Valve Is Working on Another Extension to Help in Direct3D-over-Vulkan • Hacker News Board

Re: Valve Is Working on Another Extension to Help in Direct3D-over-Vulkan

#271

Post by Cloudef » Wed, Nov 11, 2020, 8:22 AM UTC

oliwarner wrote: post #58

forest_dweller wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are missing the point. The games do not work. As you said some install Kernel Level drivers (I believe this is a Ring-0 but I am not an expert in such things) as a Anti-cheat mechanism. These do not work with Wine/Proton. e.g. Doom Eternal worked fine until the first patch and then didn't once the anti-cheat was installed (for the non-existant multiplayer community). Then they removed it only after the fanbase he…

Those games don't work. And it's important to note that occasionally those games also don't work for Windows users. New drivers, strange setups, perfectly legitimate background software, they've all upset the boat at some point, and will again in the future. Trusted Clients are fragile beasts. It was Denuvo's Anti-Cheat and Anti-Tamper that were added retrospectively to Doom Eternal. Denuvo has a pretty awful track r…

This is a very good comment. See this thread how Riot basically dictates what people are allowed to run or install on their system just to run a stupid game. https://www.reddit.com/r/VALORANT/comments/g3yqxd/psa_riot_v...

Leave moderation to players, it's way more effective than any sort of client side cheat detection.

Re: Valve Is Working on Another Extension to Help in Direct3D-over-Vulkan

#272

Post by Cloudef » Wed, Nov 11, 2020, 8:23 AM UTC

gpderetta wrote: post #100

forest_dweller wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are missing the point. The games do not work. As you said some install Kernel Level drivers (I believe this is a Ring-0 but I am not an expert in such things) as a Anti-cheat mechanism. These do not work with Wine/Proton. e.g. Doom Eternal worked fine until the first patch and then didn't once the anti-cheat was installed (for the non-existant multiplayer community). Then they removed it only after the fanbase he…

passthrough and the required VM also has issues with many anticheat, right?

Many anti-cheat rootkits detect VM and blocks you.

Re: Valve Is Working on Another Extension to Help in Direct3D-over-Vulkan

#273

Post by netjiro » Wed, Nov 11, 2020, 8:35 AM UTC

airstrike wrote: post #137

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's interesting is that games are one of the main reasons the market share is negligible. It used to be games and Office, but home users can increasingly get by with the web version or Google Docs or LibreOffice. But people still keep Windows on their PCs for games. If the games start to run on Linux, what's still keeping people on Windows?

Google Docs is no replacement for actual serious work in Office. That's like asking someone who uses NetBeans to switch over to repl.it

From what I see when I step in to help various organisations improve I'd argue the opposite. Google docs improves coordination, which is the largest real cost of using ms office. To the point where most orgs have structured their whole operation around _how_ they are used to using ms office, with it's limitations. Stepping away from ms office allows concurrent distributed work, which radically improves efficiency.

google docs is a low friction entry into modern work coordination. It's not what I recommend for heavy work. But for heavy work ms office fails as well, just a little bit later, and with more costly result.

Re: Valve Is Working on Another Extension to Help in Direct3D-over-Vulkan

#274

Post by pzone » Wed, Nov 11, 2020, 9:17 AM UTC

WhyNotHugo wrote: post #248

Jnr wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft and other game makers will try pushing more exclusives to reduce Valve's "market share". Microsoft recently bought ZeniMax, which makes lots of popular titles that I played on Steam. Unreal is working on their own game store. PS and Xbox has had exclusives for years. If it keeps going this direction, Valve will have to pull a rabbit out of their hat. Either by making some great games again or surprising us…

> Unreal is working on their own game store. This is so sad. Just fragmenting the market more merely increases the influence of MS. > PS and Xbox has had exclusives for years. These don't really compete with PCs. People stick to one, another, or both. Seldom do gamers suddenly switch from PC to console and completely drop their PC.

