Proton 5.13: A Massive Update
boilingsteam.com
boilingsteam.com
Yesterday i boot up my Majaro with i3, installed the latest Proton on Steam and decided to install Path of Exile. The results are, for me, very surprising how good was the experience:
- Started Steam. Set Proton version to 5.13-1.
- Install Path of Exile. Install went really fast compared to my Windows 10. Im using both on SSD, Windows NTFS and Linux Btrfs.
- Started Path of exile. Put settings on high/ultra and set graphics backend to Vulkan. I have a RTX 2080S with a 6700K im sure PoE can run on high/ultra.
- Restarted. Played for like 1h between 150-200 fps without any glitch or anything i could say its worse than Windows.
- During this time i had Discord on background, Firefox, Terminals and was able to switch workspaces without any issue with i3.
I'm really surprised how smooth the experience was. I have really to give kudos to the Team working on Proton and Steam for this nice "Desktop" experience. Plus it seems from my Steam library, apart from some MP games that have anti-cheat, it seems most of the games are playable and classified as gold or platinum. I really recommend to anyone not playing competitive MP games to give Linux a try with Steam. Well done!
- custom config
- custom drivers
- lot of hacky solutions
- compile wine / proton on a "fix" branch
If you want to play just use the native platform the game was built for, Linux will never be like Windows until the games are natively supported.
sure, i guess the same can be said about WSL on Windows 10 but that does not mean people don't find it useful. The whole point is that Proton is a very welcome addition to Linux due to the lack of native games.
1) Alt-tab out of a game without the game crashing. 2) Random Stuttering on Framerate. 3) Games crash at random 4) Can't stream games to discord without significant performance drop (I have a 3950X and a 1080Ti and a Unity game is struggling).
IME if it is a Unity Game the game will work fine but with significant performance issues.
The ProtonDB they have I find to be practically uselss as a lot of games that work "perfectly" don't.
perhaps it will always be a struggle. even if we never make it, i believe it offers diversity & new chances at betterment. that project of betterment is one i for one would have us embark upon.
It will never be better than native because it is always going through a translation layer, that coupled with streaming not actually working particularly well means that it will not be an option for the vast number of people.
What people like yourself don't seem to grok is that a lot of people just want stuff that works and not a work in progress. I wanna relax and blow off some steam when playing games I don't want to have to work out why my game isn't working.
All I am giving is my accurate account of my experiences with this technology.
your assumption that the translation layer is all that counts assumes driver parity between os'es. both for 3d & game streaming, there are significant performance and capability differences between os'es.
but mostly, long run, i think it's important that the gaming ecosystem remain technically healthy. i see a lot of interest again in cross-platform tech like Vulkan. linux is thankfully in a great position to just run, very well, with modern engines. the long work building & optimizing compatibility systems has, thamlnkfully, given Linux a lot of experience to get fast & otherwise (audio, input, netcode, &c) capable, which all pays off again now that games run natively too.
your honest account is welcome. you are free to not care, to assume this would only ever be an ill fit for you. i'm not sure why you'd spend so much effort so loudly making your personal point about your expectations on a day when others are happy & revelling in the ongoing progress & hope & freedom & opening of possibilities that they want to see. it's, again, ok that you are opting out. but a lot of us are excited that cutting edge gaming can & is happening in more diverse places than it used to, & we foresee only better.
In some ways I think a translation layer will make it less likely there will be a Native port because devs will just rely on the compatibility layer. I am aware of counter arguments to my position and I could be wrong. We will fin out in time.
> your assumption that the translation layer is all that counts assumes driver parity between os'es. both for 3d & game streaming, there are significant performance and capability differences between os'es.
Nope I never said that the translation layer is all that matters. But given everything else being equal (it normally is btw) it will always have lower performance.
One native games Linux and Windows performance stats is roughtly the same framerate (if both games are using OpenGL or Vulkan). The difference in performance is 1-2FPS. If the game isn't native then then there will be a penalty in using a translation layer and compatibility issues. This aligns perfectly with what I have observed.
> i'm not sure why you'd spend so much effort so loudly making your personal point about your expectations on a day when others are happy & revelling in the ongoing progress & hope & freedom & opening of possibilities that they want to see.
I've left a comment on a website it isn't a huge effort. It takes me a few minutes to write a reply at most.
