Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Baldur's Gate 3 for Linux?

I've just seen the announcement, that Baldur's Gate 3 will come out for Stadia, so it means you'll make the Linux version already (with Stadia specific integration).

Do you also plan to release it for proper desktop Linux (on GOG and Steam)? Since you are already targeting Stadia's Linux, making it for general desktop Linux users shouldn't be too hard.

Thanks!

A linux version would be greatly appreciated.

If this game is stadia only I will not be buying. I am not interested in steaming games.

I backed Divinity 1 & 2, and just signed up just to say I hope Baldurs 3 gets a Linux release. Failing that, if it works with Steamplay/Proton I'd be happy too.

+1 for a Linux version. And also no matter if there is a port or not i would love to know from the side of Larian if the fact that they will have a Stadia version makes linux porting any easier than otherwise.

@Raze: any word on this from Larian?



It naturally should make it easier. Unlike the situation with Divinity: Original Sin, where Linux port was problematic due to middleware and such, which caused D:OS2 not to come out for Linux at all, now that Laran are developing for Stadia, whatever engine they'll use (custom or common like Unreal / Unity), they'll have to make it work on Linux.

So to make it work on normal desktop Linux, they'll just have to make Vulkan backend go to screen, not to video, and replace Stadia's SDK input handling with normal SDL and such. A lot less work than what was needed for their previous games. All the heavy lifting would be already done. So unless they'll make some hard dependency on multiplayer over Stadia (I surely hope they don't, and they are already releasing it in other stores anyway so it seems to be a non issue), this should be easy to do.

A native linux version would be appreciated, but Proton is also fine if you just make sure it works.

I hope Google doesn't have any requirement to release on Stadia, that comes with ban on Linux versions coming out in other stores. Exclusivity would be quite annoying. So far, none of the Stadia announced games seem to have announced Linux releases on GOG, Steam and etc. May be a coincidence, but we need some counter example to be sure.

Google's Stadia specs said that Windows, OS X, Android, and iOS would be supported--nothing about a Linux Stadia release for a specific distro.

They are talking about their Stadia client. I'm talking about actual games developed for Stadia, which uses Debian Linux to run them. I.e. Stadia games are all Linux games, but they run on the server. Once developer makes a game for Stadia, it basically just needs some trivial modifications to make a normal Linux version. So when they don't plan to do it (while in case of Larian they are in general positive about Linux releases), it does look like some exclusivity ban. I surely hope it's not though.

It's very exciting to hear that Baldur's Gate is getting another sequel! However, I very rarely boot to Windows and have no real interest in streaming games at this time. A Linux version would be much appreciated!

Intuitively that is what i believe as well. But i would love to hear their experience directly. One thing that i am sure though is that using Vulkan for the game (i assume the windows version will also use vulkan) it would be straightforward to whitelist on Proton. Even DO:S 2 with all the issues you mentioned works perfectly fine (using the GOG copy and Lutris).

Go onto steam and look how many people use Linux.
You'll be very lucky to get BG3 because 99% of the market is on Windows.

I'm not using Steam, while I play on Linux. So what does that tell you? I'm not part of those numbers. And your argument is not relevant to Larian, who were already supportive of Linux releases in the past, when Linux market was smaller than it is today. Since then it has grown. So if you think market size is the indicator, it should be better than in the past.

Also, please read what was said about Stadia above. It addresses the needed market size for decision making. I.e. Larian are already making the Linux version for Stadia. The question is about releasing it for desktop users, not about "whether to make it or not".

+1 for a desktop Linux release

Link for "all Stadia games will be natively written for Debian"?--I mean, hundreds of popular games have no Linux version available at all, so Stadia will of course be running Windows on their servers as well as whatever other OSes they may run. Stadia will also be selling games *at retail prices* as well as Streaming them--and of course Windows games will be sold through Stadia--just like any current distribution service. Here's the thing I can't understand at all: running a Linux distro native game (not emulation because I can''t recommend that at all...;)) doesn't mean the game is going to look/run a bit better than it does on Win10--indeed, because of a number of factors it could very well run and look worse than the Win10x64 native version of the game.

So what's the attraction to computer gaming on a Linux distribution? Basically, emulated Windows games on Linux make up a big share of the total number of Linux games, and compared to native Windows game development, native Linux game development is a very tiny percentage, indeed. I'm not making any sort of judgment here--just stating the objective facts as I've seen them develop over the years. What I have noticed is that people who insist on gaming on a Linux distro (Ubuntu on Steam--which you apparently don't use--since you don't use Steam for Linux gaming, you say) are not "hobbyists" or "enthusiast" computer game players--they are much more what I might call "casual" gamers who can generally take gaming or leave it as gaming just isn't a large priority for them. Conversely, the people who are very involved with computer gaming are almost always Windows users--for many of the reasons I've alluded to and several other reasons I haven't mentioned like backwards compatibility stretching back at least three decades supporting early Windows versions and even MS-DOS, and commercial device-driver development for GPUs and all other devices--the importance of which cannot be overestimated, imo. (I mean, Open Source driver development generally does not compare, imo.)

