Valve Introduces Proton Next • Hacker News Board

Re: Valve Introduces Proton Next

#91

Post by smoldesu » Wed, Nov 23, 2022, 9:54 PM UTC

Thaxll wrote: post #64

SXX wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basically Valve already partnered with anti-cheat developers and enabling their support on Linux is in fact just flipping of a switch. Unfortunately this switch need to be flipped by developers / publishers of particular game and they dont cooperate too well.

It's not just flipping the switch, this is none sense. That means now the dev has to officialy support the game on this platform and all the problems that comes with it. On top of that the anti cheat on linux is a joke because it's running in user space so serious game won't enable it just for that reason. https://twitter.com/TimSweeneyEpic/status/149075970784115917...

Couple things to note:

- The developer has no obligation to support the platform, Valve provides and pins a working runtime and unless the game is redesigned from scratch (see: Final Fantasy XIV) it should work in perpetuity.

- Anticheat on Windows is also a joke unless it runs in Ring 0, which is literally impossible on platforms like Steam Deck (Flatpak Steam only runs in user space for security reasons). No self-respecting developer should write kernel mode DRM in the first place, though.

- It very well could be as simple as flipping a switch - in the case of Apex Legends, the game already ran perfectly fine but couldn't connect to servers without the anticheat library loading properly. When EA updated the anticheat drivers, the game worked fine on Linux without any modification.

Of course, nobody has a de-facto obligation to support Linux. The larger point is that it's deceptively easy to get your game working on 90% of the world's Linux systems, much more so than shipping to MacOS or console. If all the world's 'serious game[s]' won't run on Linux, than that makes it the world's greatest casual gaming platform :)

Re: Valve Introduces Proton Next

#92

Post by trelane » Wed, Nov 23, 2022, 9:55 PM UTC

gkhartman wrote: post #76

trelane wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're looking for applications, CodeWeavers' Crossover Office is the place to go. If you actually can't afford it, you can use plain WINE. But Crossover is nicer, has support, and funds WINE development, since CodeWeavers sends their patches upstream. https://www.codeweavers.com/crossover

Will desktop excel actually run smoothly on this? It's been ages since I've tried, but I didn't have much luck in the past. I'd really love to ditch my windows machine, but my employer makes use of excel plugins that only run on the desktop version.

Looks like it's changed a lot. It looks like it was good until about 2010, then it stopped working. Might also be why they apparently renamed it to "Crossover" from "Crossover Office." Guess I'm really out of date here. :)

Wait, maybe I was looking at _Mac_ compatibility. It looks like 365 runs decently on Linux.

They have a site you can check compatibility at: https://www.codeweavers.com/compatibility/crossover/microsof... is the page for MS Office 365.

You can download a free trial and see if it works.

Re: Valve Introduces Proton Next

#93

Post by trelane » Wed, Nov 23, 2022, 9:56 PM UTC

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #79

trelane wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've yet to have a game not work because I was using the wrong distro.

I am talking about native Linux ports and people who complain about the lack of native ports instead of, at best, Proton ports.

I am also talking about native ports. I preferentially buy Linux native ports.

Re: Valve Introduces Proton Next

#94

Post by FridgeSeal » Wed, Nov 23, 2022, 9:58 PM UTC

Thaxll wrote: post #64

SXX wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basically Valve already partnered with anti-cheat developers and enabling their support on Linux is in fact just flipping of a switch. Unfortunately this switch need to be flipped by developers / publishers of particular game and they dont cooperate too well.

It's not just flipping the switch, this is none sense. That means now the dev has to officialy support the game on this platform and all the problems that comes with it. On top of that the anti cheat on linux is a joke because it's running in user space so serious game won't enable it just for that reason. https://twitter.com/TimSweeneyEpic/status/149075970784115917...

Maybe Mr Sweeney should focus more on making an anti-cheat that actually works, compared to the dumpster-fire that is EAC.

Its functioning is spotty-at-best on windows, and when it takes issue with something on your system the troubleshooting is useless. At least Valorants’ anti-cheat will tell you what it doesn’t like.

Re: Valve Introduces Proton Next

#95

Post by inyorgroove » Wed, Nov 23, 2022, 9:59 PM UTC

jandrese wrote: post #84

skywal_l wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you mind giving us the name of those 4 games failing on proton?

