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Valve's Proton Has Brought 6000 Windows Games to Linux So Far

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Re: Valve's Proton Has Brought 6000 Windows Games to Linux So Far

#241

Post by na85 »

renewiltord wrote: post #222
na85 wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you name one game, electronic or otherwise, that doesn't involve "beating" something, whether it's the other player, the rules, or even just random chance (dice rolls)? I honestly can't think of any. If there are no goals (and goals imply obstacles to be overcome in pursuit of them) then you've got a toy, not a game.

Minecraft Creative. Lots of people play that without even sharing their works.

See, I think that's more akin to electronic Lego. It's a toy, not a game.

Re: Valve's Proton Has Brought 6000 Windows Games to Linux So Far

#242

Post by wlesieutre »

paines wrote: post #225
wlesieutre wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A friend of mine recently got a workstation with a threadripper processor, and apparently some games have so much trouble with the core count (lookin' at you, Far Cry) that you have to reboot into "game mode" with a substantial number of cores disabled. But some other enterprising threadripper user worked around that by stuffing the game in a Linux VM to avoid the rebooting. Crazy to think that a Windows game would p…

You can shutdown/disable cores on the fly. There is a nice gnome-shell extension for that. Shouldn't that do the trick ?

AMD says

Game Mode is a new feature in AMD Ryzen™ Master that reconfigures the platform in two key ways:

• It temporarily disables half of the CPU cores, which turns the AMD Ryzen Threadripper 1950X into an 8C16T device (like the AMD Ryzen™ 1800X) and the 1920X into a 6C12T device (like the AMD Ryzen™ 1600X). For the truly technical, this is a 4+4 CCX configuration on one die. This ensures the game encounters the number of cores it was truly designed to handle. Please note that Game Mode does not disable SMT.

• We tell the OS to use a Local Mode (NUMA) memory, which keeps a game and its memory footprint inside one CPU die and the locally-connected DRAM. This minimizes several key latency points in the system, which most games love.

Re: Valve's Proton Has Brought 6000 Windows Games to Linux So Far

#243

Post by 2bitencryption »

jclos wrote: post #210
babuskov wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sure is amazing currently, but I fear in the long run nobody would even bother to make native Linux versions anymore. It's such an easy out for developers. Why bother when people will make it work on Proton somehow and you don't have to promise anything nor do Linux support.

The other side of that debate is that Proton would bring more people to Linux, and therefore the incentives for a good native version of the game on Linux would be a lot higher.

anecdote with sample size of one:

I finally switched to Linux (Pop_OS 19.10) after realizing Proton was good enough for all the games I enjoyed.

Re: Valve's Proton Has Brought 6000 Windows Games to Linux So Far

#244

Post by nihil75 »

jfkebwjsbx wrote: post #184
nihil75 wrote: post #109

Hate to be that guy but nobody mentioned it - Lets not forget Proton is a wrapper for Wine, and we're here today thanks to many many years of community effort.

Not just Wine. Mainly DXVK and related projects are what enabled the latest boom.

Yes, Vulkan is awesome, but its biggest benefit apart for performance is DX11+ support. Wine had DX9/10 for ages now, and many Proton games don't depend on Vulkan to run.

Re: Valve's Proton Has Brought 6000 Windows Games to Linux So Far

#245

Post by p1necone »

syshum wrote: post #131
m-p-3 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly most games nowadays comes with multiplayer as the main product, so that anticheat engines are a necessity to make the game fair for everyone. Those aren't friendly to Wine/Proton, therefore I try to stick to mostly single-player games. With the kids of how life is going faster everyday, I cannot afford to play on long stretches of time, and being unable to pause on a multiplayer game on a whim (which makes sens…

One of my biggest frustrations with modern gaming is the lack of single payer games, everyone focuses on Multiplayer, I have zero interest in playing with others, I play games to escape from people.... People suck, I do not want them in my games

There are a lot of AAA and indie focused single player experiences, what kind of genres are you into? The recent Tomb Raider titles are pretty good for example.

Re: Valve's Proton Has Brought 6000 Windows Games to Linux So Far

#246

Post by hiccuphippo »

braindouche wrote: post #231
vernie wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe that they got rid of the grace period in Windows 10. Now you can run Windows without a license key indefinitely, albeit with certain personalization features (e.g. color scheme, wallpaper) locked.

wait a darn tootin' minute there, are you telling me that paying for a Windows licence has become a cosmetic microtransaction?

There is a permanent Windows Activation message (white text on transparent background) in the lower right part of the screen which my brain already blocked so it's not distracting at all. I only notice it after taking screenshots.

Re: Valve's Proton Has Brought 6000 Windows Games to Linux So Far

#247

Post by coldpie »

outworlder wrote: post #228

I was actually pleasantly surprised by the number of games that my steam library listed as linux-compatible. VR games are a large omission.

VR is supported by Proton. Not all games work, of course, but it's not in itself a blocker.

Re: Valve's Proton Has Brought 6000 Windows Games to Linux So Far

#248

Post by wyldfire »

_ofdw wrote: post #193
runjake wrote: post #84

Now, the kickers behind the headlines (that nobody told me up front): 1. The majority of the games do not support multiplayer on Linux, due to dependency on Windows-specific anticheat software. 2. Many, many of the games themselves aren't totally stable on Linux. So, expect a crash or two at critical gameplay moments. That said, Proton is a great effort and it's great they're pushing Linux forward.

I feel like Proton is Valve's bid to free themselves of their dependency on Windows, so I like to think #1 will change in time as the publishers come around to the idea that Windows is slowly but surely losing its position as the only viable gaming platform.

I think SteamOS and/or Steam-Machines were that bid. Both seem to have been deprioritized and now Proton is a fallback.

I'm sad to say that Windows will likely stay this way for the foreseeable future. The additional test/QA work required in order to make additional platforms (linux, macOS, etc) have to have a business case associated with them. You could imagine the developers writing the game on linux, building and debugging/running locally on linux, but testing and shipping on windows. So even if the games work well on linux, they won't necessarily get a release.

The only thing that might change this balance would be if somehow PC-style games would target Android, or if Android would somehow become some kind of desktop OS. Both seem infeasible to me now but something could change.

Re: Valve's Proton Has Brought 6000 Windows Games to Linux So Far

#249

Post by wyldfire »

blaser-waffle wrote: post #142
runjake wrote: post #84

Now, the kickers behind the headlines (that nobody told me up front): 1. The majority of the games do not support multiplayer on Linux, due to dependency on Windows-specific anticheat software. 2. Many, many of the games themselves aren't totally stable on Linux. So, expect a crash or two at critical gameplay moments. That said, Proton is a great effort and it's great they're pushing Linux forward.

> 1. The majority of the games do not support multiplayer on Linux, due to dependency on Windows-specific anticheat software. Not even anti-cheat, just different implementations of things in the Linux and Windows versions. IIRC Paradox games don't have any strong anti-cheat, but Linux and Windows users can't play due to how their systems handle network time synchronization. > 2. Many, many of the games themselves are…

> And why would it crash only at critical gameplay moments? Sounds like FUD.

hah! at least back when I played nonstop twitch games there were no moments that were non-critical gameplay moments ;)

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