this post was submitted on 10 Jan 2024
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Linux

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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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[–] [email protected] 43 points 9 months ago (5 children)

Now, gamers will want to play on Linux for the low latency on online games.

[–] [email protected] 44 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Most low latency use cases in games use UDP, not TCP.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 9 months ago

Unless it's a Java Minecraft server which I believe exclusively uses TCP still.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Yeah, that would make sense as opening TCP connections is not really viable for low latency, hahaha.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago

Opening the connections is one thing but resends and stream ordering can also cause issues since they might delay the latest information reaching the user space application even if the packet for them has actually arrived just because some earlier packet has not. There can also be issues with implementations waiting for enough data to be available before sending a packet.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Depends. There was that one F2P COD clone which used TCP and IIRC it did fine?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

If your connection is stable, the latency will more or less be the same, but TCP will consume more bandwidth because of acknowledgement packets, making it harder to keep your connection stable.

On an unstable connection, TCP latency will skyrocket as it resends packets, while UDP will just drop those packets unless the game engine has its own way of resending them. Most engines have that, but they only do it for data that is marked as "important". For example using an item is important, but the position of your character probably isn't, because it'll be updated on the next tick anyway.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Online games don't typically have many concurrent connections, though, do they? Just the one.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago

I'm not an expert, but I suppose as this patch is on the kernel and not on the game, this will still improve any connection your kernel needs to do, like sending telemetry of your anti-cheat engine and other apps that make TCP requests while you are playing online games.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Before that you have to download it. Well, using p2p mechanisms.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

I always download my games before playing them. I don't know what you mean here.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I think they mean peer to peer ^arrr^

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

But is that related to my comment? I don't understand why he's talking about downloading games via P2P.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

Unfortunately, many games where people care about that lower latency tend to be competitive with some kind of anti-cheat that doesn’t mesh with Linux.

[–] possiblylinux127 1 points 9 months ago

Forget gaming, this is huge for applications that use a lot of network. The internet just got faster