phasing out microsoft products - questions on alternatives

Community Community & Industry Discussion
1

hey guys,

i have had a two decade long satisfactory and generally uneventful relationship with microsoft.
win7 was great and i would gladly use it for years to come.

however for the past year or so it became increasingly clear that MS is spawn of the devil.
not to go on about it, after win7 is pushed out of the market i will be going the other way.

i have a couple of macs but i use them for media stuff. osx is a posibillity but i hate working on it.

i really fancy idea of going with linux.
my main apps are 3ds max, zbrush, photoshop, world machine, terragen and none of them work on linux.
3d coat will be an adequate zbrush substitute, 3ds max is dying a slow death and photoshop could be wined i guess.
substance stuff for linux is being developed and i am keeping an eye on other software aswell.

my question is:

  • is there anyone using UE on linux, if so what are the drawbacks?
  • how mature is vulkan api at the moment? any chance of it competing with dx12?

the microsoft situation really bugs the hell out of me and i do not feel the least bit comfortable depending on their product.
i would really like to hear some thoughts here - whatever they might be.

3

thanks franktech,

marketplace can be run from my osx machines.

but yes, i will most likely have a win machine on the side and keep it offline as much as i can.
i have tens of thousands invested in software and plugin and hate to flush it down the drain.

will do my **** best tho not to give one red cent or data to ms (or autodesk for that matter)

my main concern is not only running UE but getting gameworks to work as it does on pc.
hopefully things will get ahead with vulkan, as from my uninformed perspective, it seems the only chance to get away from the monopoly that ms is so aggressivly after.

going to check out those threads. love to hear about any experiences or thoughts.

4

Personally I would stay far away from all mac development for games and focus on Linux & the new vulkan API instead

5

thank you.
i was thinking that aswell. it definitely seems like a way to go.

i watched a lecture by newell years ago, on how linux is future of gaming and valve getting behind it.
the last couple of months made steamboxes extremely relevant in my view. they are a solution to a very problematic situation.