The Epic store is the first significant competitor to Steam. They take a lower cut of game sales than Steam does. I wouldn’t lose sleep over market fragmentation.

Re: Valve Is Working on Another Extension to Help in Direct3D-over-Vulkan

#275

Post by yellowapple » Wed, Nov 11, 2020, 9:29 AM UTC

giobox wrote: post #239

jay_kyburz wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting you say that, because my response to Epic when they sued Apple was that their time would be better spent contributing to an open platform for phones.

It's beyond scope of a hacker news comment for me, but Epic case against Apple/Google store distribution terms is sufficiently different IMO. How exactly would Epic ship this open platform when Google and Apple expressly control what apps run and do not? From where I stand, without intervention their only option is inferior browser based streaming solutions like this: https://www.theverge.com/2020/11/5/21551152/fortn…

> How exactly would Epic ship this open platform when Google and Apple expressly control what apps run and do not?

By sidestepping Google's Play Store and encouraging sideloading (whether by directly downloading a game's .apk or by pushing an alternative app store like what Amazon and F-Droid do), for one.

That is: any Android ROM that allows sideloading (which, last I checked, is most of them) is already that "open platform" (in the Windows sense of not restricting what software runs on it, rather than the free software sense).

Re: Valve Is Working on Another Extension to Help in Direct3D-over-Vulkan

#276

Post by rowanG077 » Wed, Nov 11, 2020, 12:39 PM UTC

ShamelessC wrote: post #142

oseityphelysiol wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because they're working on Linux support, they don't care about Linux desktop. Steam os is based on Linux, but it would be naive to think they put much work in supporting Linux desktop, since the market share is neglibe.

I think the general idea here is that if you're competent enough with Linux to build something as useful as proton, you should be able to do something as simple as make a proper Linux client. Having said that, I haven't experienced any of the issues mentioned.

I'm not kidding when I say that deep technical work like building proton is a lot easier in some sense then building a good multiplatform UI.

Re: Valve Is Working on Another Extension to Help in Direct3D-over-Vulkan

#277

Post by Macha » Wed, Nov 11, 2020, 12:59 PM UTC

bicolao wrote: post #54

Jnr wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I remember correctly, Valve started doing this some time ago as an "insurance policy", when Microsoft spoke about locking down Windows (before they introduced Windows Store). It is amazing to see how far Linux gaming has come since then. 10 years ago almost none of the big games worked, 5 years ago lots of games worked after fiddling with wine config, and now most of the games I have tried work out of the box afte…

"Some time ago" was eight years ago (/r/linux_gaming reminded me of this). Amazing they kept going through all this time and do not seem to slow down.

I remember when the xcom reboot launched and it was a notable fact that there was a clone of the original xcom with 3d graphics. because that was the Linux gaming scene, openttd, wesnothn and emulation.

It's still amazing to me now that the only games I don't play on Linux are MMOs and competitive multiplayer because I'm worried about being banned by an overzealous anticheat. And by all accounts , the games in those categories I like do work on proton

Re: Valve Is Working on Another Extension to Help in Direct3D-over-Vulkan

#278

Post by oliwarner » Wed, Nov 11, 2020, 2:30 PM UTC

forest_dweller wrote: post #257

oliwarner wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not trying to give voice to every gamer, just pointing out that there's more to gaming than games that rely on this crap, and that some of us accept that. Life is full of quasi-moral choices like this. You can choose to support hardware that supports your platform. You can choose to buy local rather than carrots flown in from South Africa; wtf Waitrose! You can donate your time to helping people hoping it makes t…

> I'm not trying to give voice to every gamer, just pointing out that there's more to gaming than games that rely on this crap, and that some of us accept that. That wasn't what I was taking umbrage with. You dismissing the concerns as absurd was what I was taking umbrage with. > Life is full of quasi-moral choices like this. Yes understand this. > You can choose to support hardware that supports your platform. You c…

My dismissal of the original statement is well explained.

