[HN Gopher] Steam Top 50 Games: Over 70% now work on Linux
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       Steam Top 50 Games: Over 70% now work on Linux
        
       Author : ekianjo
       Score  : 427 points
       Date   : 2021-09-11 14:27 UTC (8 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (boilingsteam.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (boilingsteam.com)
        
       | 41209 wrote:
       | I'd attribute this more to the standardization of game engines.
       | 
       | Once you figure you how to get most Unity games working on Linux
       | , you cover most games. Even if you don't want to export a native
       | binary .
       | 
       | I'm very excited for Steam Deck !
        
       | hakfoo wrote:
       | I wish virtualization was a bit less awkward for GPU-intensive
       | stuff.
       | 
       | A VM with a stripped-bare Windows 10 install is likely to be more
       | compatible with weird anti-cheat and DRM than anything Wine-
       | based. Unless they intentionally add sniffing for it.
       | 
       | But VM with a GPU is a nightmare: for nVidia cards at least, you
       | need two cards (one for the Linux desktop and one to feed into
       | the VM), and there's a lot of explicit feature-limitation gotchas
       | beyond that to market-segment people into buying Quadro cards
       | instead.
       | 
       | I'm not opposed to the concept of having a Windows install
       | (especially if it's something like a VM that you can readily
       | manage and keep in a known state) but dual-booting is annoying--
       | gaming isn't spontaneous anymore.
       | 
       | TBH, I wonder if eventually you'll see a Microsoft product
       | specifically sold as "Windows Runtime for Virtual Machines" --
       | better to sell a cut-down version with just enough bits to
       | support popular games for $50 than to lose the sale entirely.
        
         | thegeekpirate wrote:
         | https://github.com/DualCoder/vgpu_unlock
        
           | kaladin-jasnah wrote:
           | While probably violating a bunch of ToSes, this does work,
           | but its performance is probably not the best from what I
           | remember.
        
         | samtheprogram wrote:
         | > A VM with a stripped-bare Windows 10 install is likely to be
         | more compatible with weird anti-cheat and DRM than anything
         | Wine-based. Unless they intentionally add sniffing for it.
         | 
         | Performance under Wine would be far better than virtualizing
         | the entire OS, and most anti-cheat systems do prevent playing
         | in a VM as their virtual device drivers are a ripe target for
         | abuse.
        
       | 6gvONxR4sf7o wrote:
       | I recently tried ubuntu again for my desktop. I've seen so many
       | posts here about how things have improved. It couldn't register
       | my wireless card and all the directions I found said to run CLI
       | commands that required internet access to fix the fact that I
       | couldn't access the internet...
       | 
       | It seems like Ubuntu is still having the same issues I remember
       | over a decade ago. I booted back into windows and it #JustWorked.
       | I get the chicken and egg problem involved, but god damn, how is
       | this still the problem?
        
         | xondono wrote:
         | Well... it's ubuntu
        
           | AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
           | "Use a different distro" is the best advice any Linux person
           | could possibly give, because no matter what distro you use
           | they can still say it!
        
         | arepublicadoceu wrote:
         | I mean, I love Linux as much as anyone, but Linux fans should
         | be careful throwing "just works" label for Linux.
         | 
         | It's heavily hardware dependent, thus users like yourself reads
         | about improvements (which is true) but then crash on networks
         | or nvidia "walls".
         | 
         | If your usage differs a bit (hidpi, mixed DPIs displays, nvidia
         | optimus, etc) you're in for a hell of a experience.
        
       | pxc wrote:
       | > And [Valve] have committed to bringing all Steam titles to the
       | Steam Deck running SteamOS[.]
       | 
       | By launch time? As an on-and-off Linux gamer who is a huge fan of
       | Valve's Linux work, this is worrying. How can they possibly
       | deliver on this? If they promise this and it's not there at
       | launch time, that could doom the Steam Deck even if it's very
       | good.
       | 
       | What are they going to do, start kicking titles off Steam if they
       | don't have Linux ports? Something like that seems like the only
       | way to meet that guarantee. That seems insane, but maybe if
       | Proton is in really good shape they can get away with saying
       | something like
       | 
       | > Hey, you have one year to add Steam Deck support to your game.
       | Initial testing indicates that Proton will get you 80% of the way
       | there already, but we're here to help you finish the last 20% if
       | you reach out any time in the next 10 months.
       | 
       | But idk, that seems like a huge gamble and it's the only way I
       | can picture them making good on that promise.
        
       | thioordc wrote:
       | The biggest problem is anti cheat software. As soon as they
       | figure that out it'll get a lot higher!
        
         | Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
         | Cheat software is a problem, too. CheatEngine with game scripts
         | works only under Windows. Clever use of it can vastly improve
         | gaming experience on some games.
        
           | anonymousab wrote:
           | 100%. Cheat Engine is an excellent tool for working around
           | old odd mechanics that don't quite work right or were
           | balanced against gamer expectations from an era that was very
           | different from today. Or just as a tool for bypassing game
           | design decisions that you happen to disagree with.
           | 
           | Sometimes you get games that have a fully feature dev console
           | and you can do it all in-game, but that's sadly much rarer
           | these days.
        
             | Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
             | I mostly used it in Rome: Total War to keep enemy
             | settlements population high. With Huge army sizes, computer
             | players quickly deplete their manpool and can't field a
             | decent army, leaving you with no opposition once you
             | survive the first onlsaught. So I locked in their cities
             | pops to the max.
             | 
             | Or I do it to fight boring grinding, because at my age I
             | don't have time for such meaningless activities
        
           | CTOSian wrote:
           | not exactly, I ve played some games (last time was the metro
           | 2033) under wine and cheat engine (under wine too) worked.
           | Also there is (linux) Gameconqueror/scanmem that work with
           | wine games as well (you need to target the game's ".exe"
           | process).
        
             | Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
             | Gameconqueror works, but it is far inferior to cheatengine,
             | especially with preset mem locations for various games
             | (there is a ton of them on fearless revolution forum).
             | 
             | But CE never worked for me on Linux, quitting immediately.
             | Maybe I'll give in another try when I have a chance to
             | play.
        
               | CTOSian wrote:
               | I know what you mean, I had the same issues at the past
               | with different distos/wine versions (I am on Fedora now).
               | Also make sure you use the same WINEPREFIX for both the
               | game/cheat-engine. It's a mixed bag anyway :(
        
         | smoldesu wrote:
         | To my knowledge, most major anti-cheat has _both_ native Linux
         | and Wine compatibility modes (like EAC), but most studios
         | disable Linux support altogether. One of Valve 's mission
         | statements with the Steam Deck was to use it to leverage
         | vendors into adding Linux support for their games (e.g. See, it
         | runs fine! All you have to do is enable Linux support to get on
         | our platform, we'll handle the rest.)
        
         | neilsimp1 wrote:
         | And with the Steam Deck coming, Valve is working hard on
         | solving this problem. I think by next year, I will never be
         | needing to boot my Windows VM.
        
         | captn3m0 wrote:
         | I never play AAA games with anti-cheat, so it doesn't bother me
         | much, but this is still exciting.
         | 
         | >The developer or Rust has already confirmed that on his devkit
         | EAC was working as expected on the Steam Deck with SteamOS -
         | while it will apparently require some modifications from the
         | devs themselves to make it work (not as seamless as Proton
         | itself).
         | 
         | SteamDeck, even if it doesn't break any sale records should
         | still be enough to prove the viability of a gaming console PC
         | that doesn't need Windows.
        
           | thioordc wrote:
           | You and me are in the same boat. I don't like multiplayer
           | games and most AAA games aren't my cup of tea so out of the
           | ~20 games I really play all of them work great!
        
         | revolvingocelot wrote:
         | You're right in a general sense, but it's a bit deeper -- and
         | shallower -- than that. Battlefield 4, for instance, runs some
         | kind of server-side thing (FairFight) and wants ye olde hoary
         | PunkBuster running on the client.
         | 
         | Obviously, the installer tries to install and start PB then
         | errors out quite spectacularly, as one might imagine such a
         | program to do in a wine prefix, but then you can just download
         | the PB executable and run it in the wine prefix post-install no
         | problem. Origin plays surprisingly nicely, too, though it
         | generates a total of _six_ windows that you can 't close during
         | play or it freaks out. There _is_ some additional fuckery
         | required; Wine 's networking needs a bit of massaging to allow
         | BF4 to advertise its ping to multiplayer servers, and you'll
         | get kicked if you've got a ping of "-". [0]
         | 
         | Thing is, though, Proton is Wine-and-allied-trades. In the
         | fullness of time I suspect new BF4 players won't have to jump
         | through these hoops as Proton generally, and its script for BF4
         | specifically, gets updated. And others are already racing
         | ahead, too, borrowing from and providing for Valve's fork of
         | it. GloriousEggroll, recommended for BF4 [1], is the most
         | robust varietal currently.
         | 
         | Multiplayer in a general sense is going to be a little bit more
         | difficult to enable than merely waiting for updates, IMO. I'm
         | not savvy enough to properly understand the arguments, but I've
         | read that the translation layers for graphics, DXVK et al,
         | could easily be repurposed by clever enough end-users to eg
         | wallhack by making textures transparent, etc
         | 
         | As sibling comments point out, resistance on the part of the
         | devs (or publishers?) to simply enable the Linux support that
         | already exists is probably the biggest hurdle.
         | 
         | [0] https://www.protondb.com/app/1238860
         | 
         | [1] https://github.com/GloriousEggroll/proton-ge-custom
        
         | ThrowawayR2 wrote:
         | > " _The biggest problem is anti cheat software. As soon as
         | they figure that out it'll get a lot higher!_ "
         | 
         | Doesn't "figure it out" likely mean rather invasive and user
         | hostile kernel module(s) to prevent cheating? Because the
         | alternative is that Linux becomes the preferred OS for cheaters
         | and the game makers redouble their efforts to detect it;
         | Valve's interests in promoting Linux are not necessarily
         | aligned with studios' interests in promoting a cheater free
         | experience.
        
