Works better on Linux than Vista :D

[Crizzle]

Not surprising since Vista has turned out to be a disgraceful OS.

What I think is more disgraceful, is the people using computers they purchased back in 98 to attempt to run Vista, and then being disgruntle it runs like crap.

What's also disgraceful is how people don't even bother reading prompts or instructions and want everything to magically work.  If this is you, get a console.

New software with new features, requires new technology. If you're not packing it, don't complain that an OS is disgraceful.

My setup runs perfect. Vista Ultimate x64, 1680 x 1050 resolution. I play the game windowed with all the graphics options on at the fullest resolution avail. (1400 x 1050 I think) It runs flawless. Vista as a whole is a pretty impressive piece of software. If all you want to believe is Mac commericals then have fun living in fantasy land.

The bottom line is, if you want Vista (an OS designed for the next generation of hardware) to work well, you need current hardware.

You don't have current hardware? (which is fine) Use XP, it's a solid OS, with a proven track record.

2d

It's not a solid OS at all, and I happen to be a hardcore PC user so don't jump on here to defend an OPERATING SYSTEM and make a whole slew of assumptions. I'm not going to start arguing here because what you were expressing was an OPINION.

[quamper]

"Depending on your setup (im guessing you ahve integrated video)"
integrated as in that it's a laptop. But it's an ATI radeon card. Not an intel integrated type.

"you should turn off the UAC, and turn off Aero."
Are you saying UAC affects performance? As for turning off Aero why use vista if it's off? Regardless it should be fair because I run CompizFusion in Linux and don't turn that off.

"How many gadgets do you have in your sidebar?"
8, but I close it before gaming.

"Do you boot your machine and not remove any of the presupplied software when you bought it from teh manufactuer?"
When I got it from Dell I completely wiped it and did a fresh Vista install without and Dell utilities.

"you probably don't have any culter on your linux install as you installed it."
I probably have more clutter on my Linux install in all reality.

I don't have a problem with Microsoft/Windows/Vista on the whole. I use it at vista at work. I'm also a certified MCSA/MCSE. So I'm not your average user.
But when I have the choice I prefer to use Linux.

There are just as many Windows Vista zealots as they are Linux zealots. I'm neither. I'm just happy Aquaria plays great for me on Linux. That was my whole point. Obviously YMMV .

However I'd say the playing field is more than level.

[2disbetter]

It's not a solid OS at all, and I happen to be a hardcore PC user so don't jump on here to defend an OPERATING SYSTEM and make a whole slew of assumptions. I'm not going to start arguing here because what you were expressing was an OPINION.

Well I'm glad we're not arguing, specially since your a harcore PC user. HARDCORE. Well that sure makes me want to reconsider my very relative stance.

Since your post lacks any fact aside from your ego of being so HARDCORE, I don't see how my thoughts being opinion based lead any credence to your very opinion based comments being acceptable.

2d

[2disbetter]

"Depending on your setup (im guessing you ahve integrated video)"
integrated as in that it's a laptop. But it's an ATI radeon card. Not an intel integrated type.

"you should turn off the UAC, and turn off Aero."
Are you saying UAC affects performance? As for turning off Aero why use vista if it's off? Regardless it should be fair because I run CompizFusion in Linux and don't turn that off.

Of course the UAC is another process effectively checking everything being sent to your CPU, similar to an anti-virus active scan. Aero runs fine on my computer. I admit that Aero is a good reason to get vista, however, if your computer is not the best, than your going to suffer becuase of it. Turn it off, and watch how much smoother everything runs. After a while you wont miss glass, or live thumbnail previews.

"How many gadgets do you have in your sidebar?"
8, but I close it before gaming.

"Do you boot your machine and not remove any of the presupplied software when you bought it from teh manufactuer?"
When I got it from Dell I completely wiped it and did a fresh Vista install without and Dell utilities.

"you probably don't have any culter on your linux install as you installed it."
I probably have more clutter on my Linux install in all reality.

I don't have a problem with Microsoft/Windows/Vista on the whole. I use it at vista at work. I'm also a certified MCSA/MCSE. So I'm not your average user.
But when I have the choice I prefer to use Linux.

This statements doesn't really mean anything anymore. Anyone can get them, and I've had to work with several people who had them, and were bigger tools on computers than my 15 year old brother.

There are just as many Windows Vista zealots as they are Linux zealots. I'm neither. I'm just happy Aquaria plays great for me on Linux. That was my whole point. Obviously YMMV .