In any event it is important for people to be informed by the pitfalls. This is mainly because I've seen many people tout all the positives of alternatives without people informing people of the potential pitfalls.
imo you are perhaps realistic about the present situation, in a closed way where experimenting is not worth your time. I don't think you've made much affordance for the progress & success & accomplishment, and I don't think you've recognized any of the good points of diversity, of value at stake here. this isn't at all an unreasonable contemporary stance towards the situation, but it's also considering only the real & not the possible, not the fruits that open source & cross-platform has been working towards.
> In any event it is important for people to be informed by the pitfalls.
agreed that this is a value. but I don't think people should have to take such thesis (Linux gaming good getting better) and antithesis (Linux gaming bad will not do waste of time) & smash together their own synthesis. I'd like to see some recognition that you do think there are worthy & compelling reasons for Linux gaming and/or tech like proton. I have tried, amid my "platitudes" to accept some dings, but I have not seen any places where you acknowledge or realize that there maybe something good for humanity at stake here. is there anything you could offer that shows that your realism also has a sense of the possible & virtuous here?
1 - I'm actually surprised about that, it's working much better on Linux than when i had windows where it was really often a "crossing fingers experience". Granted, i haven't used windows for years, so i hope it's in a better state now. 2 - i had some suttering when i was using the llvm backend for shaders (i have an amd gpu). Since i switched to ACO (which is the default in mesa now) i just have one games with suttering, Heavy Rain. 3 - The only crashing game i had was C&C, it seems it was more an actual bug of the game, it was fixed after the game was updated, not proton. 4 - don't use discord so can't comment there.
I've finished quite a few games using proton/wine and what you describe is definitely not a generality at all (appart from discord which i don't use, so can't comment).
And? The information is incorrect and misleading. It doesn't get a pass because it is a community project. I would rather have no information than incomplete information.
For what it's worth, I've played dozens of platinum (and gold, and silver) games since Proton came out with nearly flawless experiences. In many cases, it ran more reliably than Windows.
https://www.protondb.com/search?q=diablo%202
Looking at that WineHQ list, it's kind of interesting. Didn't know that existed.
The info on ProtonDB - for other games anyway - seems fairly accurate.
Go try installing the original Civilization 2, or Rocket Jockey.
Both run fine in wine and can run on Windows 10, but not on windows without serious effort.
I suspect that it is because it is using ancient version of DirectX/Direct3D. Same thing happens with the classic Resident Evil games.
Configuring autoexec.bat, config.sys, or hand-tuning X timings are fond memories of mine.
The reason why I picked those examples is because one is a 16-bit executable, and the other is hardcoded to a specific DirectX version for which Microsoft has _also_ stopped shipping necessary libraries.
With PlayOnLinux or Proton it's really not any more or less effort, and they run great on an OS that is overall superior for the sort of user who is _able_ to make those games run.
This is contradicting.
I can recommend Lutris for situations like these. It allows you to use a custom config/hacky solution/wine version which works with a certain program.
The flatpak solution wraps the entire Steam client, whereas Valve's approach is to wrap individual games first. Both approaches rely on the same technologies and we are looking into improving compatibility in the future."""
I'm super pleased about the sandboxing getting worked on and polished.
Flatpak Steam is working pretty great for me but I'll be happy to deal with a little weirdness as they work this out.
We are talking an incredible amount of effort for something that benefits a pretty small crowd.
The only real money making avenue would be that Valve launches its own mature Linux based OS for gamers. Low key tho, they would be trying to be the first real alternative to windows/macs.
By making Linux more compatible with the games that Valve sells through their store it puts Valve in a better situation to survive this possible course of action by Microsoft because they can switch to selling hardware preloaded with their SteamOS.
They can iterate round after round on this even if it doesn't become a billion dollar revenue stream in 6 months.
Happily :-)
We haven't conquered the desktop yet, but I see more and more people - including even in sales - voluntarily using Linux at work.
And while we haven't conquered the desktop, Linux is huge on mobile - where Microsoft has given up.
Even (parts of) Microsoft realizes where this is likely to go as shown by the fact that they are busily positioning themselves for it.
If you mean Android, the Linux kernel is an implementation detail, only exposed to device OEMs and Google itself.
Userspace is Java based runtime, and in what concerns the NDK, there is nothing Linux specific about the public APIs,
https://developer.android.com/ndk/guides/stable_apis
Since Android 7, Google has increasingly introduced measures to kill process that try to get dirty with private stuff, like directly calling int Linux stuff.