Summing up, I've run as many as three simultaneous OSes before for multiple machines for extended periods (Amiga OS--Workbench up to 3.1, OS/2--several versions, Windows several versions--and DOS, of course) and I can testify that it's much nicer/simpler/easier to choose a single OS and stick with that...;) So if your choice is a Linux distro and nothing else I can't argue with that...;) But the fact still remains that for people for whom gaming is much more than a take-it-or-leave-it proposition--and Linux distro rather than Win10 (this latest build, v1903, build 18362.1000 is probably the very best Windows OS I've ever used--better backwards compatibility than Windows 7, for instance--if not the best OS I've ever used, period. The hardware support and software compatibility of Win10x64/32 is simply the very best available at any price of any OS I can think of atm. Linux distro can be great for certain tasks--no question about that! But for gaming?--nothing beats Win10 atm, imo.

Not having to pay for a Windows licence is a good starting point: I only use Windows for gaming so it does irk me somewhat that I have to pay "the Microsoft tax" if I don't want to use a console: which isn't something I've ever gravitated towards as I've never liked controllers much, ever since the Atari 2600 was a thing, and I like modding and tinkering too much.

I don't think there's any good reason why Linux or the other various types of Unix shouldn't be used for gaming, but it seems to be that thing that never really takes off. Developers are too wedded to DirectX, whether as their primary focus or the means of doing a "bad console port".

Admittedly if games did typically run on Linux I'd probably just have the one PC instead of My Gaming Rigâ„¢ and a much more low-power desktop, so I'd instead moan about how much power it was gobbling up instead.

Can you use Chrome on Linux, if so you can use Stadia on it.

Not only that. I have dual boot. Divine Divinity just din't worked on M$ Win 10. Same with Sacred 1/2 and Dungeon Siege 1/2... On Linux, almost all old games worked easily. Diablo 2, no matter how much i try, can only play windowed. On Linux i can easily run. Since i hate most modern games, i rarely use M$ windows.

That's an interesting point. From my perspective one of the main arguments for Windows continuation as the PC gaming platform is backwards compatibility with older games, but if Linux is beginning to eclipse it in that regard it's lost one of its biggest bargaining chips. I think game devs really need to start moving away from DirectX-only support, though I dare say many of those decisions are inflicted on them by publishers after getting a cosy deal with MS...

They of course won't be running Windows, when they explicitly said they'll be running Linux So let's avoid taking the discussion into some unreasonable speculations.

See: https://stadia.dev/intl/en_us/about/#software-stack

See also more technical details here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdz4b5psrhE&t=16m15s

As the video above suggests, because it's not Windows Seriously, that sums it up perfectly. There are multitude of reasons no to use Windows. The main reason IMHO is not even the price like @vometia suggested above (though Windows tax is irritating for sure), but simply lack of trust to MS in regards to privacy, security and etc. Who wants to run MS backdoors on their computers? I sure don't. Running blob operating systems today is simply a bad idea.

It's actually been like that for a while already. I.e. Linux+Wine being able to run older Windows games better than latest Windows can.

And regarding developers. Vulkan really started moving things forward, and now with Stadia more developers will get familiar with it. So that will further erode DirectX-only mindset.

Porting from Stadia to desktop Linux is not as straight forward as some have stated here.

First of all, Stadia will be more like consoles in that it will have standardised libraries, conventions, and hardware to program towards.
A linux distro on the other hand does not, with some few exceptions which don't really matter because pretty much everyone are using either an Ubuntu-derivative, Arch-derivative, or Fedora.

This usually isn't a problem, but it *is* increased complexity a studio might not bother with.

Second, Stadia will not have a desktop environment with all the pitfalls that comes with. Input handling, focus handling and so on is not going to be a thing with Stadia (because it'll all be standardised here as well), whereas with Desktop Linux you have a bunch of different cases. X vs Wayland, Gnome vs Unity vs XFCE etc.

Again this doesn't have to be a major issue but it is another reason for studios to not bother.

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I'm holding out hope they'll work with the Proton team to offer a great Proton solution which already sees phenomenal performance with some titles.
Steam's Proton team will most certainly be interested in it, and it'll reduce development hours for Larian significantly compared to a (Desktop) Linux port.

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Another alternative is developing an open source Stadia shim for Desktop Linux, as in it translates input and output to and from the desktop environment (and display server) which ultimately will result in close to zero performance loss.

I believe I heard Sven (or somebody) say "will not be released on Linux.", and I think they dropped Mac too.

Ah yes ... go look in Steam client - it shows Windows support only. Theoretically they just glitched adding mac or Linux but I doubt it, sorry folks.

Can you link to the source please? Would be pretty sad if they'll release for Stadia and not release for desktop Linux after that.

All of those issues you mentioned are pretty trivial to solve. So it is a lot easier than making a Windows version work on Linux. Besides, if they are not going to use a custom engine, and will go with something like Unreal (is there any info on that actually?), then Linux support will be provided by the engine to begin with.



