Feral no longer porting A Total War Saga: TROY to Linux, citing less demand since Proton

Quoting: GuestI'm not leaving Linux completely - I will still prefer free software for my daily tasks and use Linux on my non-gaming PCs. I might revisit Linux gaming if the situation changes, but... Right now I don't see a reason why I should prefer gaming on poorly implemented Windows to gaming on Windows.

The only reason that matters, for me, is not having to put up with Windows itself. If you think that's a better experience (for you), then that's perfectly valid.

Me? I wouldn't touch Windows with a bargepole. My contact with it through work reminds me how terrible it (still) is, and I'm glad I removed it from my life nearly 8 years ago.

As for the issues you describe - I don't know what to say. I've never had issues like you're describing. I had to add a pulseaudio latency variable to Cyberpunk, I suppose, but compared to the hell of getting things working on Windows 7 back when I used it... this is easy street. I suppose it comes down to the fact that I check ProtonDB before I buy a game, so I tend to only buy those games that I know will be a fairly click-play experience. I wonder what games you're playing to have such a terrible experience.

Finally, I'd suggest that this is the exactly wrong time to be giving up. With the Steam Deck promises of a seamless experience, anti-cheat suport, and huge improvements to Proton, this is an exciting time to actually stay and see those improvements happen! And if they don't pan out to your expectation, then you make the jump back.

Depends what you're playing I suppose. When I look at my Recent games in Steam, probably about 80% of them are through Proton and every one (except CyberPunk) is click-to-play.

I can confirm titanfall 2 works flawlessly through lutris though i only ever play the campaign because its awesome and i have never had to mess about with dll and patches to get it to work lutris literally does it for you via a script if you need further help getting a game going Linux gamer offers how tos to get pretty much everything working with play on linux thats right its still a thing.

But if windows is going to suit you better @Flabb then good luck to you not going to hold it against you i would suggest you are perhaps not on the best distro for gaming as solus are very very picky about what is and is not allowed on its distro. Gaming wise found arch or anything debian based a much easier time when it comes to gaming.

Quoting: GuestWell, I guess it's time to reinstall Windows on my main gaming PC again. With Ethan Lee and Ryan Gordon raising concerns, Feral cancelling ports and many other developers bailing out of Linux gaming, I don't see any reason to stay. I don't want to mess with custom Proton runtimes, DLL overrides, env variables and many subtle bugs that plague even the games with "Platinum" rating on ProtonDB - I just want to click and play, like a normal person.

Maybe in 2016-2018 the market share was lower, but at least we were getting ones of the best indie games natively, Feral and Aspyr were porting the top AAA games, and... Maybe some people still remember that actually in the middle of 2018 Feral were at their peak performance - both in terms of porting quality and the amount of contracts they were getting. Right before Valve dropped Proton bomb on them.

I'm not leaving Linux completely - I will still prefer free software for my daily tasks and use Linux on my non-gaming PCs. I might revisit Linux gaming if the situation changes, but... Right now I don't see a reason why I should prefer gaming on poorly implemented Windows to gaming on Windows.

Don't know about you, but I exclusively buy native games and still have way too amny games in my backlog. Despite proton, there's no shortage of good games on Linux.

Quoting: GuestI can't remember any native game from the last 4 years that gave me a headache - be it a port from Feral, Unity/UE4 game or a custom engine by some talented indie dev, I had no serious problems whatsoever.

Funny. I have sort of the opposite experience. The last two native games I played didn't even start. But could be played with Proton. Both issues were eventually resolved though. I guess software development will always be difficult...

Anyhow, do what feels best for you! You can always check back on progress later. (But we do need you to leave your badge and gun on Liam's desk on the way out).

Has anyone tried Proton for "outside Steam" with Launchbox / BigBox game launcher? We need a utility of this caliber on Linux. This is your "UI for Steam Deck that works with all the stores / emulators" check out videos on YouTube. There is a thread on trying to get it working with Wine...

https://forums.launchbox-app.com/topic/56154-running-launchbox-and-big-box-on-linux/page/8/?tab=comments#comment-387462

Well, game engines do have quite good Linux support (engineering-wise) for a while now, but that won't help make people do Linux builds for their games:
- Most developers struggle making multiple platforms release even if it is a few clicks away due to org chaos and lack of engineers in team, many teams having plans about that (supporting multiple platforms) drop all platforms except Windows and mobile very quickly. Games are frequently developed by very non-techy people.
- Many premade assets in stores are windows-only containing blob stuff made only for that platform, frequently decisions to use these drops other platforms support even if originally planned.
- It is hard to support people having troubles on some platform when there is nobody running on that platform, or just one who needs to do more important stuff now.
- Development costs are now increased, so developers need to optimize their processes and drop multi-platform support focusing on single platform (Windows, consoles, mobile) which provides reliable revenue.
- Developers as all people chose path of least resistance, most of times.