On of the main reasons why termux might not have a bright future, specially since its developers refuse to contaminiate their workarounds with Java/Kotlin code.
If you mean ChromeOS tablets, well even less given that Web platform doesn't care what OS it runs on, and Crostini actually runs on top of a virtualized container, WSL v1 style.
As for Microsoft, they have been one of the first UNIX vendors for PC with Xenix, had an initial POSIX support on NT due to goverment contracts, and have just reacted to the market of Linux guys that give Apple money instead of sponsoring Linux OEMs, so that they give money to Microsoft instead of Apple. The Linux OEMs still don't see any money from those "Linux" lovers.
That said it's an attempt to break the chicken/egg cycle. The crowd is small because the crowd is small, if you offer a way to grow it artificially than you can gain critical mass.
The big wrench is DRM/anti cheat though. That's the major thing holding me back from gaming with proton exclusively.
Aside of political motives regarding Microsoft, the technological problem that Valve is solving with using the flatpak technology is creating a single Linux build target for all Linux game releases.
A recurring complaint from gamedevs is that it's difficult to support many different Linux distributions/versions/runtimes. Steam already does a decent job providing its own runtime to link against, but this goes several steps further in abstracting away from the distribution that a user may be running.
1. Steam Machine 2: VR
Pairing a Steam Machine with an "it just works" concept of the Index that can play all of your old PC games (even ones that don't run on Windows 10) and all of your VR games at a decent resolution.
2. Oh shit... Xbox Game Pass is actually a great deal....
They may want to piggy back off of Microsoft's UWP concept to make a game-subscription service for the entire (or most) of the Steam catalog. Valve knows that games industry is going trough a large industry shift. Most consumers don't really care that they're selling out all of their rights for convenience (hell that was Steam's main realization).
3. lol Google thinks people trust them with games haha... but Stadia isn't too bad of an idea...
Containerizing games and packaging up their streaming software (Steam Remote Play) and maybe some edge hardware from #1 would be a great value for a PC gamer. The industry has been attempting to push itself to thin client fat server models for quite some time and I wouldn't be surprised if Valve wanted in on the action with some of their existing investments.
4. They may actually think they're a compelling offering to the couch gamer.
Steam Machines, Steam Links, and the Steam Controllers were neat but, maybe, the execs at Valve think there's enough traction to beat out the existing competition (Nintendo Switch/WII/Gamecube/..., Xbox Series ..., Sony PS..).
I used to think that, but I think computers will get cheaper faster than latencies will get better.
Look at Xbox. Anyone who can afford stadia, would much rather just buy a cheap loss-leader Xbox. Unlike industry compute (where the perks of AWS/Azure/GCP far outweigh having on-premises hardware), gaming is incredibly well suited to having on-prem hardware.
Make them super cost effective (single rendering team/networking team/physics team) and have them churn content into Game Pass and have an impossible to resist offer.
Succinctly, it's easier and cheaper to port games wholesale than it is to: build out yet another platform for developers to target, on board them, and on board consumers to this new console.
What steam has that consoles don't, are is massive preexisting library. The problem is it mainly targets windows. Their options for bringing this to the console market are either pay for windows licenses (which on top of hardware, would make them more expensive than the alternatives), or port in wholesale. Most console games get a pc (windows) port eventually.
So if they can get proton to a mature point, they'll be the defacto winner of the console wars.
I know the issue isn't settled yet, but does anybody expect the SCOTUS to do anything besides rule for Oracle?
It is interesting because RDR2 has yet undefeated DRM.
Edit: also interesting note that the cracker behind it, EMPRESS, has basically taken the youtube crowdfunding model to the scene: https://old.reddit.com/r/CrackWatch/comments/iyj73x/i_will_n...
I mean, it might be one thing if the cracker was also producing blog posts about their reverse engineering efforts and the internals of DRM, or if the audience was a bunch of Linux users... but in practice it seems to be a bunch of children (frankly) who want free stuff. I wonder who is donating?
I dunno, I suppose a tiny minority is all you need, so maybe that's it...
Plus there's a huge number of people who go through a piracy 'phase'. Usually to get games when they're a teen with no cash. Most of the games they love are purchased once they've matured with a stable income.
Speaking from experience!