           | higherhalf wrote:
           | I was wondering if memfd_secret [1] could be a part of a
           | solution to this problem. Sounds like it. Of course, it'd
           | require a recent kernel version, which is an obstacle.
           | 
           | [1] https://lwn.net/Articles/865256/
        
             | bscphil wrote:
             | Given that Steam OS is going to be (already is?) built on
             | top of Arch Linux, and supposing that most Steam games that
             | are "Linux compatible" are going to be targeting that as a
             | base platform, this might not be as big of an obstacle as
             | you think (provided Steam plans to keep the OS up to date).
        
           | ryandrake wrote:
           | Call me an optimist, but "figure that out" could mean game
           | developers stepping up and fixing their games to be more
           | intrinsically robust to cheating. It seems kind of nuts to me
           | that so much development effort has been poured into invasive
           | software that invades the kernel, scans memory, reads the
           | list of running processes, etc. rather than the (admittedly
           | also hard) problem of designing games such that cheat
           | software doesn't work as well.
           | 
           | Reminds me of a company I worked for as a junior dev, not
           | gaming related, where our bread and butter application was
           | hopelessly full of crash bugs, to the point where you
           | couldn't even run it for more than an hour or so continuously
           | without it crashing. Instead of investing in the effort
           | needed to fix the crashers, they instructed me to create a
           | separate "launcher" application that stays resident, waiting
           | for the application to crash, and then re-launching it saving
           | as much state as possible. It felt bonkers to me but I guess
           | it made sense to somebody.
        
           | thioordc wrote:
           | Could mean that. I was just commenting that most of the games
           | that don't work are from anti cheat or some kind of online
           | multiplayer issue.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | devwastaken wrote:
       | They do "work" to varying levels, but the performance is not as
       | good. There's also a lack of standard tools for GPU settings like
       | MSI afterburner. There's other tools that accomplish some of the
       | same things, but I feel the environment would be better if valve
       | or some company would be offering those tools.
        
         | FeepingCreature wrote:
         | There's radeon-profile for AMD, anyone know what the equivalent
         | for NVidia is?
        
           | jvzr wrote:
           | GreenWithEnvy is such a NVIDIA-focused utility
        
       | dpbriggs wrote:
       | I've mostly switched over and it's been a fantastic experience. I
       | use ProtonDB [0] to gauge whether a game will work and there's
       | usually some small tips and tricks to make sure the game will run
       | fine. It's nothing more than copying a run command into Steam.
       | 
       | I've even noticed some games, like Valheim and Path of Exile, run
       | better in Linux.
       | 
       | [0] https://www.protondb.com/
        
       | protoster wrote:
       | I have a strange feeling about this tech. Doesn't this help
       | cement Windows as The Standard for gaming? Feels like we're
       | giving up and accepting our fate.
        
         | VortexDream wrote:
         | You mean as opposed to the last 20 years where it wasn't the
         | standard? That ship has sailed. If Linux wants to stay relevant
         | to end users (particularly gamers), it needs to be accessible.
         | Proton makes gaming on Linux accessible, regardless of what the
         | Linux purists may prefer.
         | 
         | I'd be using Linux full-time if I knew all the games I played
         | would work on Linux. They don't, so I end up using Windows way
         | more than I'd like. Proton is the only way out of that.
        
       | bluesign wrote:
       | Only 3 in top 10 though
        
         | xorfish wrote:
         | It seems to be 4 out of the top 10.
        
         | asdfasgasdgasdg wrote:
         | Four, it looks like. But of the games in the top ten that work
         | on Linux, only one (GTA V) is not from Valve. Definitely seems
         | like the year of Linux gaming on the desktop has not yet
         | arrived, although we're closer than we used to be. Great work
         | by Valve to get us this far.
         | 
         | Also worth noting that a number of actual top ten games are not
         | on Steam. Valorant, league of legends, warzone, escape from
         | tarkov, and Fortnite all are not available on that platform.
         | (Some of these may not be top ten -- it's hard to know because
         | we don't have solid numbers, but they are all in the top 20 of
         | twitch viewership.)
        
           | spijdar wrote:
           | I wasn't aware GTA was a Valve game ;-)
           | 
           | I'm guessing the rest, being primarily multiplayer games, are
           | blocked by some anti-cheat/DRM scheme. Hopefully Valve can
           | work out some compromise to get those working on Wine/Proton.
        
             | asdfasgasdgasdg wrote:
             | Maybe my comment was unclear. I said "all but one of them"
             | and by "them" I meant, "the ones that work on Linux." The
             | "but one" is referring to GTA, which you correctly observe
             | is not a Valve game, as I did also in my comment. I edited
             | to clarify.
        
               | spijdar wrote:
               | Ah, sorry, I must have missed that. Maybe I need another
               | cup of coffee...
        
       | Thaxll wrote:
       | "work" it's a lie, they don't work like they do on windows.
       | 
       | - performance can be really bad
       | 
       | - lot of bugs that you don't have on windows
       | 
       | - the usual go tweak this cfg file and try this
       | 
       | Look at that for example, what they consider working "gold":
       | https://www.protondb.com/app/275850
        
         | yusi-san wrote:
         | I actually tried No Man's Sky on linux few days ago and I had
         | no real performance issues. Everything ran fine on ultra with a
         | 21:9 1440p monitor and a 2080.
         | 
         | I do agree that the performances are no the same than on
         | Windows (15-20% less FPS on average).
         | 
         | I don't know about the official proton for No Man's Sky, but I
         | used the Glorious Eggroll's fork[0].
         | 
         | [0]: https://github.com/GloriousEggroll/proton-ge-custom
        
         | smoldesu wrote:
         | I play No Mans Sky at 1440p on my 1050ti. Framerate hovers
         | around the upper 90s, I frankly couldn't be happier. I also
         | didn't need to tweak anything to get it running, which was not
         | the case on Windows at all...
        
         | ubercow13 wrote:
         | ProtonDB often does have comments listing workarounds,
         | configuration tweaks, known issues, and things/patches to
         | install to achieve the best results. In that sense it reads
         | very much like PC Gaming Wiki, which lists all the same things
         | for Windows games.
        
         | badsectoracula wrote:
         | FWIW that is the case with Windows too, which is why sites like
         | pcgamingwiki[0] exists.
         | 
         | [0] https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/
        
         | tlamponi wrote:
         | Meh, I recently thought I try that and bought Battlefield 1 on
         | sale and tried it on my Debian 11 box. Once it started to
         | download that Origin stuff I thought "that won't work" but it
         | just did perfectly for me, no tuning needed.
         | 
         | Some even work better, e.g., >10 years ago I had a very crappy
         | ADSL connection and in Counterstrike I got latencies of >150 ms
         | with quite some jitter to >250 ms under Windows and even got
         | kicked off from some servers for that :(
         | 
         | cue to WINE and running it under Linux (IIRC I was using
         | openSUSE then) and I got 80 to 90 ms stable on the same
         | servers, I think that was the time I decided for myself that
         | I'll never go back again, and so I dropped my dual-boot setup
         | in favor of Linux only.
        
       | pkulak wrote:
       | What sucks is that only 4 of the top 10 work. Once Steam and the
       | anti-cheat folks figure out how to get that stuff working, we're
       | really going to be in business. It's not like PUBG relies on
       | DirectX 12 ray-tracing APIs or something exotic.
        
       | unixhero wrote:
       | Love Steam. Love Linux. Love Gaming.
        
       | Salgat wrote:
       | How much of this is native support instead of windows
       | compatibility layers? Don't get me wrong, it's great either way,
       | but it's very telling of the motivations of the developers and
       | how much they prioritize Linux.
        
       | gtk40 wrote:
       | Granted my favorite video game is an updated version of something
       | over 20 years old (AOE2DE), but I use Proton for a Windows-only
       | game all the time and it works like a charm. I've done some other
       | small games with friends and everything on Steam has worked
       | either natively or with Proton. It's quite impressive.
        
       | marcodiego wrote:
       | From the link:                 > Among the 10 games that are
       | considered borked:       >        >     Most of them do not work
       | because of EAC (8)       >     2 of them because of another
       | DRM/anti-cheat system
       | 
       | Remove DRM and everything is fine.
        
         | ekianjo wrote:
         | EAC for example is not your typical DRM, it's rookit/kernel-
         | level software that is very hard to emulate on Linux.
        
       | lumost wrote:
       | I'm very curious if we'll start seeing a move off of windows for
       | gaming rigs with this. The 100 dollar premium for windows takes a
       | big bite out of a 1000 dollar gaming rig.
        
         | Zababa wrote:
         | People pay $100 for Windows? There are licenses on ebay for
         | less than 5EUR in Europe.
        
           | tlamponi wrote:
           | If you buy a laptop here it's ~100EUR cheaper without an OS
           | or Linux on it, so even if you want to use Windows you should
           | buy the cheaper version and get a 5EUR OEM key or the like.
           | An additional benefit to that: less HW vendor crap installed.
           | 
           | At least that was the case with the Lenovo laptops I
           | personally and also the company I work for (Linux shop)
           | bought.
        
             | novok wrote:
             | I think what you are being charged is a form of retail
             | markup, by lenovo. They are paying $10-$15 max for that
             | license. It wouldn't make sense on their cheaper laptops
             | where they do not give you the option of linux or no OS,
             | otherwise the laptop would lose money.
             | 
             | AFAIK the PC market is low margin, and the only place they
             | really get margin is from all the crap ware they 'offer'
             | and stuff like margins on windows licenses and such.
             | 
             | I think microsoft has realized the real price for windows
             | is $10 too, which is why they are adding all the adware
             | crap in it. Otherwise it's not tenable as a business for
             | them, even if they are a selling a huge volume of it.
        
               | Ekaros wrote:
               | Windows 12 might be free. And then have premium sub with
               | more features like O365...
        
           | Qi_ wrote:
           | Some people don't like gray-market licenses. I'm not one of
           | them, but they definitely exist.
        
         | mt_ wrote:
         | For me, Windows 11 is the last straw. Once Microsoft moves on
         | from 10 to 11, I'll move on to Linux full time.
        
           | skohan wrote:
           | Come on in, the water is fine :)
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | smoldesu wrote:
         | It's hard to say for sure... if you're interested in more
         | competitive, trendy shooters, then you're out of luck. Rainbow
         | Six Siege and Fortnite are both perpetually broken, which makes
         | it a pretty hard sell to the up-and-coming audience of younger
         | nerds.
         | 
         | On the other hand, the games it _does_ work with are nearly
         | flawless. I play Overwatch, Splitgate, and Battlefield online
         | pretty regularly without issue, and single-player titles like
         | The Sims, Rimworld and Noita function out-of-the-box. With more
         | and more games  "just working" on the platform, I think in 2 or
         | 3 years it will be particularly competitive with Windows 11.
         | Today though? It's a bit of a mixed bag.
        
