[HN Gopher] Valve's Proton Has Enabled 7000 Windows Games on Linux
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Valve's Proton Has Enabled 7000 Windows Games on Linux
Author : ekianjo
Score : 625 points
Date : 2021-03-05 13:17 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (boilingsteam.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (boilingsteam.com)
| gspr wrote:
| I game very little, mostly because I don't wanna spend more of my
| free time in front of screens (since my work _and_ several of my
| hobbies involve screens). But in the last year or so I 've picked
| up some casual relaxing games.
|
| Starting out, I remembered the situation of 15 years ago,
| fighting with Wine etc. I just assumed that I was lucky and all
| the Steam games I picked up recently had native Linux versions.
| Little did I know that several of them were running through
| Proton, and the experience was so perfect and seamless that I
| didn't even notice. Impressive!
| mstipetic wrote:
| I don't understand the comments saying it's disincentivising
| developers from developing for linux. They would never do it
| otherwise. Proton is great and since PopOS is here I'm finally
| able to switch to linux completely and am super happy about it.
| Things will only get better from here
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| That's definitely the thing I miss the most on Mac OS X
| shmerl wrote:
| Wine / Proton are great for Linux gaming, no doubt. It's a nice
| workaround for big publishers completely ignoring Linux gamers.
| It works very well and bypasses these market politics shenanigans
| making many games playable on Linux.
| hpfr wrote:
| Valve recently updated Remote Play so that hosts can send anyone
| a link to install the Steam Link app (available on every major
| platform but macOS at the moment) and join local multiplayer
| games remotely. Guests don't even need a Steam account. Great
| quarantine feature for games that don't require very low latency!
| And it's fully functional on Linux.
| azalemeth wrote:
| I am incredibly grateful for proton -- it mostly just works.
| However, configuring it without steam itself is a bit of a pain.
|
| Is there a good UI to get it to work with gog.com games? I don't
| really want to buy on Steam because of DRM worries, but I do
| throw them a bone periodically entirely because of proton.
| davemtl wrote:
| EAC (Easy Anti-Cheat) is the main reason why I've not switched
| from Windows to a full-time Linux desktop. While EAC does include
| support for Linux[1], it's up to the developer/publisher to
| enable it.
|
| 1. https://www.easy.ac/en-us/support/game/guides/os/
|
| edit: Included EACs unabbreviated form as well as a link to
| supported operating systems.
| bombcar wrote:
| What is EAC? Exact Audio Copy? Some sort of protection?
| wyldfire wrote:
| Sounds like an anti-cheat software, maybe?
| Thaxll wrote:
| https://www.easy.ac/en-us/
| Risse wrote:
| Easy Anti Cheat
| agumonkey wrote:
| > Exact Audio Copy
|
| Someone knows his plextor
| throwaway3699 wrote:
| EAC is also spyware which installs a Kernel driver with
| privileged access. Valve's VAC works fine without this invasive
| tech.
| ThatPlayer wrote:
| VAC also does not work under Proton:
|
| https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/3225
| phone8675309 wrote:
| VAC doesn't work fine. For the last 18 months, TF2 has been
| infested with aimbots that make the game unplayable on any
| public server.
|
| That doesn't mean it should be more invasive, but it doesn't
| work fine.
| ben-schaaf wrote:
| Considering the complete lack of attention TF2 gets from
| valve I wouldn't consider it a fair reflection of VAC's
| effectiveness. It had been infested for ages before a media
| outcry about the bigoted chat spam finally spurred valve
| into action, yet all they did was ban f2p accounts from
| using chat.
| shultays wrote:
| I don't play CS that much but afaik aimbots are there as
| well. I know that it has manual reports/user review
| systems so I imagine VAC is not effective as an automated
| tool
| throwaway3699 wrote:
| Counter-Strike has a bunch of anti-cheat systems, but
| they solve different problems (VAC, Overwatch, Prime
| Matchmaking, and VACNet). These systems all work together
| and I'd say it's pretty effective. TF2 could do with the
| same.
|
| But my original point is that you don't need Kernel based
| spyware to do anti-cheat.
| neogodless wrote:
| I found this in the article:
|
| > EAC or other anti-cheat technology
|
| What does the E stand for here?
|
| OK I googled for the various other community members that don't
| know this particular acronym:
|
| https://www.easy.ac/en-us/
|
| Still never heard of it beyond this reference, but I assume
| it's a part of some popular games? (Scroll down on page above
| to see.) They list Fortnite but I thought that used something
| with a different name. Battleye? Do these games use multiple
| anti-cheats?!
| pityJuke wrote:
| Fortnite in particular does use both Battleye and EAC.
| sodality2 wrote:
| You can thank game devs and cheaters for that, primarily.
| Laziness for the first, malice for the second.
| Zhyl wrote:
| I really think we need to get out of the habit of calling
| game developers 'Lazy', especially for an industry that is
| famous, notorious even, for overwork and crunching.
|
| I think it would be fairer to say that it doesn't get
| prioritised, especially over anti-features such as
| microtransactions, DRM or things of that ilk. Calling them
| lazy is disrespectful, hurtful and betrays a lack of
| understanding of the development process and the industry at
| large.
| PhilosAccnting wrote:
| It doesn't help that game dev (IMO) is literally the most
| difficult software development possible:
|
| - massive front-end visual dev, both static and animation,
| that often require logistics and endless fiddling to get it
| just right - hefty back-end dev, especially when dealing
| with massive latency questions (e.g., MMOs) and
| calculations (e.g., 4X strat) - audio design that _must_
| sync with graphical elements - on top of all that, higher
| standards for input syncing to video output than almost any
| other type of app
|
| ...and then overworked and crunch-time to top it all. I 'm
| amazed that we're even getting finished games these days
| now that devs can sell a near-playable v0.6 as "Early
| Access"!
| sodality2 wrote:
| To not enable a feature that EAC explicitly provides and
| would allow people to use a product, and that requires
| almost no additional work (since it's not linux support in
| general, just EAC linux support), I consider to be lazy.
| Although, it's probably a mgmt decision, not a dev
| decision.
|
| I understand linux support takes time and it usually isn't
| worth it. But this is just flipping a switch from what I've
| heard.
| Zhyl wrote:
| I think flipping the flag is likely not the only amount
| of work. Support will at the very least involve customer
| support, legal, marketing, sales etc. Dev effort to
| enable is likely not a factor in their reasoning to not
| support the platform.
|
| Even then, I would be reluctant to call it institutional
| laziness. Businesses strive for efficiency. Can not doing
| a high cost thing be called laziness? Sure, but I think
| it's still disingenuous and misrepresents the issue.
| charcircuit wrote:
| There has been some success in just implementing more missing
| Windows APIs that EAC needed. This allowed a few titles with
| EAC to run.
| google234123 wrote:
| EAC will update themselves each time a public method to
| defeat them is published since this is exactly what you would
| do if you wanted to run a cheat.
| anf0 wrote:
| Does anyone know if Age of Empires 3 works on Linux?
| jandrese wrote:
| It looks like it will probably work.
|
| https://www.protondb.com/search?q=age%20of%20empires%20III
| sgtnasty wrote:
| Proton, Linux gaming etc. do not work well unless you are running
| open source graphics drivers (... NVIDIA) and standard resolution
| 1920x1080. Try any of this with NVIDIA and display scaling other
| than 100% and you are going to have a bad time.
| sitzkrieg wrote:
| proprietary nvidia drivers have worked better for me for years
| charcircuit wrote:
| VR with proprietary NVIDIA drivers work fine. Other than NVIDIA
| still not adding async reprojection to their drivers.
| jandrese wrote:
| I run at 3840x1080 using the closed source nVidia drivers and
| it generally works fine. I don't have any scaling going on
| though, and I can definitely see where that could be an issue.
|
| I can't say that I recommend the nouveau drivers for gaming.
| zelon88 wrote:
| I LOVE Proton. About 85% of my Windows games just... work. And
| probably 75% of the 15% that fail initially only require a little
| tweaking to make work.
|
| My only complaints are that steam uses arbitrary numbers instead
| of human readable labels for emulated AppData folders. It can be
| time consuming to locate a save game file. Also Streaming cross
| platform isn't a pleasant experience yet but it's getting better
| and I really appreciate the feature. My final gripe is that when
| adding media to a Steam chat on Linux the file open dialog does
| not cache the last folder you visited and doesn't support
| multiple files. This compounds the first problem I listed making
| it EXTREMELY time consuming to share multiple game files with
| friends quickly.
| yellowapple wrote:
| It's even worse with Workshop items (on the various occasions
| where you need to make edits or otherwise troubleshoot 'em),
| since you need not only the game's AppID, but an even longer
| numeric ID for the Workshop item itself.
|
| Luckily this is the same as the one in the item's URL for its
| Workshop page, but it's still annoying to have to copy and
| paste that into something just to see it (if doing it through
| the Steam client).
| jandrese wrote:
| Workshop is one of those places where Proton doesn't work so
| well in my experience. I end up with lots of crashes and
| failure to start when trying to enable workshop mods in most
| games.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| I am a recent convert and can confirm. I am on PopOS and 9/10 ,
| it just works.
|
| Right now my only issue is with Fallout 4 sound disappearing,
| but I am slowly working on using qemu with Win10 image. I am
| genuinely thrilled, because I may finally be able to ditch
| windows ( from dual boot ).
| coldpie wrote:
| > My only complaints are that steam uses arbitrary numbers
| instead of human readable labels for emulated AppData folders.
|
| Yeah, it's a chore. Sadly there really isn't a better option.
| The only option I can think of is to use the game's localizable
| name, but that gets pretty ugly very quickly (consider the
| ".HACK" series). Another option would be to re-use the game's
| data folder name, but that gets hairy with stuff like DLC and
| shared depots.
|
| It's not really intended for users to be digging around in
| there, so... it is what it is.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| >> to use the game's localizable name
|
| Please no. I am glad that steam uses only numbers. That
| avoids capitalization issues when moving stuff between linux
| and windows.
| breuleux wrote:
| They could use a scheme like `AppID-name` where `name` is the
| sanitized lower-cased title, e.g. `50631-hack`. From Steam's
| perspective it doesn't really make any difference, it could
| just ignore everything after the dash, but at least it gives
| the human an idea of what's in there.
| yellowapple wrote:
| The ideal for me would be to keep everything pertaining to a
| game - the game itself, Wine prefixen, Workshop items,
| screenshots, etc. - in one folder for each game. Like, how
| hard is it to put everything for, say, Kenshi into
| "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\Games\Kenshi" or
| "~/.local/share/steam/games/Kenshi" (with "compat",
| "workshop", and of course "game" subfolders for the Wine
| data, Workshop items, and game data, respectively)?
