Re:Valve CEO: Why Linux is the future of gaming
by GeneralMayhem on Monday September 16, 2013 @07:40PM
(#6396649)
Lots of AAA games still ship with only 32-bit executables. If the message is supposed to be "come to Linux, it's easy, we promise," then there's a good argument for making things as similar as possible for devs/publishers who don't want to gamble on a virgin market.
I agree with you, though, it's disappointing that even in abandoning Windows we're stuck with MS-style backwards compatibility.
Every desktop CPU sold in the last decade, at least the ones capable of running games, supports x86-64. The only reason 32 bit installs exist in the wild is because Ubuntu (still) makes it their default download.
Enter Steam for Linux. Targeting 32-bit Ubuntu, it makes this the de facto platform for Linux games. My desktop OS is now cluttered with multiarch libraries, and the top-end games I want to play won't take advantage of either the better instruction set or all my ram.
Linux gaming could have been a fresh new start, a break from the 32-bit instruction set, but instead we're now stuck installing, maintaining and supporting 32-bit libs forever..