A legitimate case for including Mac and Linux support on launch

[Lisias]

On 5/4/2022 at 11:29 PM, Gargamel said:

On 5/4/2022 at 10:01 PM, Nazalassa said:

I think that every game should be able to download as a source code so we can compile it ourselves

That would completely destroy the market.  

Nope. It will shakedown the Industry - the market will still be there. See Doom, Quake et all.

That said, a compromise may be possible: most of the KSP is CIL anyway, what we need in reality are really portable runtimes - see ScumVM, Zork VM and etc. To tell you the true, at least Quake1 "applications" are also wrote in a VM, something called QuakeC IIRC.

Distributing precompiled platform independent blobs that could be cross-linked locally to a platform specific runtime is feasible - to tell you the true, it's essentially what KSP1 is nowadays (apart from the C++ specific code). My DLLs runs on Mac, Linux and Windows without hassle. Well, almost  

In a few years, RISC-V machines will hit the market (or, at least, it's my bet). Way more versatile than ARM, probably cheaper and hopefully more efficient and perhaps even faster. Being able to play KSP1 or even KSP2 would not be a bad idea at all, it potentially can expand the audience for these games significantly (to tell you the true, ARM devices nowadays are reaching the point of being able to run KSP1! ) on markets that are progressively pushing away x86 and ARM. 

And, boy, these are some really big markets...

[Nazalassa]

In fact, I think no gamer would like to compile the source code into the game, only game devs. So releasing the source code would have no impact.

[snip]

Remember,

In Free Software we Trust

Edited May 6, 2022 by Snark
Redacted by moderator

[darthgently]

4 hours ago, Nazalassa said:

In fact, I think no gamer would like to compile the source code into the game, only game devs. So releasing the source code would have no impact.

[snip]

Remember,

In Free Software we Trust

Ok, but I have to ask:  what software have you personally coded and made open source?  I am an advocate of open source to the degree it encourages non-proprietary API standardization and crowd-sourced security audits and such, but I've also found that much of the popular activism around open source is often rooted more in the consumer POV than the developer/producer/creator POV.   It can come off as less a conversation and more of a one-way decree on how things "should" be

[Snark]

Some content has been redacted and/or removed.  Please be mindful of forum rules, folks.  Thank you.

[TheKrakenHerder]

9 hours ago, Vl3d said:

There's no such thing as a Windows PC. Any x64 system supports both Windows and Linux. You just have to buy Windows Home.

What I mean is that I own a Mac, and I can't get a whole new gaming PC just for KSP2. I'm quite sure most, if not all, other Mac players would agree.

[whatsEJstandfor]

2 minutes ago, TheKrakenHerder said:

What I mean is that I own a Mac, and I can't get a whole new gaming PC just for KSP2. I'm quite sure most, if not all, other Mac players would agree.

Is it from a few years ago? If it's not using one of the new Apple RISC CPUs, could dual boot Windows on it

[TheKrakenHerder]

1 hour ago, whatsEJstandfor said:

Is it from a few years ago? If it's not using one of the new Apple RISC CPUs, could dual boot Windows on it

It's Apple Silicon. Can't dual boot windows, and I bought it before I doubted that KSP2 would be on Mac.

[Pthigrivi]

18 minutes ago, TheKrakenHerder said:

It's Apple Silicon. Can't dual boot windows, and I bought it before I doubted that KSP2 would be on Mac.

I bought my macbook just before the switch but my hope is that it works on Parallels. It's always dicey on emulators though. Sometimes you get lucky but there are often weird showstopping bugs. 

[TheKrakenHerder]

14 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

Parallels

I’ve tried parallels, but it’s hilariously bad with games. Incredibly laggy.

[Pthigrivi]

8 hours ago, TheKrakenHerder said:

I’ve tried parallels, but it’s hilariously bad with games. Incredibly laggy.

Its true, definitely hit or miss. Ive had good luck with some games and others don’t work at all. My thinking is though that if it were supported to some degree parallels would be better than bootcamp because bootcamp isn’t available for the new chips and parallels would provide better continuity and give more players access.

Edited May 7, 2022 by Pthigrivi

[xjames]

i got a mac, and I hope to play KSP2 on it natively and M1 optimized on launch day.

I did try KSP on the console. It was way easier to land a rocket on the mun with the joystick rather than with a keyboard. Other than that, it was a difficult experience. I hope KSP2 on console will be better, as its my fallback option.

 

[Lisias]

1 hour ago, xjames said:

I did try KSP on the console. It was way easier to land a rocket on the mun with the joystick rather than with a keyboard. Other than that, it was a difficult experience. I hope KSP2 on console will be better, as its my fallback option.