|
| Like, even if it ain't meant for users to go rooting around
| in Steam's folders (yet that's a very common occurence
| anyway), you'd think it'd be the sanest approach for
| developers, too (both of Steam and its games), no?
| azinman2 wrote:
| Do games ever have the same name?
| a_t48 wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doom_(1993_video_game)
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doom_(2016_video_game)
|
| Yes, though Steam may go to lengths to prevent games on
| their platform from having the same name.
|
| Edit: this apparently happened with Prey 2007/2016, and
| resulted in two games installing to the same folder.
| christkv wrote:
| They could just add a open save game folder in file browser.
| Would solve most of the cases.
| neltnerb wrote:
| Inside of steam, you can click on a game to browse local
| files. It works on Linux anyway, just opens my file browser
| to the right place.
|
| I agree it should be rare, though I have had to do it for
| stuff that I wouldn't consider to be too advanced (using
| mods) but it's fair to say that it's still uncommon in the
| grand scheme of things since most games have a decent UI
| for handling mods already.
|
| I maybe need to get to a game folder... three times a year?
| The only time it was more than that was when a modder I
| really liked stopped publishing releases outside of github
| so you had to copy them to the right place manually.
| issamehh wrote:
| I don't have a filebrowser. For me it'd be enough if they
| had the number visible and hopefully allow me to highlight
| it too
| MrFoof wrote:
| Doesn't address the core issue, but...
|
| IIRC, the folders that contain a Steam UserIDs save game data
| are named after the game's Steam AppID. You can look them up
| here (https://steamdb.info/apps/). I admit it's certainly not a
| solution to the discoverability problem when navigating a
| filesystem, as there are over 100,000 AppIDs and growing at
| this point.
| mminer237 wrote:
| They are. I always just google the game and copy it out of
| the store URL: https://store.steampowered.com
| /app/573100/Battlefleet_Gothic_Armada_2/
| ------
| scottlamb wrote:
| These are exposed to the Linux filesystem, right? Can you
| just add a symlink?
| morsch wrote:
| Sure
| jandrese wrote:
| Yes, but it would be nice if the Steam Client did that
| for us.
| Jarwain wrote:
| Could submit an issue/MR so someone could tackle it
| przmk wrote:
| You could also use
| [Protontricks](https://github.com/Matoking/protontricks) as
| such : protontricks -s <search_term>
|
| and it will return anything that matches the search query
| with its appid like : Found the following
| games: Grand Theft Auto V (271590)
| makecheck wrote:
| You can probably rely on the modification time as a clue;
| something like: find /some/place -type d
| -mtime 0
|
| Any game you have played recently (with save-file updates)
| ought to appear as a file modified in the last X days.
| politelemon wrote:
| PCGamingWiki includes the Steam Play paths for each game, so
| it's much easier to figure out where the files are.
|
| Example: https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Yakuza_3_Remastered
| kesor wrote:
| If only Steam would start supporting 64-bit ... its 2021, about
| time to recognize that 32-bit is just "old".
| Phelinofist wrote:
| That would be nice, no more multilib then
| ourmandave wrote:
| Apropos to nothing, 7000 is also the number of platforms Doom
| runs on.
| PhilosAccnting wrote:
| I'm sure I'm not the only one who noticed the trend from that
| graph. We seem to be floating steady at ~50% now.
|
| I don't mean to be cynical, but what do you think would bump the
| current trend into overdrive? My only estimation would be to make
| gamers actually _want_ Linux over Win10, and my limited
| experience tells me that the word still scares normal gamers.
| rubyist5eva wrote:
| Proton is what let me change my PC from Windows to Linux mostly
| full time. Now I only have a handful of reasons that I need to
| boot into Windows to get things done and out of 1000+ games on
| Steam, very few that I just can't play in Linux.
| NexRebular wrote:
| There also appears to be a port of some sort for FreeBSD
|
| https://www.freshports.org/emulators/wine-proton/
| Sebb767 wrote:
| Proton is really awesome. It was usually possible to get Wine
| working somehow, but Proton really nailed the usability side and
| fixed a few stubs in the process. Truly a leap for Linux gaming.
| jandrese wrote:
| This. Getting games working under Wine more often than not
| involved a research project where you figured out what exact
| version of Wine and what hacks you needed to make something
| run. Proton is basically just Valve doing all of the homework
| for you, which is awesome.
| sam0x17 wrote:
| I find sometimes games work _better_ in proton than on windows,
| though on average there is a ~10% performance hit
| Bakary wrote:
| I've been dual booting for a long time but the time to switch
| completely is imminent
| Kees_Veel wrote:
| It's still not open source. That would be worth reading.
| circularfoyers wrote:
| Proton definitely is. https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton
| Kees_Veel wrote:
| Yeah nice. But I didn't mean proton.
| adtac wrote:
| What did you mean? Because Proton is pretty much what this
| news is about so I'm a bit confused.
| caspper69 wrote:
| I would have to assume that OP is lamenting the fact that
| the games themselves are not running natively on open
| source, and the existence of Proton detracts from game
| developers / publishers targeting Linux/OSS because now
| they don't really have a need to.
|
| Or he could be lamenting that the games themselves are
| not open source, but I haven't heard many of even the
| most die hard OSS evangelists suggest that AAA gaming
| content should be open sourced.
| Kees_Veel wrote:
| The games I mean. I guess I'm in the wrong topic here,
| but if you play those games, you implicitly have to trust
| their secret code on your network. User account and all.
| Obviously most here have done that a long time ago and
| don't even give it a second thought. This is normal in
| these times of Windows and Facebooks, but I still care.
| Kees_Veel wrote:
| Play a silly game and get hacked, It's a perfect trojan
| scenario, it's the oldest trick in the book. Now take
| 7000 chances, what are the odds? I can't believe this
| being downvoted so bad for raising this concern. screw
| you guys, i'm going home.
| bitcharmer wrote:
| You do realise that most desktop computers run on closed
| source operating systems, don't you?
| flohofwoe wrote:
| There never was a time when the majority of games were
| open source, all the way back to 8-bit home computers.
| This was long before Windows, Facebook or an open source
| UNIX flavour even existed.
| ebegnwgnen wrote:
| I believe Valve is working on Flatpak sandboxing for
| games. If this happen that would be one more reason to
| game on Linux instead of Windows.
|
| It's not as good as open source but let's be real, you'll
| never get AAA open source games.
|
| Games don't need to access personal data (such as
| contact, phone number, photos, files, private messages,
| etc.) so with strong sandboxing I guess it could be a
| okay solution privacy-wise
| crazypython wrote:
| > It's not as good as open source but let's be real,
| you'll never get AAA open source games.
|
| Free software philosophy (the "F" in "FOSS") allows the
| art and data files (levels) of a game to be proprietary,
| while keeping the code open-source. Sell the game itself,
| code comes for free.
|
| https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/funding-art-vs-funding-
| softwa...
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| To the best of my knowledge Valve's container system has
| no relation to Flatpak.
| ebegnwgnen wrote:
| I think it does :
|
| https://github.com/flatpak/flatpak/issues/3797
|
| "Recent versions of Steam can optionally put each game in
| its own container, using a Flatpak-derived tool named
| pressure-vessel."
| Arnavion wrote:
| I already run Steam in Docker for this reason, with its
| own home directory mounted as a subdirectory of my real
| one. Even before games swiping my homedir I was worried
| about Steam _wiping_ my homedir, as it 's already done
| once in the past. [1]
|
| Though ironically that means I can't use the new Proton
| runtime thing ("Soldier runtime" I think?) that sandboxes
| games via user namespaces, because my distro doesn't
| build the kernel with userns support so it would require
| me to give the Docker container more privileges.
|
| [1]: https://github.com/valvesoftware/steam-for-
| linux/issues/3671
| [deleted]
| jorl17 wrote:
| Perhaps OP means the games themselves are not open-
| source?
| tapoxi wrote:
| Proton is neat for sure, but unfortunately modern anti-cheat
| solutions expect Windows and will not allow Linux clients to
| connect. There's also a few games that I expected to work but
| simply won't launch for me, like Elder Scrolls Online.
|
| I'm a fan of the Linux desktop, but for me the easiest solution
| is to have a dedicated Linux PC (right now an XPS 13 Developer)
| and a Windows machine for playing video games. I don't have the
| patience to troubleshoot getting games to run or perform well
| anymore.
| shocks wrote:
| At least for now, Squad and BF4 are working flawlessly in
| Proton inc. anti-cheat for me.
|
| Can't say the same for many other anti-cheat games though.
| checkyoursudo wrote:
| My complaint is similar. There are a couple of games that I
| really wish I could play using proton. However, while I used to
| dual boot, now I don't even do that and I simply forego playing
| those games.
|
| I have too many games in my library to worry about not being
| able to play a couple more, I guess. But, if I could, then I
| would. So I just stick with whatever can run with proton.
| d3nj4l wrote:
| From a very personal point of view, I'm happy with anti-cheats
| not working on linux. Some of them are flat out rootkits, see
| valorant's anti-cheat.
| charcircuit wrote:
| What's the issue with giving out kernel mode access? Almost
| everyone is gaming on single user systems anyways.
| kevingadd wrote:
| Riot's Valorant rootkit is active _from boot_ and actively
| monitors everything you run and will block things it doesn
| 't like or doesn't recognize.
|
| Most of the other kernel anticheat rootkits are more polite
| and don't run until a game starts them, at least.
|
| In general having a bunch of random stuff from video games
| running with kernel permissions is spooky. You never know
| whether someone will find an exploit in one of them, or if
| it will cause performance, stability or data integrity
| problems.
| cwkoss wrote:
| Doesn't giving kernel mode access mean that if the game
| developer's CI is hacked, an attacker could push full
| compromise exploits down the channel?
|
| Aren't there some security benefits from trying to confine
| apps to user land?
| rolandog wrote:
| No kidding. After spending so much effort on verifying that
| the code I'm running comes from trusted sources and that I
| have a decently secure system, I can't help but feel dirty
| after allowing some sort of weird DRM/anti-cheat service that
| needs to phone home just so I'm able to play a game I loved
| from 5 or 6 years ago.
| sayakura wrote:
| If the price for not getting that crap installed on my system
| is a few triple A multiplayer games, then so be it.