         | dogma1138 wrote:
         | Work and work well are two different things and most
         | importantly the question is what's in those 72% because you
         | have like 1% of Steam games which have like 80% of the player
         | base at any given moment and a lot of AAA titles and popular
         | multiplayer games don't work on Linux or can even get you
         | banned if you play them due to anticheat issues.
         | 
         | Also if you bought Windows 7 so far you could've updated it
         | upto 11 without paying anything extra if you leveraged the
         | update Windows that Microsoft offered.
        
           | pdpi wrote:
           | The list is precisely composed of that 1% -- it's 36 out of
           | the top 50 games by max concurrent players.
        
             | dogma1138 wrote:
             | Out of the top 10, 6 are "No Go" and technically 7 if you
             | count the fact that the player count for GTA V is based on
             | GTA Online which still constantly issues bans when running
             | on Linux due to anti cheat mishaps.
             | 
             | This list also overlooks other very popular games that
             | aren't on Steam like Call of Duty Warzone and Fortnite...
        
               | Crespyl wrote:
               | > This list also overlooks other very popular games that
               | aren't on Steam
               | 
               | Well yes, it is, as the title makes pretty clear, the top
               | 50 games _on Steam_. That said, non-Steam games can work
               | just fine with Proton, wrappers like Lutris make this
               | only a couple clicks more than Steam.
               | 
               | Fortnite is limited by EAC:
               | https://lutris.net/games/fortnite/, and I'm not very
               | familiar with Warzone but I suspect it's a similar
               | situation.
        
               | dogma1138 wrote:
               | Non native multiplayer games are quite often a no go,
               | which was my gripe with putting GTA V on the list since
               | the concurrent player base is nearly all due to GTAO and
               | if you run it on Linux through proton you risk a ban.
        
           | skohan wrote:
           | Most work quite well in my experience. I have run into small
           | issues, like videos not playing, and sometimes games do not
           | run at launch and take some time to patch, but all in all
           | gaming on Linux has been a surprisingly good product
           | experience.
        
             | dogma1138 wrote:
             | My only issue is that multiplayer still won't work e.g. for
             | games that use EasyAnticheat or other software that doesn't
             | have native support for Linux or you'll get banned or
             | kicked the latter of which happened to me in a few titles
             | over the past 2-3 years.
             | 
             | Basically unless they have a native version or a developer
             | which officially endorses proton MP is often out of the
             | question because it either won't work/ban risk or the game
             | doesn't have client anti cheat detection which means in
             | many cases it would be ripe with cheaters.
        
               | skohan wrote:
               | Yeah I don't really play multiplayer games so YMMV.
        
             | shantara wrote:
             | I would consider cutscene videos not playing to be more
             | than just a small issue for story driven games.
        
               | skohan wrote:
               | Idk in my experience it was more like the publisher intro
               | video at the beginning of the game. Most games these days
               | use in-engine cutscenes.
        
         | macNchz wrote:
         | I built a pretty beefy workstation last year, mostly for
         | software dev but with a high end GPU so I could check out new
         | games. I installed Ubuntu and Windows 10 on it from the start
         | and figured I'd boot into Windows to play games, but so far
         | basically everything I've wanted to play has run fine on Linux.
         | I haven't booted into Windows in months.
        
           | skohan wrote:
           | Similar story for me. I installed Ubuntu a few years ago to
           | try out proton, fully expecting to boot most of the time into
           | Windows, and I could count on one hand the number of times I
           | have used Windows in the past year.
        
         | gremloni wrote:
         | No it doesn't, especially since a lot of us just transfer
         | licenses from the old system.
        
         | pjmlp wrote:
         | It didn't happen with Steam Machines, and it won't happen now.
        
           | skohan wrote:
           | Have you tried Proton? It works great, and Valve is bringing
           | quality first-party hardware this time around by every
           | indication.
           | 
           | I don't think Linux will replace Windows for gaming any time
           | soon, but Linux gaming has a very real value proposition in a
           | way it didn't just a few years ago.
        
             | pjmlp wrote:
             | I should I ever bother with a 2nd class experience.
             | 
             | https://www.howtogeek.com/688970/what-was-ibms-os2-and-
             | why-d...
        
               | imtringued wrote:
               | There is no first class experience if you are forced to
               | use windows.
        
               | pjmlp wrote:
               | Definitely wrong, when the games are designed for Windows
               | in first place, enjoy your Steam Machine.
        
         | xeromal wrote:
         | I'm just comfortable with Windows and I have no reason to move
         | off of it until the transition to linux is so seamless that I
         | barely have to do anything.
        
           | ismayilzadan wrote:
           | After trying to install and debug countless wifi/gpu drivers
           | on debian distros during my university years, I jumped to the
           | same boat as you and just continued using Windows. I pretty
           | much gave up on linux desktop. However, last week (it has
           | been 6 years after my graduation) after seeing many articles
           | on Microsoft, Windows 11 and Manjaro Linux, I decided to give
           | Manjaro a test from bootable usb drive on my new HP touch
           | screen laptop. Everything works without opening terminal
           | once! This is seamless enough for me.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | notjustanymike wrote:
         | I would 100% move to Linux if I was guaranteed the conviniences
         | of windows, but that seems unlikely. When I'm in the mood for
         | gaming, the last thing I want to deal with is technical issues.
         | Windows has some, but they're bearable. Not sure if I can
         | tolerate any more though.
        
           | novok wrote:
           | Yeah me too. What keeps me on windows for my desktop is a
           | couple of pro image library software packages and games. $15
           | is well worth my time to not deal with the unreliability of
           | linux.
           | 
           | I could use a mac, but they don't have justifiable storage
           | costs and external storage is annoying, costs more and is
           | less reliable than internal storage, and macs don't do games
           | well anyway and I just built a new mini-ITX sized PC. Apple
           | is also going down a path in computing I don't like, so I
           | don't know if they are that viable too...
        
         | yepthatsreality wrote:
         | This has already been happening and the numbers have been going
         | up for years now. [0] 100% compatibility not required as most
         | gamers don't play 100% of games.
         | 
         | [0] https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2021/08/linux-has-finally-
         | hit-...
        
           | 0-_-0 wrote:
           | Hmm, that shows a growth rate of 0.1% every 2.5 years,
           | meaning the Year of our Lord 4479 A.D. might be the year of
           | Linux on the desktop.
        
             | yepthatsreality wrote:
             | Linux is on the desktop already. From KDE to Windows, the
             | applications, DE, and compatibility layers are there to
             | have it how you want.
        
         | queuebert wrote:
         | By then we'll have Microsoft Linux, for only $15, with mostly
         | stolen code.
        
           | thefr0g wrote:
           | PS /c:/Home/user$ which rm
           | 
           | /usr/Programs (x86)/del
        
           | drran wrote:
           | s/stolen/copiloted/
        
         | konart wrote:
         | > The 100 dollar premium for windows takes a big bite out of a
         | 1000 dollar gaming rig.
         | 
         | Not 100. And 1000$ is just a video card. Not a newest one too.
        
         | gundamdoubleO wrote:
         | I find it pretty hard to believe anyone with the knowledge to
         | build their own rig is not getting Windows through other
         | potentially dubious means.
        
           | lumost wrote:
           | I'd also go out on a small limb and bet that most gaming rigs
           | are at least partially OEM. I have the knowledge to put
           | together my own gaming/dev workstation - but I'd rather just
           | get a prebuilt that isn't going to become a timesuck of
           | crappy boot times then swap some components.
        
           | massysett wrote:
           | I built my own rig and bought Windows directly from
           | Microsoft, under no circumstance am I going to risk my
           | security by rummaging around in shady places for something as
           | critical as an operating system.
        
             | 0-_-0 wrote:
             | You can download the ISO directly from MS and still get a
             | key for 5$
        
         | MeinBlutIstBlau wrote:
         | >I'm very curious if we'll start seeing a move off of windows
         | for gaming rigs with this
         | 
         | Not even in the slightest. Linux marketshare is still
         | insignificant to even Chromebooks. This is just the echo
         | chamber that is HN that thinks Linux is bigger than it is.
         | Remove all CS majors in the world and I'd wager the amount of
         | people who've touched Linux is less than .01%
         | 
         | Edit: I love how HN downvotes because someone gives them a
         | reality check on their beloved Linux. I will give $1000 to
         | anyone who is willing to give their parent who doesn't know
         | jack about computers Linux and tell them "figure it out." None
         | of them will be able to do it.
        
           | indymike wrote:
           | > Remove all CS majors in the world and I'd wager the amount
           | of people who've touched Linux is less than .01%
           | 
           | Android. I'd say a huge percentage of computing device users
           | have Linux in their pocket and quite literally touch linux on
           | regular basis.
           | 
           | > I will give $1000 to anyone who is willing to give their
           | parent who doesn't know jack about computers Linux and tell
           | them "figure it out." None of them will be able to do it.
           | 
           | I've done this, 10 years ago with my aging Mom and Dad and it
           | worked well. Stock Kubuntu works closely enough to Windows,
           | Chrome and Firefox are identical, the built in photo manager
           | and video players just worked, and it put an end to malware
           | and viruses. Please donate the $1000 to a local food bank,
           | please. I do not what the check.
           | 
           | Two weeks ago, my son and I re-purposed a three year old
           | cryptocoin mining desktop into a gaming machine. We loaded it
           | up with Kubuntu and Steam and ... well, I thought I'd have to
           | install Windows. No problems. Proton lived up to the hype.
        
             | icemelt8 wrote:
             | I don't get it WHY? When Windows is more user friendly and
             | has better software?
        
           | Talanes wrote:
           | >I will give $1000 to anyone who is willing to give their
           | parent who doesn't know jack about computers Linux and tell
           | them "figure it out." None of them will be able to do it.
           | 
           | My father is tech illiterate enough that he manually searches
           | and navigates to the unemployment website each week rather
           | than figure out bookmarks.
           | 
           | He's been on an Ubuntu laptop a friend gave him since late
           | last year. I kept expecting to have to walk him through it,
           | but it hasn't happened yet.
        