Try a Steam Controller!! It's absolutely excellent! (once you get used to it… ).

Humm… Would the Steam Controller, once configured on the PC, work on a Console?

[Guest]

10 hours ago, Lisias said:

Humm… Would the Steam Controller, once configured on the PC, work on a Console?

Don't think so, all the software of the controller is in the Steam controller layer, not in the controller itself.

[dozerman]

Quote

So, as we all know, Max and Linux support will most likely not be included at launch, if at all. I think I speak for a lot of people here when I say that this is a mistake. I believe Take Two and Intercept are heavily underestimating the amount of players on these platforms, and will essentially screw over at least ⅓ of their playerbase, inherently making the game less popular since not everyone can afford a gaming PC. It’s also not a question of hardware either, the new Apple Silicon chips are incredibly powerful, and should be able to run KSP2 with ease. My M1 MacBook Air is able to run KSP smoothly with several graphics mods and many, MANY parts mods. Don’t underestimate Linux machines either, they used to be THE go-to for modded KSP. This is why I believe that, rather than putting resources into Xbox One and PS4 support, Intercept should refocus those resources towards Mac and Linux support at launch. We represent a much larger part of the playerbase than most people think.

I came here looking for an answer to this. It's so unfortunate that this is the way that things are going. I'm personally a Linux/BSD user, and I hate to see people making this kind of decision. There is no doubt in my mind that Proton will be able to support KSP2 after a couple months, but it's still a slap in the face that we aren't given consideration regardless.

 

 

 

Quote

but why are you so sadistic to use mac or pc with linux to play?

I swear this could have been a copypaste from 2009. Things are very different these days.

 

 

Quote

anyway, i looked at some statistics online, i can't find ANYTHING that indicates that the players from windows are less than those on mac or linux, where did you see this thing? also consider that in addition to PC, KSP 2 will also be released on console, let's say that DEVs have other problems about bringing KSP 2 to 3 different platforms already ...

I don't think OP meant that there are more players on Mac or PC, just that it's a better move for the devs to concentrate on Linux/Mac than the consoles.

 

 

 

Quote

[open source KSP]

 

O.o

That would completely destroy the market.  

RedHat, et al. has entered the chat

[Ember12]

While there are no official numbers on how many KSP players are on Mac/Linux, it's probably pretty high.  By my count, in this thread so far about 13 people have stated that they want Mac or Linux support, compared to about 12 who were against the idea or neutral.  Obviously this is not a very accurate way to determine platform preferences, but it does indicate that KSP2 would sell a lot more copies with Mac/Linux support. 

This may be in part because Mac and Linux devices are often preferred among scientists and researchers, who probably make up a disproportionate number of KSP players.

Edited July 11, 2022 by Ember12

[Vl3d]

As long as it works through Stream on Linux, I'm fine.

Native Linux support is hard to do.

[Guest]

5 minutes ago, Vl3d said:

As long as it works through Stream on Linux, I'm fine.

Native Linux support is hard to do.

It's not that hard, but you're right about Proton, it may not be native Linux but without it Linux gaming will never break the loop of studios not making games for Linux because there's not enough audience and players not using Linux to play because there aren't many games.

[TheKrakenHerder]

Some possible good news: Can’t remember the specifics, but in the Celestial Architecting video, a folder on a dev’s computer is labelled “PC/Mac/Linux” or something along those lines.

[t_v]

Something like Linux Standalone DX11 was written there, meaning they might have a Linux standalone version?

[Xelo]

7 minutes ago, t_v said:

Something like Linux Standalone DX11 was written there, meaning they might have a Linux standalone version?

Its just the default desktop build config in unity under the category of (Windows, Mac & Linux), which mainly targets windows. So i don't think it means anything.

The title of unity under this default config (even thoh i can only build to windows):

Edited July 13, 2022 by Xelo

[t_v]

16 minutes ago, Xelo said:

Its just the default desktop build config in unity under the category of (Windows, Mac & Linux), which mainly targets windows. So i don't think it means anything.

The title of unity under this default config (even thoh i can only build to windows):

Yeah, the DX11 part is standard, but it didn’t say windows, Mac, and Linux, it only said Linux, which I think is not the default config

[Xelo]

14 minutes ago, t_v said:

Yeah, the DX11 part is standard, but it didn’t say windows, Mac, and Linux, it only said Linux, which I think is not the default config

did it?

The slight difference in name is probably because its 2018 unity not 2021 like im using rn.
Unless you are referring to a different screenshot, then count me corrected.

[t_v]

Thanks, I was misremembering.