| devwastaken wrote:
| Proton is in the works to support anti-cheat. Vital kernel
| support was recently merged. I don't know the details, only
| that it is a goal of proton and hopefully will work. Many games
| use the same anti-cheat so if everyone cooperates it could work
| out.
| google234123 wrote:
| I give it 0% chance that Proton will support anti cheat. How
| does an anti cheat checking "fake" windows kernel structures
| in linux actually accomplish any anti cheat?
| shmerl wrote:
| Modern "anti-cheat" solutions are invasive rootkits. I have no
| interest in running that on my computer for that purpose. I
| wish they'd invest more in server side AI instead to handle
| this, but it's much easier for them to simply put more malware
| on the client side.
|
| Some developers aren't even denying that it's nasty, but excuse
| it with "no one cares anyway" or "we already could snoop on
| you, so don't complain if we make it even worse" which is
| disgusting.
|
| Example: https://na.leagueoflegends.com/en-us/news/dev/dev-
| null-anti-...
| jandrese wrote:
| Cheats themselves are basically rootkits, and you can't beat
| a rootkit when you are running on top of it. Anti-cheat
| pretty much has to be like this.
|
| Server side enforcement is not only heavy, but has much of
| the same problems as the client side. It's running on a layer
| even higher than the client side anti-cheat. How can you tell
| if someone is running an aimbot or just has good aim? Sure if
| they do something outright impossible you could ban them, but
| heuristic approaches are going to have problems with false
| positives as well as false negatives.
| shmerl wrote:
| Server side doesn't violate user's system with rootkits.
| How to detect things with good level of correctness using
| server side AI is a good question. But it's a much better
| problem to solve than how to add even more privacy invasive
| malware on the user's system.
|
| _> How can you tell if someone is running an aimbot or
| just has good aim?_
|
| That's the point. I don't care. As long as the game is
| enjoyable. And I'm sure AI can be gradually trained to
| detect cheating in more sophisticated manner do
| differentiate non human from human patterns. Not a trivial
| issue, but something they should invest money in as above,
| instead of rootkits.
| jandrese wrote:
| 14:22:01 *Shmerl has joined the game 14:22:02
| [DefinitelyNotAnAimbot] headshots Shmerl 14:22:05
| [AnotherTotallyHumanPlayer] headshots Shmerl
| 14:22:07 [DefinitelyNotAnAimbot] headshots Shmerl
| 14:22:07 DefinitelyNotAnAimbot is on a killing spree!
| 14:22:10 *Shmerl has left the server
| shmerl wrote:
| I already explained the idea above. Trade off of the
| server side AI detection is way better than client side
| rootkit idea. Neither is perfect, but the latter is
| outright disgusting and crooked.
| glsdfgkjsklfj wrote:
| not sure why you are downvoted. You speak the truth, and as
| usual get downvoted without a reply.
|
| multiplayer game have the choices: a) ship game with
| malware/trojan to try to prevent cheats, or b) open up for
| cheats (even if client side only, like see trhu walls)
|
| Most popular games chose option A (and still fail preventing
| both client side and remote hacks)
| mjevans wrote:
| Or the server could hide the data from the client that the
| client shouldn't be able to act on until just before that
| data would be seen by the client. (obviously with a slight
| tolerance for sending a bit extra that clients might need
| if lag rubber-banding predicts it might be revealed)
| cortesoft wrote:
| That isn't really enough... that wouldn't stop aim bots,
| for example.
| shmerl wrote:
| Another option is to develop server side AI that can detect
| some non human behavior or behavior patterns that are
| cheats. It's not full protection but for sure more
| appropriate than putting rootkits on the client side.
| glsdfgkjsklfj wrote:
| oh that can't backfire at all *sarcasm
|
| here is another idea: proper ranking of player abilities!
| crazy right? something so simple should be a day-one
| feature right? that would put all the hackers together
| and they could even compete in their own hacking
| league... 100% of clients satisfied!
|
| now think about game companies failing to put that single
| feature to work correctly, what changes do you think a AI
| that detect human behaviour have or working well in that
| space? :(
| branneman wrote:
| How is Proton a technology/library/sorftware? I got the
| impression it's just a preconfigured Wine, but not an actual
| implementation. Sorry if I'm misinformed.
|
| And _if_ that's true, I'm sad about the credits not going to the
| Wine team.
| Zhyl wrote:
| Proton is Wine + DXVK + d9VK + custom patches.
|
| The 'secret sauce' is actually 'Steam Play' which is the
| automated wrapping, configuration and execution of Proton
| wrapped games without the user having to do _anything_ (other
| than a confirmation box to confirm that a compatibility layer
| is being used).
|
| The Steam Play component turns it from a 'nice meta-
| distribution for wine' into 'killer quality of life
| improvement'.
| tpmx wrote:
| How much of this is open source? I'd expect everything,
| including the per-game details?
|
| (Not asking you to do research on demand, just in case you
| already know...)
| Zhyl wrote:
| Not sure about the per-game config, but the Proton is
| definitely open source [0], as are DXVK [1] and D9VK [2].
|
| Steam Play is part of the Steam client, so is proprietary.
| ProtonDB isn't open source but does data dumps to github
| regularly [3].
|
| [0] https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/
|
| [1] https://github.com/doitsujin/dxvk
|
| [2] https://github.com/Joshua-Ashton/d9vk
|
| [3] https://github.com/bdefore/protondb-data
| tpmx wrote:
| Thanks!
|
| I guess it somehow makes sense for Valve to keep the per-
| game tweaks private. With all of that money they're
| printing though, I sure wish they could feel that they
| could afford to be less defensive.
| Zhyl wrote:
| If it helps, Lutris has config for most games that are
| open source and available.
|
| https://lutris.net/
| coldpie wrote:
| None of it is private. The per-game settings are all
| listed here, the options are all implemented in Proton,
| which is completely open source:
| https://steamdb.info/app/891390/info/
| tpmx wrote:
| That's very nice.
|
| I think this will make game preservation easier in the
| near future.
| [deleted]
| juusto wrote:
| I would love a similar effort to be able to run the Adobe suite
| on Linux. It is the last anchor I have keeping me in Win/Mac
| world.
| moistbar wrote:
| Try running it through proton, you might be surprised.
| crazypython wrote:
| What happens?
| moistbar wrote:
| Not sure, I haven't tried, but Proton is basically just
| Wine with better hardware acceleration support so I imagine
| it'll run fine.
| explodingcamera wrote:
| While it is definitely not streamlined and very expensive, I've
| had a wonderful experience running a Windows VM and passing one
| of my GPUs through to it. Even VR works flawlessly, which is
| otherwise unusable on a linux desktop. Proton definitely still
| has major issues. A lot of the well-rated games on protondb are
| barely playable. Still, I've played a lot of games using it I
| otherwise wouldn't be able to experience.
| charcircuit wrote:
| >running a Windows VM and passing one of my GPUs through to it
|
| This is very inconvenient because you have to install a new a
| GPU and then plug in antother monitor into th at new GPU.
|
| >which is otherwise unusable
|
| VR works nearly perfect for me. The main drawbacks is a broken
| video player in VRChat, no voice recognition in games that use
| Window's speech API, some anticheats not working, and that
| NVIDIA still hasn't added driver support needed for async
| reprojection. One final thing is that audio devices sometimes
| needed to be configured to the right device the first time you
| run some games, but from what I've heard from Windows users
| they have their own share of wrong speaker or microphone
| problems.
| moistbar wrote:
| Hearing that VR works well with passthrough makes me want to
| try it again. I remember when I last tried it, everything
| worked great except for sound, which was staticky and choppy
| unless I handed the whole soundcard over to the VM.
| explodingcamera wrote:
| Some setup is required, but KVM passing the system audio to
| pipewire-pulse worked first try for me actually. I'm normally
| using a virtual desktop to stream everything to my Oculus
| Quest 2, including audio, and it works surprisingly well.
| ThaDood wrote:
| Proton is the reason I moved from a Windows + MacOS machine to
| GNU/Linux full time. I understand the concern that some hardcore
| enthusiasts might have about it making devs lazy when it comes to
| developing native ports but to be honest I don't care. I am just
| glad to have a simple method of gaming on GNU/Linux. Proton plus
| Lutris and the slew other tools that have come out in recent
| years has made the transition to GNU/Linux very easy and has
| opened the door for many who were curious but scared of the
| learning curb.
| babypuncher wrote:
| Frankly I believe Proton is better for the longevity of these
| games on Linux. It's not uncommon for native Linux versions of
| games to break over time, or become a hassle to use as they
| rely on old unmaintained libraries.
|
| Win32/Proton is almost like a framework game developers can
| target and not have to worry about OS specifics.
| neogodless wrote:
| > making devs lazy when it comes to developing native ports
|
| Is this first order thinking? Whereas second order thinking
| might be "with Proton enabling an order of magnitude more users
| that enjoy PC gaming to move to Linux, studios might consider
| improving the PC gaming experience further with more native
| ports/testing directly on Linux?"
|
| I don't know if that's how things could play out, but it seems
| logical to me.
| ThaDood wrote:
| Not for me personally, but I have seen a lot of kickback from
| some people on other forums. Although that could just be the
| audience. But I honestly think that if Proton gets 80-90% of
| the work done for devs most probably won't bother trying to
| make a native port, but I also go back and forth part of me
| likes to think that if there is a strong non-windows or macOS
| alternative companies will pay more attention to it.
| gostsamo wrote:
| Proton will not make devs create Linux ports, but it will
| increase the user base and other devs might consider creating
| Linux ports for their non-game products.
| jcelerier wrote:
| > studios might consider improving the PC gaming experience
| further with more native ports/testing directly on Linux?"
|
| that does not match the historical experience of studios
| doing absolutely terrible ports of console exclusives to MS
| Windows, stuff like games where you can't rebind your keys
| and a qwerty layout is assumed, FPS is fixed at 30, etc etc
| yellowapple wrote:
| Hell, now we're starting to see ports of _mobile_ games to
| PC platforms, with all the same weirdness.
| _fat_santa wrote:
| The problem is always market share. Unfortunately Linux has
| and most likely will always be a niche desktop product. For
| that reason when devs are developing a game, the question is
| always "should we spend X amount of time for 0.5% of the
| userbase" and often times the value proposition just isn't
| there.
| high_priest wrote:
| Gluglu with their chromeOS has pushed the linux adoption
| line quite rapidly. Valve finally making SteamOS a viable
| product is definitely going to impact the change
| significantly.