Some notable Linux gaming failures for me: Roblox. Kids really wanted me on this but I've never been able to get it to work. Technically not on Steam/Proton, but a notable failure. Eador: It runs but the graphics are completely garbled. Anything VR: No luck at all getting QuestLink working on Linux. Several games don't like later versions of Proton and I have to force them on older versions. This isn't a huge problem…

Grapejuice [1] works excellent for me with Roblox, simply launch games from browser just like windows. Super easy to install if you are on Arch [2] as well.

[1]: https://gitlab.com/brinkervii/grapejuice

[2]: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/grapejuice

Re: Valve Introduces Proton Next

#96

Post by AlotOfReading » Wed, Nov 23, 2022, 10:01 PM UTC

musha68k wrote: post #55

Due to Proton I feel like coming back to PC gaming after almost 20 years, great stewardship by Valve there. The last "rig" I built was for Doom 3 after which I'd never bothered with keeping a NTFS partition again. Apple silicon just doesn't seem to get to the levels needed for a state-of-the-art Cyberpunk 2077 experience even on pricier high-end Macs. I'm also still not willing to buy any "next-gen" consoles for the…

My current experience on alder lake + Nvidia 30 series isn't quite a smooth enough experience to move my non-technical fiancee over, but it's close enough that I've considered it.

The AMD drivers are mainlined and they've gotten a lot better about stability than where they were a couple years ago. Valve has done a lot of compatibility testing/fixes for the steamdeck as well.

The Nvidia drivers are also pretty stable and many distros provide them out of the box. They're still going to be your main choice for ML stuff.

For CPUs both Intel and AMD are extremely well supported. There are generally more eyes on the Intel side though.

Re: Valve Introduces Proton Next

#97

Post by 91edec » Wed, Nov 23, 2022, 10:03 PM UTC

climb_stealth wrote: post #59

SXX wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basically it's normal PC so you can even just install Windows there (but it will degrade overall experience). So there is absolutely no lock-ins and you can use hardware any way you like.

That makes sense from a hardware point of view. I was wondering whether there would be issues using a Steam account from an unsupported country. It requires a Steam account in a supported country to order. But after receiving it, can you log in to an account from a different country? Technically it should be doable. But there might be some policy that stops it from working.

You can buy a Steam deck from any country and use your account, the deck isn't account locked. For example my friend bought a deck in the UK, moved to America and changed his region then came back to pick it up. We were both able to log into the device UK & US.

Re: Valve Introduces Proton Next

#98

Post by eggsome » Wed, Nov 23, 2022, 10:08 PM UTC

musha68k wrote: post #55

Due to Proton I feel like coming back to PC gaming after almost 20 years, great stewardship by Valve there. The last "rig" I built was for Doom 3 after which I'd never bothered with keeping a NTFS partition again. Apple silicon just doesn't seem to get to the levels needed for a state-of-the-art Cyberpunk 2077 experience even on pricier high-end Macs. I'm also still not willing to buy any "next-gen" consoles for the…

For GPU: AMD (but not _too_ cutting edge is the easy answer here). Any of the Radeon 6000 series will work well out of the box with recent open source kernels.

CPU wize Intel/AMD does not matter.

Re: Valve Introduces Proton Next

#99

Post by musicale » Wed, Nov 23, 2022, 10:12 PM UTC

SkyMarshal wrote: post #90

jasonpeacock wrote: post #3

I had to go figure out what Proton is: "Proton is a tool for use with the Steam client which allows games which are exclusive to Windows to run on the Linux operating system. It uses Wine to facilitate this." https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton

It's Steam's downstream fork of Wine, which is not an emulator.

1. An emulator is a system which implements another system's functionality so as to serve as a usable replacement. Examples include in-circuit emulators for hardware components, or software emulators for game system hardware. In each case, the emulator is a usable replacement for the original system.

2. WINE reimplements the functionality of Windows, as exposed by the Windows ABI, as software running on Linux.

3. The combination of WINE and Linux is in fact a usable replacement for Windows.

4. Which means that WINE running on Linux conforms to the above definition of an emulator for the Windows system.

5. Therefore, WINE running on Linux certainly is an emulator for the Windows system.

QED

Re: Valve Introduces Proton Next

#100

Post by soulofmischief » Wed, Nov 23, 2022, 10:13 PM UTC

MikusR wrote: post #83

zamalek wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I watched a talk by GabeN years ago, where he explained his business philosophy (which also had to do with his exit from Microsoft). It was strikingly simple: treat your customers well. Supporting Linux is treating his customers well (even if the majority of customers don't understand that... yet).

> treat your customers well That's why it took a lawsuit to get refund support for Steam.

That lawsuit specifically had to do with meeting Australian guidelines. I personally have had zero complaints with the Steam refund system here in America.