           | approxim8ion wrote:
           | I honestly don't think giving my parent who didn't know jack
           | about computers Windows and telling them to figure it out
           | would be a necessarily pleasant alternative either.
           | 
           | How about we show some compassion and take time to help
           | people around things, especially when they are people we care
           | about and things we care about as well?
        
           | capableweb wrote:
           | > Remove all CS majors in the world and I'd wager the amount
           | of people who've touched Linux is less than .01%
           | 
           | I'm not part of the group that downvoted you, but why would
           | the only people touching Linux be CS majors? I'm not a CS
           | major and I think most people I know that voluntarily use
           | Linux on a daily basis isn't neither.
        
             | MeinBlutIstBlau wrote:
             | I'm saying this because most people who use or are aware of
             | Linux happen to be CS majors. You pull any random business
             | major and they barely understand Excel. You eliminate all
             | college majors and the average person that uses Linux has
             | already plummeted. Regular every day computer uses want
             | cheap and easy. Linux is cheap but not very easy,
             | especially if you have no clue what your doing. Sure you
             | can go into a forum on what to do, but what person that
             | knows nothing of computers and doesn't intend on going into
             | the field will bother with learning this stuff? Even myself
             | I find it tedious and I know what I'm doing or can at least
             | learn it pretty easily.
        
               | loloquwowndueo wrote:
               | " most people who use or are aware of Linux happen to be
               | CS majors"
               | 
               | As someone who taught in an accounting school where
               | awareness of Linux was higher than you state, I can tell
               | you this is false.
               | 
               | Give it up already, face the fact that Linux is more
               | popular and well-known than you want it to be, for
               | whichever reason.
        
               | indymike wrote:
               | > I'm saying this because most people who use or are
               | aware of Linux happen to be CS majors.
               | 
               | Android is a Linux distribution it is the #1 phone OS
               | (73% market share this year). ChromeOS is a Linux
               | distribution and is the leading OS by market share in
               | K-12 schools. Both are cheap and easy. In ChromeOS's
               | case, they are easier for both administrators to manage
               | and users. I'm also sure the students using Chromebooks
               | have not completed their CS degrees yet, but one can
               | hope.
        
               | pjmlp wrote:
               | And yet zero of Android and ChromeOS games come into
               | GNU/Linux.
               | 
               | Linux community likes to pat themselves on the back
               | thanks to Android and ChromeOS using the Linux kernel,
               | yet they are oblivious to the fact that Linux syscalls
               | aren't part of the official stable API, only certain
               | ChromeOS models do run Linux (a yet another guest OS, WSL
               | style), and then what GNU/Linux gets are Electron apps.
        
               | [deleted]
        
               | Talanes wrote:
               | >You pull any random business major and they barely
               | understand Excel.
               | 
               | I'm not sure you could pull any random Linux user and
               | have them truly understand Excel either.
        
             | pxc wrote:
             | Not to mention that Linux also has users who never went to
             | college
        
           | therouwboat wrote:
           | What? My mom has been using linux for 5 years and I don't
           | think she even knows what windows or linux is. She calls her
           | computer "the memory" or "that box".
        
           | marcodiego wrote:
           | > I will give $1000 to anyone who is willing to give their
           | parent who doesn't know jack about computers Linux and tell
           | them "figure it out." None of them will be able to do it.
           | 
           | This is what I call the "Granma case". Considering the uses
           | case is very well defined and the possibility of using exotic
           | hardware and services and basically never needing to install
           | any software; this is the situation where linux shines the
           | brightest. My mom has being using linux having 0 idea what it
           | was and needed 0 assistance to browse the web, access social
           | networks, see photographs and videos and listen to music.
           | That's all she does and any modern linux is much better than
           | windows for this specific use case. No need to care about
           | anti-virus, degrading performance, malware, advertisements...
           | it is perfect for that.
        
             | sizeofchar wrote:
             | I do the same with my parents in law, and it's been like 8
             | years without call for maintenance, if not for the very
             | rare Ubuntu upgrade.
        
             | skohan wrote:
             | Yeah honestly 99% of what most casual user do on a computer
             | is in the browser, and Linux does that just fine. And it's
             | way less noisy in terms of random notifications, upgrade
             | spam etc. so it is not a bad choice for unsophisticated
             | users.
             | 
             | Also things don't randomly move around so much between
             | upgrades like they do on commercial OS's.
        
           | bigbob2 wrote:
           | I used to work in a small computer shop and there were some
           | (presumably) 60-70 year olds who I wouldn't consider to be
           | computer literate in the least running Ubuntu and even other
           | distros. There were at least a couple people who refused to
           | use any other OS including Windows. One such customer always
           | referred to their beloved Ubuntu as "Ukabuntu" for some
           | reason.
        
           | blibble wrote:
           | every Android phone runs Linux...
        
             | pjmlp wrote:
             | Which isn't part of the public APIs,
             | 
             | https://developer.android.com/ndk/guides/stable_apis
        
           | ben-schaaf wrote:
           | Unlike Android, Chrome OS is actually a full fledged desktop
           | GNU/Linux distribution. It's Gentoo-based (used to be Ubuntu)
           | and runs desktop Linux apps.
           | 
           | Though even outside of that you'd be surprised where people
           | have unknowingly used Linux. ATMs, Point-Of-Sale,
           | Infotainment (Planes/Cars), public transit, arcades, etc. I'd
           | estimate that a majority of people have had some interaction
           | with a Linux-based system.
           | 
           | > I will give $1000 to anyone who is willing to give their
           | parent who doesn't know jack about computers Linux and tell
           | them "figure it out." None of them will be able to do it.
           | 
           | One of my grandparents runs Ubuntu and they're able to handle
           | their email and documents just fine. Arguably better than the
           | others who run macOS/Windows. You can find plenty of similar
           | anecdotes online; if all you need is a browser and possibly
           | basic word processing it's not all that different.
        
             | hparadiz wrote:
             | It's not Gentoo based. It just uses portage as a package
             | manager in dev mode. ChromeOS has it's own rendering system
             | separate from X and Wayland entirely.
        
           | blondin wrote:
           | i understand what you are trying to say.
           | 
           | people mentioning android have forgotten that android hides
           | many parts of linux. and manufacturers make sure your device
           | hardware works well with the operating system.
           | 
           | other have mentioned relatives who are using linux on
           | desktop. that they are doing limited activities such as
           | browsing and emails. that's fair but the story of how they
           | discovered linux would be the most interesting one.
           | 
           | which brings me to op's cs majors point. so many things have
           | changed that we should not dismiss the claim but think about
           | it.
           | 
           | do happenstances of the past still present themselves to
           | people today. i discovered linux through a pc magazine back
           | in the late 90s. pc magazines back then offered young people
           | like myself at the time a way to try new things on the
           | computer. and i did try everything.
           | 
           | what is the equivalent of that nowadays?
        
           | Agentlien wrote:
           | I did do the same with my father-in-law, about ten years ago.
           | I installed Ubuntu on his laptop and he used it for work
           | (photo editing, writing articles, etc.) without any
           | complaints until he got a new one from work a few years
           | later.
        
         | swarnie wrote:
         | Outside of audited companies who is actually paying money for
         | Windows? Seriously....
        
         | Causality1 wrote:
         | No chance at all. There are more gamers with pirated Windows
         | than there are Linux gamers.
        
           | skohan wrote:
           | So you cannot imagine a world, say 5-10 years from now, where
           | 100% of games work on Linux, where PC game enthusiasts choose
           | a cheaper and equally capable OS?
        
             | 0-_-0 wrote:
             | You can get a key for 5-10$ and the Windows 10 crack
             | KMSpico is one of the most downloaded torrents. _Cheaper_
             | doesn 't work as a value proposition, it has to be better
             | than Windows for people to change in large numbers and get
             | used to a new OS.
             | 
             | On the other hand, knowing gamers, I'm pretty sure many
             | would change if games on Linux were 2% faster... (higher
             | fps)
        
               | skohan wrote:
               | Arguably Linux is a better UX than Windows, but I know
               | it's a matter of opinion.
        
         | aseipp wrote:
         | I mean, if you're just curious if literally anyone will do it,
         | sure. Because you can (due to selection bias of Hacker News)
         | find plenty of people here willing to say so.
         | 
         | My prediction is twofold. First, that there's very, very little
         | chance this will any have measurable impact on the overall
         | proportion of Steam/PC gamers who use Windows. Solutions like
         | Steam Deck will be the most popular venue for Proton, but this
         | will actually sell the best with people who will _keep_ using
         | Windows. Why wouldn 't it? As someone who games a lot, the only
         | reason I would want one is to have my already existing library
         | on the go. It essentially solves that "I wish this was on
         | Switch" problem, especially for indie games. But I don't think
         | of my Switch as a replacement for my PC, either. From this POV,
         | it's fine if some things don't work (I'm no Warzone/Apex/League
         | addict) or the mobile performance constrains things a little,
         | because the accessibility and my game library is overall enough
         | to offset some of those issues.
         | 
         | But actual Windows gamers who use Windows exclusively, and are
         | going to suddenly see the Steam Deck or Proton and be like,
         | "Wow, now I'm going to use Linux, and move over my whole game
         | library since it's obviously so great", who _aren 't_ already
         | software engineering/SRE/existing Linux users? Practically non-
         | existent, or so little in number to be non-existent, I'd
         | predict. They don't even really pay for the Windows license as
         | another comment pointed out, the OEMs do and this subsidizes
         | the product (along with mass volume) even further. This is
         | related to my original point: the reason your question is even
         | getting responses in the positive isn't because there's some
         | massive contingency of Windows gamers looking to throw away
         | their install. It's because you're asking on Hacker News.
        
           | skohan wrote:
           | What do you mean "move over my whole game library"? All you
           | have to do is install steam and use it just like you would on
           | Windows.
        
         | fastssd wrote:
         | You are not required to pay the windows license fee. You can
         | simply download an ISO off of Microsoft's website and use it,
         | you only get a watermark in the corner.
        
           | jlkuester7 wrote:
           | Last time I tried that, it would not install any updates for
           | Windows. Not sure if I was doing something wrong, but without
           | updates this is not a good long-term solution...
        
