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Ryan Gordon and Ethan Lee on Proton and the Steam Deck

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For anyone who has been around Linux gaming for a while, the names Ryan "Icculus" Gordon and Ethan Lee will be well known as developers who port games to Linux and work on the tech behind tons of games.

Recently, our friends at Nuclear Monster spoke to both about Proton and the upcoming Steam Deck. Both giving a very different outlook on the future of Linux gaming, so it's interesting to see their perspectives on this considering how respected they both are for their work. For those who don't know Ryan Gordon maintains a lot of SDL, the MojoSetup installer (used by GOG), MojoShader, and ports to various platforms (not just Linux). Ethan Lee created FNA, the reimplementation of Microsoft's XNA, and Lee has probably ported more to Linux than anyone else (along with macOS too).

In the post with Ryan Gordon, it starts off with a little personal thought from the writer (who is sceptical of relying on Wine/Proton) but Gordon sees it differently. Gordon mentions it's no longer a case of talking about how many people directly use Linux of the desktop or how many install SteamOS but the focus will be on sales number for what's basically a type of games console. It is an interesting point, as eventually it could lead to millions of people with a Linux-powered handheld:

And maybe someday down the road, if this is wildly successful, we tell people that it’s a no-brainer to target 18 bazillion Linux users that aren’t Linux users so much as customers reliably running a Linux-based game console. The end result for you and me—clicking “install” in our desktop Steam client—is the same, even if it took millions of unaware and uninterested other people to get us there.

Ryan Gordon - Nuclear Monster Interview

The subject of porting to Linux did come up too. Since Valve have and continue to invest into Steam Play Proton, they're telling developers you don't need to port. Here's what Gordon had to say on that:

Even in the short term, one can always make the argument: okay, sure, your Windows game runs here, but you want more performance, more control, and no worries that Proton didn’t quite paper over some Windows thing weirdly? Then stop letting Valve treat your game like some RetroPie target and do a real Linux port. That choice is available to you now, almost six months before anyone will hold a Steam Deck.

Ryan Gordon - Nuclear Monster Interview

Gordon further mentions how we should hustle, not think of it as some kind of funeral for Linux gaming.

The complete opposite it true when Nuclear Monster spoke to Ethan Lee, who was far more negative about the whole situation. Lee sees Proton as an "essential preservation project" and did even contribute work to it when contracting for CodeWeavers. However, Lee seems to think that Proton and Valve's marketing with the Steam Deck will result in packing up shop and moving on from game porting:

I have my remaining contractual obligations, but short of a complete 180 from Valve that is very very loud I have to walk away and go do other things for a living. A course correction is unlikely, as they seem abnormally confident that developers will just magically come to me after the device’s inevitable success, which is basically asking me to just casually accept that I’m going to endure even bigger losses than I already have with an empty promise that my business will turn around based on a third party’s big risk that they think anyone can endure. It feels very like much I built my own casket having worked on Proton, and as they’re shoveling dirt onto me they’re going “don’t worry, you’ll be fine when someone else finds you!”

Ethan Lee - Nuclear Monster Interview

Sounds like Lee will also be moving away from FNA development too. Both interviews are worth a read.

What are your thoughts? You can see some of our early thoughts in a previous article.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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84 comments
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denyasis Jul 21, 2021
I'm coming to the conclusion that proton is inevitable.

"Write once, run everywhere"

Kinda goes straight into that philosophy and if I've heard of that mantra, I'm sure every developer trained has as well.

I wouldn't call devs lazy for using proton. Is it really that different from hitting "export" in unity in terms of results? Both fit that mantra don't they.

I can see the ideal here, write one game and know that a runtime/framework/interpretor/layer takes care of the nitty gritty so the game runs on everything. The OS doesn't matter.

I think I'd still prefer native. It seems more... Stable? But I wonder if that'll always be there case?
CatKiller Jul 21, 2021
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Quoting: MohandevirThe only part where I'm curious to know how it will be done, it's on the "Steam Deck desktop" side and all that productivity stuff... Will Valve create a SteamOS app store that integrates Proton too?

I think we might see more things like Blender on Steam.
STiAT Jul 21, 2021
I think this was inevitable, steam machines, link and controller made them learn a lot, and brought them to the investment onto d9vk, dxvk and wine/proton.

They did realize that they could not move a lot of developers to native ports because they did not reach a critical mass. They realized without the support they will not.

I think proton may be the only way because it's a compatibility layer they can support on their own.

While I could not care less if a game uses wine or not to run as long as it runs fine, I do personally not think that will be possible without a huge number of developers actually supporting proton/wine for the game developers. And just the caring about the bugs in proton costs money for a studio.

I do not see that, and while wine got a lot better in the years, there is so much which prevents a lot of games behaving properly.

Browser support, .NET support, sound, cutscenes, etc. are still lacking in areas, as is anti cheat, and while we heared about anti cheat, we didn't hear about any of the others.

