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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

#291

Post by t0astbread »

cf wrote: post #83
mewse wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a game on Steam, developed primarily on Linux, and providing a Linux build (in addition to Windows and Mac). Linux makes up approximately 0.5% of my sales. (Mac is about 2%, and Windows is the other ~97%) And from conversations with other developers, these are pretty standard percentages. I make and offer a native Linux build because I wanted to do it, but the financials really aren’t there to justify it from…

Basic question, if someone buys a game to run it through Proton do they look like a Windows or Linux user on your end? How would you feel about games being made available for free to Linux users if it uses Proton. If the game contributes basically nothing to your bottom line and you don't plan to support them anyways, why not? It will only grow the audience more quickly.

Couldn't Windows users boot into Linux then to get games for free? Like, it would probably increase the share of Linux users but Windows users would decrease. And when you start charging for the Linux port, a large amount of those users would flock back to Windows.

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

#292

Post by ad404b8a372f2b9 »

WorkLobster wrote: post #196
ad404b8a372f2b9 wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whirligig does not work for me with the recommended fix.

Just to make sure we're talking about the same fix, do you mean running the LAV installer first (edit: followed by selecting DirectShow in the options)? That worked for me with Proton 5.13-6.

Welp I got curious whether I'd missed a step so I gave it a once over, took me 7 hours to get it working. Turns out Proton does not like to run from an NTFS partition so I reinstalled steam on ext4. Now it runs but I couldn't get Direct Show to work, only the VLC video-path. I assume the LAV installer failed somehow. I also had to mount bind my external drive in my home folder otherwise it wouldn't see it. And I also had to reset whirligig's settings manually in the prefix folder (steamapps/compatdata/451650/pfx/drive_c/users/steamuser/Application Data/Whirligig/production) because it randomly stops accepting inputs. Just writing it all out in case somehow comes across it.

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

#293

Post by charcircuit »

cwkoss wrote: post #268
charcircuit wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the issue with giving out kernel mode access? Almost everyone is gaming on single user systems anyways.

Doesn't giving kernel mode access mean that if the game developer's CI is hacked, an attacker could push full compromise exploits down the channel? Aren't there some security benefits from trying to confine apps to user land?

Userland can run DoS attacks, it can mine crypto, it can run keyloggers, it can steal, encrypt, and delete your files, it can make your system not properly startup, it can replace sudo or other programs that ask for passwords with a custom version, it can steal whatever's on your clipboard, it can infect other operating systems (depends how they are mounted), and much more.

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

#294

Post by II2II »

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 neat for sure, but unfortunately modern anti-cheat solutions expect Windows and will not allow Linux clients to connect.

Keep in mind that many people are interested in single player or local multiplayer that do not require anti-cheat solutions. They will hardly ever run into problems on that front.

I suspect the largest problem with Proton is that support will be biased towards recent popular titles based upon common game engines. Replicating all of Windows is not practical, Valve themselves will be most keen on supporting games they can generate revenue from, and community contributions will come from people who have an interest in getting particular titles working as well as the technical skills to contribute.

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

#296

Post by Ericson2314 »

sandworm101 wrote: post #105
matt123456789 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, i…

Proton is not a ground-up valve product. It is an implementation of WINE, a project that has been around for a long while. Valve made it pretty and easy to use, integrating wine into their launchers, but it isn't entirely their project. https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton

Valve has been contracting https://www.codeweavers.com/, the main people behind Wine, a good deal, so they do deserve more credit than at might first appear.

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

#297

Post by Rhedox »

dfgdghdf wrote: post #67

My problem with Proton is that they are not strict enough with their ratings. I see a game has "platinum" or "gold" support and think "great, this will work well!" but then I discover it crashes after alt-tab and multiplayer doesn't work at all, which I consider critical bugs. To me, the levels should be: * Paltinum - the game works as well as it does on officially supported platforms * Gold - the game works almost a…

That's pretty much exactly the definitions of ProtonDB (a community site btw). The problem is that users don't seem to get that.

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

#298

Post by Rhedox »

d3nj4l wrote: post #37
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'…

From a very personal point of view, I'm happy with anti-cheats not working on linux. Some of them are flat out rootkits, see valorant's anti-cheat.

Pretty much all of them are root kits. EAC, Battle Eye, Valorant Vanguard, Faceit AC, ESEA AC, Denuvo AC

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

#299

Post by Rhedox »

ben-schaaf wrote: post #119
phone8675309 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

VAC doesn't work fine. For the last 18 months, TF2 has been infested with aimbots that make the game unplayable on any public server. That doesn't mean it should be more invasive, but it doesn't work fine.

Considering the complete lack of attention TF2 gets from valve I wouldn't consider it a fair reflection of VAC's effectiveness. It had been infested for ages before a media outcry about the bigoted chat spam finally spurred valve into action, yet all they did was ban f2p accounts from using chat.

CSGO is unplayable at global elite too because of cheaters.

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

#300

Post by Rhedox »

throwaway3699 wrote: post #167
shultays wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't play CS that much but afaik aimbots are there as well. I know that it has manual reports/user review systems so I imagine VAC is not effective as an automated tool

Counter-Strike has a bunch of anti-cheat systems, but they solve different problems (VAC, Overwatch, Prime Matchmaking, and VACNet). These systems all work together and I'd say it's pretty effective. TF2 could do with the same. But my original point is that you don't need Kernel based spyware to do anti-cheat.

And it's not effective at all unfortunately. CS at global elite is unplayable because of cheaters.
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