Wine is an option, but for game that already plans Stadia release, requiring to use Wine to run it on Linux is quite a sour result. I'd call such cases Vinegar



That's something I mentioned as well. Google probably won't be Linux gaming friendly enough to implement such shim themselves, but someone else can, for example making SDL plugin that translates Stadia SDK input code into SDL proper. That should even further reduce the effort of making a desktop Linux release from a Stadia one.

It will use version 4 of the Divinity Engine (D:OS 2 was 3.0 for Classic, 3.6 for the Definitive Edition).

Good to know, thanks! So you are obviously working on adding Vulkan support to it, for Stadia release? That should be the bulk of the difficulties for making it work on desktop Linux already.

How is the progress of the Linux/Vulkan version for Stadia going? Any updates on the possibility of releasing it for desktop Linux proper?

Any updates on desktop Linux support due to planned Stadia work, or no new info about that?

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We haven't gotten any news about the game in months and you ask about a version for an operating system no one uses?

Please don't make pointlessly inflammatory remarks.

How is stating facts inflammatory?

Your remark is indeed most likely flaming, but if you don't understand how, I'll clarify.

1. I didn't follow any news on the game lately, so how would I know that "We haven't gotten any news about the game in months"? Assume that the fact that I'm asking, means that I don't know. This alone should have prevented you from making your remark already. If you want to convey the fact that there were no news in months altogether, just say so, without expecting everyone to know that.

2. Linux is used by many gamers today, so your remark can be seen as ignorant in the best case, and as trolling in the worst.

Okay, maybe I should have said that in a nicer manner sorry for that.
I

No problem.

Going back to the topic. Do Larian plan to give any updates, or nothing until release?

There will be updates before release.

+1 for a Linux version

Example when Stadia release enabled regular desktop Linux release:

https://www.gamingonlinux.com/artic...eep-silver-say-its-coming-to-linux.16001

Hopefully you also can do the same.

I loved the DOS. I bought the DOS2 on GOG but could not make it play with crash on Linux. I'm Glad that Larian drop the DOS2 on the switch, so I finally play it. I will buy the BG3 on GoG not matter if don't drop to Linux, But I just hope Larian consider us Linux gamers. We do like your games.

+1 for a Linux version

First there not server that run Windows on the market for big scale servers and even "Microsoft Azure" is linux base. The big problem is directX only games. Once is developed on Vulcan or any Open-API, can be compiled to run on anything, no matter the platform, We just ask for a not only directX game. It will help Larian Studios to be able to port it easily to any platform like PS or Nintendo as they did with divinity eventually, it will help them anyways.

We are a very small group, who use only Linux. But we just ask for to be included on the already development Larian will do for Stadia. It will take almost not effort, all the work is done by using the right API.

By the way, is this work (Vulkan support in the engine) done by your regular developers team, or you are contracting someone else to do it? I.e. did the studio gain Vulkan expertise through this work?

GNU+Linux! (Or even just "GNU" now, since there is a GNU project, Linux-Libre.)

Support for GNU would warm the hearts of old system admins. Maybe an appimage ...

Yes.

That's good to hear! I hope you'll provide Vulkan option for Windows users as well, and it will make it easier for you to make proper desktop Linux release in the future too, since your team will already have needed expertise in-house.

Some people seem to be interested in Google Stadia as a platform.

Can people not see how unwise it would be to allow a Big Data company to track your every decision and move on a computer game? Consider just how much logging Google would manage with access like that. Of course, super duper hardware available on a "cloud" (i.e. somebody else's computer) might be a nice service, but I strongly believe it is a terrible direction for gaming to take. It moves people away from ownership and eventually into a system where nobody has anything and has to rent everything they need all the time. There won't be a second-hand market.

I sincerely hope people do as much as they can to retain their Freedom and where possible buy direct from developers and run games on a Free platform, one which isn't filled with anonymity destroying spyware.

On a related note, some big games were found to ship with logging software (Redshell):
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/red-shell-game-tracking-gdpr

Can we rest assured that there will be nothing of that sort in Baldur's Gate III?

Of course.
I assume there will be a prompt to request people opt in to send anonymous gameplay data for Early Access, as was done for D:OS 2.

The main learnings Google might get from me playing on Stadia are:

1. I'm pretty lame at most games I play.
2. The Internet is not reliable enough for Stadia outside the Silicon Valley bubble.

The biggest problem with mass gathering of data in the modern world is not that it is being done, but that it is frequently done without permission, that it drives marketing from companies that do not explain why they think you might be interested ( i.e. they do not reflect on the data they have gathered from you ), and that their analysis of data is frequently wrong, because it can only show corellation, not causation.

I'm not disagreeing that privacy is important, just that most people are prepared to give up privacy for convenience and utility; usually right up to the moment where something really bad happens to them because they are careless with their data.

Personally, I do use Linux most of the time ( your Free platform ), including gaming. But, like almost every Linux user, I do not read all the source code looking for bad behaviour, nor compile it myself, so I have no more certainty about Linux as an OS than any other.

