Gaming on Linux (and other *Nix operating systems) - Because PC Gaming is already not deeply autistic

[ZMOT]

Proton won't fucking work for me and it's annoying.
Before it came along, there were far more developers who would make a native Linux build. Now there's a lot less of that as they reckon Proton will do the work.
Ark and Rust both dropped official Linux support which is annoying.

Egosoft still killing it with excellent native support for all their X series space sims though so that's pleasing.

even without proton devs would be cheap and lazy. look at all the shit that gets released in a broken state even on windows. and as @ThinkThankThunk mentioned that extends also to windows. I think it was witcher 2 that was put into a shitty wrapper which killed performance, or all the "directx 12" versions that got shat out when it was new which ran worse than native dx11.

also don't forget that proton gives devs something easy to target. for one linux standards are a mess, and if you sell a linux version officially you have to support it, otherwise there's no point (something most people forget when it comes to that topic). proton gives devs the perfect excuse where they don't have to do much but it's still gonna work under windows, while never officially "guaranteeing" it works in linux (although valve got smarter and devs can do proper steam deck verification at least). one dev I remember pretty much said as much after an update broke proton and they fixed it, can't remember the game tho.

Issue is that the opportunity already occurred with Steam Machines, but they flopped hard since nobody wanted to buy them and Linux spergs weren't paying money for them either. At this point this is the best compromise since the native Linux ports were getting cancelled left and right. Same shit happened with the Ubuntu Edge phone where Linux spergs were also not willing to give money to a full blown Linux phone just because "Canonical evil because they're doing what Linux was built to do to begin with".

they flopped because the execution was crap. in usual valve fashion they just pushed them out in the hope vendors and the community were not retarded, so you ended up with overpriced prebuilts of shoddy quality, completely missing the point why people would by something like that in the first place (consoles have 1 spec, and are idiot-proof enough a kid can use them). that they ran linux was only a small part of the problem.
they got smarter with the deck.

ive had constant issues when i try to use wine but steams proton thing has worked very well.
The biggest issue is that anticheat usually blocks linux systems for most online games.

gotta have to wait and see how that develops, win11 (and the latest win10) offer stack protection which already does in part what anticheat tries to do. and if enabled promptly crashes the whole of windows. the moment anitcheat doesn't have to do everything itself (in a way that wouldn't work under windows) and can rely on operating system features, we might see more/easier compatibility with linux and in turn more devs supporting it.

 

[The Ghost of Kviv]

So I ask fellow farmers, how's your experience on the Loonix? Has it been very well and 'just werks', or has it been shit overall?

Since they started the software work for the Deck, Steam has been excellent for me. GOG is hit-or-miss, Heroic has some nice UI efforts, but at the end of the day, the game-specific work that Valve does is far better.

there was a time (early 2000s most recently) when devs still gave a shit about linux and would publish windows and linux binaries for their games (Epic was one of them)

UE4 really killed Epic, not just UT. Even during UT2k3/2k4, Epic devs and id devs (TTimo) worked together to make Linux builds. Also a big boon to Linux/BSD was Carmack open sourcing old id engines.

even Linus says that making binaries for linux is really convuluted since you have to make a package for every distro because static linking is retarded and gay. this is mostly fixed with appimages but i digress).

Valve makes the different Steam Runtimes for this issue, and IIRC Unity supports it as well.

While Proton has gotten very nice to work with I highly recommend Bottles to anyone who dares to play games or applications from services other than Steam (or if you're just a cheap ass with sticky fingers.)

Bottles isn't as tested, verified and solid as Steam, so expect things to break. I do think the devs did a great job with the UI.

In a similar vein, also check out Heroic Game Launcher for GOG and Epic free games.

they got smarter with the deck.

I'm not too sure. Valve wants Steam on as many computers as possible, even if that means lower quality handhelds. They have a recommended spec with the Deck, but something as simple as no trackpads makes a world of difference, even if the device has a full controller layout.

 

[RACISM]

I'll say this for Linux, the emulation scene isn't bad. I've had good luck with emulating Switch and PS2.

 

[Quote Cursor]

I'll say this for Linux, the emulation scene isn't bad. I've had good luck with emulating Switch and PS2.

The performance is pretty good on Linux, I had less issues than playing with my friends (who use Windows 10) Mario Party or Mario Kart on the Yuzu emulator.

 

[RACISM]

The performance is pretty good on Linux, I had less issues than playing with my friends (who use Windows 10) Mario Party or Mario Kart on the Yuzu emulator.

