This is really the nail in the coffin for Linux-native game ports. It's really, really hard to justify expending the effort
I would imagine a large part is segmentation. You can’t even guarantee that X is installed on the system. This is a hard problem since most games are proprietary. Edit: commenters make good counterpoints
With Proton and Steam Play, many Windows games now work on Linux
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Re: With Proton and Steam Play, many Windows games now work on Linux
#22At this point I'm not worried about compatibility, but rather shitty game companies banning you the second they figure out you're playing on linux.
This is especially an issue in PvE heavy games that have only small PvP elements. Looking at you Destiny 2.
I really wish companies stopped their draconian policies about Linux gaming. Or at the very least just restricted PvP game play when Linux was detected. Heck I'd manually go in and press a button certifying that I'm a Linux player and I understand that I won't have access to every portion of the game if that's what they need me to do.
But these limitations have also pushed me to explore more indie, or small publishing games that are multi-player. Shout out to Northgard and Deep Rock Galactic (even though it doesn't support Linux natively) for making an awesome cooperative experience that I can have with my friends on Linux.
Also, for developers making games out there. PLEASE test your game with the steam runtime OS thing, not with Ubuntu or a specific distro. The steam runtime is open source and can easily be bootstrspped for any game, even outside of steam. It also ensures optimal compatibility with every distro out there.
Re: With Proton and Steam Play, many Windows games now work on Linux
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have an anti-cheat startup, and Linux support is a big priority for us. The segmentation problem on Linux is a real challenge for us. It’s likely we will only ever be able to support the big distros, and we also are exploring using TPM remote attestation. Both of these things take away user freedom to tinker with their systems, an ability Linux enthusiasts enjoy. But with this freedom implicitly comes with the free…
how would you stop someone sticking in a dodgy PCI card (disguised as an innocent one) that can read the entire machine's memory using DMA?
Re: With Proton and Steam Play, many Windows games now work on Linux
#24Unity actually exports Linux binaries so most developers could do Linux natively. The issue ends up being support cost vs sales. If 1% of your fan base runs Ubuntu, but they're 50% of your big reports, it's cheaper to not worry about them.
The bugs are probably still there on the Windows version but those users are less accustomed to filling bug reports.
Like if y'all really want I can upload the Linux build and make it clear it's not going to work as well. I can't support every single distro after all
Re: With Proton and Steam Play, many Windows games now work on Linux
#25This is really the nail in the coffin for Linux-native game ports. It's really, really hard to justify expending the effort
If things work flawlessly, do we care?
If companies want to support Linux out of the box, they don't have to expend resources creating multiple builds and need only to focus on testing a single build. Even a token amount of testing from a single QA engineer (does it run?) would go a _long way_ into ensuring we can run things on Linux.
From lurking in wine-dev, games that work but have a few issues progress much faster than ones that don't even boot up (or they do but don't actually work).
It's a bit unfortunate that the Win32 api is being used as a lingua franca, but I'll take it.
Re: With Proton and Steam Play, many Windows games now work on Linux
#26as i understand it the big roadblock for multiplayer AAA titles is anticheat, and dont see anyway that changes until linux eats into the MS marketshare (but it should.. linux is a joy!)
I have an anti-cheat startup, and Linux support is a big priority for us. The segmentation problem on Linux is a real challenge for us. It’s likely we will only ever be able to support the big distros, and we also are exploring using TPM remote attestation. Both of these things take away user freedom to tinker with their systems, an ability Linux enthusiasts enjoy. But with this freedom implicitly comes with the free…
Re: With Proton and Steam Play, many Windows games now work on Linux
#27Gaming on Linux has been so fucking good. I switched from Windows to Linux a month ago and literally haven’t found a game I can’t play. Even Red Dead Redemption 2, Hades, Fallen Jedi, Ghostrunner... Oh the really icing on the cake is just how easy it all is. You literally just install the Windows version and things “just work.” Its amazing. I’ve said this a lot of times now but it’s pretty amazing to write code and p…
I remember watching the DXVK developer work on Witcher 3 support. Progress was lightning fast and then, suddenly, Proton appeared. Even VR games work! Thank you, Valve. You guys are my low key hero's.
Re: With Proton and Steam Play, many Windows games now work on Linux
#28Gaming on Linux has been so fucking good. I switched from Windows to Linux a month ago and literally haven’t found a game I can’t play. Even Red Dead Redemption 2, Hades, Fallen Jedi, Ghostrunner... Oh the really icing on the cake is just how easy it all is. You literally just install the Windows version and things “just work.” Its amazing. I’ve said this a lot of times now but it’s pretty amazing to write code and p…
Re: With Proton and Steam Play, many Windows games now work on Linux
#29The planets aligned with Centos 8, Steam, and AMD drivers somewhere around late January. Things went from crazy difficult to just working.
Over the Spring/Summer/Fall I've seen significant progress on what worked on Windows vs Proton vs native Linux. A significant chunk of my Steam library now plays on my primary box. When the day comes where I actually get my hands on a new CPU/video card... those will actually go into my workstation.
Re: With Proton and Steam Play, many Windows games now work on Linux
#30Gaming on Linux has been so fucking good. I switched from Windows to Linux a month ago and literally haven’t found a game I can’t play. Even Red Dead Redemption 2, Hades, Fallen Jedi, Ghostrunner... Oh the really icing on the cake is just how easy it all is. You literally just install the Windows version and things “just work.” Its amazing. I’ve said this a lot of times now but it’s pretty amazing to write code and p…