Comment by lmedinas | Hacker News Reader

Comment by lmedinas | Hacker News Reader

short story: I installed recently Linux (on Dual Boot) on my main Desktop at home after 8y of not using Linux as Desktop.

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!

https://www.protondb.com/

Path of Exile was actually broken a few weeks ago and required a third-party Proton build to work. It was sheer luck that Proton 5.13 came out just in time for you to try it.

You're lucky, I tried a "platinum" game that was not just playable, every time I opened the inventory I had a black screen. Known problem, that has no solution. Then if you want to fix it:

- 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.

> 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.

It's not luck, there's a good amount of games that runs perfectly out of the box and it keeps getting better. Yes, it's not perfect, but for me the trade-off is worth it. I much prefer not having to use the native platform and be able to play using the operating system of my choice.

I am sorry but it really depends on the games you are playing.

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.

the thing is, it will get better. your post will slowly rot & deprecate & grow wrong, while the parent's hope & optimism will shine through. and perhaps it might be even better than native. perhaps you'll be able to stream faster, load levels faster, run more interesting config than you could before. in my very very humble opinion i recommend a more unlimited perspective.

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.

All you've just stated is platitudes. Platitudes are for children.

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.

oh I get it I just don't care about those into not caring. i for one see too many interesting promising things as near at hand to let such willful unconcern reduce my gusto.

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.

It not that I don't care. It that I am realistic about the situation. I would rather have Linux native options for my games rather than a translation layer. However for that to happen there has to be a viable market.

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.

> it's not that I don't care. It that I am realistic about the situation. I

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?

protondb is a community project and is not official. It is still a good ressource though, but it's worthwhile to read comments.

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).

> protondb is a community project

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.

Which platinum game? Which known problem? I wish complaints were less vague, then it wouldn't sound like exaggeration and would be actionable for people who are working on these technologies.

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.

Diablo2, a game that is 20yo https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iI... the multiplayer just doesn't work: https://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=44178

It's doesn't appear to have an entry on ProtonDB:

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.

old software, software from a time before, often uses weirder more arcane code paths than modern apps might pick.

Valfaris is rated platinum on protondb, and it crashes on launch for me, same with Titan Quest, which is rated gold. Proton has been a godsend for gaming on Linux, but I don't put much stock in protondb beyond checking to see if a game is known to not run at all.

I hope you reported your experience as well then? This is a user-maintained database, so unless people keep putting in their information, it will not be accurate/complete.

Windows doesn't even natively support windows games.

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 dunnot if you are old enough, but generally getting PCs games working at that time was a nightmare.

I suspect that it is because it is using ancient version of DirectX/Direct3D. Same thing happens with the classic Resident Evil games.

I'm old enough to have been excited for the release of DOS 3.3.

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.

> Known problem, that has no solution. Then if you want to fix it [..]

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.

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