Linux Rising

[Vedexent]

There are some games which run in both environments, because they're based on an engine which has been ported to both environments. The games themselves just run on the engine.

 

In that design paradigm, there doesn't need to a "Linux supported" or "Windows supported" ports of the game ( or even "Console X supported" ports) - just the engine or environment port.

 

A much more complex migration, but far fewer migrations needed, and each migration brings hundreds of titles to the target platform.

 

In fact until recently, the Linux version of Kerbal Space Program was superior in Linux, as the Linux 64-bit version of Unity was far more stable than the Windows version. This has changed recently, and the 64-bit Windows version has been vastly improved.

 

Gaming - including DCS - is the only reason I have any Windows based PCs in my home network any more.

 

With improvements in virtualization technology over the past few years - including the introduction of stable PCI bridging (essentially detaching physical PCI hardware - like your graphics card - from your main operating system, and having it used directly by a virtual machine), I'm very close to relegating Windows to a "gaming virtual machine" which I fire up when I want to play.

 

Since DCS doesn't use the full suite of processor cores, it's a prime candidate for this kind of use case, since I can use the core management in KVM to dedicate physical cores to the virtual "gaming" machine.

 

So ... with dedicated physical processor cores and with dedicated graphics hardware, I'm guessing that DCS should have near-native performance, on a Linux desktop, running a Windows gaming VM which only gets spooled-up for "playtime". The rest of the time the cores and graphics cards go back to Linux (yes, this would require a motherboard with an integral graphics chipset that Linux could use when the cards were detached, and either a separate "Linux only" monitor, or a monitor with multiple select-able inputs).

 

I haven't tried this - yet - but if when I do, I'll definitely let the community know if DCS works under that setup.

[SharpeXB]

The reason Linux has not taken off as a gaming OS is mostly eco-political. The market share chicken-and-the-egg. Studios don't spend the effort to support Linux as it only has about 5-10% of the desktop market while Windows has 75-80%.

Linux doesn't have 5-10% of the market. It has about 1.5% for desktop PCs. The type of machine people use for gaming. Not servers or whatever else might run Linux.

http://www.statista.com/statistics/218089/global-market-share-of-windows-7/

And scroll back up to the Steam survey which is more relevant for gamers. It's below 1%

http://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=2660819&postcount=41

No developer is going to waste their time on 1% of the market, especially a niche game like DCS

And those stats just show ownership, not sales. The game sales figures for each OS are likely to be even more lopsided since enthusiast gamers are much more likely to run Windows.

Edited April 13, 2016 by SharpeXB

[BitMaster]

one of my servers table of processes just of now:

 

Windows, whatever it may can do better, will hardly ever show 401 ;)

 

top - 20:42:04 up 401 days, 6:46, 1 user, load average: 0.11, 0.06, 0.06

Tasks: 107 total, 1 running, 106 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie

Cpu(s): 0.0%us, 0.0%sy, 0.0%ni,100.0%id, 0.0%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.0%si, 0.0%st

Mem: 1979356k total, 1320568k used, 658788k free, 238084k buffers

Swap: 2025468k total, 39820k used, 1985648k free, 771384k cached

 

PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND

4 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 41:30.50 kworker/0:0

1 root 20 0 24344 1388 648 S 0 0.1 0:02.21 init

2 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:01.74 kthreadd

3 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 283:56.17 ksoftirqd/0

5 root 0 -20 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 kworker/0:0H

7 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 13:52.78 rcu_sched

8 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 11:11.88 rcuos/0

9 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 11:21.69 rcuos/1

10 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 rcuos/2

11 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 rcuos/3

12 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 rcuos/4

13 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 rcuos/5

14 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 rcuos/6

15 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 rcuos/7

16 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 rcu_bh

17 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 rcuob/0

18 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 rcuob/1

19 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 rcuob/2

20 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 rcuob/3

21 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 rcuob/4

22 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 rcuob/5

23 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 rcuob/6

24 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 rcuob/7

25 root RT 0 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:11.15 migration/0

26 root RT 0 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 1:35.21 watchdog/0

27 root RT 0 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 1:34.41 watchdog/1

28 root RT 0 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:11.51 migration/1

29 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 413:44.97 ksoftirqd/1

30 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 kworker/1:0

31 root 0 -20 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 kworker/1:0H

32 root 0 -20 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 khelper

33 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 kdevtmpfs

34 root 0 -20 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 netns

35 root 0 -20 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 writeback

36 root 0 -20 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 kintegrityd

37 root 0 -20 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 bioset

39 root 0 -20 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 kblockd

40 root 0 -20 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 ata_sff

41 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.13 khubd

42 root 0 -20 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 md

43 root 0 -20 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 devfreq_wq

45 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 20:29.22 kworker/1:1

46 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:05.83 khungtaskd

47 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 140:24.81 kswapd0

48 root 25 5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 ksmd

49 root 39 19 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 1:04.46 khugepaged

50 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.02 fsnotify_mark

51 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 ecryptfs-kthrea

52 root 0 -20 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 crypto

Edited September 13, 2017 by BitMaster

[Nash]

https://www.pcworld.com/article/2940470/hey-gamers-directx-11-is-coming-to-linux-thanks-to-codeweavers-and-wine.html

 

I hope Eagle Dynamics has a look at this and we can get rid of Windows for good...

DX11 on Linus now...