Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Valve's Proton Has Enabled 7000 Windows Games on Linux

boilingsteam.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 333 posts

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

#141

Post by MrFoof »

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…

Doesn't address the core issue, but...

IIRC, the folders that contain a Steam UserIDs save game data are named after the game's Steam AppID. You can look them up here (https://steamdb.info/apps/). I admit it's certainly not a solution to the discoverability problem when navigating a filesystem, as there are over 100,000 AppIDs and growing at this point.

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

#142

Post by coldpie »

tpmx wrote: post #124
Zhyl wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure about the per-game config, but the Proton is definitely open source [0], as are DXVK [1] and D9VK [2]. Steam Play is part of the Steam client, so is proprietary. ProtonDB isn't open source but does data dumps to github regularly [3]. [0] https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/ [1] https://github.com/doitsujin/dxvk [2] https://github.com/Joshua-Ashton/d9vk [3] https://github.com/bdefore/protondb-data

Thanks! I guess it somehow makes sense for Valve to keep the per-game tweaks private. With all of that money they're printing though, I sure wish they could feel that they could afford to be less defensive.

None of it is private. The per-game settings are all listed here, the options are all implemented in Proton, which is completely open source: https://steamdb.info/app/891390/info/

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

#143

Post by Zhyl »

sodality2 wrote: post #26
davemtl wrote: post #15

EAC (Easy Anti-Cheat) is the main reason why I've not switched from Windows to a full-time Linux desktop. While EAC does include support for Linux[1], it's up to the developer/publisher to enable it. 1. https://www.easy.ac/en-us/support/game/guides/os/ edit: Included EACs unabbreviated form as well as a link to supported operating systems.

You can thank game devs and cheaters for that, primarily. Laziness for the first, malice for the second.

I really think we need to get out of the habit of calling game developers 'Lazy', especially for an industry that is famous, notorious even, for overwork and crunching.

I think it would be fairer to say that it doesn't get prioritised, especially over anti-features such as microtransactions, DRM or things of that ilk. Calling them lazy is disrespectful, hurtful and betrays a lack of understanding of the development process and the industry at large.

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

#144

Post by tpmx »

coldpie wrote: post #142
tpmx wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks! I guess it somehow makes sense for Valve to keep the per-game tweaks private. With all of that money they're printing though, I sure wish they could feel that they could afford to be less defensive.

None of it is private. The per-game settings are all listed here, the options are all implemented in Proton, which is completely open source: https://steamdb.info/app/891390/info/

That's very nice.

I think this will make game preservation easier in the near future.

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

#145

Post by sandworm101 »

Nojlk wrote: post #129
sandworm101 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> for first-class linux ports? I don't want ports. I want proper linux clients developed alongside the other clients, which is relatively easy under tools like unity. Every developer gives lip service to "maybe linux later" but they never do it. If they aren't doing cross-platform development from day one there is next to zero chance of them doing it later in the dev cycle when such things are far more expensive. Wh…

It's been 30 years. This was nothing but a pipedream before Proton came along. It's probably still a pipedream, but at least we'll be able to play more games on Linux now. Don't let perfect get in the way of good. There's never going to be a mass exodus to Linux. People have been promising the year of the Linux desktop for as long as Linux has been a thing. It's time to find a way to coexist, and Proton is so far one…

It was more than a pipe dream. The mobile game revolution happened long before proton. Windows penetration in mobile gaming is <1%. Now we have some interesting Mac chips that will require cross-platform development too. And many of the best linux games (KSP) were popular before proton. WINE/Proton is a force, but is not the only player in the cross-platform gaming space.

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

#146

Post by bogwog »

thrwyoilarticle wrote: post #73
cf wrote: post #58

The problem with Proton is it is leading many game developers to actually drop Linux support. They basically say players seem to be able to get the game to work on Proton and that's that. But with no official support there is no guarantee it will continue to work with updates. There is no promise to even try to make it work if it breaks. And that's the major stuff. Imagine spending 20, 30, or 60 dollars on a game tha…

>Imagine spending 20, 30, or 60 dollars on a game that can break at any moment and know there will be zero support waiting for you. I don't have to imagine: I play Steam games on Windows.

At least on Windows you can try troubleshooting and various workarounds to problems to a certain extent, or ask for a refund.

I bought Pillars of Eternity on the Nintendo Switch for $60, which was broken on day 1, still broken today, and officially abandoned by the publisher (Versus Evil)

This isn't related to the OP in any way, I'm just still angry about it.

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

#147

Post by mminer237 »

MrFoof wrote: post #141
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…

Doesn't address the core issue, but... IIRC, the folders that contain a Steam UserIDs save game data are named after the game's Steam AppID. You can look them up here ( https://steamdb.info/apps/ ). I admit it's certainly not a solution to the discoverability problem when navigating a filesystem, as there are over 100,000 AppIDs and growing at this point.

They are. I always just google the game and copy it out of the store URL:

  https://store.steampowered.com/app/573100/Battlefleet_Gothic_Armada_2/
                                     ¯¯¯¯¯¯

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

#148

Post by explodingcamera »

moistbar wrote: post #109
explodingcamera wrote: post #55

While it is definitely not streamlined and very expensive, I've had a wonderful experience running a Windows VM and passing one of my GPUs through to it. Even VR works flawlessly, which is otherwise unusable on a linux desktop. Proton definitely still has major issues. A lot of the well-rated games on protondb are barely playable. Still, I've played a lot of games using it I otherwise wouldn't be able to experience.

Hearing that VR works well with passthrough makes me want to try it again. I remember when I last tried it, everything worked great except for sound, which was staticky and choppy unless I handed the whole soundcard over to the VM.

Some setup is required, but KVM passing the system audio to pipewire-pulse worked first try for me actually. I'm normally using a virtual desktop to stream everything to my Oculus Quest 2, including audio, and it works surprisingly well.

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

#149

Post by coldpie »

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 like DLC and shared depots.

It's not really intended for users to be digging around in there, so... it is what it is.

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

#150

Post by sodality2 »

Zhyl wrote: post #143
sodality2 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can thank game devs and cheaters for that, primarily. Laziness for the first, malice for the second.

I really think we need to get out of the habit of calling game developers 'Lazy', especially for an industry that is famous, notorious even, for overwork and crunching. I think it would be fairer to say that it doesn't get prioritised, especially over anti-features such as microtransactions, DRM or things of that ilk. Calling them lazy is disrespectful, hurtful and betrays a lack of understanding of the development p…

To not enable a feature that EAC explicitly provides and would allow people to use a product, and that requires almost no additional work (since it's not linux support in general, just EAC linux support), I consider to be lazy. Although, it's probably a mgmt decision, not a dev decision.

I understand linux support takes time and it usually isn't worth it. But this is just flipping a switch from what I've heard.

Post reply on HN