|
| The only reason I still keep Windows dual booted is the
| Office suit, which is still unbeatable.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Because Proton creates a dangerous market pressure. The
| linux+proton user is the ideal customer for a game developer:
| someone paying full price but to whom you owe absolutely no
| obligations. Bug reports from Proton users can be safely
| ignored. They should feel lucky if the game even started
| under their not-supported hack of an operating system. But
| those who purchase a native linux client (KSP, Factorio,
| Prison Architect etc) have to be offered at least a modicum
| of support.
|
| I like proton. I really like being able to play subnautica.
| But every time a game updates I cringe a little because I
| know any new linux-related bugs are more my problem than
| theirs. I would much rather have game developers treat linux
| users as full customers.
| herbst wrote:
| This is 100% true. So far i have not even received a answer
| to 5+ reports about issues running with proton. Even
| thought most are simple fixed unity quirks
| Corazoor wrote:
| I have never viewd it that way, but you are absolutely
| right about the danger.
|
| On the other hand I have now seen multiple games where the
| developers were implementing wine specific bugfixes.
|
| I think it goes both ways: Showing willingness to support
| at least proton/wine will also net you some additional sold
| copies.
|
| And being unfriendly towards linux users is probably more
| bad PR nowadays than it used to be.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Showing support for linux is great, but what about DRM?
| What happens when the desire to prevent piracy of the
| windows client means attaching software that will never
| in a million years run on linux? DRM is why linux users
| have basically given up on ever getting access to games
| from the largest developers.
| Karunamon wrote:
| I'd rank anti-cheating as a problem with a similar effect
| but without the ethical concerns of DRM. Few customers
| want DRM, but nearly all customers want fair games, yet
| anti-cheat is just as hostile to "non-intended"
| environments as DRM.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| The difference between DRM and anti-cheat is just
| semantics. The license says "do not cheat" and the
| software enforces that license = DRM. But lots of players
| really don't care about "fair". Any game with a large mod
| community, mostly single player games like KSP or
| minecraft, generally stays far away from any form of DRM.
| The entire concept of "cheating" doesn't really exist in
| such games.
| wolrah wrote:
| > Any game with a large mod community, mostly single
| player games like KSP or minecraft, generally stays far
| away from any form of DRM.
|
| Many major first person shooters stand as counterpoints
| to your claim. Most Valve games for example are
| incredibly mod friendly, at the same time Steam was a
| pioneer in online DRM and Valve Anti-Cheat (VAC) is
| generally reasonably effective.
|
| Even games where the anti-cheat isn't as mod-friendly as
| Valve's often offer modes where the game can be launched
| with anti-cheat disabled but you lose access to public
| matchmaking and ranked play, only being able to play on
| private games and/or servers that have turned off anti-
| cheat themselves. The PC port of Halo does this well.
|
| > The entire concept of "cheating" doesn't really exist
| in such games.
|
| For the record Minecraft does in fact have anti-cheat,
| but it's mostly just about illegal movements versus
| anything else, flight without creative privileges in
| particular. Anything beyond that is up to the server
| operator and their chosen plugins. Cheating is still
| definitely a thing, at least when playing survival with
| other people, but what defines cheating is up to each
| group to decide for themselves.
|
| ---
|
| DRM and anti-cheat do have the same big picture goal in
| the end, prevent the user from tampering with the
| application, but I do agree with the above poster that it
| is very different ethically. We all want our ranked play
| to be free of cheaters.
| sangnoir wrote:
| > The difference between DRM and anti-cheat is just
| semantics
|
| Not really - DRM = anti-copying/anti-piracy, anti-cheat
| is self-explanatory. Both sometimes employ similar
| strategies (anti-tampering/poking around with
| executables, linked libraries or memory), but they are
| not the same thing
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| That's one view, but I'd argue that they are both
| variations on the general problem of "how to run software
| on a computer without letting the owner of that computer
| actually control the software". When it's against piracy,
| the goal is to make sure that the software can refuse to
| run if it's not correctly licensed or to make sure that
| the user can't send its output to a recording, and when
| it's against cheating the goal is to make sure that the
| user can't modify or view the game state except through
| the standard game UI, but both revolve around denying the
| user power over software executing on their hardware.
| Corazoor wrote:
| I have personal experience with that problem. Recently I
| had to install a secondary windows boot just to play W40K
| Battlefleet Gothic Armada in drm-protected COOP!
|
| But DRM is a problem in and of itself. Something which
| linux gamers can't even change by refraining from buying,
| with their mighty ~1% market share.
|
| Also, the companies who rely that heavily on drm are not
| really in the business of providing native linux clients
| either. So proton can hardly be a hindrance for adoption
| here...
| matt123456789 wrote:
| It does create a dangerous market pressure, but entirely by
| accident. Valve has developed an amazing piece of software
| in Proton and made it freely available, but offered no
| support for developers. Proton is an enormous library
| papering over an equally enormous API gap between Windows
| and Linux. Normally when game developers use such
| components (like engines) they pay a licensing fee, so that
| when something breaks, if it's the licensed component's
| fault, they can expect support in fixing issues. Since
| Valve doesn't offer a paid support option to devs, they are
| in a difficult position - Proton is by far the easiest way
| to get games running on Linux, but can't be officially
| supported without incurring the cost and overhead of
| bringing on a team of Proton specialists to ensure
| compatibility.
|
| I'm not in this area professionally so maybe I have a few
| things wrong here.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Proton is not a ground-up valve product. It is an
| implementation of WINE, a project that has been around
| for a long while. Valve made it pretty and easy to use,
| integrating wine into their launchers, but it isn't
| entirely their project.
|
| https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton
| Qwertious wrote:
| The solution here is unbinding native _support_ from native
| _compilation_. It seems to me that the ideal world is
| someone who (or someone 's contractor who) provides a
| proton wrapper for a game that works with zero bugs
| compared to running on Windows, and then either patches the
| bugs clientside or provides patches for wine/proton.
| cacois wrote:
| Conversely, if proton is creating a much larger linux gamer
| market (its on of the big reasons I switched to linux as my
| daily driver), might this new market not soon be able to
| exert pressure on developers for first-class linux ports?
|
| Bit of a potential chicken and egg problem with developers
| supporting linux natively that proton might help solve.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| >> for first-class linux ports?
|
| I don't want ports. I want proper linux clients developed
| alongside the other clients, which is relatively easy
| under tools like unity. Every developer gives lip service
| to "maybe linux later" but they never do it. If they
| aren't doing cross-platform development from day one
| there is next to zero chance of them doing it later in
| the dev cycle when such things are far more expensive.
|
| What would really light a fire under developers would be
| for people to run away from windows for other reasons. A
| few more privacy fiascos. Yet another attempt at
| "versionless" windows. Another Vista. Only when users
| actually dump windows for other reasons will major game
| developers truly care about linux.
| acomjean wrote:
| I don't think anyone wants ports. I use linux as my home
| machine now and the desktop application delivery on linux
| is pretty fractured (flatpak or snaps or debs..). You
| kinda wish in the small desktop linux market there would
| be one distribution method to rule them all.
|
| we can't even get MS office or Adobe to port to linux.
| Open Source coders have done well to get us somewhat
| working alternatives. (LibreOffice, Krita and Blender
| come to mind)
|
| I've had good luck with Proton. It makes me not have to
| use a second machine for games.
| Nojlk wrote:
| It's been 30 years. This was nothing but a pipedream
| before Proton came along. It's probably still a
| pipedream, but at least we'll be able to play more games
| on Linux now. Don't let perfect get in the way of good.
|
| There's never going to be a mass exodus to Linux. People
| have been promising the year of the Linux desktop for as
| long as Linux has been a thing. It's time to find a way
| to coexist, and Proton is so far one of the best
| solutions for gaming.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| It was more than a pipe dream. The mobile game revolution
| happened long before proton. Windows penetration in
| mobile gaming is <1%. Now we have some interesting Mac
| chips that will require cross-platform development too.
| And many of the best linux games (KSP) were popular
| before proton. WINE/Proton is a force, but is not the
| only player in the cross-platform gaming space.
| dagmx wrote:
| Relatively easy to build perhaps, but you still need to
| have a QA team for it, support it after release etc...
|
| That's also assuming they're using an off the shelf
| engine that is also bug free on those platforms. Both
| unreal and unity aren't at the same level on Linux as
| their windows counterparts, and Lord knows I've tried .
| There's always one more thing that doesn't work and
| requires workarounds.
| deckard1 wrote:
| I think people are vastly underestimating how much gaming
| sucks even on Windows. Nier: Automata _still_ hasn 't
| received a single PC patch to my knowledge. Many of the
| games on Windows are ports as well, such as Nier.
|
| The PC has largely taken a backseat to consoles. It's a
| bit much asking for Linux native, let alone, Linux ports.
| Shinkirou wrote:
| Since you mentioned Nier: Automata, I'll just add that
| I've been playing it with proton for the past 2 weeks.
| I'm at ~20 hours of playtime and it's been flawless so
| far (without resorting to any 3rd party patch like FAR).
| ubercow13 wrote:
| I have bought many native Linux games that simply don't
| launch, but run perfectly in Proton. Companies also stop
| updating their Linux ports often. There is so little market
| pressure to support Linux in the first place that Proton's
| effect is basically irrelevant. Most Linux ports sucked
| anyway and often Proton performs better including with
| things like Unity games, so no big loss.
| badsectoracula wrote:
| > I have bought many native Linux games that simply don't
| launch, but run perfectly in Proton. Companies also stop
| updating their Linux ports often
|
| They also stop updating their Windows versions, the main
| difference is that Microsoft cares a bit more about
| backwards compatibility than the vast majority of Linux
| desktop developers.
| ubercow13 wrote:
| That's true but I was referring to games that continue to
| add new features and improvements to their Windows
| client, but leave the Linux client on an old version,
| which is a separate issue. With online games this
| sometimes even means that Linux users will no longer be
| able to play with Windows users.
|
| On the other hand Wine probably has better backwards
| compatibility with old Windows games that Windows does in
| many cases.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| >> Most Linux ports sucked anyway
|
| Port /= native client.
|
| Try the KSP linux client. It is far more stable than the
| windows client. Heck, I've found it more stable than my
| outlook on my work machine, more stable than MS office on
| MS windows.
| ubercow13 wrote:
| Port, native client, whatever. Most native Linux versions
| do not work well at all, and many that do have very low
| performance OpenGL renderer rewrites that cannot compete
| with DXVK.
|
| There are obviously exceptions, but IME they are quite
| rare.
| babypuncher wrote:
| I think the opposite might end up being true. With a
| critical mass of users on Proton, developers end up being
| pressured to make sure their games work properly in it.