           | hellcow wrote:
           | It's worth noting that the watermark is always visible in the
           | corner, even in games.
        
             | rygine wrote:
             | you can run a script that will remove the watermark for ~4
             | hours. you can run it as many times as you'd like, just
             | requires a restart.
             | 
             | since i never play a game for that long, it works out
             | great.
        
           | azalemeth wrote:
           | Would you mind linking to this ISO and the T&Cs? I've only
           | ever used their ISOs for VMs -- which are how I use Windows,
           | occasionally and rarely -- and they have pretty harsh
           | conditions like timeoutes, etc.
        
             | the_pwner224 wrote:
             | https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-
             | download/windows10I...
             | 
             | It works as described. One caveat: the website won't let
             | you download an ISO if your browser's user-agent is set to
             | Windows, instead it'll prompt you to use the Win10 media
             | creation tool. But you can download the ISO if accessing
             | from Linux/macOS/Android/etc., or by using a user-agent
             | changer browser extension on Windows.
        
           | bitxbitxbitcoin wrote:
           | Every budget gaming computer I built for friends was like
           | this because budget.
        
           | wolfd wrote:
           | Fun fact: that watermark is created by explorer.exe, and if
           | you're not running explorer.exe it doesn't show up. I had a
           | box that went through one too many hardware changes and
           | Windows decided that it wasn't on the same machine. I didn't
           | bother contacting support for months because I had set the
           | Windows "shell" to be steam.exe in Big Picture mode, and so I
           | rarely got bothered by it.
        
           | eloff wrote:
           | I just installed win 10 pro on my MacBook with bootcamp. I
           | bought a OEM license key off a sketchy site (gamers-
           | outlet.net) for 4 Euros. It worked.
           | 
           | Should upgrade free to Windows 11 too.
        
             | bigbob2 wrote:
             | I did this before in the past with a key off of eBay (no
             | indication made by the seller that the key was not legit
             | other than the suspiciously low price) and everything was
             | fine until it came time to reformat and start fresh roughly
             | a year later - at that point the key no longer worked and
             | the seller vanished from eBay!
        
               | eloff wrote:
               | For me it specifically states that the key will not work
               | if you reformat. That's fine.
        
           | notimrelakatos wrote:
           | You are always paying Microsoft, one way or the other.
        
           | cute_boi wrote:
           | but now you are going to pay with your data just like
           | facebook etc?
        
             | eitland wrote:
             | Problem is you pay with data anyway now:
             | 
             | Microsoft and Google show you ads regardless of if you pay
             | or not.
             | 
             | Seriously even my alarm clock app that I pay a monthly fee
             | for tried to ask nicely if it was ok that they tracked me
             | across web sites after Apple started enforcing their new
             | rules.
             | 
             | ---------
             | 
             | And: If anyone has a good alarm clock app for iPhone that
             | makes sure I'm out of bed before it turns off, and that is
             | a one time payment or a reasonable fee or even open source
             | I'm all ears.
        
             | tlamponi wrote:
             | You're doing that either way, just like you're going to see
             | ads regardless of whether you paid $$$ for a Windows
             | license, pirated a key or just life with the water-mark and
             | other limits of an unlicensed Windows.
        
           | swarnie wrote:
           | Versions without a watermark are freely available from your
           | local neighbourhood torrent site.
           | 
           | I consider my companies 1000+ server/desktop licences payment
           | enough tbh.
        
             | noasaservice wrote:
             | And with the number of computers I've bought, I've
             | purchased Windows hundreds of times.
             | 
             | I have no qualms about a pirated windows install. None. At.
             | All.
        
               | eitland wrote:
               | I try to avoid Windows (it makes git and compiles slow,
               | just doesn't cut it in the ux department after being
               | spoiled with KDE and Elementary and they double dip by
               | shoving ads in my face even after I've bought the
               | Professional license) but so far I pay.
               | 
               | Just as I'd like others to pay me if/when I release paid
               | software.
               | 
               | That said, especially after Microsoft started double
               | dipping Professional licenses they cannot complain if
               | ordinary users don't see the point any longer.
        
               | noasaservice wrote:
               | My primary and only justification for using windows is
               | games (the 30% from the article).
               | 
               | I do real work with Linux.
               | 
               | But again, I've purchased windows hundreds of times, many
               | of those being forced "purchases" due to smoky-back-of-
               | room deals with OEMs. Frankly, MS exhausted all of my
               | goodwill ages ago, and I've yet to see a real change in
               | those underlying tactics.
        
               | eitland wrote:
               | A good point.
               | 
               | MS has "sold" a fair bunch of licenses that have gone
               | unused.
               | 
               | I'll keep buying licenses if I use it - and keep telling
               | people that Linux has been usable for ordinary people the
               | last decade, is faster, more exciting and collect less
               | data about you and your family.
               | 
               | PS: MS employees here, your company really had the chance
               | to be the serious choice but after getting ads on
               | Professional licensed machines I just don't believe the
               | marketing anymore.
        
               | tomnipotent wrote:
               | > compiles slow
               | 
               | Disable Windows Defender on your source folders (or just
               | altogether to see the difference). Someday MS will figure
               | out a good balance with all this.
        
             | scotty79 wrote:
             | You don't have to download windows from torrents. Just
             | dowload it from Microsoft. You can get rid of the watermark
             | by "registering" it with a fake registration server. No
             | need to download and run anything. Just copy few simple
             | lines found with google into admin console.
             | 
             | You are getting fully functional version with this. With
             | updates and everything.
        
         | tmpz22 wrote:
         | OEMs buy licenses in bulk they do not pay $100 a pop and it
         | doesn't get passed onto the user as a full $100 add on.
         | Similarly if you're building it yourself you can buy for
         | significantly less from a reseller, many of which are wholly
         | legitimate.
        
           | gpderetta wrote:
           | As someone that was looking to buy a Windows key, finding a
           | legitimate reseller is a non-trivial task.
        
             | cdumler wrote:
             | Are there recommendations?
        
               | maccard wrote:
               | Why not go straight to the horses mouth?
               | https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/b/windows
        
               | rdpintqogeogsaa wrote:
               | Can confirm, that's the most straightforward way.
        
               | jorams wrote:
               | The statement that started the talk about resellers was:
               | 
               | > Similarly if you're building it yourself you can buy
               | for significantly less from a reseller, many of which are
               | wholly legitimate.
               | 
               | The horses mouth charges $140+, which is significantly
               | _more_ than the $100 that was about.
        
               | cenal wrote:
               | If you only need a single copy you are best suited buying
               | from Microsoft directly.
               | 
               | If you need multiple copies you can work with a VAR
               | (Value Added Reseller) to get better pricing.
               | 
               | CDW.com is the big name in VAR's but they have enormous
               | turnover in staff. I try to build relationships with
               | smaller VAR's. I like these guys:
               | https://greenbeetech.com/ it's a small company with two
               | guys running it who have decades of VAR experience
               | (former CDW people).
               | 
               | Navigating the process of compliantly licensing Microsoft
               | as you scale up is quite a job. Having a good partner to
               | help your organization stay compliant is very valuable.
        
             | grogenaut wrote:
             | If you know anyone who has _ever_ worked at microsoft they
             | can get you a copy with a MASSIVE discount. Living in
             | Seattle I just buy all my microsoft products through
             | friends.
             | 
             | Elite controller was $99, and I laughed when it was on sale
             | for like $150 last week as a best ever deal.
        
               | gpderetta wrote:
               | I did work at MS, will have to reach out to former
               | colleagues :)
               | 
               | Oh, wait the discount also applies to former employees?
               | 
               | Edit: yes if you are part of the alumni network. It has a
               | fee but it is good value. TIL.
        
             | akvadrako wrote:
             | I don't know how you tell or care why a seller is
             | legitimate, but it's very easy to find working windows 10
             | pro keys for a few dollars on http://www.allkeyshop.com/.
        
               | mikepurvis wrote:
               | I got one from G2A a while ago but I was not at all
               | convinced it was legit.
        
               | anonymousab wrote:
               | > I don't know how you tell or care why a seller is
               | legitimate
               | 
               | Because illegitimate keys can be banned (and the hardware
               | using them can be blacklisted) if they are found to be
               | stolen or acquired in some other way that Microsoft does
               | not like.
               | 
               | It's also a huge liability of you're doing any
               | professional work with unlicensed and/or potentially
               | illegal software licenses.
        
           | Groxx wrote:
           | No, they totally charge you +$100 for windows, for otherwise
           | identical machines. E.g. https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/p/lapto
           | ps/thinkpad/thinkpadt/th...
           | 
           | Which is less than the $140 that Microsoft charges for Win 10
           | Home, but it's still substantial:
           | https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/b/windows
           | 
           | Really, why wouldn't they? If you can't get it cheaper, they
           | have no reason to sell it cheaper. Easy profit.
        
             | tomnipotent wrote:
             | Companies are not buying machines this way, but through
             | resellers with drastically different pricing models (even
             | CDNow). Outside of Office 365, I have never paid more than
             | 50-75% MSRP for a Microsoft product using a corp reseller
             | account, including SQL Server licenses.
        
               | Groxx wrote:
               | This is a thread about the cost of gaming computers, on
               | an article about Steam games on Linux.
               | 
               | I don't think business-targeted sales are particularly
               | in-scope. And even if they are, that only makes it
               | _worse_ , as it implies they're getting an even more
               | significant profit margin.
        
         | lpcvoid wrote:
         | As long as you use a AMD GPU, life is sweet. Nvidia is a lot
         | more pain to get working - AMD is part of the kernel.
        
           | josefx wrote:
           | A lot harder meaning: knows hot to install a program on Linux
           | if the distro of choice doesn't outright ask to install the
           | correct driver.
        
             | marcosdumay wrote:
             | There's the never let your GPU get old too. But since this
             | is about gaming, it isn't very relevant.
        
             | lpcvoid wrote:
             | No, I mean specifically things like Optimus on dual GPU
             | laptops. Also, even if the distros do in fact either
             | install automatically or provide a method to install it,
             | there is simply no need to even do this on an AMD system.
             | And then there's the matter of AMDGPU being complete open
             | source, while Nvidia's offering is not. And don't even
             | start on Nvidia's slow pace to properly support Wayland.
        