The only real way to move towards better practices in the digital world is through legislation with proper enforcement. As long as companies like Facebook, Amazon, Google et al. are allowed to mis-use their products and services for other purposes, I'm sure they will continue to do so.

Some legislation would definitely help. I sat down with an Member of Parliament discussing an issue closely related to this. I was left with the impression that nothing will happen in this area for a decade or more. If lobbying happened, there might be some progress, I felt, but Big Data will continue to do what they want for years to come.

I think you underestimate the potential for harm from data harvesting. Already, by combining data points from several sources, companies are able to make predictions about your behaviour more accurately than somebody that has lived with you 20 years! (If you have even lived 20 years.)

Gaming starts young, and if it hasn't happened already, it soon will be the case that games are deliberately engineered to intelligence and personality test the (unwitting) "players" and use telemetry to send results back to the Harvesters, who would flog it (and you) to the highest bidder.

The choices made in games and regarding games could all be used against us in the technological dystopia into which we are walking.

I hope that Larian are conscious of this issue and do what can be achieved to be a light in this future nightmare world.

Probably true. The unspoken belief is that globalised business provides a much larger global economy which benefits everyone. While this may be true, it also allows multi-national companies to seek the least onerous legislative environment, and to threaten to move away from nations that restrict their business.

The current wave of populist governments is, in part, a response to the fact that the globalised economy has resulted in very uneven distribution of wealth and power. If this fracturing of the globalised economy continues, it is possible that legislation may be easier to implement.


I have lived with my current partner for rather longer than 20 years, and am probably the oldest person commenting in the forum

But, no, I do not underestimate the ability to find and link data. Thirty years ago I worked for a financial services company investigating the impact of new technoogy for their business. One thing we looked at was then called "data mining" using an emerging class of ( very expensive ) parallel-compute systems. Even then, long before most people had even heard of the Internet, you could gain a great deal of insight into individuals from the data that was manually recorded about them and about recorded real-world interactions.

Consequently, I do not have a strong online profile. I comment on some technology and gaming sites ( like this one ), and I fully expect that my use of these sites can be linked. But I do not put out information on Facebook or similar social media where most of the abuse occurs, and avoid "engagement" with companies/organisations, regardless of the inducements they offer.

Unfortunately, many people have accepted the trade-off of "free" online services in exchange for personal data, often without understanding that if you can't see what a company in the digital world is selling, then it is probably selling you.

I don't care much that platforms like Facebook target adverts for selling products, since the more something is pushed in my face, the less likely I am to buy from that company. What really concerns me is the "echo chamber" effect of personalisation based on algorithms trying to understand humans. If a company like Facebook only ever shows you news/links that you like/agree with, then you will entrench your beliefs, and assume that everyone else shares them; and you will never learn anything new.

Personalised advertising is being exploited to influence people politically, both by domestic political entities trying to gain power, and by foreign governments/criminals to destabilise public opinion. I really do not want to go back to the geo-political tension of the 1970s; it was NOT a good place to be.



I'm sure that this is already happening, although I am skeptical of the value of information that can be gained from games playing, for two reasons:-

1. Games are not real life. I do things in games that I would never do in real life ( like gratuitously murder someone because I don't like their voice ), and I am also contradictory in my behaviour. The value of data relies on its accuracy, and with games, only metadata is likely to be accurate.

2. Most current attempts to extract useful information from the huge quantity of data being processed are astonishingly crude. For the most part they may be described as "statistics on steroids" at best, and simple keyword matching at worst. Still, it has some value for us as the data processing industry is actually what drives the GPU market forward, more than the games industry

More than data gathering, what harms Linux gaming is platform politics. Big developers ignore desktop Linux, because they don't see anyone owning the platform. And don't make the mistake - it's not a market size problem. Google Stadia has less users than desktop Linux. Yet we see developers release for Stadia while they still ignore desktop Linux gamers. It's because they see Google as owners of Stadia. Linux is an open platform, no one owns it. That doesn't fit into the mindset of developers who are used to dealing with platforms controlled by a single entity.

And I hope Google at least don't have some hidden requirement like "if you release for Stadia, don't release for Linux or don't use Vulkan on Windows" and such.

Yes, I think developer reluctance to engage with desktop Linux is because they want to have a single responsible party to work with, and that is not really possible. I suspect that in many cases, market size only plays a role in evaluating support costs.

Whatever one thinks of Valve and Google, they are both, in their way, helping to make Linux gaming a more viable proposition, which is a good thing that I hope will continue. It will also be interesting to see how big developers approach Apple support once they move to ARM.

It's also possible that developers wait to be paid if they release for an extra platform. I don't mean sales money, but just extra money. Google made Stadia? They pay developers to release there. Desktop Linux has more users, but no one is paying them to release there, so they are ignoring it. If Valve acted more like a steward of Linux gaming, it could get better. They kind of tried in the early days of SteamOS, but then they stopped this marketing push. And despite the size of the Linux gaming market and user base growing, we are still ignored by many developers because of the above.