Yeah, I've been using Yuzu for the Switch stuff.

pcsx2 on Linux blows the windows version out of the water. There's games I can run on Linux at normal framerate that get 50% under Windows.

 

[Quote Cursor]

For those who are rocking an Nvidia gpu on Linux... there's a brand new beta driver update (535.43.02) that was released a couple of days ago.

The driver fixes some bugs, adds support for vulkan extensions, wayland support, better performance on Minecraft with the 3000 series and other things in summary. [Phronix Article]

 

[ZMOT]

I'm not too sure. Valve wants Steam on as many computers as possible, even if that means lower quality handhelds. They have a recommended spec with the Deck, but something as simple as no trackpads makes a world of difference, even if the device has a full controller layout.

they put money into proton and created their own flagship device for people to follow (or not), compared to "what if we put linux on a small formfactor PC without any spec recommendations and just call them steam machines?"

trackpads depend on the games people want to play, the usual suspects all have gamepad-support so won't be needing it, it's mainly for older games or games with not proper port.

 

[The Ghost of Kviv]

they put money into proton and created their own flagship device for people to follow (or not), compared to "what if we put linux on a small formfactor PC without any spec recommendations and just call them steam machines?"

trackpads depend on the games people want to play, the usual suspects all have gamepad-support so won't be needing it, it's mainly for older games or games with not proper port.

And when manufacturers don't meet the recommended spec, like the AMD Z1, it's not going to make the normies happy with their $300+ purchase. The smallest bump tarnishes a whole product line, which is why I don't think they've become that much smarter.

 

[ZMOT]

And when manufacturers don't meet the recommended spec, like the AMD Z1, it's not going to make the normies happy with their $300+ purchase. The smallest bump tarnishes a whole product line, which is why I don't think they've become that much smarter.

the deck is always the same hardware (unless something changed I didn't notice), what competitor's do is not up to valve. normies are still smart enough to know that a deck isn't the same as whatever asus called theirs or any other chink device - if they manage to have surface knowledge of mobile phone specs and differences, they can handle that.
if you buy a steam deck you know exactly what you get, and anything verified should run without much issue.

 

[The Ghost of Kviv]

the deck is always the same hardware (unless something changed I didn't notice), what competitor's do is not up to valve. normies are still smart enough to know that a deck isn't the same as whatever asus called theirs or any other chink device - if they manage to have surface knowledge of mobile phone specs and differences, they can handle that.
if you buy a steam deck you know exactly what you get, and anything verified should run without much issue.

I think we'll have to agree to disagree, here. I'm happy you're optimistic, I don't hold that much faith on both Valve and normal people.

 

[Yandex Captcha Solver]

With Lutris, gaming on Linux is smooth even with pirating content. Just hit the '+' icon, select my .exe, then click forward a few times. Occasionally I'll run into an issue, hop onto ProtonDB and check if there are any known issues, or arguments I need to run. There is a solution posted 99% of the time.

Linux works well from GOG games, DODI's repacks, clean Steam files with Goldberg emu, and most cracks. Some CODEX cracks don't work while others work. LinuxRuleZ! makes one click bash files for running native Windows games (seeders are usually low, or non-existent, better off with manual exe install imo). Then rutracker has a section dedicated to native Linux games.

With the great work done on Proton, Wine, and Lutris, it feels pretty cozy gaming on Linux now vs what 5 years ago was like, even while pirating. The Steam Deck is pulling more people and development effort into these tools, and I can play 99% of the games I want while not being frustrated at poor performance or random glitches.

 

[Quote Cursor]

Hello friends, it has been more than a year, so I do apologise for necroposting this early. I would have to say for my experience so far, games normally have been running, but I would have the rare issue with WINE or so. To put perspective, when looking at ProtonDB statistics, on the Steam games I own, about 90% are silver rated or above; and 75% are gold rated or above. However, it should be noted that the games that don't work because of Anti-Cheat reasons still exist, one of the notable ones being League of Legends, of which I don't play, my friends do and quite frankly it's a popular game around the world. At the time I had an Nvidia GPU, and with it, I did have problems; I have switched to an AMD GPU, and it does perform way better (that isn't to say you are doomed forever if you go with Nvidia, there's been attempts by Nvidia as such and with NVK there's work being done). I also have an emulation setup with RetroDECK as well, and it works really well. Suffice to say, things are in the direction of it just werks when looking at Linux Gaming, but obviously it still has ways to go.