State of PA (Linux)

Discussion in 'Planetary Annihilation General Discussion' started by sylvesterink, September 10, 2014.

  1. sylvesterink

    sylvesterink Active Member

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    Since the Alpha release, I've pretty much ignored PA, because I like to play finished games, and I wanted to wait for release. And at the time, there had been a huge influx of Linux testers, so I figured my input wouldn't be needed.

    Now that PA has been officially released, I decided to play the finished game. I'm wondering what the state of the game is, and more importantly, how well it runs on Linux. I know that there's been some hate for the game on various communities (Steam, Reddit) but at the same time, the people swear by the gameplay. But objectively, I want to know: Is the game finished, or should I keep waiting.

    I did try to run the game briefly, and I was disappointed by the overall laggy interface, as well as freezing between states. For example, loading up the lobby for a private game, I got stuck "user authenticated" screen, and clicking to choose my commander's starting location resulted in a 4 minute long wait before my commander spawned, after which the UI didn't bother to appear.

    I'm not sure if these problems are Linux specific, as I don't use Windows anymore and can't compare. However, I do recall trying out the alpha about a year ago on Linux, when it ran decently enough, despite the performance issues. (Messages seem to indicate struggles with Coherent UI, but why didn't these issues occur a year ago, I wonder?)

    So for the members of this forum who have been diligently playing throughout the prerelease, I'm asking you whether this game is worthy of being called a released game, or should I just wait another year before trying to play? (And whether it's just the Linux version that needs the polish.)

    I apologize if threads like this have been created in abundance lately. I've only done a brief search, but this is quite a busy forum to trawl through. :p
  2. SXX

    SXX Post Master General

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    I play PA on Linux all the time and after UI bug being fixed I only have one serious problem with it left: glitched bars when I run it without "--software-ui" and some black screen after game when "--software-ui" used. Everything else working fairly well considering I run it on integrated graphics.

    Issues didn't occur because UI worked differently back then. When game started to use some other features of Coherent it's end up that some of them are less stable on Linux.
  3. sylvesterink

    sylvesterink Active Member

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    Oh, SXX. You were one of the reasons I decided that I wasn't needed for the Linux beta testing. Thanks for all your hard work on the Linux front!
    I tried running PA with "--software-ui" and it seems to solve most of the issues quite nicely. It does make the UI a bit more choppy, but at least the game is playable now.
    Do we have a list of the console commands for the game somewhere?
    And while I'm at it, I wonder if it's possible to adjust the contrast. The day side of the planet looks very washed out and makes objects hard to see. (Night side looks mostly fine, though I guess contrast could be bumped up there to differentiate units and background better.)
  4. shootall

    shootall Active Member

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    The game runs smooth as butter for me, a very worthy release indeed. Ubuntu 14.04.
  5. SXX

    SXX Post Master General

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    Yes, you can run PA with "--help flag".

    There is instruction for GL flags usage:
    https://forums.uberent.com/threads/unofficial-build-71378-notes.63276/#post-985630

    I suppose it's not yet possible except you can change shader directly. It's also possible to disable gamma correction pipeline, but It's won't looks good.

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