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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

#201

Post by monocasa »

hoten wrote: post #82
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…

> React based start menu with visible lag That surprised me. But seems not true? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44124688

Clicking through to their source, it seems true enough despite their protests.

Its not entirely built with React Native, but React Native does seem to be responsible for at least one element of the start menu that appears initially when the menu is presented.

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

#202

Post by tmtvl »

encom wrote: post #153
Hasz wrote: 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…

I really wish there was an (k)Ubuntu-like Linux distro - apt-based, semi-annual updates, kde default or selectable - but without all the stupid Ubuntu-isms like snap and alpha quality rust coreutils and whatnot. I run Gentoo and Debian for myself, but I'd like something normie-friendly I can put on other peoples machines and not get a ton of support questions.

Is SolydK not good enough? There's also Mageia if you can stomach RPM instead of Deb (I prefer RPMs, but recognize it's a matter of personal taste).

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

#203

Post by adastra22 »

hamdingers wrote: post #167
adastra22 wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 deci…

No, I'm explaining how most games work in practice. You're right a game could be made that works that way. I'm not aware of one, but I don't have exhaustive knowledge and it wouldn't surprise me if examples exist, but that was not the question.

I would not at all be surprised that there are examples out there, although I don't know of them. Tying the game state to the render loop is decision made very deep in the game engine, so you'd have to do extensive modifications to change any of the mainstream engines to do something else. Not worth the effort.

But a greenfield code shouldn't be perpetuating this mistake.

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

#204

Post by Scramblejams »

encom wrote: post #153
Hasz wrote: 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…

I really wish there was an (k)Ubuntu-like Linux distro - apt-based, semi-annual updates, kde default or selectable - but without all the stupid Ubuntu-isms like snap and alpha quality rust coreutils and whatnot. I run Gentoo and Debian for myself, but I'd like something normie-friendly I can put on other peoples machines and not get a ton of support questions.

Tried Mint?

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

#205

Post by twic »

p1necone wrote: post #32

I made the switch more than a year ago and it's been basically problem free. Almost all modern games work flawlessly through proton and I get better compatibility for really old stuff through lutris than I ever did on windows (I used to have to run a win 3.1/95/98 vm to play certain older games, now I just use lutris/wine). The only stuff that doesn't work is multiplayer games with unsupported anticheat - it's always…

The majority of popular PvP shooters use anti-cheat which does not work on Proton, so "almost all modern games" seems like overselling it to me.

But the stuff that does work, works well. I play Helldivers 2 via Proton on Fedora, and i experience far fewer crashes and instances of weird behaviour than friends on Windows or Xbox.

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

#206

Post by andyjohnson0 »

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.

> 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.

In my experience thats just not true. Microsoft's client OSs like Win 11 and 10 include these consumer-oriented "features" [1] but they're not present on servet versions of Windows.

[1] I agree that the weather widget etc is annoying, even though it is easy to disable.

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

#207

Post by gmueckl »

dangus wrote: post #159
dm319 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'.

In what application is it like this? I don’t find this true at all. It’s a completely customizable sidebar.

Office has a particularly annoying dark pattern when saving a file. It hides the regular save dialog behind a tiny button in a confusing UI embedded in the main window that is designed to misdirect the user into saving files on OneDrive.

Many other programs do still open the standard file dialog directly, but even there, the local drive amd directory hierarchy is hidden behind a folded "This Computer" node in the tree view that is itself below the fold most of the time.

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

#208

Post by lokeg »

forrestthewoods wrote: post #181

As a Steam game developer I don’t think I can ever forgive Linux for being 1% of our players but 50% of our support tickets. I probably shouldn’t hold a grudge, but I do! I suppose it’s probably better in 2025 now that the best API for Linux gaming is Win32. Proton is genuinely spectacular. I love my Steamdeck. SteamOS is great. Supporting one distro is easy. It’s supporting a million unique permutations that is pure…

There is a somewhat famous post about this:

https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/qeqn3b/despite_hav...

Essentially stating that Linux users disproportionately care to actually report bugs they encounter rather than ignoring them. I find that very plausible.

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

#209

Post by formerly_proven »

ffsm8 wrote: post #91
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 HDR work though?

Barely works on windows too, though

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

#210

Post by throwaway106382 »

xrd wrote: post #80

I was really proud that my kids (8,10,12) all have used linux for gaming for the last several years. Steam runs perfectly for most games. And, they know how to to use "flatpak update" to update the sober runtime for Roblox (I know this is not steam, but it is an example of how well other things run on linux). I'm so proud (and ashamed they play Roblox, but choose your battles). But, Fortnite. I tried to run a Windows…

Fortnite is a problem because of kernel level anti-cheat, trying to get it work on Proton....will probably be a long time.

The solution is: buy a Playstation.

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