           | KingMachiavelli wrote:
           | Nvidia just requires installing one extra package... It
           | hasn't been an issue for a while now.
           | 
           | The nvidia driver actually works very well... The amdgpu
           | driver wprks well but still has issues with
           | suspend/hibernate. I'd say they are about the same IMO.
        
         | tester756 wrote:
         | >The 100 dollar premium for windows takes a big bite out of a
         | 1000 dollar gaming rig.
         | 
         | I wonder how many people actually pay for Windows, since you
         | don't have to activate it in order to use.
        
           | enlyth wrote:
           | I bought a Windows 10 key from eBay once for about five
           | dollars, it didn't work so I called Microsoft support and
           | they activated my copy for free, I don't think they care that
           | much.
        
             | [deleted]
        
           | GeckoEidechse wrote:
           | I help decommissioning old Windows PCs for a relative of
           | mine. Whenever a device gets thrown in the bin I note down
           | it's activation key.
           | 
           | Haven't had to pay for a Windows key in years ^^
        
         | CitrusFruits wrote:
         | Sad to say, but Linux just isn't a good experience for gaming
         | yet. Even if games work, there's usually caveats (like needing
         | to be run through some sort of emulation) and they almost
         | always run faster and in a more stable manner than Windows.
         | 
         | Most people I know are more than happy to pay that premium
         | compared to the hassle of dealing with Linux. Also, a lot of
         | those savvy enough to use Linux will just crack Windows or get
         | a key at a discount through a reseller.
        
           | noobermin wrote:
           | This on a post of using steam on linux. Proton is "emulation"
           | for some of the listed but it's pretty good emulation. It
           | requires no savvy, open steam and play.
        
           | CoolGuySteve wrote:
           | In Steam you just click the play button and it launches the
           | game under Proton.
           | 
           | It's very rare to have issues if the game is rated Platinum
           | in protondb and sometimes a setting in the Steam GUI needs to
           | be changed if it's gold or silver.
           | 
           | All in all I find it significantly less annoying than dealing
           | with Windows' ads and forced updates.
        
             | viceroyalbean wrote:
             | The user experience is pretty smooth from a high-level
             | perspective but there are often performance issues from the
             | emulation. Not a huge issue in many situations but not
             | flawless either.
        
               | thefr0g wrote:
               | Wine is not an emulator (scnr)
        
               | imtringued wrote:
               | Wine (and proton) is a reimplementation of windows APIs.
               | You can call that emulation but that would just further
               | dilute the word.
               | 
               | For example, it would mean every graphics card driver
               | that supports opengl is an emulation of opengl.
        
               | Retric wrote:
               | The question then becomes if extra 100$ worth of hardware
               | balances out these issues. For 500$ machines it clearly
               | does, but I don't know about the 1000$ price point.
        
               | y4mi wrote:
               | Steams Linux support (proton) is forked from wine. So no,
               | it doesn't emulate.
               | 
               | Performance can still be an issue, mostly because the
               | Nvidia graphics drivers are performing worse on Linux vs
               | on Windows.
        
               | 0xcde4c3db wrote:
               | While it's not conventional emulation, my understanding
               | is that the DirectX 9-11 support isn't very far removed
               | from how shader recompilation works in modern console
               | emulators (RPCS3, Xenia, Cemu, Yuzu, etc.). Steam now
               | even distributes shader archives among Proton users so
               | that they can be translated in advance instead of on-the-
               | fly, which is something that Cemu users had been doing
               | among themselves for a while.
        
           | the__alchemist wrote:
           | Not sure why this is getting downvoted - this is absolutely
           | true. A binary "works" or "doesn't work" categorization
           | doesn't capture the difference.
        
           | BeefWellington wrote:
           | > Sad to say, but Linux just isn't a good experience for
           | gaming yet. Even if games work, there's usually caveats (like
           | needing to be run through some sort of emulation) and they
           | almost always run faster and in a more stable manner than
           | Windows.
           | 
           | This is an outdated take, from my perspective, as someone who
           | is an avid gamer and who is running only Linux at home
           | currently. While no doubt it's easy to find problem games,
           | the point of the very article this thread linked is that it's
           | come such a long way that the majority of the top titles in
           | terms of hours played on Steam now work in Proton.
           | 
           | There's been a few examples where people have compared the
           | performance across games and found it's basically tied in the
           | majority of games but occasionally there will be an outlier
           | that plays better on Windows. Less often, there will be an
           | outlier that plays better on Linux.[1]
           | 
           | If Valve sorts out the Anti-Cheat stuff, the number of games
           | that don't actually run (and run well) on Linux could drop to
           | near zero.
           | 
           | Proton isn't really emulation; a better way to think of it is
           | that it's a compatiblity layer, much the same way DirectX,
           | Vulkan, et. al, are compatiblity layers.
           | 
           | > Most people I know are more than happy to pay that premium
           | compared to the hassle of dealing with Linux.
           | 
           | This part is more likely for far more users. However, it
           | misses the point entirely. For a great number of years, as a
           | gamer, I had to keep around a Windows system in order to
           | partake in my hobby. That's not really the case anymore.
           | 
           | [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aE5WyObAFtk
        
             | novok wrote:
             | For me, when I've tried old valve native games on a 2018
             | macbook pro 15" with a GPU on macOS, I still get these
             | stutters in input and other small things that happen that I
             | don't get on even 10 year old gaming PCs today that were
             | mid-tier back then. Those stutters and such make the game
             | frustrating and I perform worse during key moments, which
             | makes me go back to my gaming PC.
             | 
             | I can see how something would be rated 'platinum' for linux
             | still be unacceptable in those ways. If your playing a
             | single player game I can see how it's ok, but not for
             | twitchy multiplayer games like MOBAs or FPSs.
        
               | easton wrote:
               | > macOS
               | 
               | Due to macOS not supporting Vulkan and other stuff
               | required for Proton, it's been on the backburner for
               | support from Valve for a while. Portal 2 can't even run
               | on macOS anymore since it is 32-bit only. Most games work
               | how they would on Windows when running under Proton vs a
               | native port, you should try it on a Linux machine when
               | you have time.
        
         | kcb wrote:
         | Despite n number of games working Proton/Wine is still not
         | ideal. The performance and frame pacing especially on
         | graphically intensive games is significantly worse than
         | Windows.
        
         | Philip-J-Fry wrote:
         | Windows costs like PS5 max. All you need is an OEM key. Yeah,
         | you might need a new one if you change enough components but it
         | ain't gonna break the bank once every few years.
        
           | judge2020 wrote:
           | To add, if you succumb to using a Microsoft account for your
           | main Windows account, it seems you can swap out hardware a
           | lot more without losing your license (although I imagine you
           | can't swap out hardware and reinstall at the same time). I've
           | had this one key since 2015 with many upgrades, including
           | motherboard+cpu swaps, hard drive swaps, and a few
           | reinstalls, and haven't lost the license.
        
             | noasaservice wrote:
             | So did you name your computer Theseus?
             | 
             | :)
        
             | tyrfing wrote:
             | With some trickery you only need the MS account for setup.
             | You can also transfer the key to a completely new system.
             | 
             | With a bit more time to prune services/apps and set up
             | something like simplewall to block everything else, you
             | have a pretty decent setup. Sure, it's not FOSS, but
             | neither is Steam or any of those games.
             | 
             | Looking at my personal selection of long-tail games, about
             | 1/3 work perfectly on Linux, another 1/3 don't work at all,
             | and the last 1/3 have various levels of yak-shaving
             | tweaking settings before they run well. That last 1/3 is
             | why I went back to Windows years ago.
        
               | skohan wrote:
               | If you went back years ago, you might have missed how
               | good Linux gaming has gotten recently.
        
               | tyrfing wrote:
               | I understand that, it's why I went down my list of games
               | to check the current state. A lot seem to work very well
               | now, some are completely broken due to anticheat systems,
               | and many still have discussion of tweaks and versions to
               | coax them into running decently.
               | 
               | Seems like singleplayer games mostly work very well.
        
       | city41 wrote:
       | One thing I really like about Proton is with smaller indie games,
       | they almost always work perfectly. When I tell a developer their
       | new game works flawlessly on Linux they are usually grateful that
       | the question of whether to port or not to Linux gets answered for
       | them in a positive way.
        
       | ziml77 wrote:
       | Does anyone know of any tests that compare click-to-screen and
       | click-to-speaker latencies in Linux to Windows? Mostly asking
       | because I've heard that the audio systems on Linux aren't great.
       | Would be nice to actually put numbers to that.
       | 
       | Also, do things that inject overlays work under Proton? I
       | occasionally use RTSS to monitor frame times and whatnot, and in
       | FFXIV I use a combat log parser that adds an overlay for DPS
       | meters. And while not critical, I like having reshade available
       | (though that's more than just an overlay).
        
         | jvzr wrote:
         | Pipewire (which is being released in mainstream distros since
         | this summer) has mostly/entirely fixed these issues. On my
         | particular end (Arch, for gaming) it's 100% perfect with no
         | latency
         | 
         | Edit: Pipewire is a new system AND a "drop-in" replacement for
         | any of PulseAudio/Alsa/JACK (just add whichever package you
         | want and it will replace that particular audio stack with
         | Pipewire's replacement)
        
       | ant6n wrote:
       | Now if a fresh Mint install on a common 5-year-old laptop could
       | be set up out of the box with a working swap (8gb ram is not
       | enough) and working power management (staying on until battery
       | dies is not an option) as well as working suspend and hibernate,
       | perhaps we could some day declare the year of the Linux desktop.
        
         | revolvingocelot wrote:
         | One doesn't have any traditional Linux power management
         | problems if one is using a Linux desktop.
         | 
         | It will likely be many years before the year of the Linux
         | _laptop_.
        
           | hef19898 wrote:
           | Lenovo might disagree.
        
             | revolvingocelot wrote:
             | Yeah, ThinkPads exist, thanks, but I'm replying to the guy
             | who's saying that Linux on laptops generally sucks, and it
             | does. Of course you can chase down specific hardware that
             | works; that was true when the problem was "wifi on Linux
             | generally sucks", too.
             | 
             | My understanding of the situation is that manufacturers
             | tend to work really hard with Microsoft on graceful power
             | management code, and until that effort is replicated on
             | Linux (lol), one has to chase down specific hardware,
             | because otherwise it generally sucks.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | pxc wrote:
         | Now if a fresh macOS install on a common 5-year-old laptop
         | could be set up out of the box with a working swap (8gb ram is
         | not enough) and working power management (staying on until
         | battery dies is not an option) as well as working suspend and
         | hibernate, perhaps we could some day declare the year of the
         | Mac desktop.
        
