this post was submitted on 15 Jun 2024
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ProtonGE has fixes that Proton can't have for legal reasons, so it's good to use it.
What fixes? Why can't Proton have them but GE can?
Proprietary codecs for example, which is why some cutscenes in Proton are shown as a color test screen, those are fixed on GE.
If GE received a Cease and Desist, that would be frustrating, but linux gaming would go on. If Proton got a Cease and Desist, that could be catastrophic to linux gaming. Valve could even theoretically get banned from working on linux gaming (like the Yuzu devs got banned from working on emulation). It's just not worth the risk for compatibility/performance for a smaller proportion of games.
Hopefully any legal updates can get up-streamed. I'm not interested in proprietary codecs anyway.
Well, sometimes Windows games depend on propietary codecs, and until Valve can get the devs to make adjustments so the codecs aren't needed, the games aren't going to work properly in regular Proton.
If there is a free codec alternative I assume they can use that when the game calls for that codec? Perhaps I don't know enough that that's harder than replacing DirectX calls with Vulkan.
The issue is one of licensing, not technology. There's all kinds of patents in the space, and using free codecs could still infringe them. DirectX doesn't have the same patent protection. I believe in theory you could make a fully open source Linux native version of DirectX.
For more info from someone who knows more than me, see here.