| When a substantial number of their users have a problem
| running a new version of their game, even on an unsupported
| platform, they tend to do something about it. There have
| been a few instances of this happening already for some
| high profile games.
| donio wrote:
| Native Linux games break too, especially older ones. I have
| had to switch to Proton for several games I used to run
| native because their native version has stopped working
| after some library change.
|
| At this point I have more faith that a game with solid
| Proton/Wine support will work on the long term than a
| native one.
|
| There are many exceptions in both directions of course,
| this is just my personal experience with the games I happen
| to be playing.
|
| It wouldn't be the worst thing in the world if Proton/Wine
| became the standard supported runtime for games.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| Alternative outcome: At least some developers who are
| passionate about helping users who ask for help may look
| into issues with games crashing on proton.
|
| I get your concern but I think it's a form of "perfect
| being the enemy of good". Your stance boils down to "don't
| enable effective workarounds to play non-linux programs on
| linux" because there is a chance it will reduce the already
| rare motivation for devs to make native builds on Linux.
| rebuilder wrote:
| Frankly, if you don't care about your customers, you can
| ignore all their bug reports. Whether they're on a
| supported platform or not doesn't seem like it would matter
| much. The real question is whether there are enough Proton-
| using customers to warrant paying attention to their woes.
| renonce wrote:
| Even if devs don't make native ports they would still work on
| improving compatibility with Proton as long as there are
| fresh Linux players
| kevincox wrote:
| This seems like right approach, although I'm not a purist
| anyways. I have a personal policy not to buy games unless
| they have Linux support, however I have decided that games
| that officially support Proton are good enough. At the end of
| the day I just expect that it works, if the performance or
| something is terrible I can always refund it.
|
| I don't really care what tools/APIs the devs use as long as
| it works well. If they target Windows APIs but use Wine that
| is fine with me as long as they test it and make sure it
| works.
|
| And as you said, if this allows more people to game on Linux
| it makes the Linux experience more important to the game
| developers. If they decide at some point that Wine is holding
| them back they will make that switch when the investment
| makes sense. I think that the most important thing to the
| long-term success of Linux gaming is ensuring that companies
| think they can make money there. If they think they can make
| money then they will continue to make games and put effort
| into making sure that the games work well.
| MeinBlutIstBlau wrote:
| I'm in the same camp because a lot of devs that say they have
| Linux support don't always support it well.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| I finally took the plunge and started dual booting with Fedora
| as the default. Unless I plan to game I just use Linux and it's
| been awesome. Though I can't use Wayland (Nvidia) and digital
| audio is flakey (though fixed in fedora 34), none have been
| deal breakers.
| zbobet2012 wrote:
| Wayland with Nvidia works in fedora 33, you just have to un-
| blacklist the driver.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| I'll have to take a look at that later- thanks! Every time
| I revisit this there's some issue.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| It seems to be working but performance is worse than when
| using x11. it's quite usable but I'm switching back for
| now.
| washadjeffmad wrote:
| I dropped the "native Linux or nothing" mindset sometime in
| 2013 when I saw the harm it did to developers. As a
| disproportionately vocal minority comprising <1% customers but
| >50% of bug requests, making Linux users happy was pretty
| literally taking food out of some dev's mouths.
|
| The two goals that actually needed to be achieved were
| preventing market monopolies and enabling smaller devs, which
| platform agnosticism has been a welcome and necessary side
| effect of.
|
| i) Reducing the resource overhead required to publish and
| support games is make or break for indie/small devs. Just by
| being Steamplay/Proton aware, compatible games don't require
| exclusive support, allowing devs to focus on content and
| expansion instead of learning quirks of all different distro
| just to be able to support that one user on Hannah Montana
| Linux. Helping individual customers feels great, but it can
| become a deadly rabbit hole.
|
| ii) The market aligned against publishing monopolies, which
| Valve isn't singlehandedly responsible for but has been a major
| contributor to. Linux native was just a way to get devs and
| publishers to realize that they couldn't and shouldn't fall
| prey to the exclusive marketplaces on the rise at the time like
| GWFL that would only reduce choice and availability for
| customers and non-AAA devs in the long-term. Breaking OS
| dependence was key in this.
|
| I think we ultimately want Linux to be able to do whatever we
| want, be that running video games, powering Mars rovers, or
| running our HPC clusters. Once software can be run with the
| same ease on Linux as on Windows, it might as well be Linux
| native, and non-FOSS Linux purist arguments are confusing and
| dilute that.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| >> fall prey to the exclusive marketplaces on the rise
|
| Valves initial support for linux was for precisely these
| reasons. Microsoft was talking about restricting which games
| could run on windows in much the same way an Apple does with
| iPhone software. The prospect of Microsoft having
| veto/censorship powers over violent video games struck fear
| across the industry. Valve then pushed towards "steam
| machines" running not-windows. Those issues have reduced as
| of late but were the trigger for what would eventually become
| the proton project.
| charcircuit wrote:
| >a disproportionately vocal minority comprising <1% customers
| but >50% of bug requests
|
| I doubt that this is generally true based off the discussions
| I've seen in the Steam forums for various games.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| It could also be true in a good way. Would it be so hard to
| claim that Linux users are more likely to report bugs, so
| the difference is not "Linux users are whiny" but "Windows
| users saw the same bugs and just suffered or stopped buying
| your program silently, while Linux users saw bugs and
| actually told you about it"?
| washadjeffmad wrote:
| This was circa 2013. Unity3D had barely included build
| options for Linux publishing, and it was a much less mature
| time for gaming on Linux.
|
| So you're right, it isn't generally true today.
|
| I personally don't use the Linux builds if the Windows
| version works with Proton, but I do download them for
| archival. I also don't submit bug reports to devs for
| Steamplay issues, so that's another factor.
| k__ wrote:
| How good does this work with things like Oculus Quest, SteamVR,
| etc.?
|
| Are there any performance implications?
| ad404b8a372f2b9 wrote:
| There is still no functional VR media player for linux, none
| of the Windows ones work with Proton and the official SteamVR
| Media Player has no linux release.
| Yen wrote:
| I've been using Skybox on steam vr on linux, and it seems
| to work consistently for viewing local video files, whether
| flat or side-by-side.
| ad404b8a372f2b9 wrote:
| Doesn't work for me on Ubuntu 20. I've bought pretty much
| all those available on steam.
| WorkLobster wrote:
| I use Whirligig, which works with a minor fix documented on
| ProtonDB.
| ad404b8a372f2b9 wrote:
| Whirligig does not work for me with the recommended fix.
| WorkLobster wrote:
| Just to make sure we're talking about the same fix, do
| you mean running the LAV installer first (edit: followed
| by selecting DirectShow in the options)? That worked for
| me with Proton 5.13-6.
| podiki wrote:
| Not sure what you mean, but there is the open source vr-
| video-player [0] that works with YouTube, can put flat
| games on a virtual big screen, etc. Works great.
|
| [0] https://git.dec05eba.com/vr-video-player/about/
| ad404b8a372f2b9 wrote:
| Uh! Never found this one despite extensive googling. I'll
| install it and report back.
| podiki wrote:
| I found it in a round about way too, could use some
| better publicity maybe. You can also use this to enable
| side-by-side 3D in VR, so like the old Nvidia 3D shutter
| glasses that made games pop out of a flat screen, you can
| see that in your virtual screen in VR. Take a look at
| SteamTinkerLaunch [0] to set that up (currently helping
| organize that giant readme, but the info is all there to
| play around with [1]).
|
| [0] https://github.com/frostworx/steamtinkerlaunch
|
| [1] https://github.com/frostworx/steamtinkerlaunch#Side-
| by-Side-...
|
| Edit: I should say side-by-side mode works for games with
| it builtin (like Trine) but can also use shader injection
| to emulate this which can work pretty well too.
| Nullabillity wrote:
| My Valve Index works fine for me (both native and Proton), as
| long as I keep SteamVR on the linux_v1.14 branch. It does
| have some issues keeping up sometimes, but that's probably
| mostly my ancient GPU (AMD RX480).
| away_throw wrote:
| The RX 480 is far from ancient and is probably one of the
| best cards that I've used. When I RMA'd my RX 5700XT (which
| still crashes after RMA), this thing was a champ. This card
| is still king for 1080p gaming and can handle 1440p too.
| zlynx wrote:
| It is almost 5 years old and several generations back.
| Perhaps not "ancient" but it's aging.
|
| From the 480 there was the 580, Vega 56/64/VII, RX 5700
| and now the 6800.
|
| From a few random benchmark site checks online the 6800
| is over three times faster than a 480.
|
| Admittedly, to actually buy a 6800 series it is probably
| at least three times the price of a new 480.
| lexa1979 wrote:
| I can speak for Oculus Quest 2, plugged with a cable in the
| computer: it doesn't work at all. SteamVR works by itself in
| native linux mode, but for the Quest 2 to be recognized, you
| need to run an Oculus windows only application that makes it
| look like it is a Rift headset... So... after years on
| Xubuntu only, I ended up reinstalling Windows to satisfy my
| new VR gaming "needs"...
| podiki wrote:
| There will tend to be at least a little performance
| difference from Windows, but personally haven't tested it. I
| have an Index and it works great [0], though I really need a
| GPU upgrade (which is impossible these days, as others here
| noted). I only play on Linux so can't compare to Windows, but
| besides some little things not being supported like
| passthrough camera, base station power management (though you
| can do it through your phone), it works without any fuss.
|
| [0] https://boilingsteam.com/the-valve-index-on-linux-on-a-
| min-s...
| ekianjo wrote:
| This should answer your questions
| https://boilingsteam.com/the-state-of-virtual-reality-on-
| lin...
| Yen wrote:
| I've been using an HTC Vive on linux. It usually works pretty
| great. The performance might be percentage-points worse than
| a "clean" Windows install, but in my experience Windows
| didn't manage to stay clean.
|
| I've got a gtx 1070, which at this point is pretty far from
| top-of-the-line VR-capable card. I'd probably get
| significantly better performance improvement per effort spent
| by upgrading my card than I would by tweaking the OS.
|
| I can pretty consistently enjoy VR games. I haven't tried vr
| web browsing in a while; I remember it being pretty finicky
| on Windows several years ago.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| I own a valve index. I use it only on linux (mint) via
| proton. I can say that it does work. There are quirks. don't
| expect it to be seemless. For instance, more than half the
| time I start SteamVR but have to then "restart" the headset.
| Once it is working it is working.
|
| Not all VR games support linux but many do, probably a higher
| proportion than amongst non-VR games. VR games tend to come
| from smaller developers who are generally not implementing
| the things that bork linux (eg DRM).
