Don't want to see articles from a certain category? When logged in, go to your User Settings and adjust your feed in the Content Preferences section where you can block tags!
We do often include affiliate links to earn us some pennies. See more here.

PUBG's newer anti-cheat sounds problematic for the Steam Deck and Linux

By - | Views: 30,095

PUBG is currently a game that doesn't work at all on Linux due to anti-cheat, even with the Steam Deck coming it's sounding like a game that won't play nicely. Oh, it's also going free to play.

In their development letter posted on December 10, they outlined what they've been doing and their future plans for anti-cheat with PUBG. While previously PUBG relied on BattlEye, which does have Linux support and recently made it easy for developers to turn on support for Proton and the Steam Deck, their newer proprietary solution with Zakynthos is going to get more invasive and cause more problems.

Through 2022, they explained that one of the major adjustments coming would be the "Implementation of kernel drivers" and I'm sure I don't need to explain to any regular Linux gaming fans why this will be a problem. These kernel drivers are designed for Windows, and something Wine / Proton likely will just not work with.

So what's the hope for PUBG running on Linux / Proton and the Steam Deck? It's not looking good.

A shame, as it's consistently in the top 5 most played games on Steam.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
25 Likes
About the author -
author picture
I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. Find me on Mastodon.
See more from me
The comments on this article are closed.
29 comments
Page: «2/3»
  Go to:

hardpenguin Dec 13, 2021
I think people commenting here today confused GamingOnLinux with some mailing list for free software and privacy zealots...?

While I understand the point of the concerns over intrusive anti-cheat solution, the problem stands. I would rather play one of the most popular video games in the world on Linux thanks to Proton than to use Windows. And so would many other Linux gamers.

Such a pity.
Purple Library Guy Dec 13, 2021
Quoting: hardpenguinI think people commenting here today confused GamingOnLinux with some mailing list for free software and privacy zealots...?
If you have a point, make it. If you don't, then just call people names I guess.
MayeulC Dec 13, 2021
Disgusting...

Quoting: elmapulnow we have better android emulators on windows than on linux, microsoft is making windows run android games and even google is trying to do the same.

Oh, waydroid works relatively well. And there's interest in it thanks to the linux-on-mobiles effort (pinephone, librem5 etc).
elmapul Dec 13, 2021
Quoting: MayeulCDisgusting...

Quoting: elmapulnow we have better android emulators on windows than on linux, microsoft is making windows run android games and even google is trying to do the same.

Oh, waydroid works relatively well. And there's interest in it thanks to the linux-on-mobiles effort (pinephone, librem5 etc).

define works, i heard the same about some emulator but never was able to find any app that it was capable of runing (not that it would matter to find an app if the ones i need dont work anyway)
elmapul Dec 14, 2021
Quoting: LoftyBut you said yourself, you can choose to run anticheat or not.
i can chose IF the option is even there, what im trying to say is that having the option avaliable is better than not having, because if we dont have, not only i have to accept using the anti cheat but i have to accept using windows, and doing so will give control to microsoft that they will use to gain more and more control over their users.


let me try to explain with other words.

Quoting: LoftyFree software also encourages the application of free speech it isn't just about games but communication platforms themselves"
you are assuming that people are coming from valuing their freedom first, then geting something good as result later, the issue is, that isnt how most people think.

think about it, if you say to someone;
"you should give up on listen to musics because mp3 is evil, watching videos because mp3 and mp4, dvd etc are evil formats, give up on playing games because most of then only run on proprietary formats, also give up on making your own music, movies, games, chating with friends etc, because you cant do none of that in an free operating system right now, but you might be able to in the future"
do you think that person will love linux and freedom? hell no, they will think free software is shit and can only produce shit.

the reason why i started using and caring about linux was:
i got tons of virus on windows (an problem that dont exist anymore) losing my files countless times and being constantly afraid of losing the ability to use my computer (it helps nothing that my cd burnder didnt worked, pendrives and cloud storage didnt existed back then)
i grew tired of the computer geting slower over time, constalty crashing into BSOD etc.
i skiped xp, vista was too heavy to my brand new computer making it slower than the previous one a few months after the purchase and i didnt had money for another, vista broke backward compatibility with some hardwares like my printer and softwares like the game engine that i used (and probably some of the games made on it) and windows was the only system capable of runing those meaning that if microsoft ditch backward compatibility, we would lose the preservation of those games.
microsoft did some ransomware bullshit with office, among other crap moves...
and while all those bad things were happening on one side, i tried this linux stuff out of curiosity without expecting much and was surprised.
i didnt expected my video card to work but the naive me thought i knew enough code to write an video driver, so i decided to test this "hoby os" only to get surprised on how well things worked.
there were a few issues like instaling "ugly" codecs and stuff, but the system was much faster, stable and didnt had enough marketshare to worry about virus, the first game i tested on wine worked, and i didnt knew that only got luck picking an game that worked on wine on my first try, then i realized all those softwares arround me were open source, even the firefox that i was alredy familiarized with on windows, and starting loving and supporting the cause.
then later on i started learning that not all softwares were really free, like the drivers and firmwares and stuff, but at least i saw the potential.

currently the zeitgeist is "linux sucks" that is what everyone thinks, we need to change that, we need to show to people that linux can do everything windows can (or most of it, everything they care about) then when people see that linux is not just an utopy but an real thing, we can convince then to fight for more freedom.

first we show stuff like blender and what it can do, then we say "It is free software, it was developed in such model" and point to other softwares and say "It can reach the same potential if we support it" not the other way arround.

currently almost no game support linux and we have to wast tons of resources making stuff like wine/proton, resources that could be better spent creating new tech if we had the marketshare to not need wine anymore.
then even with wine/proton, people have to give up a lot of games to use linux, wich make most of then come back to windows.
then we have to convince a ton of people skeptical about this free software development model, that DRM is bad, anti cheat is bad etc, where they dont have anything to compare against, dont know about any better development model than proprietary software, they think: "that is how things are, and cant be anything else"
sigh.
Termy Dec 14, 2021
Quoting: hardpenguinWhile I understand the point of the concerns over intrusive anti-cheat solution, the problem stands. I would rather play one of the most popular video games in the world on Linux thanks to Proton than to use Windows.

