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There's now a Proton build for running Red Dead Redemption 2 on Linux

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Currently with the Steam Play Proton Linux compatibility layer, Red Dead Redemption 2 isn't playable but a new testing build provided by a CodeWeavers developer sounds promising.

With the official builds of Proton, it just doesn't work and people have been tinkering away on different ideas to get it working for about half a year now. That looks like it's about to change. A CodeWeavers developer, Brendan Shanks, made a post on GitHub containing a new build for people to try that should hopefully allow you to play Red Dead Redemption 2 on desktop Linux.

It does require some manual effort to get running like having the latest NVIDIA Vulkan Beta driver "to avoid very poor performance" or for AMD having a patch applied by building it yourself "otherwise it will crash halfway through the progress bar". There's also a few issues with it, like only having 720p and 1080p resolutions working. Progress is progress though right? Eventually the issues will reduce and in a few more months it might even be easily playable.

Steam Play and Proton definitely open up a lot of doors for a Linux gamer. Don't know what it is? Check out our little dedicated page.

As a sidenote: if you do have access to Stadia and good enough internet, Red Dead Redemption 2 can also be played there since Stadia works on Linux.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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25 comments
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mylka Jun 13, 2020
Quoting: yokem55
Quoting: mylka
Quoting: McMarius11i tried it with the stable Nvidia driver on Manjaro,
IT RUNS!!!

why should this be a problem and not the DRM, that hasnt even been cracked by now?

Strange Brigade also has vulkan and dx12 and it works OOTB
RDR2 uses both API's at the same time. It uses Vulkan for rendering the world, and directx for the post-processing filters. Making that work right is where the trouble has been.

how does it run on win7 and 8 then? they dont have dx12
and what about JUST dx12... linux has VKD3D. shouldnt it work with it?

and as gustavoyaraujo said. what about staida. why would they change everything to vulkan on linux and on windows they use both at the same time?
ShabbyX Jun 14, 2020
You would think Valve could have just nicely asked them to use their Vulkan-only path if they detected wine, and let proton deal with potential issues.

Would have taken probably one hour for the develpers to add an 'if (wine)' in the code.
legluondunet Jun 14, 2020
Quoting: ShabbyXYou would think Valve could have just nicely asked them to use their Vulkan-only path if they detected wine, and let proton deal with potential issues.

Would have taken probably one hour for the develpers to add an 'if (wine)' in the code.

But Who will pay this guy to modify code for Linux players? Rockstar? Nope. Only Linux gamers community and now Valve could help here. I think Google (Stavia), Microsoft (Xbox) and Sony (Playstation) participate financially in the development of games on their platform and devs could refer to a SDK. On Linux, it's much more complicated.


Last edited by legluondunet on 14 June 2020 at 8:54 am UTC
legluondunet Jun 14, 2020
Interesting youtube video here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DTxEr9CaHI
It's a benchmarck R2 Linux vs Windows Vulkan vs Windows DX12
jens Jun 14, 2020
  • Supporter
Quoting: Hori
Quoting: ShabbyXYou would think Valve could have just nicely asked them to use their Vulkan-only path if they detected wine, and let proton deal with potential issues.

Would have taken probably one hour for the develpers to add an 'if (wine)' in the code.
You can't assume such things. It's probably much more than an if. And when companies release products, they need to support them as well, they can't just release and forget. It has to be tested, and go through a lengthy and rigurous process, and then supported since people will assuredly have all kinds of issues running it.

It's expensive, and even the development part it's probably complicated. Who knows how they wrote that code. And who knows if they have anyone there with any Linux experience alone, let alone game development for Linux.
They can't just "blindly" add code to their game and hope it works.
They also can't have someone from the outside have access to their code, and even if they did they'd have to hope they did a good job and nothing bad will happen.

They'd pretty much have to go all in with a Linux version.

Exactly. From my experience: if you are an outsider of whatever domain, never assume that things are simple. It is not.