|
| IMho now is not the time to get into VR, on any OS. You need
| a serious graphic card. Whatever you are running now, you
| will want something better once you plug in a VR headset.
| Good luck with that atm.
| away_throw wrote:
| The restarting issue also occurs for me on Windows 10.
| Although, it usually occurs 80% of the time rather than
| half for me. I suspect it might be due to me plugging in
| power to the headset after starting the system, but I've
| seen it occur without doing that as well, so I am unsure.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| That's my thinking too. I have my VR hardware (2 tracker
| things+headset) on a power bar that I turn on separately
| after boot.
| ThaDood wrote:
| I cannot speak to VR stuff specifically, I have heard of some
| issues with VR from lurking on other forums but I have no
| personal experience with them.
|
| As for performance implications in my experience it tends to
| vary. Some games running on Proton run better than the
| GNU/Linux native ports and their Windows alternatives.
| Sometimes the native ports are better when compared to ones
| using Proton but for someone who is a "casual" I have not
| seen any noticeable performance difference. Of course this
| might not be the case if you are running on cutting edge
| hardware and playing the latest games.
| ebegnwgnen wrote:
| Maybe the Valve Index works through SteamVR ?
|
| For oculus it won't work because it requires the oculus
| windows app.
|
| (Even when you use SteamVR with an Oculus, actually it's
| using Oculus app behind)
|
| There are also some projects to reverse-engineer / implement
| open tracking for VR headsets :
| https://monado.freedesktop.org/#supported-hardware
| markjgx wrote:
| I choose to irrationally support Linux, because I like Linux.
| There is literally no financial incentive for me to do so. We
| were recently debugging a newer build on Linux, which was
| inexplicitly crashing on a players machine, while running great
| in the testing environment. This was causing a major headache
| as the game needed to ship that day.
|
| We had another Linux volunteer test it out on his mostly
| vanilla Ubuntu setup, and it worked great. Ended up creating a
| chart of all the available testing configurations, e.g.
| comparing drivers across all the available environments. The
| supposed blame ended up being a statically linked library on
| his system. Funny thing is the tester who was crashing was
| enjoying the game in Proton while I was debugging the Linux
| build.
| bogwog wrote:
| AppImage to the rescue! (https://appimage.org/)
| rolandog wrote:
| Would you mind sharing the name of your game? I'm saving up
| to buy some games soon, and I'd like to support cool devs
| like you!
| markjgx wrote:
| Thanks. It's called BadLads, it's all about multiplayer
| roleplay, where each player has their own job. The games
| about to get giant procedural cities (with full interiors!)
| and native virtual reality support. Here's the last
| devblog, although a bit dated:
| https://devblog.chemicalheads.com/posts/upcoming-update-
| teas...
|
| https://store.steampowered.com/app/1200710/BadLads/
| rolandog wrote:
| Thanks for replying; it looks really great! I just
| purchased it, and I hope to play it over the weekend!
| yissp wrote:
| This looks really cool. From the description is sounds a
| bit like DarkRP in Garry's Mod. I remember having a lot
| of fun with that mode.
| ubercow13 wrote:
| Did you consider requiring Steam Linux Runtime? The most
| recent versions use containers so that even glibc will be a
| fixed version.
| cf wrote:
| The problem with Proton is it is leading many game developers to
| actually drop Linux support. They basically say players seem to
| be able to get the game to work on Proton and that's that.
|
| But with no official support there is no guarantee it will
| continue to work with updates. There is no promise to even try to
| make it work if it breaks. And that's the major stuff. Imagine
| spending 20, 30, or 60 dollars on a game that can break at any
| moment and know there will be zero support waiting for you. And
| that's hard breaks. Performance hiccups will be given zero
| attention by the developers.
|
| There is all this talk that Proton will make people want to
| develop native Linux ports but I don't see any data or logic to
| back that up.
| thrwyoilarticle wrote:
| >Imagine spending 20, 30, or 60 dollars on a game that can
| break at any moment and know there will be zero support waiting
| for you.
|
| I don't have to imagine: I play Steam games on Windows.
| bogwog wrote:
| At least on Windows you can try troubleshooting and various
| workarounds to problems to a certain extent, or ask for a
| refund.
|
| I bought Pillars of Eternity on the Nintendo Switch for $60,
| which was broken on day 1, still broken today, and officially
| abandoned by the publisher (Versus Evil)
|
| This isn't related to the OP in any way, I'm just still angry
| about it.
| godshatter wrote:
| Linux players, in my experience, are more used to having
| their problems be ignored and have stronger feelings that
| they are part of a community and thus are more forthcoming
| with potential fixes and/or testing of things for other
| users that are also running linux, so they too help with
| troubleshooting and workarounds. I feel your pain about the
| situation you ran into with the Switch.
| mewse wrote:
| I have a game on Steam, developed primarily on Linux, and
| providing a Linux build (in addition to Windows and Mac).
|
| Linux makes up approximately 0.5% of my sales. (Mac is about
| 2%, and Windows is the other ~97%) And from conversations with
| other developers, these are pretty standard percentages. I make
| and offer a native Linux build because I wanted to do it, but
| the financials really aren't there to justify it from a hard
| business perspective.
|
| Proton really isn't the thing that makes game developers choose
| not to make and support Linux builds of their games; it's the
| lack of an audience (and often developers not knowing enough
| Linux to be able to provide support for it). My hope is that
| Proton can build up the audience, so that it starts making more
| financial sense for studios to serve that audience.
| macNchz wrote:
| Exactly... I keep reading these concerns that Proton will
| cause developers to ignore Linux, when really there's
| effectively zero incentive for developers to pay attention to
| Linux in the first place, given how few people use the
| platform to play games.
|
| In my view any system that makes it realistic for people who
| buy games to use Linux full time can only increase the
| chances a developer will be able to justify supporting a
| Linux version of their game.
|
| I use desktop Linux primarily (complemented by a Windows
| partition and a Mac laptop) and would love to see more
| support from game developers, but the idea of such a small
| niche of users turning their noses up at "ports" and
| demanding native builds with support is borderline absurd.
| cf wrote:
| Basic question, if someone buys a game to run it through
| Proton do they look like a Windows or Linux user on your end?
|
| How would you feel about games being made available for free
| to Linux users if it uses Proton. If the game contributes
| basically nothing to your bottom line and you don't plan to
| support them anyways, why not? It will only grow the audience
| more quickly.
| galgalesh wrote:
| Users running a game in proton show up as Linux users, not
| windows users. Because of this, many games already show a
| bunch of Linux players even though the game doesn't have a
| native port.
| Zhyl wrote:
| Could you cite some examples? I know of games that have dropped
| Linux support (RUST, Rocket League) but those are all to do
| with Anti-cheat rather than citing Proton as a feasible
| alternative to a native port.
| cf wrote:
| Sure thing.
|
| Supergiant has previously released all their games (Bastion,
| Transistor, Pyre) with Linux support. With Hades they
| explicitly said would not come to Linux, and in fact cite the
| presence of Proton as a reason [1]
|
| Nicalis games has released games like Cave Story, VVVVVV and
| Binding of Isaac with Linux support. But the latest DLC of
| BoI will not have Linux support.
|
| 1. https://steamcommunity.com/app/1145360/discussions/0/16397
| 94...
| Zhyl wrote:
| Thanks, I will read up on these. I was feeling fairly
| secure that this was a concern that hadn't materialised,
| but it seems I have since been proved wrong :)
| cf wrote:
| Thanks! And believe me I want to be proved wrong on this.
| If you find any developers that were motivated to create
| a native Linux port of their game due to strong numbers
| on Proton I want to know!
| kevingadd wrote:
| Is it a bad thing that Hades doesn't have an official Linux
| client if it runs perfectly under Proton? They seem to be
| willing to invest heavily to get the game onto more
| platforms considering that (AFAIK) they rewrote the entire
| game in C++ to be able to port it to Switch, so it would
| surprise me if this is a "we don't care about you"
| situation and not a "Proton is good enough and doing a
| from-scratch Linux port would be expensive" situation. For
| their games before Hades they were using a portable
| middleware layer (FNA or MonoGame) and the C++-based engine
| they licensed for Hades is not the same.
|
| I definitely do not believe that Supergiant's choice here
| was motivated in any way by Proton. I think the costs
| simply didn't justify a custom port for them this time if
| making it a better experience would be difficult.
|
| P.S. Hades has an official Vulkan client, not just
| Direct3D, so the gap between native and emulated on Proton
| is much smaller than it would be for many games.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| I think it's absolutely fine. How many people test their web
| applications on Linux? Few, because there's a virtualization
| layer between the application and the underlying operating
| system, so webapps are a write once, run anywhere application.
|
| Games can be the same, they just need an abstraction layer - be
| it a VM, an emulator, or whatever Proton is.
|
| And sure, you may not get perfect performance, but that is
| becoming less and less of a problem.
| bogwog wrote:
| > or whatever Proton is.
|
| IIRC, it's a fork of WINE
| bogwog wrote:
| Linux will always be a second-class citizen to game devs until
| it gets a lot more users.
|
| But the new people that come in, those that likely migrated
| from Windows or Mac, are not going to care whether or not the
| game is a native Linux port or if its running on Proton.
| They'll only care that the game works, and works well.
|
| If we ever get to the point where Linux gamers become a
| significant percentage of the market, then developers will be
| forced to pay attention to Linux support. If Proton can't
| deliver competitive performance and stability, then that means
| they will be forced to do proper Linux ports.
|
| So the only thing needed to encourage developers to provide
| real Linux ports is to increase the size of the Linux gaming
| community by any means necessary. Whether that's through
| Proton, or even virtualization, the goal stays the same.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Market share is king. With Linux at 1% Linux gamers are
| screwed, Proton or not.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| also from several game devs I've talked to, not only is the
| market share negligible, the bug reports aren't. Common
| sentiment was that Linux was ~1% of their sales but a third
| of complaints.
| lukeschlather wrote:
| This probably reflects the character of Linux users more
| than Linux. To really unpack that you need to properly
| categorize the complaints: (Linux platform bug, Cross-
| platform bug, User error.) If 50% of the bugs are real
| cross-platform issues, then ditching Linux saves a lot less
| than you think (and you're potentially losing some high-
| quality free QA.)
| fuu_dev wrote:
| you should read this:
| https://twitter.com/bgolus/status/1080213166116597760
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| The claim upthread is that that particular case shouldn't
| be taken at face value:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26358183
| mjevans wrote:
| Possible solutions:
|
| Have a demo so users can tell how well supported their
| platform is.
