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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

#301

Post by account42 »

Maken wrote: post #196
Miraste wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ideally games would have native Linux versions. Practically, no one did this before Wine/Proton because the Linux market is so small and bug-prone, so the choices are Proton or no games at all.

I think the major change was Steam and the Steam runtime rather than Proton, which solved the library fragmentation problem. Since then we have seen a considerable amount of same-day releases and native ports on Linux.

It didn't solve library fragmentation as much as it showed the solution that was always available and already used by most ports before the Steam runtime existed: to bundle all the libraries you need besides system interface like libc, libGL, etc. This is really no different on Windows.

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

#302

Post by account42 »

Miraste wrote: post #181
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.

Ideally games would have native Linux versions. Practically, no one did this before Wine/Proton because the Linux market is so small and bug-prone, so the choices are Proton or no games at all.

> Practically, no one did this before Wine/Proton.

Oh come on, that's a huge exaggeration. There are thousands of native games available for Linux and Wine/Proton had nothing to do with that. Finding something to play hasn't been a problem for a long time if you are interested in a wide enough range of games.

Steam did make a big contribution to that but that was before Proton - if anything, Proton might have slowed down the number of new native releases. What Proton solves for people is being able to play specific games they want to play, like for example the latest popular AAA game that everyone is talking about - for that it's not enough if there are x% of games available no matter how big x is.

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

#303

Post by account42 »

sho_hn wrote: post #93
carlio wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if you can install Wine under WSL? :evil laugh:

It's a chuckle-worthy thought now, but I am willing to bed it will be reality for backward compatibility with historic games in the long run - cf. the use of DOSBox to run old DOS games in modern systems. Countdown to old Windows games delivered in full Linux containers starting now ...

Individual DLLs from Wine are alreay being used to fix compatibility problems in older games on Windows.

[0] http://bitpatch.com/ie_ddrawfix.html (included in the GOG.com installer for Planescape: Torment)

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

#304

Post by BubRoss »

sho_hn wrote: post #285
BubRoss wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think someone is going to resolve this solved problem by running wine on linux on wsl, which would still require dosbox?

I'm not talking about the DOS games at that point (it's a reference example for a pattern, as mentioned), but newer generations of games and the basic principle of operation. There are already some older ca. Win 98 era games that run better on Linux+Wine than on Windows past Vista due to compatibility problems, and I do think it'll eventually become a commercial reality to sell those kinds of games packaged into a a…

> Honestly, if you take this another round I have to assume you're being intentionally obtuse for trolling purposes.

You said you would bet that someone would use wine to deliver an old windows game on linux that runs inside window's linux compatibility layer, doubled down, and say anymore who says that is nonsense must be trolling.

Do you think that maybe instead of being likely to happen, it is likely to never happen due to wine being open source? It could just translate to a modern windows API instead of Linux. There is even something called reactOS that is an open source and windows compatible.

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

#305

Post by pmarreck »

alufers wrote: post #145
pmarreck wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct me if I'm wrong but anticheat engines, the way I believe they are currently designed, use their proximity to the actual hardware and OS to work, and the layer of abstraction introduced by Vulkan ruins this. What if the anticheat model was changed to one that detects statistically-improbable scoring (basically, a scientific model)? And triggering that would require some sort of skill verification, almost like…

I think you meant Proton instead of Vulkan. Some games run on Vulkan even on Windows. :) Cheers

Ah, sorry about nomenclature mixup. I love it all!! I want to see Linux become the premier “gaming OS” because gaming shouldn’t depend on a proprietary OS

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

#307

Post by majewsky »

na85 wrote: post #178
wtetzner wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not all games are about "beating" something.

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.

"The Stanley Parable" and even more so its followup, "The Beginner's Guide". Both are technically video games, but actually more like interactive movies.

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

#308

Post by jfkebwjsbx »

nihil75 wrote: post #244
jfkebwjsbx wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

D3D10 and D3D11 are very similar (I remember DXVK claiming that, which is why the supported both at once).

I don't think we had usable D3D10 support before DXVK, but I may be wrong.

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

#309

Post by jfkebwjsbx »

vetinari wrote: post #293
jfkebwjsbx wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please let me know why I am being downvoted, don't just do so. XAudio2 among several other libraries are key, even if not "DirectX". Even Microsoft points you out to them in the docs for DirectX...

Sorry, I don't know, it certainly wasn't me... While XAudio2 is a key library, it is not DirectX one, as we were talking about DirectX umbrella project. It is not as low-level library as other DirectX projects were anymore, it doesn't talk to the hardware directly. It is really just a user space library with convenient functions, made by Microsoft. It also has competition, there's OpenAL, which is similar - even if i…

Yeah, I understand, that is why I said it is not DirectX, but being in DirectX or not is just marketing.

The reason is that XAudio2 (and lower level ones and other non-audio ones) is developed, distributed and recommended by Microsoft, and it is used by many major games and audio engines.

So I don't understand who cares about whether it is formally part of DirectX or not.

I didn't claim there aren't alternatives like OpenAL or Wine's XAudio2 implementation. I simply said the original XAudio2 is not portable on its own, which means you cannot simply use it in Linux, for instance.

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

#310

Post by account42 »

coldpie wrote: post #70
elteto wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The implication from the comment was that Wine is better at running old Windows games than Windows itself. I’m not sure where this Linux vs. Windows comparison is coming from.

No, you mis-read. chaorace said that Windows EXEs running in Proton gives them better results than running the Linux binary that the game developer ships ("native"). AnIdiotOnTheNet stated that Windows APIs are more stable and better documented than Linux APIs. As a long-time Linux dev (see my profile), I have also found this to be true. Linux userland APIs are unstable and change all the time. Some transitions that…

The audio subsystem changes definitely could have been done better. Ideally /dev/dsp should have been extended like has been done on the BSDs instead of inventing completely new interfaces. That said, doesn't libasound still work with pulse?

gstreamer on the other hand is something you can just as easily ship yourself. I wouldn't consider that a Linux userland API as much as a random library that is present on many Linux system just like some crap you'd find in system32.

I'm less familiar about the API/ABI changes in the libudev transition - is there anything there that broke API compatibility.

The "lower level" userland libraries (glibc, libGL, libX11) tend to be pretty good at maintaining backwards compat. Well, except for Mesa pulling in the C++ standard library which can be a real problem when older games also dynamically link (incompatible) versions.

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