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Valve's Proton Has Enabled 7000 Windows Games on Linux

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Re: Valve's Proton Has Enabled 7000 Windows Games on Linux

#91

Post by Cthulhu_ »

cf wrote: post #58

The problem with Proton is it is leading many game developers to actually drop Linux support. They basically say players seem to be able to get the game to work on Proton and that's that. But with no official support there is no guarantee it will continue to work with updates. There is no promise to even try to make it work if it breaks. And that's the major stuff. Imagine spending 20, 30, or 60 dollars on a game tha…

I think it's absolutely fine. How many people test their web applications on Linux? Few, because there's a virtualization layer between the application and the underlying operating system, so webapps are a write once, run anywhere application.

Games can be the same, they just need an abstraction layer - be it a VM, an emulator, or whatever Proton is.

And sure, you may not get perfect performance, but that is becoming less and less of a problem.

Re: Valve's Proton Has Enabled 7000 Windows Games on Linux

#92

Post by sandworm101 »

cacois wrote: post #82
sandworm101 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because Proton creates a dangerous market pressure. The linux+proton user is the ideal customer for a game developer: someone paying full price but to whom you owe absolutely no obligations. Bug reports from Proton users can be safely ignored. They should feel lucky if the game even started under their not-supported hack of an operating system. But those who purchase a native linux client (KSP, Factorio, Prison Archi…

Conversely, if proton is creating a much larger linux gamer market (its on of the big reasons I switched to linux as my daily driver), might this new market not soon be able to exert pressure on developers for first-class linux ports? Bit of a potential chicken and egg problem with developers supporting linux natively that proton might help solve.

>> for first-class linux ports?

I don't want ports. I want proper linux clients developed alongside the other clients, which is relatively easy under tools like unity. Every developer gives lip service to "maybe linux later" but they never do it. If they aren't doing cross-platform development from day one there is next to zero chance of them doing it later in the dev cycle when such things are far more expensive.

What would really light a fire under developers would be for people to run away from windows for other reasons. A few more privacy fiascos. Yet another attempt at "versionless" windows. Another Vista. Only when users actually dump windows for other reasons will major game developers truly care about linux.

Re: Valve's Proton Has Enabled 7000 Windows Games on Linux

#93

Post by spijdar »

cf wrote: post #58

The problem with Proton is it is leading many game developers to actually drop Linux support. They basically say players seem to be able to get the game to work on Proton and that's that. But with no official support there is no guarantee it will continue to work with updates. There is no promise to even try to make it work if it breaks. And that's the major stuff. Imagine spending 20, 30, or 60 dollars on a game tha…

> There is all this talk that Proton will make people want to develop native Linux ports but I don't see any data or logic to back that up.

I haven't heard of this, honestly. I'd fully expect it to damper Linux port development, and I'm not sure that's a bad thing.

It's entirely possible for a game developer to treat bug reports from Proton users as legitimate, just as much as they may for a native Linux port. Wine is effectively just another Win32 runtime that happens to run on the Linux kernel instead of WinNT.

I've had instances where the native Linux port of a game failed to launch entirely, but the Windows version through Proton worked flawlessly. I've also heard that some games perform better on Proton than native, because of the DirectX -> Vulkan translator outperforming straight OpenGL on Mesa.

Other commenters have mentioned this, but it boils down to market share. Linux's market share is downright trivial. If I was a game dev being raked over the coals for a release date, I wouldn't frankly give a damn over Linux, and I say this as someone who mainly uses Linux.

That's why I don't think this is a problem. If Proton becomes big enough then it becomes another "target", just another runtime to replace the old glibc/mesa one that devs can test if they want to.

Re: Valve's Proton Has Enabled 7000 Windows Games on Linux

#94

Post by gspr »

I game very little, mostly because I don't wanna spend more of my free time in front of screens (since my work and several of my hobbies involve screens). But in the last year or so I've picked up some casual relaxing games.

Starting out, I remembered the situation of 15 years ago, fighting with Wine etc. I just assumed that I was lucky and all the Steam games I picked up recently had native Linux versions. Little did I know that several of them were running through Proton, and the experience was so perfect and seamless that I didn't even notice. Impressive!

Re: Valve's Proton Has Enabled 7000 Windows Games on Linux

#95

Post by herbst »

sandworm101 wrote: post #59
neogodless wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> making devs lazy when it comes to developing native ports Is this first order thinking? Whereas second order thinking might be "with Proton enabling an order of magnitude more users that enjoy PC gaming to move to Linux, studios might consider improving the PC gaming experience further with more native ports/testing directly on Linux?" I don't know if that's how things could play out, but it seems logical to me.

Because Proton creates a dangerous market pressure. The linux+proton user is the ideal customer for a game developer: someone paying full price but to whom you owe absolutely no obligations. Bug reports from Proton users can be safely ignored. They should feel lucky if the game even started under their not-supported hack of an operating system. But those who purchase a native linux client (KSP, Factorio, Prison Archi…

This is 100% true. So far i have not even received a answer to 5+ reports about issues running with proton. Even thought most are simple fixed unity quirks

Re: Valve's Proton Has Enabled 7000 Windows Games on Linux

#96

Post by Corazoor »

sandworm101 wrote: post #59
neogodless wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> making devs lazy when it comes to developing native ports Is this first order thinking? Whereas second order thinking might be "with Proton enabling an order of magnitude more users that enjoy PC gaming to move to Linux, studios might consider improving the PC gaming experience further with more native ports/testing directly on Linux?" I don't know if that's how things could play out, but it seems logical to me.