|
| Be clear about the target platform (E.G. Tested on Debian
| 10.8 + NonFree, Ubuntu 2020.04 etc; also include the
| minimum supported OpenGL / Vulcan / whatever version
| etc.)
|
| Document the product execution lifecycle, and how to
| manually skip steps. (E.G. steam calls X to start the
| launcher, the launcher calls Y to start the game. These
| are the arguments each take to modify behavior.)
|
| Have developer level debug checks in the logs. Print to
| standard error where you're trying to open a log file
| ("Opening log file: %s\n"), have an example of what a
| healthy log file should look like. If a native command is
| missing say so, and if there's a test-platform link to
| the package page for that platform, as well as the source
| website. (Eventually historical gamers might need to
| visit Archive.org to grab the last published version.)
| Have debug levels to increase verbosity (even if it's
| just "production" vs "collect crash report") validate
| every assumption and requirement in the crash report log
| level. You shouldn't need to ask the user for any
| additional information other than the log file, because
| it should all be right there in the log file.
| chmod775 wrote:
| This. Most of the Windows users in my circles wouldn't
| even think of writing bug reports, whereas many Linux
| users are developers, often immediately think of writing
| a bug report, and are also technical enough to do it[1].
|
| [1] It takes some technical experience to make an
| educated guess of where the problem lies. Drivers? OS?
| Game? Hardware? And if you're on Windows: Some gaming
| overlay? AV?
| Zhyl wrote:
| I know this sounds silly, but would you be able to confirm
| that this is based on actual conversations that you've
| personally had with game developers about projects they've
| personally worked on?
|
| There have been rumours stoked especially by tweets from
| the Planetary Annihilation developer that he has since
| retracted/clarified but these still seem to fuel a lot of
| negative perceptions of Linux support that aren't seen in
| the main.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| yes it was from actually talking to several indie game
| devs, I'm not familiar with the Planetary Annihilation
| case.
| Zhyl wrote:
| That's fair. I know it's more likely that this is the
| case on HN, but there's been multiple times on Reddit
| when I've asked people to elaborate and it turns out that
| when they say "I've spoken to Devs" they actually mean "I
| read a comment on Reddit" or "I saw a tweet that said
| it".
| cf wrote:
| This has always been true, but Linux gets treated worse than
| OS X even though those users also have tiny market share.
| spijdar wrote:
| > There is all this talk that Proton will make people want to
| develop native Linux ports but I don't see any data or logic to
| back that up.
|
| I haven't heard of this, honestly. I'd fully expect it to
| damper Linux port development, and I'm not sure that's a bad
| thing.
|
| It's entirely possible for a game developer to treat bug
| reports from Proton users as legitimate, just as much as they
| may for a native Linux port. Wine is effectively just another
| Win32 runtime that happens to run on the Linux kernel instead
| of WinNT.
|
| I've had instances where the native Linux port of a game failed
| to launch entirely, but the Windows version through Proton
| worked flawlessly. I've also heard that some games perform
| better on Proton than native, because of the DirectX -> Vulkan
| translator outperforming straight OpenGL on Mesa.
|
| Other commenters have mentioned this, but it boils down to
| market share. Linux's market share is downright trivial. If I
| was a game dev being raked over the coals for a release date, I
| wouldn't frankly give a damn over Linux, and I say this as
| someone who mainly uses Linux.
|
| That's why I don't think this is a problem. If Proton becomes
| big enough then it becomes another "target", just another
| runtime to replace the old glibc/mesa one that devs can test if
| they want to.
| reader_mode wrote:
| > Imagine spending 20, 30, or 60 dollars on a game that can
| break at any moment and know there will be zero support waiting
| for you.
|
| So spending < than people make in an hour here for a potential
| inconvenience that comes from updating to a new release - I can
| hardly imagine it.
|
| Multiplayer games that need to be up-to-date and competitive
| games would probably be annoying to hardcore gamers - but
| frankly if you're into that you'll be sensitive to performance
| as well and you should just get on a supported platform.
| lukeschlather wrote:
| I am sensitive to performance, but part of that is being able
| to alt-tab over to my Linux desktop rather than having to
| switch machines to do things other than play this one Windows
| exclusive. Actually the main part is that. "Gaming device" is
| a secondary function of my computer.
| reader_mode wrote:
| Meh, the author is making it sound like Proton will deter
| native linux ports. Reality is there would never be native
| Linux ports and you should be thrilled Proton/WINE/whatever
| gives you any options at all. The market isn't there - I
| see Valve linux efforts as a hedge against Windows screwing
| them over.
| cf wrote:
| There were Linux ports before Proton and I'm making the
| case that Proton does not create the right incentives to
| grow a market for Linux games.
|
| Like imagine a restaurant that served food to people in
| suits and people in tshirts but the people in tshirts
| tended to get food poisoning significantly more often.
| Would you consider the response to this concern "If you
| don't want food poisoning maybe wear a suit next time" a
| reasonable response?
| dmix wrote:
| > DX12 support in certain titles (although this is getting better
| as VKDX12 improves continuously)
|
| I googled "VXDX12" and this blog post is all that came up in the
| search engine. Is that Vulcan or something? (sorry I know little
| about game development).
| yepthatsreality wrote:
| For anyone looking for a basic set of steps to migrate away from
| Windows via dual-booting, the following is working flawlessly:
|
| 1. Partition HDD, create Pop_OS live Linux usb (or desired Linux
| distribution, just remember to include Nvidia/AMD graphics
| driver).
|
| 2. Install OS, with separate /boot partition than Windows.
|
| 3. Return to Windows (can do this as step 1 actually) and install
| rEFInd boot loader on Windows EFI partition and replace
| bootx64.efi or whichever default boot file for your BIOS with
| rEFInd.efi.
|
| REFInd should automatically locate both installs next time you
| boot.
| mismatchpair wrote:
| Does this allow you to run steam on gnu/linux and run games
| installed on Windows (so you don't have to install games on
| both operating systems)?
|
| I've tried https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/wiki/Using-
| a-NTFS-di... to no avail.
| yepthatsreality wrote:
| DISCLAIMER: Do this to access your game saves. Steam will not
| download missing compatibility but instead reinstall your
| games. Be sure to grab the saves beforehand.
|
| Follow up, decided to tackle it on my lunch break. I had
| issues but the tutorial worked. All that tutorial does is
| help you mount NTFS on your Linux OS on startup
| automatically. Once you do that you're good to go.
|
| The misnomer is adding the second library. The steam UI only
| lets you change the folder in the currently existing
| libraries (Settings -> Downloads -> Steam Library Folders is
| wrong). Instead try to install a game that you know is on
| that drive. When the game install prompt pulls up, for game
| install location select the dropdown and "Add new steam
| library", pull up your file explorer and set it to the
| `Steam` folder on your ntfs drive. After that it will search
| for common files for that game and install anything missing.
| It will also remove anything Windows specific. The process
| will also identify the rest of the games on the drive but
| will prompt for install when you try to play. I hope that
| helps!
|
| Obviously your Proton matching mileage may vary per game!
| yepthatsreality wrote:
| That's a different problem, all together unfortunately. I
| think it is possible but I have not yet migrated that far. I
| am still in the "choosing a distro" stage (I'm enjoying
| Pop_OS so far but we'll see). I have read in some comments
| elsewhere that Steam will download the correct binaries if
| you can point to the library.
|
| Your link is missing a `/` between `Proton` and `wiki` btw.
| pixelbath wrote:
| I'm not really sure what went wrong on my Xubuntu 20.04 system; I
| was never able to get a single game running under Proton.
| Attempting to do so would essentially soft-lock the entire Steam
| platform until I killed every process related to Steam, pressure-
| vessel, and Proton.
|
| In the end, I ended up reinstalling Windows because of some other
| system-related issues, but I'd have loved to be one of the happy
| Proton users playing Windows games on Linux.
| herbst wrote:
| I had similar issues with an older ubuntu install, and
| surprisingly well working system with manjaro. Guess something
| about ubuntus driver mess or so.
| andrewmackrodt wrote:
| Proton is a very impressive project and works with many titles
| that I've tried. For anyone not well acquainted with it and
| wanting to try games not part of Steams official compatibility
| list, look at https://www.protondb.com/, think of it as similar
| to Wine DB. For unsupported games, I usually use
| GloriousEggroll's custom build:
| https://github.com/GloriousEggroll/proton-ge-custom. This "fixes"
| many games, especially if they use videos in cutscenes and many
| other things.
|
| There are some features that I was never able to get working
| correctly, e.g. remote Steam Play with Streets of Rage 4 where my
| friends stream would not load up or controllers would not map,
| but for single player gaming, this would not be an issue.
|
| Performance is (to be expected) less than Windows and games can
| exhibit graphical artifacts or crashes but it is not bad enough
| really complain about given how amazing it is that this exists in
| the first place. I will often put up with these (imo) minor
| defects than boot to my Windows install. Steam cloud sync even
| works correctly for keeping your save data between OS'!
|
| One thing to be aware of that I don't see people mention (maybe
| because it's a niche setup and game dependent), is that using
| fractional scaling can completely mess up some games display, I
| believe due to how fractional scaling uses a framebuffer larger
| than your real resolution. Make sure to set your scaling to 100%
| before launching games which have this behaviour, e.g. Tekken 7.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| I've had issues getting controllers to show up for Remote Play
| on Windows too, so I'm not sure that's a Proton problem.
| andrewmackrodt wrote:
| I've experienced similar in Windows, where the remote
| controller does show up but both players become Player 1.
| However, the stream itself always works and doesn't with
| proton, although it's been months since I've tried.
|
| True though, this functionality could do with fixing on the
| Windows side before we can expect it to work via proton.
