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Linux gamers on Steam cross over the 3% mark

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Re: Linux gamers on Steam cross over the 3% mark

#141

Post by hamdingers »

_cenw wrote: post #98
hamdingers wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe Proton does not/will not be integrated into Steam on Mac because it would compete with CrossOver, the paid product from CodeWeavers that essentially funds Wine development.

Crossover isn't aimed at the gaming crowd, but productivity software. Their builds favor stability over new and shiny compatibility/feature support. I just had a license because I like supporting CodeWeavers. They also make a Linux build of CrossOver.

They advertise gaming as a use case for CrossOver (there used to be a separate CrossOver Games product, even, which I was a customer of), and it would not surprise me if the linux build of CrossOver sells so little they wouldn't care.

Re: Linux gamers on Steam cross over the 3% mark

#143

Post by wtcactus »

About every 3 months or so, I install some gaming Linux distro (or, if I'm in the mood, install Linux Mint from scratch and try to configure it for gaming) and get solely disappointed and return to windows.

Most of the Linux hurdles in day to day work can be overcome (mostly is the lack of the apps I normally use that cause some attrition, but with some compromises and some work I can get around it). But for gaming (at least in NVIDIA GPUs) it keeps failing.

I have very limited time for gaming (around 2-4h per week), I don't want to keep having to eternally fiddle with game settings, fixing bugs, fixing launchers, try different Proton versions, etc, etc, etc, every time I sit down for a bit of gaming. And Linux, unfortunately, is just not really there.

Re: Linux gamers on Steam cross over the 3% mark

#144

Post by ivanjermakov »

Rohansi wrote: post #60
marginalia_nu wrote: post #38

It's weird how Steam doesn't automatically set the toggle that lets you play most Windows games through Proton instead of having that be an opt-in you need to know about. It really is extremely stable and polished these days.

I've only ever needed to enable Proton for non-Steam games. Are there Steam games that don't have Proton enabled and need it to be manually enabled by the user? (I've only used it on the Steam Deck)

I start non-Steam games with Wine and they run just as good.

https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=category&i...

Re: Linux gamers on Steam cross over the 3% mark

#145

Post by adastra22 »

hamdingers wrote: post #97
gf000 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A game doesn't necessarily have to process input at the same rate as it displays frames, does it?

That's correct, and the most competitive multiplayer games tend to have fixed tick rates on the server, but the higher FPS is still beneficial (again, theoretically for all but the highest level of competition) because your client side inputs are sampled more frequently and your rendered frames are at most a couple ms old.

I think you're missing the point. The game could be processing input and doing a state update at 1000Hz, while still rendering a mere 60fps. There doesn't have to be any correlation whatsoever between frame rate and input processing. Furthermore, this would actually have less latency because there won't be a pipeline of frame buffers being worked on.

Tying the input loop to the render loop is a totally arbitrary decision that the game industry is needlessly perpetuating.

Re: Linux gamers on Steam cross over the 3% mark

#146

Post by dingi »

That's awesome! I've come to take "the year of the Linux desktop" as a prophecy of sorts. It might take another 20 years, or desktops might vanish, but it is going to happen. Slow and steady wins the race. Best regards from a decade-plus Linux full-timer!

Re: Linux gamers on Steam cross over the 3% mark

#147

Post by bigyabai »

cedws wrote: post #99
TACIXAT wrote: post #26

I just made the switch. I had been developing on Windows for the last couple of years, mostly to get used to the ecosystem. I wanted to be able to write C and C++ like I do on Linux, without an IDE and with the native toolchain (i.e. no cygwin). On top of that, I play Overwatch every night. Windows just seems to have zero focus on performance though. React based start menu with visible lag, file Explorer (buggily) pa…

Does anybody have security concerns about running games with Proton/Wine? Games already have a massive attack surface and I can imagine there are some nasty bugs lurking in the compat layer that would enable RCEs not possible on Windows. This is kind of holding me back from making the jump.

