Sounds good to me! The more help we can get on the Linux side, the better it is for the retro gaming community. Linux is rather complicated, but the results for retro gaming can be awesome, if the emulation of 3D video and audio hardware/software that are no longer in use can be perfected. Linux is also great for running older hardware, though that too needs a lot of improvement in regards to soundcards and older GPUs.

RetroGamer4Ever wrote on 2022-02-04, 14:21:

Sounds good to me! The more help we can get on the Linux side, the better it is for the retro gaming community. Linux is rather complicated, but the results for retro gaming can be awesome, if the emulation of 3D video and audio hardware/software that are no longer in use can be perfected. Linux is also great for running older hardware, though that too needs a lot of improvement in regards to soundcards and older GPUs.

It's made a lot of strides, though, especially in the last few years. On the one hand, in terms of modern gaming, thanks to the likes of Valve, but also due to awesome community projects such as Lutris. But on the other hand also in terms of legacy and retro gaming. Many older Windows games run even better on WINE than they do on modern Windows versions these days.

The rich, open source ecosystem around Linux just allows for a lot more customization and tweaking. That has both its challenges and its strengths of course.

But the cool thing about this Grover project is that the person developing it is willing to maintain it, once it's merged into the Mesa project. That means that it will be part of pretty much every popular Linux distro. No separate installation or patching of the OS necessary.

digger wrote on 2022-02-04, 22:29:

It's made a lot of strides, though, especially in the last few years. On the one hand, in terms of modern gaming, thanks to the likes of Valve, but also due to awesome community projects such as Lutris. But on the other hand also in terms of legacy and retro gaming. Many older Windows games run even better on WINE than they do on modern Windows versions these days.

Being a Linux user (for work and for personal use) I've seen the state of Linux gaming coming from "nothing runs" to "valve will ensure near 100% compatibility on steam deck" in ~10/15y.
This is insane !

In early 2000 i wrote guides to play multi-account Diablo II on Linux. It was a bit complicated. Now it's just run Lutris/PoL. Next, Next, Next, Play. A lot easier than windows for retro games.
I also have 6 or 7 period accurate retro PCs, but sometimes i'm too lazy to plug the hardware, and just play with my main Linux computer.

I'm just a bit concerned that most Linux distribution kernels are moving towards removing AGP supports by default. So it will probably be not as straightforward to play with your AGP 3dfx card. But will be fine as the projects support glide to Non-3dfx hardware

its strange with all the improvements that linux still only has 1% of steam

Pickle wrote on 2022-02-08, 02:33:

its strange with all the improvements that linux still only has 1% of steam

I guess there is less motivation than ever to invest in ports, when they're having the compatibility implemented for free.

Pierre32 wrote on 2022-02-08, 03:04:

Pickle wrote on 2022-02-08, 02:33:

its strange with all the improvements that linux still only has 1% of steam

I guess there is less motivation than ever to invest in ports, when they're having the compatibility implemented for free.

@Pierre32 this isn't the percentage of games on Steam that have a native Linux version.

Pickle was referring to the Steam hardware survey stats, which currently reports the number of Steam users running Linux as their underlying OS at being around 1%, which is up from what it used to be. (The accuracy of these survey results are often disputed, by the way, with some people claiming that Linux users are underrepresented in these figures.)

Ahh, gotcha.