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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

#151

Post by devwastaken »

tapoxi wrote: post #28

Proton is neat for sure, but unfortunately modern anti-cheat solutions expect Windows and will not allow Linux clients to connect. There's also a few games that I expected to work but simply won't launch for me, like Elder Scrolls Online. I'm a fan of the Linux desktop, but for me the easiest solution is to have a dedicated Linux PC (right now an XPS 13 Developer) and a Windows machine for playing video games. I don'…

Proton is in the works to support anti-cheat. Vital kernel support was recently merged. I don't know the details, only that it is a goal of proton and hopefully will work. Many games use the same anti-cheat so if everyone cooperates it could work out.

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

#152

Post by christkv »

coldpie wrote: post #149
zelon88 wrote: post #132

I LOVE Proton. About 85% of my Windows games just... work. And probably 75% of the 15% that fail initially only require a little tweaking to make work. My only complaints are that steam uses arbitrary numbers instead of human readable labels for emulated AppData folders. It can be time consuming to locate a save game file. Also Streaming cross platform isn't a pleasant experience yet but it's getting better and I rea…

> My only complaints are that steam uses arbitrary numbers instead of human readable labels for emulated AppData folders. Yeah, it's a chore. Sadly there really isn't a better option. The only option I can think of is to use the game's localizable name, but that gets pretty ugly very quickly (consider the ".HACK" series). Another option would be to re-use the game's data folder name, but that gets hairy with stuff li…

They could just add a open save game folder in file browser. Would solve most of the cases.

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

#153

Post by bogwog »

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…

Linux will always be a second-class citizen to game devs until it gets a lot more users.

But the new people that come in, those that likely migrated from Windows or Mac, are not going to care whether or not the game is a native Linux port or if its running on Proton. They'll only care that the game works, and works well.

If we ever get to the point where Linux gamers become a significant percentage of the market, then developers will be forced to pay attention to Linux support. If Proton can't deliver competitive performance and stability, then that means they will be forced to do proper Linux ports.

So the only thing needed to encourage developers to provide real Linux ports is to increase the size of the Linux gaming community by any means necessary. Whether that's through Proton, or even virtualization, the goal stays the same.

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

#154

Post by makecheck »

zelon88 wrote: post #132

I LOVE Proton. About 85% of my Windows games just... work. And probably 75% of the 15% that fail initially only require a little tweaking to make work. My only complaints are that steam uses arbitrary numbers instead of human readable labels for emulated AppData folders. It can be time consuming to locate a save game file. Also Streaming cross platform isn't a pleasant experience yet but it's getting better and I rea…

You can probably rely on the modification time as a clue; something like:

    find /some/place -type d -mtime 0
Any game you have played recently (with save-file updates) ought to appear as a file modified in the last X days.

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

#155

Post by politelemon »

zelon88 wrote: post #132

I LOVE Proton. About 85% of my Windows games just... work. And probably 75% of the 15% that fail initially only require a little tweaking to make work. My only complaints are that steam uses arbitrary numbers instead of human readable labels for emulated AppData folders. It can be time consuming to locate a save game file. Also Streaming cross platform isn't a pleasant experience yet but it's getting better and I rea…

PCGamingWiki includes the Steam Play paths for each game, so it's much easier to figure out where the files are.

Example: https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Yakuza_3_Remastered

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

#156

Post by bogwog »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #91
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…

> or whatever Proton is.

IIRC, it's a fork of WINE

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

#159

Post by ubercow13 »

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 bought many native Linux games that simply don’t launch, but run perfectly in Proton. Companies also stop updating their Linux ports often. There is so little market pressure to support Linux in the first place that Proton’s effect is basically irrelevant. Most Linux ports sucked anyway and often Proton performs better including with things like Unity games, so no big loss.

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

#160

Post by high_priest »

_fat_santa wrote: post #32
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.

The problem is always market share. Unfortunately Linux has and most likely will always be a niche desktop product. For that reason when devs are developing a game, the question is always "should we spend X amount of time for 0.5% of the userbase" and often times the value proposition just isn't there.

Gluglu with their chromeOS has pushed the linux adoption line quite rapidly. Valve finally making SteamOS a viable product is definitely going to impact the change significantly.

The only reason I still keep Windows dual booted is the Office suit, which is still unbeatable.

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