Did they ever decide to care about Linux again? I returned my devkit because they said they didn't care about Linux a couple of weeks after I got mine. I won't send them more money unless they're going to support Linux.
You could... return it? I thought they were very clear it wasn't refundable and there were some discussions in the forums about it with some negative quotes from the customer support...
> I won't send them more money unless they're going to support Linux.
Careful, they already said they support linux with the dk2 and we know how that went. Don't rely on what they say they "are going to do". Only buy it when they demonstrate complete and fully working linux support, not earlier.
>You could... return it? I thought they were very clear it wasn't refundable and there were some discussions in the forums about it with some negative quotes from the customer support...
You're right, but I spoke with support and made my case and since it had been such a short time since I bought it, they went ahead and did the refund.
>Careful, they already said they support linux with the dk2 and we know how that went. Don't rely on what they say they "are going to do". Only buy it when they demonstrate complete and fully working linux support, not earlier.
Sorry about my wording. I'm not going to buy it until there is actual support that I can actually use at the moment I open the box.
Did they say they didn't care, or did they say they needed to focus development? There is a big difference between the two. If they were making a game in Unity and didn't release a Linux version, that's one thing. If they're making a brand new specialized piece of hardware and have had numerous delays and just need to get a product out the door... well it's a little more understandable that they would focus on one platform first.
The worry is, as time goes on, it will become harder and harder to "bolt on" Linux (or OSX) support.
Being cross-platform is a design decision, and it effects how you go about developing your platform (what technologies you use, etc...). So the fear is, they'll go down the Microsoft path and find it difficult to bring in other platforms down the road.
Well, with OS X, at least, there is no retail Mac that meets the minimum hardware requirements previously announced, except possibly the Mac Pro (though it looks like even that benches lower than the minimum for the Rift). Given that and that Mac graphics driver/OpenGL performance lags significantly behind Windows, there's not really any reason to waste resources on the platform. I don't know what the current state is, but last I was aware, Linux OpenGL performance was also significantly worse than on Windows, so it seems pretty reasonable to me to leave it out as well.
The problem is that most AAA games that are benchmarked on Linux vs Windows are 3rd party ports for a tiny minority among the customers. They put as little resources as possible into the ports, that's just enough to deliver something that is well playable.
Once you can compare an engine/game that has been optimized for OpenGL with equal effort than for D3D, then you can make a fair comparison.
But it's true, OpenGL drivers are often worse. Not just on Linux. Look at what happened when RAGE came out. Presumably that's also only because drivers for D3D are optimized and hacked on much, much more because there are so many AAA games that use it.
That there are already cases where AAA games run at times better on Linux than on Windows, even through a wrapper, is a very, very good sign for the performance to come if only a little more effort is put into the drivers and ports: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZYIa-6UooM
That said, Unity and Unreal are the engines that matter most for VR right now. Both have linux versions. Unity 5.3 was recently released and they have updated their OpenGL backend significantly. I've not seen benchmarks yet...
I'm guessing it's much more safe (business-wise) to deploy for a "standard" platform like Windows and test the waters so to speak, in terms of consumer reception, games developed, etc, and then jump on to other platforms.
Of course, the end result is that you keep strengthening the "standard" platform and thus there's never critical mass for "alternative" platforms (for different values of "standard" and "alternative" depending on product), and so the cycle repeats itself.
But in the end Oculus is there to make money and making new hardware is very hard, let alone a whole new type of hardware.
This, I agree, is unfortunate, but I can't imagine how hard it must be to develop something like this for Linux, with the myriad of 3d drivers, sound drivers, etc. If you end up developing for say, Ubuntu Desktop only, then probably a lot of people would still complain and say "hey, Ubuntu is not the only Linux out there you know!".
Maybe Steam will take advantage of this and develop for Linux as well, thus putting pressure (and opening the market a bit) on competitors to move into this "alternative" market.
