

    deweydecibel ,

    Android bugs go to the maintainers of that specific device or of the custom ROM installed on it.

    Using the unaltered version that was installed on the device when you bought it? Reports go to the manufacturer usually.

    Unless it’s a carrier branded version, like a Verizon or Tracfone provided phone, in which case bug reports go to them. But frankly, don’t bother, and for the love of all things holy spend a little more money and stop buying carrier branded phones.

    For custom ROMs, bug reports go to wherever the maintainers of that ROM ask bug reports be submitted. Usually Git, XDA forums, their website, or their Discord/Telegram channel. And fuck that last one, because hiding bug reports and other information in non-indexed places like Discord is making this more difficult for everyone.

    Pantherina ,

    GrapheneOS, basically AOSP for the bugs of concern. So no, the reports would go upstream to Google I guess.

    Btw not everyone lives in the US ;D

    0xD ,

    You can do the exact same thing in Windows, just think of the SysInternals Suite and its power. It’s just that people on Linux expect problems, while the overwhelming majority of people on Windows/MacOS is using their device expecting it to work and if it doesn’t they go do something else or buy another device.

    Also this completely untrue notion that you cannot fix Windows or play around with its internals is very prevalent, to the point that it’s a meme, so people don’t even try.

    Chais ,
    @Chais@sh.itjust.works avatar

    But I have to fight the stupid OS to give me useful information. I have to install 3^(rd) party stuff. By default you only get this useless error reporting tool. Even if you report an error your likely to never hear from anyone and the chance of the error being fixed is virtually nonexistent.

    On Linux the necessary information is usually readily available. The worst offender in my experience is Steam itself. You can get logs from games fairy easily. But if Steam misbehaves things can get more complicated.

    lukas ,
    @lukas@lemmy.haigner.me avatar

    Is it even possible to report bugs to Microsoft without paid support? I always come across that Windows community forum where every solution to a problem is to update drivers, run sfc /scannow, etc. I doubt anybody on that forum can relay problems to Microsoft staff.

    icedterminal ,

    The Feedback Hub was introduced to fix this gap in user reports for Windows. Microsoft does actively monitor this. They respond when necessary, merge topics, deny or approve bugs/suggestions, etc. For their software, such as Terminal or VS Code, you can use GitHub issues.

    Keep in mind, like most companies, Microsoft has guidelines on what employees can say when responding to any user feedback. This is why we typically see a lot of copy and paste. When it is more than that, wording is selective and you may not get more than one or two responses in total.

    I know of at least one employee on Reddit who participates every so often. www.reddit.com/user/jenmsft/

    ikidd ,
    @ikidd@lemmy.world avatar

    I found bugs in Windows server products all the time, and there was no way of reporting them. If you opened a ticket (by paying, of course), they would never admit it was a bug. Half the time I got the impression I was the only person in the world that every encountered said issue, and that what I was doing was complete edge-case. Which was bullshit, I would investigate and find dozens of references (which never got resolved) because it was pretty much the only way to use X product feature.

    Microsoft QA and support is utter trash. You can get better support in Linux on damn near anything by some rando on IRC or the specific product forum, or, gods forbid, Reddit. There is an almost 100% chance you can fix anything on Linux if you look hard enough, even if you have to go dig through the code. Nothing like that happens in the Windows ecosystem.

    Hamartiogonic ,
    @Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyz avatar

    Also, the types of information you find are very different. On windows, you’ll find various forum posts about your problem, and some proposed solutions. Usually, nobody seems to know exactly what’s causing the problem, and that’s why the solutions are a bit random. Same goes for iOS related problems too.

    On Linux, you might not need forum posts, because sometimes the error messages tells you what’s wrong and how to fix it. If that’s not the case, you’ll find posts about your problem, and usually there’s someone who explains what’s broken and what are the commands to fix it.