You can trivially sandbox your Steam installation with pretty much zero performance overhead, if you install it through Flatpak. Using an app like Flatseal, you can then configure Steam to only have access to a designated drive with next to no further contact to your PC. You can individually disable access to networking, audio, D-Bus, USB devices, Bluetooth, shared memory and even the GPU itself if you're really freaked out. No command line needed.

That being said, I just run Steam natively on NixOS and have never seen any issues. The biggest RCEs I'm worried about are Ring 0 anticheat nuking my desktop like CloudStrike.

Re: Linux gamers on Steam cross over the 3% mark

#148

Post by dangus »

SteveNuts wrote: post #43
TACIXAT wrote: post #26

I just made the switch. I had been developing on Windows for the last couple of years, mostly to get used to the ecosystem. I wanted to be able to write C and C++ like I do on Linux, without an IDE and with the native toolchain (i.e. no cygwin). On top of that, I play Overwatch every night. Windows just seems to have zero focus on performance though. React based start menu with visible lag, file Explorer (buggily) pa…

The only thing windows has focused on has been dark patterns to force users towards cloud and figuring out more and more ways to collect data to sell ads. I’m not naive, I know a ton of huge enterprises still run huge fleets of windows “servers” but I still find it hilarious that a supposedly serious server OS would default to showing you the weather and ads in the start menu.

While I agree that Microsoft has not been the greatest at delivering customer-friendly stuff, and has built in a lot of revenue streams to their (mostly not-paying) users like Bing and cloud upsells, I think that your take is overly cynical to the software.

Windows 11 has some really legitimate improvements that make it a really solid OS.

It’s not surprising that Microsoft isn’t focusing on Windows as a server OS as they don’t expect anyone to deploy it in a new environment. They know it has already lost to Linux and that’s why .NET Core is on Linux and Mac, why WSL exists, etc. Azure is how Microsoft makes revenue from servers, Windows Server is a legacy product.

The whole “server OS has the weather app installed” thing is pretty irrelevant since enterprises have their own customized image building processes and don’t ever run the default payload. It’s really not worth Microsoft’s time to customize the server version knowing that their enterprise customers already have.

Microsoft knows the strength of Windows lies in the desktop environment for workstations, casual laptop use, and gaming systems, and it is excellent at all those things. They’ve delivered a whole lot of really nice and generally innovative features to those spaces. Windows has really nice gaming features, smartphone integrations including with iPhones, even doing some long-overdue work on small details like notepad and the command line.

I don’t find that windows has forced me to cloud or done anything like that.

Re: Linux gamers on Steam cross over the 3% mark

#149

Post by 3eb7988a1663 »

marcosdumay wrote: post #137
andoando wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never understood why file search is SOOO bad on windows (mac too). Its so damn slow and even feature wise I never figured out why it was so difficult to just search for files in this directory

I still don't understand how search just can't file files with the string I write in the search bar on the name. Or menu items either. Some file browsers on Linux have this problem too, and the KDE launcher had it for years (it's fixed now).

For a look into a parallel universe of what could be, check out Everything[0]. Super fast search that should be embarrassing for Microsoft.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everything_(software)

Re: Linux gamers on Steam cross over the 3% mark

#150

Post by marcodiego »

dm319 wrote: post #81
SteveNuts wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only thing windows has focused on has been dark patterns to force users towards cloud and figuring out more and more ways to collect data to sell ads. I’m not naive, I know a ton of huge enterprises still run huge fleets of windows “servers” but I still find it hilarious that a supposedly serious server OS would default to showing you the weather and ads in the start menu.

Goodness the file save dialog(s) on Windows - it makes it so hard to save a file into my personal space. It's unintuitive and you need to click through, I think a couple of dialog boxes before you get to 'Your Documents'.

And people complained that GTK file picker didn't have thumbnails.
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