Exactly, Stadia gave Larian a pile of cash to make sure BG3 was ported to Stadia, with the condition that certain BG3 Stadia features would be ready by certain deadline, that is it, no other requirements. It's why they've been able to make BG3 an AAA game without draining their bank accounts and while staying independent. Larian did a lot of it on Google's dime in exchange for porting it to Stadia with no other demands at all. Plus Google has already spent alot on advertizing Baldur's Gate 3 on Stadia, so that is free advertizing for Larian Studios.

[quote=Omegaphallic]
Exactly, Stadia gave Larian a pile of cash to make sure BG3 was ported to Stadia,
Do game even need to be ported over to Stadia? I assume whatever machines they run their games on can run the game without much, if any tweaking.

Their engine never had Vulkan renderer and previously had issued working on Linux. Porting it to Staida means making a proper Vulkan based Linux release.

I have no experience in this myself, but I guess that at least the in-game achievement system requires a special SDK depending on what platform/vendor is used.

The good thing is, that porting to Stadia is already doing all the heavy lifting of Linux+Vulkan path in then engine. So after that making a release for actual existing user base (desktop Linux) rather than marketed one (Stadia) shouldn't be hard for Larian. I hope they realize that and can make it once Stadia one will be ready.

Most games are coded with "abstract functions" for what a platform might be expected to offer. If you port to a platform where an expected feature doesn't exist, the abstract function simply does nothing, or is replaced by some custom code.

Achievements are generally not important for a game, so a Linux abstraction might do nothing, or maybe display a temporary achievement banner.

I would expect the majority of the game code to be platform-neutral, and simply need to be reviewed for the compiler to be used when porting to a new platform.

Agreed, most of the code can likely, with some effort, remain platform-agnostic. These guys were able to port to XBox, PS and Switch after all.

I assume Google Stadia's multiprocessor structure is very similar to that of an ordinary pc, I know that experienced engine programmers can get that little extra performance for XBox and PS if they can map asses memory according to actual hardware layout.
Stadia might also provide an alternative for windowing system (e.g. X on Linux) so that frames are directly sent over ip, reducing the application to a console program, though that seems a bit unlikely. Even then that's only a small part of the entire engine.
Again, I haven't seen the API.

What interests me is this: will BG3 support Google Stadia controller? Cause that would surely imply a release for Xbox/PS later on.
Would be a shame to get the controls right and then not reuse it.

I'd be surprised if they didn't support the controller, since it is a core part of the Stadia API. Some PC players also like controllers, so I would expect support.

As I understand it, the Stadia hardware is pretty standard CPUs, but GPUs without output logic/hardware. The game's screen images are output to memory, and compressed to a stream to be sent over the Internet to the Stadia Client, which decompresses and displays the images.

It's all handled through Vulkan. Instead of display they select some other type of swapchain, that's used for video stream. It should be doable to make it configurable and output the same thing for normal display.

https://vulkan-tutorial.com/Drawing_a_triangle/Presentation/Swap_chain

Vulkan is used as the coding interface between CPU and GPU. Setting up a swap-chain in Stadia effectively gives you memory locations for framebuffer images instead of directing them to the output buffers of the GPU, which don't exist afaik on the Stadia custom GPUs.

The Stadia server code still needs to pass these memory images over the Internet to a Stadia client for display, which is more complex that just local display.

If the point you are trying to make is the ease or otherwise of converting a Stadia game to vanilla Linux, then the answer is "maybe". Vulkan is a low level API, meaning you directly query and control the resources on the GPU in a way that you do not under OpenGL or DX11. An application ( such as a game ) using Vulkan would need to build multiple processing paths and optimisations depending on the resources available, both in the GPU domain, and the CPU domain.

If Larian are not using Vulkan for the Windows version of the game, then the Stadia port will probably only take account of resources available in a Stadia server, which are all identical. This might not be a good enough approach to enable simple repurposing for a desktop Linux version.

Conversely, if Larian are also using Vulkan on Windows, then they will have already have a Vulkan implementation that understands how to deal with the wide variety of GPU and CPU resources they might find in player PCs, and the port for Stadia will be much more suitable as the base for a desktop Linux version.

All this is speculation, anyway; only the Larian dev team know enough about their game to tell us how easy or difficult a desktop Linux port would be.

Converting Stadia version to proper desktop Linux version is a lot easier than converting DX11 or DX12 version to Vulkan itself. Bethesda developers gave a few talks about Stadia development and pointed that out.

Dealing with specific memory issues and etc. could be needed to address wider variety of desktop use cases. But it's not super hard to do for those who are already familiar with Vulkan development.

Converting DX12 to Vulkan is relatively simple, since the call structures and intent of the APIs are similar; DX11 to Vulkan takes more effort. Whether that is easier or not than providing high quality of optimisation across diverse hardware *will* depend on the application involved and the level of performance you are prepared to accept across diverse hardware. Bethesda games actually have a higher degree of complexity at the data manipulation layer ( the world model ) than many RPGs.