We were fortunate to benefit from a program meant to help get lower income families access to computers and the internet, in the early 2000's, so piracy opened up entertainment options far more diverse than the TV channels we could get over the air. On top of games, I remember burning music CD's for my friends and family. Hell, I remember long hours fiddling with the concept of transcoding and burning VCD's (basically a DVD, but on a CD) for my family to watch.
For this reason I tend to prefer buying my games from GOG, which sells all its games DRM-free.
I do value the work game developers put in these games and I buy all of them, but I like having the peace of mind that if something happens to my purchases down the road I could run a cracked executable later on.
It's quite common when a developer updates a game to remove Denuvo, or when an official Denuvo-free executable is accidentally leaked (as appears to be surprisingly typical), but I don't think it's that common for cracks.
Cracks generally do the absolute minimum to get a game to run, which often means leaving neutered but still performance-intensive DRM in place. Once a game works, I've never seen anyone take a second pass to improve performance. (Games that actually crash are of course a different matter.)
IMO, this is again an indicator of the scene's priorities.
Now, supporting someone cracking that same drm for people to run their games however they want? Makes much more sense.
Like many times before, just shows that piracy is not (just) about being cheap, it's (often) a matter of principle.
If "EMPRESS" was hoping to get donations from preservationists, or Linux enthusiasts, she (?) would presumably be making a very different donation pitch.
But, who knows, maybe you're right and she just sucks at marketing. I don't have a better explanation!
And Oracle is trying to overturn that precedent at SCOTUS.
If Oracle wins, laws will change because it is a fundamentally incompatible position for our industry.
Whilst Valve was pushing to create their own OS/ecosystem, it did make sense - but even then there was a niggling feeling they just wanted to make their own walled-garden.
To a gamer today, a windows license is cheap (maybe $10) and 'everything works' - you can happily dual-boot/VM for non-gaming if that suits you better.
Happy to be corrected if I'm missing out on anything - but can't think there are many people saying "Great - now I can finally buy RDR2"
I haven’t really bought any games recently because of it, and unlike the other premium pay monthly gaming services Xbox Game Pass actually brings on a lot of new games.
With Microsoft buying more and more studios and the fact that they pretty much releasing most of not of all their first party new games on the pass combined with a persistent library of a lot of older games it’s a game changer for me.
Basically with Game Pass Ultimate you can currently play games on your Xbox, PC and mobile device (via streaming) all for $15.
It’s by far the biggest mover Microsoft has and what I see giving them a huge edge this coming generation over Sony.
Microsoft also doesn’t care anymore about Xbox hardware exclusives they see Xbox as their cross platform gaming brand now.
This means you can easily get a Home or Pro license from resellers or ebay for around $20
[0] https://boilingsteam.com/my-journey-to-finally-ditching-wind...
TLDR: Many people don't trust Microsoft.
Full: New Microsoft seems really nice but (fortunately) they always keeps reminding us who they really are:
- Put ads on my start menu or login screen, even if I have the extra expensive "Professional" license.
- Poorly hidden attempts at strangling non-store distribution of open source software like Krita (discussed the other day).
- Inviting an open source developer of a popular packaging tool for a talk, developing their own and then ghosting him and launching their own.
- Relentlessly pushing Edge until they cave in and push Edge as a frontend to Chromium
- etc
Warning, slight hyperbole ahead:
Some people at Microsoft do some really great work (Azure, VSCode etc). Sadly for them they seems to have to fight another part of the company that desperately miss being despised and desperately miss the thrill of multiple ongoing high profile lawsuits for monopoly abuse.
With Proton I finally fully switched, I can play at least half of my games, any time I want. Its great.
Honestly when I wanted to game on Windows I usually just used a VM (with GPU passthough) as it was nice to have my preferred environment still up and running.
I haven't tried to play a Windows only game in a while but dual booting was definitely a pain that I would try to avoid.
But oh snap, Tron 2.0 support? Nice. All commands prepare for disc wars!
I've noticed games that are unity or another cross platform toolkit always run better than engines that seem to be console/windows only.
If you have Linux, you are likely a casual gamer, and your best option is to stick to a gaming service like Stadia.
And if you are pro, Linux is not an option for you anyways.
I count myself in that group, and Proton has been a godsend. It finally allows me to completely avoid my Windows partition (Windows 7, which isn't supported anymore), while keeping my large Steam library almost entirely functional.
If you're a casual gamer you don't care about high end 3d graphics which completely eliminates the need for Stadia.