While some games with some anti-cheats won't work on Linux, the vast majority work well. There are options for viable future anti-cheats on Linux, between recreating what's been done for Windows, simple reputation systems, community moderation and actual event audits. The reason they'll be contemplated is the continued failure of trusted clients. And the significance of the 13 [of top 100] games that currently don't work is entirely down to player preferences.

Dramatics: you seem to be a person that understands the problem, understands individuality, but refuses to paint as more than a binary outcome. There are already a million gamers playing games on Linux, there's clearly room in the middle, and positive road to the future.

E-sports: the elite will continue to happen at real venues, but I think there's going to be significant growth in the every-day teams. Think five-a-side pub teams. They're not going to rent a £15k/d venue like Multiplay can, they're going to play online and need a way to ensure that all players are playing with the same tools. A cloud-rendered system does that and it'll only become more feasible in time. Yes, there's higher latency, but it's a known latency.

Re: Valve Is Working on Another Extension to Help in Direct3D-over-Vulkan

#279

Post by jrockway » Wed, Nov 11, 2020, 5:22 PM UTC

whatshisface wrote: post #145

Kaze404 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate to be that person but I've had no issues with the Steam client on Linux, and I've used it full time for years. Including more "advanced" features like in home streaming.

The nature of Linux platform problems is that they crop up for specific combinations of hardware and software. The biggest thing that Microsoft has over the open source community is the money to pay developers to bulldoze the combinatoric jungle that is compatibility. That, and the platform clout to get vendors to make their stuff work.

My experience is that Windows is just as bad. HiDPI doesn't work right unless the developer goes out of their way to support it. Random combinations of software hard-crash the entire OS. (My current easily-reproducible example? If you use PowerToys to tile windows, and a tiling operation happens concurrently with a DPI-resize operation, the computer blue screens! Fun!)

I was an early adopter of Linux and used a lot of weird hardware with it, and no combination of dragging windows ever caused the computer to reboot. What annoyed me most about Linux is how I got used to the brokenness, and it got fixed without being able to replicate the brokenness I was used to. For example, circa 2012 I got an early 4K monitor. It was implemented as two scalers connected to one panel, with both scalers connected to the same Displayport interface. Basically, it appeared to the computer as two separate and totally unrelated monitors, but was of course a single monitor. I could not for the life of me get Linux to treat both panels as a single monitor. But I used multiple monitors in the very early days of Linux, before XRandR, and I could never get it to treat my two monitors as separate devices -- windows would just pop up right in the gap between two monitors; X had no awareness of where the boundary was. I longed for that behavior, but the option was simply removed... because who would ever want that brokenness? (I did end up getting it working. There was a bug in the Nvidia driver that allowed you to turn on two options that caused all XRandR related functionality to silently break, and then my one monitor appeared as one monitor to the OS. Of course, even though my graphics card had 3 more video ports on the back, I could never connect another monitor. And I was always worried that a driver update would fix the multiple-interacting-bugs. But it never did! Or at least I replaced the monitor before it became a problem for me.)

Re: Valve Is Working on Another Extension to Help in Direct3D-over-Vulkan

#280

Post by chaorace » Wed, Nov 11, 2020, 6:32 PM UTC

seg_lol wrote: post #104

chaorace wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OpenGL/Vulkan are open source, multi-platform abstraction layers. Of course, the graphics API isn't the only thing you have to get to work on multiple platforms. There's also the sound stack, networking, window management, and so forth. I think what you're getting at is some kind of all-in-one platform that abstracts away all of those lower level interfaces. In that case, that's basically what Unity is. Unity (and ot…

Right now that cross platform abstraction layer is the Web. - https://get.webgl.org/webgl2/ - https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/WebSockets_... - https://webrtc.org/

I absolutely agree. It's the best way to get an app out that works everywhere.

In fact, I actually really wish we could collectively work out some kind of shared container environment for such apps to run more "natively". Something like Electron, but shared between many applications and a little more loosey-goosey in terms of hacking on top of it. Essentially, I want emacs for webapps lol