The bottom line.

However I'd say the playing field is more than level.

There are obviously some real problems with Vista. What I don't like is how the general population is brain washed by Mac commericials, and the uninformed opinions of others on the matter.

There are problems, but no more than any other OS release aside for some mac releases, which shouldn't even count as the only hardware you can get on a mac is predefined, making it easy to ensure your software works on all of it.

Windows in general has to work with everything! Linux is a great OS, but it doesn't install and run flawlessly on everything either. Believing that is very misleading. In a world where the normal user just wants to know hwo to turn it on and play, Windows is still the best choice when all factors are taken into account. (selection, applcations, etc.)


Edit: Ps: please excuse my rather over zealous reaction to Vista's slander. I don't really love it all that much, just hate the bandwagons. At any rate, I'm glad the games runs, who cares on what OS.

[dthunt]

>>>"you should turn off the UAC, and turn off Aero."
>>Are you saying UAC affects performance? As for turning off Aero why use vista if it's off? Regardless it should be fair because I run CompizFusion in Linux and don't turn that off.
>Of course the UAC is another process effectively checking everything being sent to your CPU, similar to an anti-virus active scan. Aero runs fine on my computer. I admit that Aero is a good reason to get vista, however, if your computer is not the best, than your going to suffer becuase of it. Turn it off, and watch how much smoother everything runs. After a while you wont miss glass, or live thumbnail previews

You evidently don't know what you're talking about, w/r to UAC.  UAC is not another process.  If a permission check on a file or registry write fails, file and registry virtualization might kick in, which has a nonzero performance cost - but still low.  But otherwise, there's not all that much in terms of additional performance cost going on.  Merging the virtualized files into the overall view I don't think is terribly expensive - and for a process which is properly manifested as Vista compatable with a RT_MANIFEST resource specifying a requestedExecutionLevel - this game doesn't have one, yet - this mitigation has zero effect on process performance, since it's turned off.

The big thing with UAC is that it strips the Admin bits from administrator group tokens, and uses it for Deny only; this means you don't run as a full admin most of the time.  When you launch a new process, it does the same checks it has to do on the exe for process launch anyway, and decides if you need to elevate for it; if so, you will be greeted with an elevation prompt (which /does/ take some time, checking file signatures, etc).  But UAC on the whole should have very little impact on your performance.

On the whole, no, I would not say UAC is making your machine slower.  And if the awesome dev team will address any writes to per-machine locations (either ACLing those directories and keys to allow it for users, or having those writes go to per-user locations), and add a manifest to the game exes, this game might work more swimmingly, if you'll pardon the pun, on Vista.  Though they'd want to test that and figure out how to deal with any virtualized files that were made when the game was still not manifested.
-tyler

[2disbetter]

>>>"you should turn off the UAC, and turn off Aero."
>>Are you saying UAC affects performance? As for turning off Aero why use vista if it's off? Regardless it should be fair because I run CompizFusion in Linux and don't turn that off.
>Of course the UAC is another process effectively checking everything being sent to your CPU, similar to an anti-virus active scan. Aero runs fine on my computer. I admit that Aero is a good reason to get vista, however, if your computer is not the best, than your going to suffer becuase of it. Turn it off, and watch how much smoother everything runs. After a while you wont miss glass, or live thumbnail previews

You evidently don't know what you're talking about, w/r to UAC.  UAC is not another process.  If a permission check on a file or registry write fails, file and registry virtualization might kick in, which has a nonzero performance cost - but still low.  But otherwise, there's not all that much in terms of additional performance cost going on.  Merging the virtualized files into the overall view I don't think is terribly expensive - and for a process which is properly manifested as Vista compatable with a RT_MANIFEST resource specifying a requestedExecutionLevel - this game doesn't have one, yet - this mitigation has zero effect on process performance, since it's turned off.

The big thing with UAC is that it strips the Admin bits from administrator group tokens, and uses it for Deny only; this means you don't run as a full admin most of the time.  When you launch a new process, it does the same checks it has to do on the exe for process launch anyway, and decides if you need to elevate for it; if so, you will be greeted with an elevation prompt (which /does/ take some time, checking file signatures, etc).  But UAC on the whole should have very little impact on your performance.