Stadia has a worse selection of games than even just native Linux and Proton lets you play most Windows games which has an even bigger selection.
Having games working flawlessly, and not having to purchase the hardware, and do long downloads and installs is quite useful, especially for casual gamers.
> Stadia has a worse selection of games
Give it (or some alternative gaming service) more time.
So far Valve is doing good. But in the long term, it is dead end.
I can't imagine more than a significant of users will only purchase a game with Linux compatibility. Which the Epic store not supporting Linux your increasingly missing out on more and more games if your Linux only .
I will say I did have tons of fun in my desktop Linux days. Recently I've found it more a pain in the butt though. I feel like an old man. Windows npm and Python are now good enough I don't feel a need to run Linux locally. WSL for anything that doesn't work right
As for games sold by the EGS, they work fine via Proton (baring those with anticheat) and you can even get the EGS working via wine trivially.
I can't speak to your experiences with the Linux desktop but it's certainly my platform of choice both professionally and for personal use. Each to their own as they say.
I'm very happy that Valve (and all the other contributors) putting all this effort into getting as many games as possible to run on my platform of choice.
Wishful/Crazy thinking?
If you have two computers in your home, one Windows, one Linux and you, for example, share your Steam libraries with other gamers in your family, then it's great. If something doesn't work on Linux, you always have Windows around.
But, if you only have Linux, then you need to do some research before every purchase.
And when Google shuts it down in a couple of years, you will lose your entire library you spent money on. You can see by the selection of launch games how Stadia was another Google toy project. Or the fact that the new Chromecast won't have Stadia support until 2021.
At least with Steam, you know that the games will remain in your library and you can buy and install Windows and play them in the future if, for any reason, Linux support gets dropped.
Tomorrow Steam shutdowns you lose every games, period.
So, you really won't lose any game.
Or you mean Valve shutting down Steam? Then yes, it could be a problem for some games that use Steam servers for online multiplayer. But, Steam is Valve's core business with proven track record and many loyal customers. It's much more likely that Stadia would shut down then Steam going away.
As a casual gamer I don't really care. I play games once, twice at most, and forget about them forever. I guess that's true for vast majority of casual gamers.
Same way I have thrown away all my PlayStation 2/3 disks, and never looked back.
Not professionals, let's say, people who play at least 20 titles per year. People who play all major new games. Or people who play at least 5 hours a week. People who care what the mouse model is. People who really care about screen refresh rate. People who are into gaming.
My 1440p 120hz ultrawide works perfectly with my 1080ti (which will be upgraded to a 3080 once there is some stock). Xorg and libinput both support disabling mouse acceleration so no issues there.
Thanks to Proton Glorious Eggroll I've been playing Doom Eternal, RdR2, H:ZD and many other non native titles for a lot more than 5 hours a week. I've also got my seperate VR box running on Linux with my Index which has provided hours of fun in HL: Alyx, Boneworks, and other admittedly more casual games like Beat Saber, Superhot, and Pistol Whip.
I do eshew all RGB though, maybe that makes me a filthy casual by some arbitrary standard, maybe you could add that to your gatekeeping list?
I’d say what makes you a “casual” is that you didn’t list a multiplayer game. If you’re not sweating against other players, then you probably prefer to keep it casual. That’s fine!
But if I can’t play Overwatch, the latest Call of Duty, Escape from Tarkov, etc on Linux, then I wouldn’t bother. I think it’s more about multiplayer when talking about casual vs more serious.
Of course your mileage may vary depending on the type of GPU. (My RX 5700 XT worked well, though you have to wait a few minutes after opening the game for the shader compilations to finish.)
With that said Titanfall 2 works and I can get pretty sweaty in that, csgo also works natively though I've not played for years. I used to play R6: Seige a lot before ditching my dual boot which I miss but dualbooting gets old when you have to shut down everything just to switch OS.
There is work to get anticheat working in Linux but it's kinda a pipedream as Linux is still seen as a haven for cheaters by anticheat developers so it feels like a never ending arms race rather than something that seems likely to happen any time soon.
Maybe it actually is worthwhile to support it as a vehicle to get anticheat on Linux?
With that said there are anticheats which work on linux like Battleye but only with linux native versions of games which negates all the proton work unfortunately. IIRC Valve are working with AC developers to get it working via wine/proton but I'm not holding my breath.