this post was submitted on 07 Oct 2024
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Steam Deck

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cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/16434132

YouTube video: https://youtu.be/uScsmjvdwyo

Invidious video from YouTube without YouTube: https://inv.nadeko.net/watch?v=uScsmjvdwyo or https://invidious.nerdvpn.de/watch?v=uScsmjvdwyo

Video description:


It’s clear there are some people who don’t understand Proton. So let’s talk about it. #Proton #SteamPlay #CompatibilityLayer

00:00 Introduction
00:41 The basics of a computer
01:46 What Proton is not
03:04 What is an emulator
04:32 Proton acts like a map
05:25 Proton translates API and system calls
06:18 Proton provides a Windows-like software environment
06:55 Why are some games incompatible?
08:52 Shouldn't we demand native Linux games?
11:07 Conclusion
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[–] YourPrivatHater@ani.social 18 points 1 month ago (4 children)

They do need to make Linux native games.

[–] bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de 34 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Sadly this has more or less died with unmaintained games. It's a pain the arse to get old native games working. And for many titles the Windows version with Proton works much better than the Linux native one. Win32 has somehow become the most stable Linux API.

[–] YourPrivatHater@ani.social 9 points 1 month ago (1 children)

What? There are loads of Linux native games, and more need to come

[–] bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de 21 points 1 month ago (4 children)

I know, I have many of them. Most of them I specifically bought when they got Linux support, like Tomb Raider and Alien Isolation.

Not a single commercial game runs as well natively as it does through Proton. Tomb Raider - has much worse graphics. Alien Isolation - for some reason the DPad doesn't work. Baldur's Gate - I have to supply some old openssl (or so, can't remember) library. And I shudder at the thought of trying to get Unreal Tournament 2004 or Doom 3 (not the open source version) running. I should try to dig out my disc for Ankh to see how hard it is to get that one running.

Maintained games and especially open source ones run great. But the sad reality is that it costs money to maintain software. Linux backwards compatibility is abysmal. It is much easier to get a 20 year old Windows game to run than a 20 year old Linux game.

Though to be fair, it is also hard on Windows to get a 20 year old Windows game to run. Wine is just a great piece of software.

I would love to have more native games. My own game is native as well. And luckily most indie devs usually also bring out a native port. And still most of the time the Windows version via Proton just runs better.

[–] Fubarberry@sopuli.xyz 7 points 1 month ago

Yeah, wine is incredible for preservation. Many older games don't work on either platform (old windows games on windows, old linux games on linux), but running old windows games through proton usually works great.

[–] YourPrivatHater@ani.social 0 points 1 month ago

Yeah the aaa and aa games don't run well because the devs or rather greedy publishers don't care about Linux gamers and hate us because they have to make actually working stuff and not rely on shitty anti cheat that has permission it shouldn't have ever.

[–] woelkchen@lemmy.world -3 points 1 month ago

Win32 has somehow become the most stable Linux API.

Windows is a moving target. Wine/Proton is a reverse engineering chase of a moving target. WINDOWS GAMES ON PROTON BREAK ALL THE TIME! Stop making stuff. It's great that Proton exists but it's not like Java. What does not break? Flatpak Runtimes and Steam Linux Runtime.

[–] mkwt@lemmy.world -4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Yep. Linux is a total pain in the behind to write applications for, because of API and ABI instability. Just ask notable Linux desktop application developer Linus Torvalds.

[–] woelkchen@lemmy.world 0 points 1 month ago

Linux is a total pain in the behind to write applications for, because of API and ABI instability.

Flatpak

[–] mipadaitu@lemmy.world 13 points 1 month ago
[–] vinnymac@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Proton is the gateway drug to us getting more Linux native games. In due time!

[–] Fubarberry@sopuli.xyz 5 points 1 month ago

Yeah, can't get market share without games, but it's hard to get games without marketshare. Proton made sure we have games, now we need marketshare. Once we have marketshare we'll get more high quality linux native ports (I hope).

[–] woelkchen@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago

Proton is the gateway drug to us getting more Linux native games.

It's not when Win32 apologists keep making insane claims how stable Proton is... "Proton is great, it just runs all the Windows games" is the mess that got us to the place where games we buy just start crashing suddenly because nobody of those developers realizes that each major release of Proton must be treated like its own OS with proper QA targeting that. Proton works great for old games because these old games no longer change. For modern games that still get updates Proton is a gamble because a reverse engineered version of the Windows API just isn't stable.