Actually this applies to nearly everything in life imho. Placing traffic lights e.g. seems a simple thing, but I'm absolutely sure there are lots of things involved an outsider just doesn't see of would think of.


Last edited by jens on 14 June 2020 at 11:18 am UTC
x_wing Jun 15, 2020
Quoting: mylka
Quoting: yokem55
Quoting: mylka
Quoting: McMarius11i tried it with the stable Nvidia driver on Manjaro,
IT RUNS!!!

why should this be a problem and not the DRM, that hasnt even been cracked by now?

Strange Brigade also has vulkan and dx12 and it works OOTB
RDR2 uses both API's at the same time. It uses Vulkan for rendering the world, and directx for the post-processing filters. Making that work right is where the trouble has been.

how does it run on win7 and 8 then? they dont have dx12
and what about JUST dx12... linux has VKD3D. shouldnt it work with it?

and as gustavoyaraujo said. what about staida. why would they change everything to vulkan on linux and on windows they use both at the same time?

For Windows 7 this is probably the answer: https://www.extremetech.com/gaming/297092-microsoft-makes-it-easier-to-bring-directx-12-games-to-windows-7

For Stadia they use a different build to the one the ship on Steam so they probably removed the DX12 requirement there.
mylka Jun 15, 2020
Quoting: x_wing
Quoting: mylka
Quoting: yokem55
Quoting: mylka
Quoting: McMarius11i tried it with the stable Nvidia driver on Manjaro,
IT RUNS!!!

why should this be a problem and not the DRM, that hasnt even been cracked by now?

Strange Brigade also has vulkan and dx12 and it works OOTB
RDR2 uses both API's at the same time. It uses Vulkan for rendering the world, and directx for the post-processing filters. Making that work right is where the trouble has been.

how does it run on win7 and 8 then? they dont have dx12
and what about JUST dx12... linux has VKD3D. shouldnt it work with it?

and as gustavoyaraujo said. what about staida. why would they change everything to vulkan on linux and on windows they use both at the same time?

For Windows 7 this is probably the answer: https://www.extremetech.com/gaming/297092-microsoft-makes-it-easier-to-bring-directx-12-games-to-windows-7

For Stadia they use a different build to the one the ship on Steam so they probably removed the DX12 requirement there.

i know that, but why go this way, if they removed it all for stadia anyway?
and again. whats with just dx12. shouldnt VKD3D work?

DRM, that couldnt be cracked by now makes more sense to me
valve already fixed some DRM issues with the latest proton versions... i think street fighter and jurassic world are 2 examples
x_wing Jun 15, 2020
Quoting: mylkai know that, but why go this way, if they removed it all for stadia anyway?

That's probably a question for Rockstar devs :P

Quoting: mylkaand again. whats with just dx12. shouldnt VKD3D work?

I'm not in position to answer that question (I really don't know the answer), but I recall that Philip Rebohle mentioned this hybrid requirement as one of the problems to run RDR2.
rustybroomhandle Jun 15, 2020
Quoting: x_wingFor Stadia they use a different build to the one the ship on Steam so they probably removed the DX12 requirement there.

For Stadia they use a native Linux build. So yes, no DX12 possible there.
rustybroomhandle Jun 15, 2020
Quoting: mylkai know that, but why go this way, if they removed it all for stadia anyway?
and again. whats with just dx12. shouldnt VKD3D work?

DRM, that couldnt be cracked by now makes more sense to me
valve already fixed some DRM issues with the latest proton versions... i think street fighter and jurassic world are 2 examples

Dude, no. We KNOW the DX12/VK issue was the obstacle because the DXVK developer said so. We're not guessing, we know.

Also, your idea of how getting DRM to work in Proton works is wrong. They don't crack the DRM, they change wine to work with the still fully operational DRM.


Last edited by rustybroomhandle on 15 June 2020 at 8:44 am UTC
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