On the whole, no, I would not say UAC is making your machine slower.  And if the awesome dev team will address any writes to per-machine locations (either ACLing those directories and keys to allow it for users, or having those writes go to per-user locations), and add a manifest to the game exes, this game might work more swimmingly, if you'll pardon the pun, on Vista.  Though they'd want to test that and figure out how to deal with any virtualized files that were made when the game was still not manifested.
-tyler

In the efforts of not trying to write a novel on UAC i simplified the idea. You are correct. Thanks for the details.

Whether it's a process or not (All I know is I turned it off right away), it is it one more thing that requires a process somewhere to run an extra call on it. That regardless of how minute still take's away from performance. If you know what you're doing there is no need at all for it to be on.

2d

[wesley]

Just thought I'd mention that the demo runs tons better graphics and sound on my Ubuntu Linux machine (which is my main machine) than my Windows Vista laptop. Full graphical quality options especially!

Here's some screenshots.

Hi, there.

The demo seems to run great on my linux laptop in terms of speed, graphics and sounds, but when the game actually starts I lose my cursor. I can only see the cursor in the bottom right... and the thing there looks a bit weird.. can you tell me which version of Ubuntu, Wine and what settings you have for Wine, please? Thanks. If the demo turns out to work well in Wine after I can fix this, then I will buy this game for sure.

[wesley]

Look, here's a screenshot of the problem I'm having:

[wesley]

Oh. Upgrading to a newer Wine version seems to do the trick now let's see if it works stable enough for me to consider buying the game

edit: okay, I decided. I'm going to buy the game it's so fun.. and it works remarkably well with the latest version of Wine! Hooray!! BUT.. are there any plans for a real native version for Linux, anyway? I mean.. emulated (API wrapped to be exactly) is still emulated... I'd buy the game again if a Linux version would be released.

[Alec]

Why does it look so much sexier on Linux... 

[shinygerbil]

Because Linux makes you sexy.

[wesley]

Because Linux makes you sexy.

yea right

but it does look rather sexy, does it not? yea.. KDE + Compiz-Fusion can look pretty
and it doesn't slow the game down at all in Wine! Framebuffer Effects enabled and everything.

Still, I wish it was a native game. Wine is still.. you know.. Wine...

Anyway. The game is too much fun to let it be, and now that I've played the demo I can't stop playing.
1. It runs fine in Wine, so there's not really a reason to not buy it for my Linux laptop, unless some eerie Wine bug pops up in the middle of the game but let's hope that doesn't happen
2. But even if something wouldn't work.. This game will actually make me borrow my mum's Win XP laptop to continue playing the game

I'm a big fan of the hand-drawn graphics by Derek now, and a huuuge fan of the musical talent that Alec possesses, even more than his programming skills actually, even though they are also top-notch.

For me, this game is really something that makes you rethink the important aspects of gaming. The fact that it has been developed by such a small company amazes me. You guys really deserve some time off for now. I really hope Aquaria becomes a success for you guys.

Oh, and.. now that you have gone through all this... I mean.. the porting stuff... maybe you could - pretty please - consider to develop the next game as cross-platform as possible from the start? Like watch your casing, test it frequently, and use a cross-platform library for sound I mean.. I would understand if you wouldn't want to port this game to Linux anymore because of all the extra trouble, and because Wine seems to handle it well enough.. but maybe, for your next game....? I sure hope there will be a next game! I'll be expecting one in the next 5 years Preferably one that actually works natively on Linux.. hehe..

Anywaaay.. Good job with Aquaria. You can actually see that the game has a polish to it that you only see in games that have been developed with great passion. Kudos to Bit-Blot.

edit: corrected some spelling mistakes

[keturn]

Ubuntu Gutsy (7.10) plus Wine 0.9.50 runs the demo quite well, as documented at http://appdb.winehq.org/.  There's still some unclarity about how well registration works.  I guess it didn't work so well in the initial release, but there's a replacement .exe floating around, but I don't know if that's included in the more recent releases, or if it's missing other fixes that are present in recent releases, etc.

So that's been my excuse not to buy the windows version so far.  That and the fact that I'll have to install different versions of wine for playing Aquaria and playing Sam and Max or Portal (while Aquaria likes the newer 0.9.50, the other games seem to do better with the version of Wine that Gutsy shipped with.)  We'll see how long that lasts...  That FAQ about "yeah there's a linux version but we don't know when" is such a tease.

[wesley]

That FAQ about "yeah there's a linux version but we don't know when" is such a tease.

Yea, it is.... and as far as I can see it's not 100% sure yet whether it will be released or not either