Regardless of that, it still requires non-trivial effort to go from Stadia to a *good*, and supportable desktop Linux implementation that will not be complained about, and you should not pretend otherwise.

Anything requires work, point is it's doable. And won't require a lot of time.

It is Early Access release day. Neither GOG nor Steam sites state the game is available for GNU+Linux. I think the best hope at the moment is unfortunately to try and purchase it from Steam and see if Baldur's Gate 3 runs on GNU+Linux using Steam's Proton.

If anybody has success with that, please make a note here.

The game apparently will use Vulkan in the Windows version, which is good for Wine compatibility. But still, it would be a lot better to release a proper native Linux version, especially after all Stadia work will be done which will help that a lot.

I don't expect it to happen in the early access version obviously. But post Stadia release - it should be quite doable. Please make it happen, Larian!

As a side note, consider also that macOS today isn't even a gaming oriented system, with Apple doing all they can to drive gamers away from it. So why would you support macOS and not Linux, which is where non Windows gamers today are?

Stadia came out already at the same time, in fact you can play right away now (for those who may not know). Mac version didn't drop until the day before Early Access (5th of October) and I don't recall any mention of it being supported one way or another (other than people making unverifiable stuff up), so unless Larian specifically say something then the possibility is there. I do kind of wonder if how well or not it runs under Wine well have any impact too, I guess that's something we shall find out relatively soon.

I didn't know Staida version is out (I don't use it). Good to know, so it means Larian already have tested it and built the game for Linux. We need to show more demand from the Linux gamers. I really don't get when developers release for macOS (totally gaming hostile) but not for Linux these days.

Linux user here, is there any updates from the game devs?

I just tried to get the game to run by installing it using Steam and running it using Proton on GNU+Linux. It didn't work.

How exactly does it fail? I doubt I'll buy the game until actual release and then it would be GOG version. With Wine, you can check the logs to see any potential errors, it should be doable with Proton too.

The game works perfect for me on linux with wine version 5.18.
I'm using Lutris to install the game through GOG Galaxy and also to run the game.

+1 for native Linux support.

Larian should really say something about this - a "NO" should suffice, and we will not waste breath on this any longer. I am a big RPG fan, and an even bigger BG fan, but sometime along the years I also became a GNU/Linux user. Probably because of the datacenters I manage. As a gamer... I got tired of wine in the WoW Cataclysm era and I swore to the gods that I will not play a single damn game if it is not built for my OS. I still keep my promise: I didn't buy DOS2 and I will not buy or play for that matter BG3 if it is not natively on GNU/Linux. Pretty sure no one at Larian will cry over my 50 bucks; but to this day I still not played another single Blizzard game, though I certainly made sure to constantly bash a company that uses FOSS all over the place and has a Linux client that they won't release. And look what has become of them :-D See?

LoL never mind the rant. But sorry, too old to help increase the Win quota of games.

I'm actually happy AND (at the same time) disappointed that Larian was the company chosen for BG3. Sure, they are talented, skilled and know how to make awesome games but that also automatically means the same annoying silence we've experienced with DOS2. This is always so difficult. Why? Let me tell you a story. I learned about Larian and DOS just thanks to the native DOS:EE Linux port which I think is very good, I fell in love with the game, was looking forward to DOS2 and asked Larian a few times on Twitter whether or not are they going to release it for Linux, hoping that they will become THE RPG developers letting users of other platforms enjoy their beautiful games. Got no reply, completely ignored. But people told me it runs so well in Proton. So I bought it... had my experience completely ruined by Proton bugs (for example drops to 15 FPS after every single save), started hating the game, uninstalled it, took over a year until it became playable for me. Fell in love with it again, I think I managed to advertise it to tens if not hundreds of people on my Discord server, many bought it and loved it as well, many thanked me that I showed them the game because they didn't know about it. I started playing coop with 3 other people (Windows users) who would probably never know about it if I didn't tell them (and they all now have around 150 hours played). Of course Linux only has a few % marketshare on the desktop, but all this happened just because I, as a single Linux user, one day, a few years ago, read about DOS:EE on a site focused on Linux gaming.

And here I am today, not willing to do the same mistake I did with DOS2 (ruining the experience with Proton) and telling my Windows friends I play DOS2 with that I won't be playing BG3 with them because the company that's behind the game doesn't want me to... which of course means they won't buy it either because they would be missing 1 player. And guess what they did, bought DOS:EE instead because it has a Linux version and with the 4 player coop mode we will be able to play together just fine. What I'm trying to say is that supporting more platforms (in this case Linux) usually leads to more copies sold on the dominant platform (Windows in this case), might be something to consider because I'm for sure not the only one playing with Windows users. It's an example, in this case a Linux port would lead to 4 copies sold where 3 of them would be for Windows. Of course that's no loss for such a big company but as I said, it's an example of how it usually works and we are not the only people using more operating systems.

