I just noticed that mana doesn't have any gravity either.  Wyverns just leave their mana in the air.

As mana spawns inside the chests, you need to wait until the chests despawn, before you're able to pick up the mana crystals. This prevents players from quickly building defenses when the build time is limited.

Additionally, some crystals spawn slightly below the floor level or near a wall or decoration, and you're unable to pick them up at all, reducing the available mana. If this happens in the first wave, you often need to restart the level to be able to build all required defenses in higher difficulties.

Boss mana drops can't be picked up in many cases (boss hitbox blocks player from reaching them), but this is not a big problem as the mana is added to the bank after completing the level.

I have the same problem.

Same issue.

Having the same problem. Really makes gathering mana annoying.

Same issue. Makes for a rather tedious gaming experience. Mana does not move and it has no gravity.

I'm having the same issue.  This is the last MAJOR bug I'm seeing, and I would love to be able to have a complete Linux version.

Thanks for your hard work, Ryan.

Confirmed on Linux as well

HIB#7 build 2.
v. 7.48

Same here, tried on 2 different Debian-amd64 with lastest nvidia.

This is happening because we don't currently have a Linux port of PhysX 2.8.4; I have the source code to it and it's in progress, and eventually Dungeon Defenders will be updated with it.

The only thing in the game that uses PhysX are the mana gems, and not having it doesn't break network compatibility, so we decided it wasn't worth holding up a release for months to port PhysX, and would get it into the game as soon as possible, some time later.

--ryan.

Nice to hear that you are working on it. I like that the Linux game will get proper mana physics eventually. But I assume porting the entire PhysX library will take a significant amount of time?

Would it be possible to hack together a temporary fix for the Linux version? The mana physics are already fairly simple and I imagine that PhysX is mainly used to get aesthetically pleasing mana-movement. Just strip it down to the bare-minimum functionality needed to get the game playable on Linux (preventing gems from getting stuck inside chests etc.). It would probably be possible to have a temporary (but playable!) solution ready in a day or so.

The simplest thing possible:
When the player is close to mana, move it towards the player in a straight line at constant speed (no acceleration etc.). If the player moves outside the range, stop moving the mana. Don't implement gravity, save that for the proper PhysX version.

It would look strange in certain situations, but not worse that how it is now.

Thanks for the update, Ryan.

On a side note, if the game is hosted from Windows then the Linux clients will have mana attract to them - but you won't have a visual indicator of this.

For example, if a friend hosts the game from Windows and I run near a chest or stand under mana dropped by a Wyvern my mana total will automatically increase.

If you really want to play on higher difficulties and you have a buddy that can host under Windows then you might want to have them host just for this er... "feature."

Ryan, good choice not to postpone release because of this. Awesome game.
Game works perfectly for me but this is annoying. Any news on the progress? This month, next month, before autumn?

Any updates on this issue? The big problem here is that it makes Insane/Nightmare an exercise in frustration; it's just so much harder to gather mana from chests for the first 1-2 waves. Maybe a quick stopgap measure would be to have mana from chests just pop up a little, so it ends up on top of the chests rather than stuck inside?

Any progress on the PhysX port?

Keep up the good work Ryan!  I would love to see this game be the true cross-compatible contender that Trendy first put it out to be.  I eagerly await! :)

So is this even still being worked on?  I submitted this bug 6 months ago, during which time the Linux version has been pretty much unplayable.  Does the Android version use an Android port of PhysX?  How was the problem solved on that platform?

@Justin Manning

If you notice how the Android gems move, they do a more "linear" path.. Every time you move it recalculates a linear path..  The gems in the PC Version have a "gravitational" pull where if you jump up and down they "bounce" with you.. The Android version doesn't use PhysX..

What would be nice is to have the Android's movement until the PhysX situation is resolved :)

I am also impacted by this.  Can we have an update on the progress of fixing this issue or the workaround?

@Ryan C. Gordon

Is there any update on this issue?  It really is the only major issue that makes the game unplayable at this point.  Floating mana from Wyverns and treasure chests that don't let you grab mana before they disappear hinder game play.

Thanks in advance!

yeah, would be swell if you could fix it somehow. it is rather gamebreaking on higher difficulties. just like the crashing when you are hosting on linux.

plz any info on this?

yeah, would be swell if you could fix it somehow. it is rather gamebreaking on higher difficulties. just like the crashing when you are hosting on linux.

plz any info on this?

Anything new on this?

Okay so it's been over 2 years since this bug was reported. Surely there have been updates to the linux client since this thread was last updated by a staff person (2013-04-05 11:29:33 EDT) which is still over 2 years ago. I know that Nvidia has released their GPU and CPU SDKs for Linux. In fact, they have had a CPU-based PhysX solution in the mass space that is the internet since before this bug was even reported. Nov 8, 2012 is when an Nvidia employee confirmed that PhysX wasn't currently possible on GPUs under Linux but would still use the CPU-based code as a fallback. If you guys have given up on this issue, at least come out and say it instead of leaving your customers hanging around. I'm trying to get rid of my Windows install as much as I can. I love DD but can't deal with this bug and neither can I tolerate no response in 2 years!

I wholeheartedly agree with everything @Lucas Smith said in comment 24. A bit of information would be nice.

while i completely agree with #24, i would guess that this is not icculus.org's fault - i assume that icculus.org has been contracted by trendynet to port dungeon defenders. at this point in time, especially considering trendynet's rather atrocious customer care, i am rather sure to say that whatever contract they had either expired long ago and/or trendynet has long cut funding to icculus.org for work on dungeon defenders. 
in my opinion dungeon defenders eternity is proof of that. and i don't think we could hope for trendynet to release source so we could fix this mess ourselves - that would likely take away a large part of potential customers they could handily fuck over with newer cashgrabs, see dde and dd2. sad as it may be, they will continue to sell dd1, broken as it may be, while ignoring the issues. steam has yet refused to take down the linux-version of the game.

and i want to add that the best way to speak out against this would not be this bugtracker, but rather the points of sale, where other customers are more likely to take notice of the way trendynet handles it's projects and customers. so take to steam or wherever you get your games and let trendynet and potential customers now of their practices and what you think of the whole mess. request it to be taken from stores for false advertising/simply not working.

as an additional note, consider icculus.org might have had to sign a NDA about internals/contract/source/plans in order to be contracted.

I think PhysX is open source now with source code available for Linux too:

https://developer.nvidia.com/physx-source-github

There should be no problem making the changes now right?

The developers Trendy announced on their Steam forums that they will provide 2 major updates to the game soon:

http://steamcommunity.com/games/DungeonDefenders/announcements/detail/231151632194090895

This seems like the perfect time to try to convince Trendy to fix this game breaking mana bug for Linux version.

Make your voices heard people, if you want this bug fixed go the Dungeon Defenders Steam forum:

http://steamcommunity.com/app/65800/discussions/

Or try to contact Trendy by e-mail:

info@trendyent.com