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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

#471

Post by zigzag312 »

dijit wrote: post #440
zigzag312 wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What win32 apps were killed by UWP migration? When UWP was added win32 wasn't removed. Win32 applications still work. > Microsoft sort of only wins in the closed-source, “run this arbitrary binary” race That is actually a big win as some manufacturers only provide binary blob drivers and a lot of commercial software is distributed as binaries only.

Binary applications do not include drivers. I only mean applications, drivers do not transfer cleanly between versions of Windows. To answer your other question though; Any GDI that is not accessible through DirectX- The Contacts API, Timers API, BITS (Background Intelligent Transfer Service), The inbound HTTP server API, NDF (Network Diagnostic Framework), SNMP. AllocConsole and ReadConsole are gone, NamedPipes (som…

Surprising amount of drivers do transfer between versions of Windows, even if not officially supported. But yes, most break at some point.

I'm able to run binaries compiled over 20 years ago on the latest version of Windows most of the time. They do require enabling compatibility mode and sometimes installing legacy features.

I don't know, if APIs you mentioned are available in compatibility modes, but at least named pipes can still be enabled.

But Windows is going downhill lately, so backwards compatibility isn't what it used to be. Improving backwards compatibility for running old binaries would make Linux adoption easier. I hope that Linux PCs market share keeps improving to cross the threshold where it becomes an economically viable platform for most of commercial software.

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

#472

Post by apple1417 »

worble wrote: post #232
marginalia_nu wrote: post #38

It's weird how Steam doesn't automatically set the toggle that lets you play most Windows games through Proton instead of having that be an opt-in you need to know about. It really is extremely stable and polished these days.

I just wish they had to toggle to use proton by default for all games, regardless of if a Linux version exists. There have been several games where I ended up with the buggy abandoned Linux version (Rocket League is a particularly egregious example of this) instead of the much better supported Windows + Proton version.

An interesting example was Borderlands 2. The game originally had a native port by Aspyr, which worked quite well. 5 years pass and they release a new update and DLC - but they neglected to update the ports. 5 more years pass, then at some point in the past year or two they just plain removed the native Linux packages. They didn't announce it or anything so not 100% sure when. So these days when you install it you always get the (updated) Windows build under proton.

I'm a little sad we lost the native version, but on the other hand running it under proton just works, as I'd been doing for years, and the game would never have been updated otherwise.

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

#474

Post by Jach »

wtcactus wrote: post #432
Jach wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What games do you play? I really wonder about experiences like these since they differ so much to my own. The only time I mess with linux-specific things like proton versions is if a newly purchased game doesn't launch with the default proton for some reason. It's annoying, sure, but pretty rare nowadays and I usually anticipate it by checking protondb before buying a game rather than after, and it's not like it's mu…

Right now, Clair Obscur and Crusader Kings mostly. I also try other games when I install the system to check the current status of things. For instance, the Monster Hunter World Demo (I don't like that game, I only use it for testing) is terrible. Very high lag, takes about 15min every time it starts because it needs to redo the graphics shaders, it's much slower than on windows. Clair Obscur doesn't start. I get int…

Thanks for the details, I don't play those games. (Clair Obscur is on the list but I was planning on just bumming off a friend's xbox version.)

Your nvidia complaints suddenly make a lot more sense after mentioning Wayland. I've always used X11 and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future, with Mate as my desktop environment. It was stable in 2009 when I built my first gaming desktop and it's stable in 2025 with my newer one. My main desktop distro has been Gentoo, with my current CPU a Ryzen 9 5900X and a 4090 GPU. (Upgraded from a 1080 Ti. Prior to that on my old machine I had a 1050 Ti and prior to that an AMD Radeon 7950 that worked great up until AMD started messing with their drivers and trying to be more "open" (I hope they eventually got manual fan control back in).)

Besides my Steam Deck I also sometimes have played some games on an older travel laptop (ThinkPad T470p with an older i7 and an nvidia 940MX) running Mint, also with X11 and Mate. Again though I didn't have any real issues apart from having a weak CPU/GPU. (Tekken 7 on fairly low settings and resolution is about the best it can do, I've had better experiences remoting to my home PC with steam remote play or sunshine/moonlight.)

The shader recompilations after a driver update or what have you suck, but I don't think I've had them take nearly 15 minutes before. I've been tempted to turn it off / skip it since in theory it doesn't matter so much anymore for reducing stutters, and Windows is essentially that already (though I still hear complaints all the time from Windows gamers about shader compilation stutters) but I haven't really experimented. This is something that somewhat rewards continuous usage at least, because even if there are games I play that would take that long and I just haven't noticed, it's easy to not notice because the system's on most of the time and Steam can do that in the background as needed before I decide I want to play the game.