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| Not only Proton, but Wine, DXVK and other important projects.
|
| There are unofficial forks of Proton doing important work too.
| bmurphy1976 wrote:
| I installed it recently on a newly built pc specifically for
| gaming. I'm quite shocked at how good it works! The only thing
| holding me back from switching completely is there's some
| nonsense getting the xbox controller to bind to the pc vis
| bluetooth. If I can get that resolved I don't think there's
| anything else holding me back. What an amazing accomplishment!
| refracture wrote:
| It's not the same thing, but personally I find the Xbox
| controllers are better when used with the official USB wireless
| adapter and xow: https://github.com/medusalix/xow
| poisonborz wrote:
| Firstly, you need an official wireless adapter, bluetooth is
| much slower and also trigger buttons won't work. Even with the
| adapter, the pairing might be awful, but there is a little
| known fact that you need to plug in the controller via usb for
| a moment, unplug, and it will just work (for the same machine).
| Also install x360ce for older games.
|
| With these in place, the controllers work 100% great for any
| controller game.
| mrtranscendence wrote:
| I didn't realize there was a USB adapter. There's a problem
| on Windows where pairing an xbox controller via bluetooth can
| result in reduced performance, so I've taken to using my
| switch pro controller in Steam. The switch controller doesn't
| work for games that can't be launched via Steam, though, so
| maybe I'll pick the adapter up (and someday move to Linux
| maybe? I keep thinking about it).
| poisonborz wrote:
| I don't think it's worth buying anything else for a PC
| other than an XBox controller. They are the best
| price/performance, and have the widest support. Anything
| else is gambling wether it works. But if you already have a
| Switch Pro, you can try x360ce - it can map the buttons to
| standard Xbox bindings.
| mrtranscendence wrote:
| Yep, I already had a Switch pro controller lying around.
| The nice thing about Steam is that it works pretty much
| 100% of the time for anything launched via Steam
| (exception: it doesn't work for Xbox game pass games
| added to and launched via Steam). Added bonus, it has
| gyro, so I can kinda sorta play Doom less badly. I'll
| take a look at x360ce, thanks!
| bmurphy1976 wrote:
| The cost of the xbox controller + the wireless adapter + the
| rechargeable battery is highway robbery compared to, say, a
| PS4 controller. :(
|
| I probably will end up going down this path though.
| mehdix wrote:
| I'm currently playing Cyberpunk with this combo:
|
| amd ryzen + rx580 + archlinux + swayvm + wayland (no xorg)
|
| Edit: obviously with proton
| lghh wrote:
| I found that though not everything runs under Proton, there are
| enough games that do that I can allow Proton to be my filter of
| what I play and don't. There are too many games that I want to
| play but just don't have the time to that Proton let me naturally
| narrow that list. I may miss out on something I REALLY want to
| play, but it's okay. There are just too many good games.
| sixothree wrote:
| There are so many worlds to experience, but they all take so
| much time. These artists create such incredible places it makes
| me sad I don't get to experience them all and never will.
|
| Sadly what seems to happen to me is that I find one I like and
| just spend an absurd amount of time in it. RDR2 for instance, I
| spent maybe 30 hours not actually playing the game - just
| wandering around enjoying the scenery.
| yepthatsreality wrote:
| Who knew decision paralysis and gaming on Linux would both be
| solved by market saturation?
| kemonocode wrote:
| It's a bit of a shame that Valve pretty much abandoned their
| Steam OS/Steam Machine endeavor, even if focusing on just one
| component (Proton) is arguably better than just having to deal
| with an entire distribution.
|
| That said, I'm routinely amazed at how good Proton has gotten at
| running Windows games. I've still got dual boot for some stubborn
| stragglers, but the vast majority of my library runs just fine on
| Linux.
| rPlayer6554 wrote:
| I would not count steam machines out just yet. I wouldn't be
| surprised if the number one complaint about Steam Machines/OS
| was the limited library of games. Maybe they decided to just
| take some time and focus on Proton and then consider reviving
| the Steam Machines.
| kevincox wrote:
| Yup. Valve is putting serious effort into Proton and there
| are a number of reasons I can think of including Valve loves
| Linux, Valve thinks that the Linux market is/can be
| profitable, Valve wants to keep its non-Windows options
| available if only to threaten Microsoft. However a next
| generation of Steam machines definitely seems like it would
| be present on that list.
| CoolGuySteve wrote:
| I think a streaming service with a Linux backend is more
| likely than another Steam machine push.
|
| One of the biggest problems with Stadia and the like is
| that you have to buy another copy of the game whereas Steam
| already knows what you own and will let you play it
| locally.
| ascagnel_ wrote:
| Strictly speaking, Stadia _is_ "a streaming service with
| a Linux backend", but I think Steam could do it better
| than how Google's gone about it. The issue would be that
| Valve would need to renegotiate it's distribution deals
| to include streaming rights in addition to providing user
| downloads, and many publishers would drag their feet on
| allowing that, based on how publishers made noise and
| opted out of nVidia's Windows-based offering.
|
| But a service that offers my Steam library via cloud
| streaming would be a very tempting offering.
| throwaway3699 wrote:
| FWIW:
| https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/cloudgaming
| ascagnel_ wrote:
| Interesting. I wonder if Valve is building this so third
| parties can do the capital-intensive work of building
| up/out hardware (given that they're listing GeForce NOW
| as the only supported client), or if they're also
| intending to enter the market themselves.
| SteveNuts wrote:
| I think SteamOS was mostly a political play, at the time
| microsoft looked like it was turning windows into a walled
| garden platform.
| tempest_ wrote:
| I think that was a large reason.
|
| Additionally the OUYA had some mind share and Valve was
| pushing Steam Machines and their Steam link so a non windows
| OS to run on them made sense.
|
| On reflection perhaps the Steam Machines and link were a
| response to the Windows Store as well but I cant remember the
| timelines that well.
| Zhyl wrote:
| It was mostly in response to the Windows 8 store.
|
| Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-18996377
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| SteamOS, Steam Machines, and Steam Link all occurred at
| about the same time and they were definitely a response to
| the perceived threat of Microsoft locking Windows down to
| only Windows Store applications.
|
| Good news is that didn't happen and Valve continued to
| improve gaming on Linux for everyone for free anyways.
| kemonocode wrote:
| Epic would be a bigger threat to Valve's market dominance
| these days. If only they (Epic) decided to support Linux
| in a similar fashion...
| yepthatsreality wrote:
| SteamOS development was only contracted-out by Valve and while
| many like the notion of it, SteamOS is barely different than
| building a Linux machine and setting Big Picture Mode to
| execute on startup.
| throwaway3699 wrote:
| Really? I thought it was developed in-house. From what I
| understand much of their company was focused around Linux at
| the time (Steam, SteamOS, Hardware, Source engine port, L4D2,
| etc...).
| yepthatsreality wrote:
| Yes, really.
| rhn_mk1 wrote:
| The title is disingenious. Proton is meant to be an improvement
| over Wine. Did none of those 7000 games work on Wine already?
|
| If I fork Proton as Neutron and add support for 1 game, no one
| will say "Neutron has enabled 7001 games". It enabled only 1.
| Zhyl wrote:
| >Did none of those 7000 games work on Wine already?
|
| Not on Steam, and not without user time investment.
|
| Steam Play (which uses Proton) allows the Steam client to only
| show games that are known to run well on Linux, automatically
| installs and configures a Wine prefix for them and then
| launches them _as if they were native Linux games_. No mess, no
| fuss. If I were to put Linux with Steam Play enabled in from of
| a Windows layman, they would likely not even realise they were
| playing games that weren't built for the platform. It 'just
| works'.
| rhn_mk1 wrote:
| I would agree if the article was saying "7000 games enabled
| in Steam", but it's not:
|
| > we are very close to 7000 Windows games confirmed to be
| working out of the box with Proton on Linux.
|
| A better point of comparison for the actual claim would be
| Wine-launcher or CrossOver or some other Wine wrapper. As it
| is, the base for comparison used is "nothing worked before"
| Zhyl wrote:
| Given that this news provider reports quite frequently on
| Proton, I can understand that they assumed their readership
| would know what they meant. I will concede that the wording
| is pretty loose objectively.
| m-p-3 wrote:
| I still wish more games were native, especially multiplayer games
| where Proton can't really work around anticheat softwares like
| EAC.
| charcircuit wrote:
| Proton just needs to add support for actually running EAC as
| opposed to working around it.
| google234123 wrote:
| There's no way to run EAC in Linux without actually actively
| trying to deceive it. EAC is trying to look deeply into the
| windows kernel to find oddities.
| proindian wrote:
| Dang is full of shit. Why supress comments of Indians defending
| itself from rubbish comments from Americans?
| dfgdghdf wrote:
| My problem with Proton is that they are not strict enough with
| their ratings. I see a game has "platinum" or "gold" support and
| think "great, this will work well!" but then I discover it
| crashes after alt-tab and multiplayer doesn't work at all, which
| I consider critical bugs.
|
| To me, the levels should be:
|
| * Paltinum - the game works as well as it does on officially
| supported platforms
|
| * Gold - the game works almost as well as on supported platforms
| but with minor niggles that don't significantly affect the
| experience
|
| * Bronze - the game works in some form, but major things might be
| broken. It would not ship in this state on official platforms.
|
| However, the project is a great start and I look forward to what
| they do next!
| awill wrote:
| There is also a huge range of hardware/software. Different
| kernels, drivers, AMD vs Nvidia, Wayland vs XOrg. A lot more
| Linux users are moving to AMD GPU, so when I see platinum, I
| assume at least great support on AMD.
| Zhyl wrote:
| I think it's worth differentiating between 'Proton' the
| compatibility layer technology and 'Proton DB' [0] the review
| platform and ratings agency.
|
| All the problems listed above are purely ProtonDB issues. It
| would be worth reaching out to the ProtonDB admin - he's very
| receptive to feedback.
|
| [0] https://protondb.com
| dfgdghdf wrote:
| Good point; I did not know this.
|
| However, as a regular user, I assumed ProtonDB was also
| Valve, and that will be the main contact point for many.
| charcircuit wrote:
| >This site has no affiliation with Valve Software. All game
| images and logos are property of their respective owners.
|
| Nothing about the site to me suggests that it is official.
| dfgdghdf wrote:
| 90%+ of people are not going to read that
| charcircuit wrote:
| What about seeing the steam third party login
| integration? What about seeing that they have a Discord?
| What about seeing they have a Patreon?
| jsiepkes wrote:
| To be fair those grades come from ProtonDB[1] which is not
| affiliated with Valve or Proton. Though I agree that having a
| clear rating system as to what to expect in Steam would be
| great.
|
| [1] https://www.protondb.com
| godshatter wrote:
| I agree, but the ratings are self-selected by the reviewers so
| it's hard to enforce. The more the reviewer is comfortable in
| the linux/steam/proton ecosystem, the more inflated the ratings
| get. I'm guilty of this myself, rating a game platinum because
| it runs great perfect except for multiplayer (which I don't
| want) and only if you give it this esoteric launch command
| (which I had to do once and promptly forgot about). If I'm
| lucky I remember to add those caveats and what the esoteric
| launch command was. I'm usually just so happy that I can run
| the game now after decades of a terrible linux gaming
| experience that I can't help but over-inflate the ratings.
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