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

Proton 5.0, a package to run Windows games on Linux

github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 70 posts

Re: Proton 5.0, a package to run Windows games on Linux

#61

Post by Fnoord »

fjorgemota wrote: post #51
mapcars wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It works properly only with AMD video cards right?

nope, it also works VERY well with NVIDIA. You only need a GPU that works fine with Vulkan, tho, like those reported on this page (if your GPU is made by NVIDIA, ofc): https://developer.nvidia.com/vulkan-driver On Intel iGPUs it works if it has Vulkan support but, as always, the performance isn't that good (as with any Intel iGPU). The unique thing made by Valve that only run on AMD is ACO, a shader compiler for Vulk…

Wait, you're telling us you don't have to use Nouveau or the proprietary Nvidia driver?

Re: Proton 5.0, a package to run Windows games on Linux

#62

Post by Kaze404 »

alkonaut wrote: post #19
axaxs wrote: post #5

As a 20 or so year long linux as a desktop user, I've had my hopes up so many times that more people would embrace Linux. It's always been about the games, largely. Hell we had id's stuff running, and there was even a company porting Blizzard stuff if I remember right. This is the first time I've been genuinely enthused that "it's happenening", and I cannot be more thankful to the Wine team and Valve.

Even if I was a linux desktop user otherwise, I’d still prefer booting to a windows partition just to never have to wonder if the drivers are eating 5% of my FPS, or if that recent crash maybe doesn’t happen to everyone and it’s just me seeing it on Linux. Games (of the normal kind) are pretty special in that you literally aren’t doing anything else simultaneously, and you are probably running them long enough that a…

This post assumes windows doesn't have problems with games. One of the biggest is how you get input lag in borderless / windowed because you can't disable Windows 10's composition features like you could in 7. If you're in a scenario where 5fps matters enough that it can dictate your operating system of choice, that's a much bigger problem ime.

Re: Proton 5.0, a package to run Windows games on Linux

#63

Post by Kaze404 »

siliconpotato wrote: post #34
alkonaut wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if I was a linux desktop user otherwise, I’d still prefer booting to a windows partition just to never have to wonder if the drivers are eating 5% of my FPS, or if that recent crash maybe doesn’t happen to everyone and it’s just me seeing it on Linux. Games (of the normal kind) are pretty special in that you literally aren’t doing anything else simultaneously, and you are probably running them long enough that a…

I haven't looked closely at windows for about fifteen years, but back then the antivirus was horrible. I/o and general performance was hideously slow as everything had to be inspected against virus signatures and heuristic analysis. Is that still The same now or you whitelist the AV for games?

It is. If you're running windows on an even remotely slow drive, unless you disable Windows defender (which you can only do temporarily through conventional means) the system is barely usable.

Re: Proton 5.0, a package to run Windows games on Linux

#64

Post by Kaze404 »

randomer666 wrote: post #18

I've recently switched my desktop to Linux and almost every game I need runs without any problem using proton. The biggest problem Linux gaming has is the EasyAntiCheat. Most games using it don't work at all.

This is why I set up VFIO last week. It's sort of a pain but having windows use be sort of containerized on my system makes it more tolerable.

Re: Proton 5.0, a package to run Windows games on Linux

#65

Post by alkonaut »

Kaze404 wrote: post #62
alkonaut wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if I was a linux desktop user otherwise, I’d still prefer booting to a windows partition just to never have to wonder if the drivers are eating 5% of my FPS, or if that recent crash maybe doesn’t happen to everyone and it’s just me seeing it on Linux. Games (of the normal kind) are pretty special in that you literally aren’t doing anything else simultaneously, and you are probably running them long enough that a…

This post assumes windows doesn't have problems with games. One of the biggest is how you get input lag in borderless / windowed because you can't disable Windows 10's composition features like you could in 7. If you're in a scenario where 5fps matters enough that it can dictate your operating system of choice, that's a much bigger problem ime.

> This post assumes windows doesn't have problems with games.

It doesn't, but it does assume that game developers, and hardware/driver manufacturers all focus more resources on windows problems than they do Linux problems.

> One of the biggest is how you get input lag in borderless / windowed because you can't disable Windows 10's composition features like you could in 7.

Is this a common problem? I haven't heard about it.

> If you're in a scenario where 5fps matters enough

What is the actual difference for modern games now? I'm a few years out of date. E.g. this article is from 2017 (when the results were pretty abysmal). Things have likely improved a lot since, but I can't find a good article with modern titles. https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=pascal-w...

Back then it looked like some games were at perf parity, but a lot of games being at 60-70% perf (i.e. more or less unplayable/unacceptable).

