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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

#301

Post by hehetrthrthrjn »

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 use the numbers as a suffix to a sanitized version of the name and everybody wins, but that would require them to think seriously about usability.

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

#302

Post by Karunamon »

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #278
sangnoir wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The difference between DRM and anti-cheat is just semantics Not really - DRM = anti-copying/anti-piracy, anti-cheat is self-explanatory. Both sometimes employ similar strategies (anti-tampering/poking around with executables, linked libraries or memory), but they are not the same thing

That's one view, but I'd argue that they are both variations on the general problem of "how to run software on a computer without letting the owner of that computer actually control the software". When it's against piracy, the goal is to make sure that the software can refuse to run if it's not correctly licensed or to make sure that the user can't send its output to a recording, and when it's against cheating the go…

The big difference is that anti-cheat usually applies on company property, i.e. on their servers. The most common punishment for tripping anticheat is a ban from online services of some kind.

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

#305

Post by heelix »

ubercow13 wrote: post #242
badsectoracula wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 They also stop updating their Windows versions, the main difference is that Microsoft cares a bit more about backwards compatibility than the vast majority of Linux desktop developers.

That's true but I was referring to games that continue to add new features and improvements to their Windows client, but leave the Linux client on an old version, which is a separate issue. With online games this sometimes even means that Linux users will no longer be able to play with Windows users. On the other hand Wine probably has better backwards compatibility with old Windows games that Windows does in many ca…

It does. I've got older games from the Windows XP days that had issues with Windows 7 even with the compatibility mode. My Linux box with proton was able to run it, ironically enough.

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

#307

Post by 1MachineElf »

I went a decade without playing any video games. For me, doing so eliminated the need for a Windows PC. I was able to focus on learning new skills and grow professionally without the distraction of games. Hearing from friends about games built up my curiosity, and so I picked up Skyrim in 2019 and Fallout 4 in 2020, both via Proton. With a couple minor bugs, they work great. I am so glad to be able to game on Linux.

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

#308

Post by simooooo »

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.

Why on earth would they give away their game for free?

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

#309

Post by pfranz »

breuleux wrote: post #194
coldpie wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 use a scheme like `AppID-name` where `name` is the sanitized lower-cased title, e.g. `50631-hack`. From Steam's perspective it doesn't really make any difference, it could just ignore everything after the dash, but at least it gives the human an idea of what's in there.

This was what I was going to suggest. This is what the Nix package manager does where folders are hashes of the build dependencies. In v2 they suffixed the package name and version number.

I've noticed that people tend to build systems like these using only hashes and it's only later in the project they realize it sure would be nice not to have to look this up all the time.

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

#310

Post by Google234 »

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?

User land can also gain kernel access pretty trivially
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