    There’s none of that guesswork about trying 7 unrelated things to see if any of them magically solve your problem. It’s straight to the point. Your problem is caused by that setting over there, and here’s how to change it.

    pixelscript ,

    When it comes to closed-source software developed opaquely by for-profit corporations, particularly the huge, monolithic ones like Microsoft, I generally have the attitude that, if I do discover a problem:

    1. They won’t take my detailed report
    2. If they do take my report, it goes straight into a shredder bin (or a massive queue where low priority problems go to die, which may as well be the same thing)
    3. If they do read my report, then it’s likely something they already are aware of
    4. If they don’t know about it somehow, the issue is probably so low-priority and niche that it wouldn’t escape the backlog anyway

    Probably not nearly as bleak as I make it out. But when you can’t see the process, how can you tell?

    With open source projects, these things can all still happen, but at least the process is more transparent. You can see exactly where your issue is, and what’s been done to it so far, if anything. Other users can discover and vouch for your problem. And if the dev team takes pull requests, and you are willing, able, and permitted to contribute, you can make the fix yourself.

    KISSmyOS ,

    Also, with open source projects, I actually want to help the developer improve their project, whereas with Windows I simply do not care and won’t donate a second of my time to a large corporation for free.

    MonkderZweite ,

    Isn’t this one pretty old already? I’m sure i saw this on Reddit when it was still usable.

    FooBarrington ,

    I think the top metadata says 2 years (2a)

    uis OP ,
    @uis@lemmy.world avatar

    I saw it on Mastodon

    Pantherina ,

    This is so true. You somehow learn to find and report bugs, also in a way that makes sense.

    Sneakyweasel90 ,

    Nice.

    uis OP ,
    @uis@lemmy.world avatar

    Why post periodically disappears from active?

    hglman ,

    Maybe if you added more details to your bug report you get some answers.

    uis OP ,
    @uis@lemmy.world avatar

    It happens both with jerboa and default web client.

    WuTang ,
    @WuTang@lemmy.ninja avatar

    That’s true. But I won’t hold my breath as the bar getting low to get a better&better out-of-the-box experience on linux (and it’s good), it will bring its lot of smelly gamer on their racing chair which don’t care usually, they don’t mind to exec this fishy binary to get 5fps. They will come by simple fact that MS, eventually, would have been too far in BS in their Ai-Ads-OS.

    Just check this community on YouTube, Twitch and forums. Shitting on AAA title which are a monstrosity of complexity but because it fails sometimes, those smelly, pretentious douche can get quite incendiary quickly.

    That’s why I wish that those tiktok games (apex, fortnite,) never ends on linux.

    MycoBro ,

    Do y’all know how many times I got wiki.archlinux.org as an answer to my question? Used to piss me off but then I learned how to use the wiki. Lol. Thanks arch iRc!

    WindowsEnjoyer ,

    Arch Wiki is invaluable at this point.

    And I don’t mean just Arch Linux (BtwOS), I mean countless amount of sysadmins, platforms engineers, developers, SREs and so on that uses it.

    uis OP ,
    @uis@lemmy.world avatar

    wiki.gentoo.org works too

    lukas ,
    @lukas@lemmy.haigner.me avatar

    Source: reddit.com/…/despite_having_just_58_sales_over_38…

    Please link to the source in the future. Pictures without alt tags are an inaccessible medium for people with impaired vision. Screen readers don’t ship with an OCR.

    uis OP ,
    @uis@lemmy.world avatar

    All I had is this screenshot

    nixigaj ,

    All you have to do to help visually impaired people with screen readers is to search for the title on Google (or your privacy friendly engine), click the first result, and add the link to the post.

    uis OP ,
    @uis@lemmy.world avatar

    Added source link to post body

    sumpfsocke ,

    Okay now how many of the other reports were windows specific problems?

    Sentau , (edited )

    I am guessing all of them is it was game running through proton

    Edit : the game seems to have a linux native version

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