Re: Proton 5.0, a package to run Windows games on Linux

#66

Post by fjorgemota »

Fnoord wrote: post #61
fjorgemota wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

nope, it also works VERY well with NVIDIA. You only need a GPU that works fine with Vulkan, tho, like those reported on this page (if your GPU is made by NVIDIA, ofc): https://developer.nvidia.com/vulkan-driver On Intel iGPUs it works if it has Vulkan support but, as always, the performance isn't that good (as with any Intel iGPU). The unique thing made by Valve that only run on AMD is ACO, a shader compiler for Vulk…

Wait, you're telling us you don't have to use Nouveau or the proprietary Nvidia driver?

No, you need to use at least one of them, otherwise the GPU itself will not work, right?

What i'm trying to say is that Proton itself doesn't work only on AMD, as NVIDIA can run Proton games very well too, and Intel can run it too.

In the end, only ACO needs an AMD GPU to run, but it doesn't a lot to do with Proton itself.

Re: Proton 5.0, a package to run Windows games on Linux

#67

Post by Kaze404 »

alkonaut wrote: post #65
Kaze404 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This post assumes windows doesn't have problems with games. One of the biggest is how you get input lag in borderless / windowed because you can't disable Windows 10's composition features like you could in 7. If you're in a scenario where 5fps matters enough that it can dictate your operating system of choice, that's a much bigger problem ime.

> This post assumes windows doesn't have problems with games. It doesn't, but it does assume that game developers, and hardware/driver manufacturers all focus more resources on windows problems than they do Linux problems. > One of the biggest is how you get input lag in borderless / windowed because you can't disable Windows 10's composition features like you could in 7. Is this a common problem? I haven't heard abo…

> Is this a common problem? I haven't heard about it.

Yep. It's known that since everything goes through Aero on Windows 10, if you need the absolute best response times you should play on exclusive full-screen. It's not significant for most people, but in FPS games specifically it's pretty easy to tell once you notice it.

> What is the actual difference for modern games now? I'm a few years out of date.

I can't give you anything except for anecdotes, but for what it's worth I noticed a significant improvement with DXVK on Final Fantasy XIV, where my old laptop could literally not play it acceptably on Windows and with DXVK I managed to achieve a stable 60fps on minimum settings.

Nowadays I have proper gaming hardware so I don't really look at fps anymore. As long as it's 60, it's good enough for me.

Re: Proton 5.0, a package to run Windows games on Linux

#68

Post by Fnoord »

fjorgemota wrote: post #66
Fnoord wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, you're telling us you don't have to use Nouveau or the proprietary Nvidia driver?

No, you need to use at least one of them, otherwise the GPU itself will not work, right? What i'm trying to say is that Proton itself doesn't work only on AMD, as NVIDIA can run Proton games very well too, and Intel can run it too. In the end, only ACO needs an AMD GPU to run, but it doesn't a lot to do with Proton itself.

Nvidia still doesn't work with Wayland AFAIK, and Nouveau doesn't work for 900 series or later AFAIK.

I still recommend everyone who wants to run Linux to go for AMD graphics cards. Their FOSS drivers work well, and you can get good performance on 1080p and 1440p. More and more games work with Proton, and Lutris allows one to download profiles which are supposed to work.

CPU-wise, AMD gives the best bang for the buck since Ryzen 2. So that is a no-brainer.

In both decisions though, you support the viable underdog.

Re: Proton 5.0, a package to run Windows games on Linux

#69

Post by fjorgemota »

Fnoord wrote: post #68
fjorgemota wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you need to use at least one of them, otherwise the GPU itself will not work, right? What i'm trying to say is that Proton itself doesn't work only on AMD, as NVIDIA can run Proton games very well too, and Intel can run it too. In the end, only ACO needs an AMD GPU to run, but it doesn't a lot to do with Proton itself.

Nvidia still doesn't work with Wayland AFAIK, and Nouveau doesn't work for 900 series or later AFAIK. I still recommend everyone who wants to run Linux to go for AMD graphics cards. Their FOSS drivers work well, and you can get good performance on 1080p and 1440p. More and more games work with Proton, and Lutris allows one to download profiles which are supposed to work. CPU-wise, AMD gives the best bang for the buck…

We're talking about Proton, not about wayland, tho.

And I also recommend AMD graphics cards, my RX 580 and my Ryzen 7 1700 works fine with Linux...so yeah.

Re: Proton 5.0, a package to run Windows games on Linux

#70

Post by IshKebab »

bluedays wrote: post #44
IshKebab wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say it used to be about games. But now many people use laptops and Linux has pretty terrible support for most of them. It often "works", but you'll usually have some issue with bluetooth or wifi or the trackpad, and good luck getting anywhere near as good battery life as Windows or Mac.

Linux laptop user checking in. No problems.

You're lucky!
Post reply on HN