Quoting: slaapliedjeHas anyone tried Proton for "outside Steam" with Launchbox / BigBox game launcher? We need a utility of this caliber on Linux. This is your "UI for Steam Deck that works with all the stores / emulators" check out videos on YouTube. There is a thread on trying to get it working with Wine...

https://forums.launchbox-app.com/topic/56154-running-launchbox-and-big-box-on-linux/page/8/?tab=comments#comment-387462

Proton runs perfectly fine from console. I do it with a script
 
#!/bin/sh
mkdir -p $(pwd)/wineprefix
export STEAM_COMPAT_CLIENT_INSTALL_PATH="$HOME/.steam/steam"
STEAM_COMPAT_DATA_PATH=$(pwd)/wineprefix ~/.steam/steamapps/common/Proton\ -\ Experimental/proton run MonolithBay/Binaries/Win64/MonolithBay-Win64-Shipping.exe
you also can add
export PROTON_NO_ESYNC=1 PROTON_NO_FSYNC=1
when you get out of files


Last edited by slapin on 30 July 2021 at 3:59 pm UTC

Quoting: slapin

Quoting: slaapliedjeHas anyone tried Proton for "outside Steam" with Launchbox / BigBox game launcher? We need a utility of this caliber on Linux. This is your "UI for Steam Deck that works with all the stores / emulators" check out videos on YouTube. There is a thread on trying to get it working with Wine...

https://forums.launchbox-app.com/topic/56154-running-launchbox-and-big-box-on-linux/page/8/?tab=comments#comment-387462

Proton runs perfectly fine from console. I do it with a script
 
#!/bin/sh
mkdir -p $(pwd)/wineprefix
export STEAM_COMPAT_CLIENT_INSTALL_PATH="$HOME/.steam/steam"
STEAM_COMPAT_DATA_PATH=$(pwd)/wineprefix ~/.steam/steamapps/common/Proton\ -\ Experimental/proton run MonolithBay/Binaries/Win64/MonolithBay-Win64-Shipping.exe
you also can add
export PROTON_NO_ESYNC=1 PROTON_NO_FSYNC=1
when you get out of files

Nice, I'll see if I can get that to work... I attempted to add Launchbox in as a non-steam game, got as far as it asking to have .Net Core installed...

Quoting: bisbyxCan we also note here:

QuoteThe Linux port was put on hold while TROY was exclusive to Epic

Epic's complete lack of Linux support means games don't get ported to Linux as well (Because why would you port a game to Linux if there is no way to ship the build or launch it, due to contractual obligations that says distribution must go through EGS which doesn't support that).

Steam's solution sucks for Feral (and anyone doing porting) but at least we get the games running on Linux.

I'm at the point where I just won't buy a game that was an Epic exclusive. I've still got half of my Steam library never installed, so I'm not lacking for new games. If they are going to block me from even playing it, the hell with 'em.

Quoting: GuestWell, I guess it's time to reinstall Windows on my main gaming PC again. With Ethan Lee and Ryan Gordon raising concerns, Feral cancelling ports and many other developers bailing out of Linux gaming, I don't see any reason to stay. I don't want to mess with custom Proton runtimes, DLL overrides, env variables and many subtle bugs that plague even the games with "Platinum" rating on ProtonDB - I just want to click and play, like a normal person.

If you legitimately find games that have Platinum Rating and you're using the same OS / Proton version as the report, then you should report with the problems. Platinum should be 'you click install, it installs, you click play and it plays just like on Windows'. There is no 'subtle bugs' that should be affecting it. Unfortunately if people don't make reports, people won't know of the problems.

Also, people need to rate things correctly. Platinum should literally mean 'push button, play game'. If you have to do custom dlls, side scripts, etc. Gold is the best it should ever get. So yeah that's probably a good indicator that someone marked it wrong if they say 'works flawlessly... after I did this.' That is NOT what Platinum rating is for!

Unfortunately ProtonDB is a community effort, and I think there probably needs some better oversight for it. Like say... Valve should pay some people or something :)