The point is more that it s a scary shame that most users, even on windows, wouldn't care about kernel-level malware as a requirement to play that game. No matter the OS, that should be a red flag for any sane user...
MayeulC Dec 14, 2021
Quoting: elmapul
Quoting: MayeulCDisgusting...

Quoting: elmapulnow we have better android emulators on windows than on linux, microsoft is making windows run android games and even google is trying to do the same.

Oh, waydroid works relatively well. And there's interest in it thanks to the linux-on-mobiles effort (pinephone, librem5 etc).

define works, i heard the same about some emulator but never was able to find any app that it was capable of runing (not that it would matter to find an app if the ones i need dont work anyway)

To make sure, I just installed it trough the AUR (I'm already running a zen kernel). Installed F-Droid, checked that supertuxkart worked (I'm getting in-game, but don't have touch), then as I thought you might not be satisfied, I downloaded the Aurora store from F-Droid, then Excel and power point from there. Seems to work fine, although it's a bit fiddly and not well-integrated (I don't have a desktop environment, just sway, so that's not too bad, I guess a DE could integrate better). Microsoft's apps require me to sign in to create a new file so I just downloaded one from there.

It looks like the Android UI assumes it works fullscreen. I can't really blame it. Permission mapping could be better too.

I didn't find an app that doesn't work, but then even on my phone I only use apps from F-Droid. Obviously I expect low-level apps like wifi analyzer, miracast, etc to be mostly broken for now.

elmapul Dec 14, 2021
Quoting: MayeulC
Quoting: elmapul
Quoting: MayeulCDisgusting...

Quoting: elmapulnow we have better android emulators on windows than on linux, microsoft is making windows run android games and even google is trying to do the same.

Oh, waydroid works relatively well. And there's interest in it thanks to the linux-on-mobiles effort (pinephone, librem5 etc).

define works, i heard the same about some emulator but never was able to find any app that it was capable of runing (not that it would matter to find an app if the ones i need dont work anyway)

To make sure, I just installed it trough the AUR (I'm already running a zen kernel). Installed F-Droid, checked that supertuxkart worked (I'm getting in-game, but don't have touch), then as I thought you might not be satisfied, I downloaded the Aurora store from F-Droid, then Excel and power point from there. Seems to work fine, although it's a bit fiddly and not well-integrated (I don't have a desktop environment, just sway, so that's not too bad, I guess a DE could integrate better). Microsoft's apps require me to sign in to create a new file so I just downloaded one from there.

It looks like the Android UI assumes it works fullscreen. I can't really blame it. Permission mapping could be better too.

I didn't find an app that doesn't work, but then even on my phone I only use apps from F-Droid. Obviously I expect low-level apps like wifi analyzer, miracast, etc to be mostly broken for now.



maybe those emulators require some processor instructions to work, and i dont have then...
i cant remember the games i was trying to run, can you test pokemon tcg online?
Mal Dec 15, 2021
  • Supporter
Quoting: hardpenguinI think people commenting here today confused GamingOnLinux with some mailing list for free software and privacy zealots...?

While I understand the point of the concerns over intrusive anti-cheat solution, the problem stands. I would rather play one of the most popular video games in the world on Linux thanks to Proton than to use Windows. And so would many other Linux gamers.

Such a pity.

It's not that cheating ruining otherwise good games is not an issue. It's that there must be better ways to fight cheating than having intrusive and shady software look into all your memory and send reports back to some remote location.

Have the game run into some trusted, standardized container and have all the worst shit you want and some more run isolated there with the just stuff it has to monitor. At the worst make something intrusive but open source so one at least knows what it actually does.

Just don't make one sided spyware that has access to all your memory and expect people to trust you, your collaborators, your investors, all your providers and the government(s) that rules over all these people to make only your multiplayer interests with everything they get out of your machine.

People who play games with anti cheat should seriously consider to run that stuff on different partitions than where they use their sensible data. Even if it mean to have two Windows partitions.
Ehvis Dec 15, 2021
View PC info
  • Supporter Plus
Quoting: hardpenguinWhile I understand the point of the concerns over intrusive anti-cheat solution, the problem stands. I would rather play one of the most popular video games in the world on Linux thanks to Proton than to use Windows. And so would many other Linux gamers.

Wine and Proton are not kernel drivers. But what if you had to run a binary kernel module of unknown origin before you could do that. Would you still be willing?
While you're here, please consider supporting GamingOnLinux on:

Reward Tiers: Patreon. Plain Donations: PayPal.

This ensures all of our main content remains totally free for everyone! Patreon supporters can also remove all adverts and sponsors! Supporting us helps bring good, fresh content. Without your continued support, we simply could not continue!

You can find even more ways to support us on this dedicated page any time. If you already are, thank you!
The comments on this article are closed.