A lot of games need Proton tweaks. Of course they could do that at valve, but that team would need to be huge, and often wold require a custom proton (and not just an own prefix) for a certain game to work around side effects which just do not occur in windows - since a best assumption how to handle certain things in linux compared to windows is just that, and there is a lot of that in wine. While 80 percent of the time accurate, it's not the other 20 percent.
ShabbyX Jul 21, 2021
Valve actively asking devs not to port doesn't sound great, though chances are it's because native ports (sometimes done in a hurry) don't work as well as proton, so it makes sense to tell devs to use proton if they are otherwise going to do a terrible job at porting. Valve probably has data here we don't have, so don't be so quick to judge.

Regarding native ports in the future, I think it's pretty obvious. If you are a dev and your game has 20m users on Linux, you *will* spend resources on a native port, simply because the risk of proton breaking your game and you getting 20m angry users is too high. So if the game is successful (and so is deck), it (or the next game from the developer) will get a native port.
kuhpunkt Jul 21, 2021
Quoting: STiATBrowser support, .NET support, sound, cutscenes, etc. are still lacking in areas, as is anti cheat, and while we heared about anti cheat, we didn't hear about any of the others.

They addressed it in one of their FAQs and said that devs should use Vulkan in general, avoid .NET stuff and Media Foundation.
Lofty Jul 21, 2021
Quoting: dubigrasuwe have a saying: befriend the devil until you cross the bridge.

we also have a saying: the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.
slaapliedje Jul 21, 2021
Quoting: Guest
Quoting: Lachu
Quoting: GuestI don't see it good for GNU/Linux however. It's consolidating more gaming under the control of someone who is not the user.

But what else than Valve/Steam? Valve controlling large spectrum on gaming comercial-linux-market. I think open source are not so great than closed source/commercial. I do not tell open source software is bad. It is great. I use only open source software (excluding firmware, DRM for video watching, BIO, etc.), but no games. I am happy with that. If open source games give any alternative, I will use open source games.

I can paid for open source software. I was give donation to KDE team recently. Of course, I give a lot more for closed source software/games, but as regular user, I think open source software should give this benefit (cheaper), because it is a democracy/free market and in this case money are better used (I paid for what I want - for example - I do not like option A, I do not paid for it and it never will be added to some open source software, etc. ). Maybe that means, open source software developers get smaller amount of money, but I am not 100% sure. Firstly, there is no piracy and people will paid as much as they can. Secondly OS developers can collaborate with other projects and charity people (sorry, English is not my native) easier, so there is not the same cost of creating software.

In summarize, I can paid for Open Source software, but if Open Source games are worth it? Of course - freedom is very important and If we paid corporation, it will lobby to take of more of our laws, etc. But gaming is like watching movies - it is like communing with culture. If I do not commune with culture, I will be really freedom?

That's a really valid point. My own take on it is that I'd like to be as extreme as RMS, but in all practical scenarios it's not feasible from a cultural participation perspective (in this case, games). So I instead try for open source on the OS, open source to choose something to run; running a game is my choice, but what is needed to run the game should be open source.
The thing with trying to be as extreme as RMS, is there really isn't any hardware open enough to meet that standard. Would be an awesome, yet different world if there were!
slaapliedje Jul 21, 2021
Quoting: Lofty
Quoting: dubigrasuwe have a saying: befriend the devil until you cross the bridge.

we also have a saying: the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.
And the road to diabetes is paved with good chocolates... hmmm, chocolate...
CatKiller Jul 21, 2021
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Quoting: kuhpunkt
Quoting: STiATBrowser support, .NET support, sound, cutscenes, etc. are still lacking in areas, as is anti cheat, and while we heared about anti cheat, we didn't hear about any of the others.

They addressed it in one of their FAQs and said that devs should use Vulkan in general, avoid .NET stuff and Media Foundation.

It was this one.
const Jul 21, 2021
Quoting: CatKiller
Quoting: kuhpunkt
Quoting: STiATBrowser support, .NET support, sound, cutscenes, etc. are still lacking in areas, as is anti cheat, and while we heared about anti cheat, we didn't hear about any of the others.

They addressed it in one of their FAQs and said that devs should use Vulkan in general, avoid .NET stuff and Media Foundation.

It was this one.

Which are quite good advises that will in most cases make the games run at very very good quality and speed. Chances are a developer exchanging .net and media-foundation stuff or implementing a vulkan renderer or doing whatever needed to get their game work well in proton will do that directly in their normal sources, so further support should be more or less a given. That indeed makes a big difference to the poor porting nightmare we regularly saw in the past. (Again, taking out Ethan and Ryan. They somehow managed to support the games they ported over time, while other porters didn't).

The final goal isn't every game getting ported to Linux, it's every new game project taking linux into consideration and using the tools that let them support us. Wine/Proton aren't without alternatives and weaknesses, yet they are a part of our (open source) ecosystem, without any doubt.


Last edited by const on 21 July 2021 at 6:44 pm UTC
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