           | smoldesu wrote:
           | Now if a fresh Windows 11 install on a common 5-year-old
           | laptop could be set up out of the box with perpetual updates
           | (Skylake CPUs aren't new enough) and working power management
           | (microsoft deleted my acpi tables =C) as well as working
           | suspend and hibernate, perhaps we could some day declare the
           | year of the Windows desktop.
        
         | fastssd wrote:
         | I use a ten year old laptop and it does all of the above(with
         | Mint as well).
        
       | arepublicadoceu wrote:
       | A few thoughts:
       | 
       | 1) Proton labels like platinum, means how much effort you need to
       | put for the game to run on linux. It says nothing about how well
       | it will run. So "work on Linux" means basically that it works on
       | Linux. It says nothing about performance. For instance I had a
       | game labeled platinum run without effort on Arch with 50fps with
       | constant drops to 30 ~ 25fps whereas on windows it runs at a
       | constant 60fps with rare drops to 55/50. (Yeah, I've tried all
       | variations of proton, kernel, disabled composition etc)
       | 
       | 2) In my experience people that says that they see no difference
       | in performance between linux and windows they usually have a
       | powerful gpu, not a medium or low end one. So if you hear on the
       | internet people claiming that the performance is about the same,
       | it's highly dependent on the game and/or your system specs.
        
         | ekianjo wrote:
         | That is mostly true. But getting games to run seamlessly is the
         | biggest hurdle. Once you get there, there are various ways you
         | can optimize for performance, and translation layers like DXVK
         | and VKD3D are really close to Windows performance these days on
         | modern GPUs. There are numerous benchs on youtube when you can
         | see that for yourself.
        
         | swinglock wrote:
         | That's unfortunate. "Works perfectly but doesn't perform well"
         | is an oxymoron for games.
        
         | jlkuester7 wrote:
         | What is interesting to me about the performance differences, is
         | that, yes, on my underpowered hardware Rocket League runs
         | better on Windows, but not so much better that I bother
         | rebooting from Linux when I want to play.
         | 
         | If a game is "good enough" on Linux, I think that is good
         | enough for a lot of folks...
        
         | arepublicadoceu wrote:
         | Not that I care much about internet points but I'm trying to
         | understand why this is being so heavily downvoted as every
         | reply I got is either agreeing or kind of agreeing with me.
         | 
         | This is not a criticism for Proton, I find that getting this
         | performance on an emulated environment is nothing short than a
         | miracle looking from 5~10 years ago.
         | 
         | My only intention was to set expectation accordingly for new
         | users. And I stand by everything I've said. My hope is that in
         | 5 years this comment will be completely outdated and new users
         | can have compatibility and performance on par with windows,
         | even on bad hardware.
        
           | hn8788 wrote:
           | I'm guessing the downvotes are from Valve/Steam fanboys who
           | don't like any criticism of their favorite company; I see it
           | all the time on social media sites. Valve have said that they
           | will have every Steam game running under Proton by the end of
           | the year, so pointing out that it's misleading statement at
           | best will draw the ire of people who worship Lord Gaben.
        
           | [deleted]
        
       | Apocryphon wrote:
       | Great! So how's BSD support? And then, Haiku.
        
       | yepthatsreality wrote:
       | Too much "doesn't perform well or is buggy" or "not 100%"
       | criticism. While the critics are not wrong those critiques don't
       | apply to every single piece of software. It also shouldn't stop
       | people from partitioning a hard drive and giving it a try either.
       | 
       | Easiest way to accomplish trying out a Linux install and testing
       | out games is to move your Steam library to a separate hard drive.
       | This allows you to boot up any OS distribution and Steam will
       | handle downloading any files you may need for these games on
       | Linux. If you don't like it or it's not compatible enough, no
       | harm or foul, boot back into Windows.
       | 
       | You will probably find that most games work very well. Don't let
       | criticism dissuade you!
        
         | smoldesu wrote:
         | > While the critics are not wrong those critiques don't apply
         | to every single piece of software.
         | 
         | Conversely, many games are less broken on Linux than they are
         | on Windows. Since Wine lets you emulate a virtual desktop, you
         | can circumvent the dreaded "alt-tab" crash that plagued
         | Bethesda games since Morrowind, and even enjoy games like
         | Diablo 2 in their maxed-out glory without disabling your other
         | monitors.
        
       | nohr wrote:
       | I was impressed to find out even some mmos work, like Final
       | Fantasy 14. There's some janky side loading you can do, but
       | there's even a custom launcher that loads faster than the stock
       | one, and runs Linux! I'm always super impressed when gaming
       | communities fix their own issues like this.
        
         | gpderetta wrote:
         | IIRC, the main Proton DXVK developer is an avid FFXIV player :)
        
       | rsav wrote:
       | It's really amazing how well you can play on Linux now that
       | Proton came out. There's only a handful of games that I need to
       | boot into Windows for. On Linux most games work just as well as
       | in Windows. ~10 years ago playing on Wine was a pain.
        
       | arendtio wrote:
       | Another Option to play games on Linux is Geforce Now. I try to
       | avoid Nvidia products, but with this service you can play some
       | games 'on' Linux which are not supported natively or via
       | Proton/Wine.
        
       | pizza234 wrote:
       | To be noted that top games may not be representative of Linux
       | gaming in general.
       | 
       | There's a (very) long tail of games that surely receive less
       | attention (by the Wine/Proton teams).
       | 
       | Additionally, a large part of the top ones has a native port,
       | which smaller production companies/indie devs typically can't
       | afford.
       | 
       | On the other hand, smaller games could be simpler to "not
       | emulate" (:^)) due to them being simpler.
       | 
       | > they have committed to bringing all Steam titles to the Steam
       | Deck running SteamOS
       | 
       | This is unrealistic.
        
         | sdenton4 wrote:
         | My experience has been that EAC is a problem at the top of the
         | list, and there's an enormous middle of the list where things
         | just work, and a very long tail of older games which don't
         | really work at all. (Once everything became unity, the problem
         | got easier, I think...)
        
       | MrDresden wrote:
       | I exited the Windows ecosystem completely in '19 and haven't had
       | any issues since playing games on my Linux machine.
       | 
       | Just recently played Titanfall 2 and Battlefield 1. Both worked
       | almost flawlessly (one to two crashes each).
        
       | Finnucane wrote:
       | I still haven't even been able to steam to run due to missing 32
       | bit libraries.
        
         | itronitron wrote:
         | https://steamcommunity.com/app/221410/discussions/0/35054097...
        
         | iotku wrote:
         | Well I sure hope you find them
        
       | howinteresting wrote:
       | I've been using Linux on my desktop gaming PC and Windows on my
       | living room gaming PC for the last year.
       | 
       | The big thing that is still missing from Linux gaming is HDR
       | support. It's somewhat janky but otherwise works fine on Windows,
       | and the Auto HDR on Windows 11 is pretty great. Hoping Linux gets
       | there soon.
        
       | marcodiego wrote:
       | The day this number reaches 100% will be on of those before/after
       | moments. Considering the only problem with remaining 8 titles not
       | running is DRM/anti-cheat, it is possible that we'll see this day
       | arrive.
       | 
       | I usually make fun of "linux on the desktop" prophets by saying
       | "Yes, 90% is great but problem is that everybody uses a different
       | 90%". But 100% of the 50 most popular games is a different thing.
       | It is a level of compatibility that you may not even achieve on
       | windows depending on your hardware. Of course, performance and a
       | few bugs will exist, but compatibility will be good enough for
       | almost everybody.
       | 
       | I wonder if this coupled with steam deck will finally make
       | supporting linux sustainable. I mean, a point where supporting is
       | so cheap and the number of users is big enough that it becomes
       | profitable to do so. If that happens, most excuses to not support
       | linux will finally vanish away.
        
         | revolvingocelot wrote:
         | >I wonder if this coupled with steam deck will finally make
         | supporting linux sustainable
         | 
         | I'd settle for devs trying to make games whose win32 api calls
         | are within the bounds of that which Proton can handle. Why
         | bother natively supporting Linux when you can architect
         | something that'll run in Windows _and_ Proton? Elsewhere in the
         | thread I saw comments about how most indie stuff Just Works
         | even now; I wonder if that 's the subset of indie stuff that's,
         | like, fairly paint-by-numbers projects in Unreal or Unity that
         | aren't doing anything really unusual and thus are handily
         | translated by Proton.
        
         | matheusmoreira wrote:
         | > Considering the only problem with remaining 8 titles not
         | running is DRM/anti-cheat
         | 
         | This is going to be a huge problem. These corporations are
         | going to be installing borderline malware into our computers.
         | People will be forced to accept it if they want to play the
         | games they paid money for. Invasive proprietary kernel modules
         | designed to monitor your activities isn't something we should
         | be supporting.
        
           | fragileone wrote:
           | I run these games via GeForce NOW. There's no way I'm
           | installing kernel-level proprietary monitoring software.
        
             | baby wrote:
             | Unfortunately cheaters ruin everything
        
               | matheusmoreira wrote:
               | Cheaters aren't a strong enough reason to ship malware to
               | users to monitor them. This sort of thing ought to be
               | unacceptable.
               | 
               | This is 100% on the games industry. They engaged in an
               | arms race with cheaters and now their ineffective
               | solutions are worse than the problem they're attempting
               | to solve.
        
               | tl wrote:
               | You misspelt corporations.
        
             | matheusmoreira wrote:
             | > There's no way I'm installing kernel-level proprietary
             | monitoring software.
             | 
             | Yeah, me neither. It's gonna suck if they start requiring
             | it on Linux though. I hope smarter people than me will find
             | workarounds that allow us to pretend their shitty modules
             | are running.
             | 
             | Just in case anyone is wondering why this is a big deal:
             | 
             | https://www.theregister.com/2016/09/23/capcom_street_fighte
             | r...
        
