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Linux gamers on Steam cross over the 3% mark

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101–110 of 560 posts

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

#101
Nice!

Meanwhile Wine fixed 32-bit OpenGL path performance problem in new wow64 mode, so now you don't need 32-bit Linux dependencies to run 32-bit games in Wine anymore (that affects DX7 games for example that run through OpenGL via WineD3D).

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

#102
post #29

Steam and Ubuntu has worked really well for me, big picture mode + hdmi switch has made for a very-close-to-console experience I am playing mostly single player campaign type games (Assassins creed, RDR2, etc) which certainly improves the picture. If steam really wanted to put a knife in games on windows, it would develop an anticheat and give it away for free. That is AFAICT the only thing keeping people on windows…

Reliable Anticheat rootkits are just not possible on Open PC platforms. Consoles should just add proper keyboard+mouse support and competitive online players can move over...

Consoles support kb and mouse. Most popular fps games support it.

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

#103
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…

> file Explorer (buggily) parsing files to display metadata before listing them

It's crazy, open a directory full of .mp4s and sometimes the list briefly appears but then it goes completely blank, just to start listing them again one-by-one taking about one second per entry, while being unresponsive to input.

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

#104
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have a 60Hz display and the game is locked to 60fps, when you take an action it may take up to 16.67 milliseconds for that action to register. If the game is running at 500fps, it registers within 2 milliseconds, even though you won't see the action for up to 16.67 milliseconds later. At extremely high levels of competition, this matters. Also, there are 540Hz displays.

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

[deleted]

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

#105
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

macOS is by far the worst gaming platform. I think most macOS users are fully aware of that.

I mean by this point it should be expected. Apple hasn't really backed gaming in meaningful way since the original Mac in 1984.

Releasing Game Porting Toolkit aimed at developers wanting to make a quick and dirty shim and not users getting their own windows games working is such typical Apple hubris.

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

#106
post #99
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.

There are. But there are many more such bugs in DirectX on Windows, and it’s a much bigger target. If a national intelligence organization wants to burn a Proton zero-day on my Steam Deck, cool!

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

#107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I curious how profitable it has been for Microsoft so far. Are they making billions and billions from these dark patterns? I feel like they'd have to be making a fortune for it to be worth throwing their brand in the gutter like they have been doing.

Everything I’ve seen suggests that Microsoft has entered the metaphorical private equity phase of investment in Windows. They’ve already given up any expectation of it being a viable competitor long-term and are purely focused on milking as much short-term revenue from the product as possible before it dies. I’m sure windows will continue to exist and maybe be relevant for at least a decade. But it will be in zombie/…

My tech friends always joke that pretty soon we’re going to see “the year of the Linux Windows”, where windows will just be an OS on top of the Linux kernel.

I think we’re only half joking though, I could see it happening.

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

#108
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…

Out of curiosity, why are such high fps numbers desirable? Maybe I don't understand how displays work, but how does having fps > refresh rate work? Aren't many of those frames just wasted?

You want your minimum FPS to be your refresh rate. You won't notice when you're over it, but you likely will if you go below it.

In Counter-Strike, smoke grenades used to (and still do, to an extent) dip your FPS into a slideshow. You want to ensure your opponent can't exploit these things.

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

#109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I curious how profitable it has been for Microsoft so far. Are they making billions and billions from these dark patterns? I feel like they'd have to be making a fortune for it to be worth throwing their brand in the gutter like they have been doing.

One would assume but I do wonder how much long term damage they are doing for short term gains with this drive? I'm not a believer in "the year of linux desktop!?!!?" and all that, but it achieved a level of robustness about 5-10ish years ago that I openly encourage non technical users to give it a try. For the few people that actually did try, they did stick with it. At this point it is Microsoft's position to lose…

The issues people cite all primarily affect consumer desktops. I don't think they see decades of lifetime there; it's a dying market, so they milk it.

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

#110
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.protondb.com/explore?sort=playerCount only 6 out of the 50 most played right now aren't working 10 millions players ingame, 90% of players are not playing these titles

Some of those ratings are generous to say the least. Apex Legends is probably the worst example, it's still clinging to its Silver rating despite being completely unplayable on Linux since last November.

Similar with GTA V. Still very popular, but the multiplayer doesn't work anymore. Singleplayer works though and that's enough for some people to rate it good.

Rust is also similar: multiplayer community servers with anticheat do not work. When the majority of players are on those servers, switching to Linux is not an option. But people on Linux looking for servers think it's good enough that you can play on servers with anticheat disabled.

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