To summarize it: Larian is like the girl you love but can't be with and I really hate that a company I love (or used to love?) forces me to dislike it. What's even more important, they are not forcing me to dislike them byt not releasing a Linux port but by refusing to say anything official. If they at least said "No, we won't make money on it, sorry", I would respect them. But the silence makes me mad and disappointed especially because CDPR keeps doing exactly the same to us since 2016.

Regarding the port itself, considering that the game is already using Vulkan and runs on Stadia... it's even harder to understand the silence. This year is weird, we are getting Wasteland 3 for Linux from a studio owned by Microsoft but no BG3 from a company that has a Vulkan-capable engine and a working Stadia build of said game. Thanks for reading this rant, have a nice day, I just had to get it off my chest before I give up.

On the other hand, Larian has often responded, by email, to simple questions I sent them and bugs I reported.

It is therefore hit or miss, caused I believe by an overload of emails at some periods on some days.

nb : I will not compare those communication issues with people we may love, who can sometimes become permanently silent, passive-aggressive, and you will never know why. Unlike those silent people, you can write again to Larian.

Created my account to post in this thread.
As a Divinity Original Sin owner and exclusive Linux user I'd like to also put in my request for a native Linux version.
Not all Larian Games have Linux clients but Divinity Original Sin certainly does. As previously mentioned many of the games I play run *better* on Linux than their Windows counterparts. I feel bad when I look in community forums like this one and see all of the issues from my Windows bros.
I noticed there was a concern mentioned here that Linux is too varied, but Windows 10 =/= Windows 10 either.
Look at all of the M$ Win10 builds, that OS is far from monolithic: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/release-information/
I work for a software company myself and we deal with that nonsense every day.
So, to sum up: native Linux support please. If Stadia is supported then please take the leap to include Linux as well, this will be a strong determination if I purchase the game when it leaves Early Access. Thanks.

My rather pessimistic view: I don't think there is any chance at all while the game is in EA, and very very low afterwards since the first months after that will be full with content patches, then work on an addon. And then they will feel the opportunity or right time to take on a port has gone, if they think about it at all.

I would be fine with Larian having an eye on proton compatibility. This is a short or mid-term goal that is actually doable with very small effort.

I'd also be more than happy just with the game running fine under WINE/Proton, as many/most Vulkan games do.

So far the game is working decently with proton, though with the last two patches it required some re-finagling for me. As long as it keeps up as is, I too am *okay* with it. Though, I don't know if long-term this constitutes a good strategy for those of us who want to normalize Linux support. That is, by voicing our satisfaction with the half-measure of Proton, it signals that companies can long term ignore actually pursuing Linux support. This is a losing strategy if we actually want Linux, as the open-source option, to be increasingly used by gamers and users generally instead of Windows or Apple operating systems.

That is to say, I am stoked enough about BG3 that I will acquiesce with only Proton as an option (because, I am certainly not going to use Stadia), but I hope that we can develop other strategies in the future that force the hand of companies to offer full Linux support.

If it runs on Mac, why it can't on Linux?

It works well with Steamplay now out of the box.
Tested on: Zorin OS 16 beta
Proton: 6.3-4
Specs: | AMD Ryzen 1700x 3.4 GHz | ASUS PRIME X370-A | 32 GB 2400 Mhz DDR4 | ASUS Nvidia 1070 8 GB | SSD 1000 GB |
Nvidia driver: 460.80

Oh that's good news. I miss Linux. If we get to release and they fully support Linux I will switch my OS over.

Nice background btw.

Well you can always make a virtual box and run both Windows and Linux.

Awesome! I will try with the launcher enabled now.

Edit: I can attest that this works for me as well.

Operating System: Kubuntu 20.04
KDE Plasma Version: 5.18.5
KDE Frameworks Version: 5.68.0
Qt Version: 5.12.8
Kernel Version: 5.8.0-55-generic
OS Type: 64-bit
Processors: 8 × Intel® Core™ i7-2600 CPU @ 3.40GHz
Memory: 15.6 GiB of RAM

I've found myself curiously resistant to the idea. I dunno why as I'm somewhat familiar with e.g. VM (the original one that ran on a System/370 mainframe) and aware that other operating systems can sometimes run faster under VM than on the actual hardware; and I use, erm, some sort of ABI to run particular Windows applications on Linux. I think I've just convinced myself that DirectX won't run well in that arrangement and a recent experience with trying to get decent X Windows performance from a guest system managed to convince me that was the case; in spite of the obvious, which is that X Windows isn't DirectX.

And then I come out with non-excuses like my Linux machine doesn't have a good enough graphics card (I mean it's passively-cooled: no point in going for a high-performance monster for something that mostly does 2D stuff) and that I don't want my games PC running when it doesn't need to, and, and... All the while overlooking the big problem which is that I don't like paying Microsoft (or paying them in kind nowadays) just to be able to play video games and that I've always hated Windows. Maybe I should give it another try. Until I find the first thing that doesn't work at which point I'll have a tantrum and throw my PC out the window.

Thanks.