I've yet to try one of the "gaming distros" like Bazzite but their marketing often rubs me the wrong way. e.g. they brag about HDR support but I'm very skeptical of that working well or at all for those with nvidia GPUs. I do technically have an OLED 1000 nit HDR monitor but I don't make use of HDR in Linux, that is I guess a downside but when I tried experimenting on Windows when I got it I could barely tell the difference so whatever. In theory gamescope can kinda get HDR working now (as of this year) even with nvidia, at least for playing video files, but I never got it working for games. I have been experimenting with gamescope more but without HDR just to have a more isolated display compositor. Some older games especially don't tolerate alt-tabbing out of full screen and tabbing back in, but with gamescope that problem goes away.

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

#475

Post by mitchell209 »

gruturo wrote: post #445

Make that 3.0000001% After trying Bazzite for a few weeks around 1.5 years ago, I was pleasantly surprised but the (back then) poor state of nVidia support was an issue. I went back to the Windows 10 partition with the intention of switching over for good once the support ran out. I went a few days past that date, but seeing this article yesterday evening made me pull the trigger. Made a CachyOS USB stick, swapped th…

I also settled on CachyOS after distrohopping a few times in the past month. I had Brave at first but it doesn’t play well with shutting down on any Linux distro IME so I switched to LibreFox, but I might switch back and simply deal with the Brave issues instead because everything else feels better using Chromium-based.

I thought the auto-complete in that shell they use was neat, but I made a typo and it kept autocompleting that typo and I’m about to do the same as you lol.

I’m having wifi issues with my setup for some reason when it’s perfectly fine in Windows, so I need to diagnose that or switch back to windows until I build a new PC with a more Linux-friendly hardware.

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

#476

Post by happymellon »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #288
SteveNuts wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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. And backwards compatibility. They're really good at it. And I'd say that's the reason Windows is still dominant. There's this unfathomably long tail of niche software that people need or want to run.

> And backwards compatibility.

I have plenty of printers that have stopped working on Windows over the years, my current Brother laser doesn't have drivers that Windows will allow to be installed anymore. Its fine with Linux, so I just print share it as a generic so the Windows clients can connect.

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

#477

Post by xandrius »

cornstalks wrote: post #386
xandrius wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Modern games are not just shooting stuff in competitive mode. There exist a gazillion of other games too, without anti-cheat.

GP said "depending on your personal preferences" and clearly didn't imply all "modern games" are competitive shooters.

Then depending on your personal preferences, all modern games are farming simulators.

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

#479

Post by MiddleEndian »

vee-kay wrote: post #410
MiddleEndian wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>backwards compatibility They are getting worse at this. I bought a Surface Laptop Studio 2 two years ago. Windows Mail and Windows Calendar, two nice minimalist programs from Microsoft, were actively killed in this time. If you open them, it will redirect you to a new ad-laden Outlook app. If you somehow get a workaround going through the registry, they still fuck with it because the (incredibly simple) UI somehow h…

Just use Thunderbird Portable as email client. Since M$ is doing away with simple free apps (such as Mail) and forcing users to move to cloud-based expensive apps, you can use FOSS (Free and Open Source) alternatives -- especially the Portable ones (e.g., apps from PortableApps.com) that don't need an install, they can run off a USB drive, and app+userdata can be easily backed up without fuss. https://alternativeto.n…

I tried Thunderbird first, but unfortunately it was kinda heavy and was fairly unreliable, which kinda tracks with my experience before (at least on Windows). Mailspring works fine and is also open source.

Couldn't find a decent minimalist calendar program that integrated well with Windows. People say they like OneCalendar but I refuse to use the Windows Store, I even got WSL set up without it lol

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

#480

Post by wtcactus »

Jach wrote: post #474
wtcactus wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right now, Clair Obscur and Crusader Kings mostly. I also try other games when I install the system to check the current status of things. For instance, the Monster Hunter World Demo (I don't like that game, I only use it for testing) is terrible. Very high lag, takes about 15min every time it starts because it needs to redo the graphics shaders, it's much slower than on windows. Clair Obscur doesn't start. I get int…

Thanks for the details, I don't play those games. (Clair Obscur is on the list but I was planning on just bumming off a friend's xbox version.) Your nvidia complaints suddenly make a lot more sense after mentioning Wayland. I've always used X11 and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future, with Mate as my desktop environment. It was stable in 2009 when I built my first gaming desktop and it's stable in 2025…

Thanks for your details.

Yes, I must mention that I briefly had a Steam Deck, and it all worked very well. But the issue is with NVIDIA. And my system is not mainly for gaming, so I’m stuck with NVIDIA and I’m Linux is lagging - a lot - when compared to windows.

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