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 10 months ago (4 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 44 points 10 months ago (2 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 17 points 10 months ago

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

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 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 10 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 10 months ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 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] 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I think they mean peer to peer ^arrr^

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 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 10 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago
[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 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.