Here's a better view of it;


The icons on it is something I made, which can freely be downloaded here: https://www.gnome-look.org/s/Gnome/p/1516492
It comes in 8 different colors.

I have been playing around with ProxMox, for my VM environment, and I am having a blast. I have Khali linux on it, Windows and Ubuntu. The ease of setting up VMs has just reached new levels from back in the day when I used to do it. Even Ubuntu has advanced so much since I used to use it like over 10 years ago. Although I am not a network admin, or a hacker, I do enjoy playing with things, and I have plenty of old laptops to do so.

I do wish there was more support for Linux, but I am thinking it is stifled by the big 2 not wanting more competition in the OS market. Never had the hate for Windows that others have, honestly I have more hate for Mac than Windows. Not saying Windows is a better environment than Mac, just saying I despise Apple and will never support any company made by Steve Jobs.

My experience here is that BG3 works well under Proton in wine. Performance is great. I don't have a Windows license, so I can't compare it to native, but honestly -- I'm playing with maximum "ultra" settings and have not noticed any slowdowns. That being said, I'd love a native version, obviously -- in particular stuff like alt-tabbing to another window doesn't really work.

Since Baldur's Gate 3 was part of Steam Deck marketing launch, I assume the Linux support does get some priority

+1 for Linux native app, but realistically this is why I run Windows in a kernel virtual machine.

Don’t think I saw anyone post this or not but there’s something I’ve always assumed there was one massive roadblock when it comes to a Linux workstation/PC and games, and that’s the non-standard environments users operate in. UNIX and UNIX-like OS kernels and graphics APIs aren’t the problem, Sony has based the PlayStation OS off of FreeBSD since the PS3. Nintendo also used its kernel to power the switch unless I’m mistaken. But those platforms all have something in common with Windows and that’s the single, predictable, engineered environment to build the game for.

In the Linux world we’ve got X11 or Wayland, Vulkan or OpenGL (for legacy), KDE, GNOME 3/40, Xfce, lxde, etc… with who knows what kernel version and extensions/drivers/mods… Now I do understand that 90% of all that stuff I listed off shouldn’t make a bit of difference to a game (at least on paper), but the Linux port of Shadow of Mordor is a great example of how this can impact experiences of the end user.

On KDE it ran fine in full screen, on GNOME 3 I had odd graphical pop ins from the top bar and occasionally my mouse could trigger the app search function if I moved it just right.

All that is to say, imagine trying to support an end-user with that wildcard setup. This is normally when I hear people argue that they put work in with WINE to get a game to work, they’d be willing to work with Larian on this too (And I suspect for many folks that’s true). but I’ve found a lot of times the relationship between consumer and vendor changes once $$$ is exchanged for something that’s supposed to natively work on a platform. There’s a much higher expectation placed on Larian or any developer to support the thousands of disparate configurations of a “desktop” on Linux based operating systems, and that’s not something they want to tackle while trying to get their game running on the 5-7 platforms they’re targeting at the moment.

Now just as container tech like Docker and podman have made shipping programs to run predictably in every Linux based OS much easier, there is similar technologies to containerize graphical applications to circumvent all the pitfalls having to support 20 DEs and 30 window managers can create. Flatpak is one that comes to mind, Docker has an implementation of it too (though I’m not as familiar with it). That may help circumvent the problems Larian may run into if they want to pursue a Linux native client for BG3, as they’ll just need to target the container runtime rather than the host system.

Anywho I’ve rambled enough, and I may be all wet when it comes to the actual issues developers run into that make them avoid native support for Linux based Operating systems. Kudos if they can/want to do it, but I’ve got a backup plan if they can’t/won’t

Did anyone try the GOG version with WINE? Any success? Anything in particular to consider/install besides WINE? Is WINE 6.0.1 ok or should I better try 6.14? Thanks!

I realise this is a rather old topic, but +1 for "official" linux support – the gog version works fine under proton (I <3 DRM-free stuff and buy everything on GOG, although I admit that proton is fantastic).

It would be good to have either some official support or a statement along the lines of "We don't officially support you, but the following definitely works on our testing: " – which is what EVE online does, for example.

Honestly, with the Steam Deck it's probably a good idea to make it relatively cross platform anyway!

Why would people prefer Linux over windows?? Especially for gaming..

A Linux native desktop version (GOG) would be greatly appreciated and bought with haste by this longtime member of the growing Linux gaming market.

As classl3ss observed, Wine is a possible half-measure but there is the case to normalize Linux support. While I would not want to discount possible hitches with the variety of Linux configurations,

GOG Linux versions are supposed to be distribution-agnostic and do not need containers like Docker/Flatpak: https://docs.gog.com/linux-guidelines/
and Linux games tend to benefit from a supportive and able community..


To such a question there are many possible answers found in dedicated internet threads, with some given in above posts - Vulkan, SDL, OS preferences, unsuitability of VMs on hardware .. so generally speaking of these modern OSs, "Why would people want to stop everything to run an app on a possibly unsatisfactory OS when their preferred multitasking OS performs as well and perhaps better depending on configuration?"