         | owaislone wrote:
         | > Considering the only problem with remaining 8 titles not
         | running is DRM/anti-cheat, it is possible that we'll see this
         | day arrive.
         | 
         | Valve has confirmed they are working with Epic (and another
         | vendor) to support EAC on at least Steam OS if not every distro
         | but I'd imagine Steam itself would contain everything that'd be
         | needed to run EAC. So if you can run Steam on your favourite
         | distro, I think EAC should work as well.
        
           | [deleted]
        
           | skohan wrote:
           | Is there a possibility it would be solved only on Steam Deck
           | but not other hardware?
        
             | ekianjo wrote:
             | On Steam Deck they will be using signed Proton builds to
             | make EAC work. Which means you wont be able to use EAC on
             | just any Linux distro unless you use the same signed
             | builds.
        
               | the8472 wrote:
               | What will a signed proton build do when a cheater can run
               | as root or load a kernel module? I suspect they'll go
               | much further and demand secure boot with vendor keys (no
               | custom keys) and a locked down kernel.
        
               | [deleted]
        
               | foxhill wrote:
               | citation required?
        
             | pkulak wrote:
             | Yes. You will likely need to be running a signed Steam
             | install plus a signed version of the game. I'm 100%
             | confident that it will be figured out in a repo like the
             | aur, but it may be some work for Ubuntu folks and whatnot.
        
               | mjevans wrote:
               | Archlinux steam user here: Steam auto-updates and Steam's
               | default Proton install is pulled down by Steam and stored
               | within it's paths.
               | 
               | Mostly this would affect anything that needs an
               | unsupported build of Proton to work properly. Which is
               | mostly lots of games that use the insane plethora of
               | media presentation layers every big company has added to
               | Windows over the decades.
               | 
               | From what I've seen of games on Twitch, EAC style games
               | tend to not rely on FMV and are generally 'all live' so
               | there shouldn't be many problems.
        
           | pstrateman wrote:
           | The irony is that EAC doesnt stop cheaters at all.
        
             | dafelst wrote:
             | It won't stop anyone who has the skill to author cheats
             | themselves (i.e. someone with basic reversing and
             | programming experience) but it does do a good job of
             | detecting and banning players who are using widely
             | distributed "commercial" cheats.
             | 
             | I look at EAC as being very analogous to a virus scanner,
             | very easy to bypass if you know what you're doing, but good
             | at catching the common and soon-to-be common threats. It
             | also puts up enough roadblocks to make some novice attempts
             | at cheating inconvenient at least.
             | 
             | Source: I deal with all the anti-cheat stuff (including
             | EAC) on a semi-popular multi-player game. I can verify that
             | it does make a very tangible difference to our player base
             | in terms of the number of cheaters they are exposed to on a
             | per match or per session basis.
        
               | novok wrote:
               | Do these anti cheat systems detect popular products of
               | popular dev tools to create cheats typically? Or is the
               | cheat world way beyond that phase and everyone just codes
               | to the native OS APIs directly, making that hard to
               | detect?
               | 
               | Is there still cheating in console players? Maybe with
               | jail broken devices? Do these companies really have to
               | think about cheating with consoles? Do you think the
               | eventual future of these kind of games is some sort of
               | locked down console-like system, which is what apple
               | seems to slowly be going to with their hardware?
        
               | thatguy0900 wrote:
               | My warframe account was banned a while ago for having
               | cheat engine running in the background. I was using cheat
               | engine with total war, a single player series and never
               | hooked it into warframe. So some systems at least just
               | looks for running processes to create cheat tools.
        
               | arsome wrote:
               | EAC is actually pretty terrible against commercial
               | cheats, it's only use is against free cheats pretty much.
               | If you're willing to pay, you'll find many for EAC games.
        
               | ziml77 wrote:
               | That still reduces the number of cheaters. Having to get
               | out a credit card even to pay a penny is a barrier to
               | people cheating.
        
               | zorked wrote:
               | Interesting. I am not a gamer at all: so there is a
               | market for cheating tools? How "legit" is it? Where do
               | players go to buy cheats?
        
               | dafelst wrote:
               | I've found that the biggest marketplaces are on the
               | Chinese web, places like taobao have a HUGE number. Also
               | Russian social networks as well.
        
               | arsome wrote:
               | Many major titles are using EAC currently, Fortnite, Apex
               | Legends, PUBG, etc. There's a pretty large market for
               | cheats in any of those titles. Just dropping "<game>
               | aimbot" or "<game> cheats" into google is likely to turn
               | up a multitude of commercial cheat developers, many of
               | which are legitimate and will bypass the current anti-
               | cheat.
               | 
               | Generally the legitimate commercial cheat developers
               | offer status pages detailing any of their cheats that are
               | currently detected and offer additional tools to do
               | things like bypass hardware ID detection if you did get
               | banned in the past.
        
               | bscphil wrote:
               | > bypass the _current_ anti-cheat
               | 
               | Maybe I'm clueless but as I understand it some of these
               | shooters (e.g. PUBG) are games that you _pay_ for. If one
               | of these commercial cheats gets detected by EAC isn 't
               | the result a permaban of your paid for account? And then
               | you have to buy the game again and make a new one, if
               | that's possible at all? Seems like that would be a
               | serious deterrent, although obviously it won't stop
               | everyone. (Encountering a cheater once out of every ten
               | matches is probably acceptable. Encountering one in every
               | other match probably isn't.)
        
             | dkersten wrote:
             | No anti-cheat will ever completely stop cheaters. There are
             | plenty of cheat tools that are basically impossible to
             | prevent. The question is whether EAC is good enough? I
             | don't know, I play very little multiplayer these days.
        
               | mastax wrote:
               | In my experience any popular free to play multiplayer
               | game is eventually inundated with cheaters no matter what
               | anti cheat is used.
        
               | judge2020 wrote:
               | In the end, games need to be built better by sending the
               | least information needed to clients, ie. zero-trust. This
               | is a big part of things like CS:GO, Valorant, and RTS
               | games like starcraft/League/Dota since they can implement
               | a 'fog of war' and only network information if their
               | client actually needs it[0].
               | 
               | The only cheats that still plague Dota are scripts that
               | perform tasks automatically, such as disabling an
               | opponent as soon as they're visible (beyond human
               | ability), and those are taken care of by heuristics[1]
               | and a community-voting-based 'overwatch' system in CS:GO
               | and Dota 2[2].
               | 
               | 0: https://technology.riotgames.com/news/demolishing-
               | wallhacks-...
               | 
               | 1: https://youtu.be/hI7V60r7Jco
               | 
               | 2: https://www.dota2.com/newsentry/3025824821114909461
        
               | orbital-decay wrote:
               | _> games need to be built better by sending the least
               | information needed to clients, ie. zero-trust_
               | 
               | That isn't possible in real world for every type of
               | competitive gameplay; trade-offs need to be made. Even
               | games you list are not "zero trust" - things like looking
               | direction are left to the client because of the latency.
               | 
               | Moreover, it's not enough. What's also needed is a
               | hardware chain of trust for input devices. On-device
               | cryptographic signing of mouse events would be sufficient
               | and would guarantee that input comes from a fair play-
               | compliant device.
        
               | jMyles wrote:
               | > On-device cryptographic signing of mouse events would
               | be sufficient and would guarantee that input comes from a
               | fair play-compliant device.
               | 
               | SGX for human inputs. What can go wrong?
        
               | orbital-decay wrote:
               | SGX is a super-privileged, encrypted, and isolated
               | enclave in the main CPU memory that can be used for
               | anything. Signed mouse input is much more benign. But
               | sure, I see your point - this is DRM, and it can be used
               | to control the access to your own mouse, even outside of
               | online gaming.
               | 
               | Still, it's the most logical step, and it would probably
               | happen in several years, after Microsoft started
               | demanding TPM 2.0. Valorant already requires TPM to be
               | enabled on Windows 11 to run.
               | 
               | By the way, A4Tech has on-device DRM for more than a
               | decade, they are using it to stop people pirating their
               | software. Which is, ironically, designed for cheating.
        
               | jMyles wrote:
               | > SGX is a super-privileged, encrypted, and isolated
               | enclave in the main CPU memory that can be used for
               | anything.
               | 
               | My position is s/"a super-privileged, encrypted, and
               | isolated enclave in the main CPU memory that can be used
               | for anything"/"a failed experiment in computer
               | pseudoscience".
               | 
               | And the nightmare scenario I imagine is a more lubricated
               | path to framing political dissidents by forging
               | attestations that they were searching for child abuse
               | imagery or some similar scenario.
        
               | dkersten wrote:
               | The problem with zero trust and only sending what the
               | player can actually see is lag. For example, sure, you
               | could eliminate wall hacks by only sending positions of
               | players that you have line of sight of, but that
               | essentially eliminates any client-side movement
               | prediction or other lag compensation and means you have
               | to send each frames data quickly enough. This may work
               | for some games that are less lag sensitive and as
               | internet speeds improve, but its not currently a solution
               | for most players.
        
           | jorvi wrote:
           | Most of the other titles run BattlEye, it seems.
           | 
           | What is kind of strange is that Ark: Survival _is_ running on
           | Linux and also has BattlEye..
        
             | valczir wrote:
             | Check the chart again - ARK is native. If you run it in
             | proton (many mods have issues with the linux-native version
             | of the game, so many people _do_ run it in proton), then
             | you can 't join battleye-enabled servers.
        
         | Agentlien wrote:
         | As a game developer who used to run Linux exclusively it's
         | really frustrating to work full time on games knowing they
         | don't work on Linux just because of DRM.
        
         | 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
         | I'm not so sure. Steam is nice but what about other online
         | stores like the Microsoft Store? I'm worried that Microsoft
         | will push more integration to break compatibility on Linux.
        
       | dkersten wrote:
       | I only have a linux laptop these days (and even before that, had
       | a Macbook for work, haven't had Windows in a long time) and I've
       | noticed that I can play more and more without Proton. Proton is
       | also pretty good these days, but I'm on wayland (sway) and Proton
       | seems to have problems running on xwayland, so if I want to play
       | them, I have to switch to X, which is usually too much effort
       | (have to close my dev tools etc). But like I said, more and more
       | games have Linux-native versions now! I hope that with the new
       | Valve hardware coming out, more developers will add first-class
       | Linux support.
        
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