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Halo 2 is out on Steam now and much like Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary and Halo: Reach, the single-player works nicely on Linux thanks to the Proton compatibility layer for Steam Play.

Another title that has a personal place in my heart, from my younger days of playing on an Xbox console and enjoying far too many hours with curtains closed and volume up blasting through enemies in Halo 2. Once again it's amazing that playing a Microsoft and Xbox Game Studios title on Linux has become so ridiculously easy.

Take a look at how it runs if you're interested using Proton 5.0-7:

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Video is using the MangoHud to show FPS, frame timings and more.

The main issue I have observed so far, is that sometimes a bunch of processes appear to stick around after you close it. Requiring to force kill various Wine, Halo and Steam processes to get it to stop. Annoying but not a major issue. Apart from that, there's also a fair bit of stuttering in places while drivers build a cache but it does get a lot smoother.

Just remember that when launching, you're going to want to pick the second option, as pictured below, which disables Easy Anti-Cheat which does not work with Proton (or Wine):

With thanks to the developer for including that option, the single-player can be greatly enjoyed on Linux but not online PvP multiplayer until somehow the team from Valve and CodeWeavers (plus the Wine team) that work on Proton can get Easy Anti-Cheat working.

You can find Halo 2 and the whole collection on Steam.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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9 comments

HadBabits May 13, 2020
Super excited since I too played the hell out of this game as a kid; still remember spending way too much time finding ways to reach the rooftops of New Mombasa to look for secrets, usually to no avail :B

I got very confused by the opening cut scene with this bounty hunter guy. I assume it's related to the modern games, but I lost interest after reach; Dunno if it got too Starcraft-y or if I've just gotten too old :P
AsciiWolf May 13, 2020
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Do achievements work?
edo May 13, 2020
Lack of achievements in Linux is very sad, Volvo pls
F.Ultra May 13, 2020
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After the update MCC just exists with "Fatal Error!" for me :-(

edit: after reverting back to Proton 4.11 it works again. So the most likely thing is that it was Proton 5.0-7 and not this update of MCC that broke it for me.


Last edited by F.Ultra on 13 May 2020 at 7:00 pm UTC
elmapul May 14, 2020
the game may boot, but all the features are working?
or we could find an random crash in the middle of the game due to an untestes feature?
DanglingPointer May 14, 2020
Quoting: F.UltraAfter the update MCC just exists with "Fatal Error!" for me :-(

edit: after reverting back to Proton 4.11 it works again. So the most likely thing is that it was Proton 5.0-7 and not this update of MCC that broke it for me.

Yeah same thing for me. I recommend you file a bug here: https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/2907#issuecomment-628183624

More people reporting about this, then more focus will go to it.
F.Ultra May 15, 2020
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Quoting: DanglingPointer
Quoting: F.UltraAfter the update MCC just exists with "Fatal Error!" for me :-(

edit: after reverting back to Proton 4.11 it works again. So the most likely thing is that it was Proton 5.0-7 and not this update of MCC that broke it for me.

Yeah same thing for me. I recommend you file a bug here: https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/2907#issuecomment-628183624

More people reporting about this, then more focus will go to it.

I did, however in the works of also adding my proton log.
F.Ultra May 15, 2020
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Quoting: DanglingPointer
Quoting: F.UltraAfter the update MCC just exists with "Fatal Error!" for me :-(

edit: after reverting back to Proton 4.11 it works again. So the most likely thing is that it was Proton 5.0-7 and not this update of MCC that broke it for me.

Yeah same thing for me. I recommend you file a bug here: https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/2907#issuecomment-628183624

More people reporting about this, then more focus will go to it.

Don't know if you are the 404-guy on GitHUB but I managed to fix proton-5.0-7 by erasing some very old files in /etc/vulkan/icd.d/
DanglingPointer May 16, 2020
Quoting: F.UltraDon't know if you are the 404-guy on GitHUB but I managed to fix proton-5.0-7 by erasing some very old files in /etc/vulkan/icd.d/

Did you just delete all the json files in there and rerun?


It worked! Deleting those files did the trick! Thanks mate! I'm now on 5.0-7!


Last edited by DanglingPointer on 16 May 2020 at 9:02 am UTC
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