Because Proton creates a dangerous market pressure. The linux+proton user is the ideal customer for a game developer: someone paying full price but to whom you owe absolutely no obligations. Bug reports from Proton users can be safely ignored. They should feel lucky if the game even started under their not-supported hack of an operating system. But those who purchase a native linux client (KSP, Factorio, Prison Archi…

I have never viewd it that way, but you are absolutely right about the danger.

On the other hand I have now seen multiple games where the developers were implementing wine specific bugfixes.

I think it goes both ways: Showing willingness to support at least proton/wine will also net you some additional sold copies.

And being unfriendly towards linux users is probably more bad PR nowadays than it used to be.

Re: Valve's Proton Has Enabled 7000 Windows Games on Linux

#97

Post by mrtranscendence »

poisonborz wrote: post #39
bmurphy1976 wrote: post #7

I installed it recently on a newly built pc specifically for gaming. I'm quite shocked at how good it works! The only thing holding me back from switching completely is there's some nonsense getting the xbox controller to bind to the pc vis bluetooth. If I can get that resolved I don't think there's anything else holding me back. What an amazing accomplishment!

Firstly, you need an official wireless adapter, bluetooth is much slower and also trigger buttons won't work. Even with the adapter, the pairing might be awful, but there is a little known fact that you need to plug in the controller via usb for a moment, unplug, and it will just work (for the same machine). Also install x360ce for older games. With these in place, the controllers work 100% great for any controller g…

I didn't realize there was a USB adapter. There's a problem on Windows where pairing an xbox controller via bluetooth can result in reduced performance, so I've taken to using my switch pro controller in Steam. The switch controller doesn't work for games that can't be launched via Steam, though, so maybe I'll pick the adapter up (and someday move to Linux maybe? I keep thinking about it).

Re: Valve's Proton Has Enabled 7000 Windows Games on Linux

#98

Post by reader_mode »

lukeschlather wrote: post #87
reader_mode wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Imagine spending 20, 30, or 60 dollars on a game that can break at any moment and know there will be zero support waiting for you. So spending Multiplayer games that need to be up-to-date and competitive games would probably be annoying to hardcore gamers - but frankly if you're into that you'll be sensitive to performance as well and you should just get on a supported platform.

I am sensitive to performance, but part of that is being able to alt-tab over to my Linux desktop rather than having to switch machines to do things other than play this one Windows exclusive. Actually the main part is that. "Gaming device" is a secondary function of my computer.

Meh, the author is making it sound like Proton will deter native linux ports. Reality is there would never be native Linux ports and you should be thrilled Proton/WINE/whatever gives you any options at all. The market isn't there - I see Valve linux efforts as a hedge against Windows screwing them over.

Re: Valve's Proton Has Enabled 7000 Windows Games on Linux

#99

Post by herbst »

pixelbath wrote: post #89

I'm not really sure what went wrong on my Xubuntu 20.04 system; I was never able to get a single game running under Proton. Attempting to do so would essentially soft-lock the entire Steam platform until I killed every process related to Steam, pressure-vessel, and Proton. In the end, I ended up reinstalling Windows because of some other system-related issues, but I'd have loved to be one of the happy Proton users pl…

I had similar issues with an older ubuntu install, and surprisingly well working system with manjaro. Guess something about ubuntus driver mess or so.

Re: Valve's Proton Has Enabled 7000 Windows Games on Linux

#100

Post by matt123456789 »

sandworm101 wrote: post #59
neogodless wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> making devs lazy when it comes to developing native ports Is this first order thinking? Whereas second order thinking might be "with Proton enabling an order of magnitude more users that enjoy PC gaming to move to Linux, studios might consider improving the PC gaming experience further with more native ports/testing directly on Linux?" I don't know if that's how things could play out, but it seems logical to me.

Because Proton creates a dangerous market pressure. The linux+proton user is the ideal customer for a game developer: someone paying full price but to whom you owe absolutely no obligations. Bug reports from Proton users can be safely ignored. They should feel lucky if the game even started under their not-supported hack of an operating system. But those who purchase a native linux client (KSP, Factorio, Prison Archi…

It does create a dangerous market pressure, but entirely by accident. Valve has developed an amazing piece of software in Proton and made it freely available, but offered no support for developers. Proton is an enormous library papering over an equally enormous API gap between Windows and Linux. Normally when game developers use such components (like engines) they pay a licensing fee, so that when something breaks, if it’s the licensed component’s fault, they can expect support in fixing issues. Since Valve doesn’t offer a paid support option to devs, they are in a difficult position - Proton is by far the easiest way to get games running on Linux, but can’t be officially supported without incurring the cost and overhead of bringing on a team of Proton specialists to ensure compatibility.

I’m not in this area professionally so maybe I have a few things wrong here.

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