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Feral Interactive have no plans to update their Linux ports for Steam Deck

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Since we were asked a lot about this, we reached out to porting studio Feral Interactive to see if they had any plans to update their Linux ports for the Steam Deck.

Feral have ported a number of titles to Linux in the past including Alien Isolation, XCOM & XCOM 2, Total War: WARHAMMER I & II, Total War: THREE KINGDOMS, HITMAN, the Tomb Raider series, Life is Strange & Before the Storm & Life is Strange 2, Dirt Rally and the list goes on. They also have a port of Total War: WARHAMMER III upcoming in "Early Spring".

After waiting quite a while, they replied today with an official statement about Steam Deck support:

Our most recent Linux titles are officially supported on Ubuntu only, and we do not currently have any plans to update games for further compatibility with Steam Deck or its operating system, SteamOS 3.0. If players encounter issues with Feral's native Linux versions of games on Steam Deck, we recommend playing them via Proton.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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denyasis Feb 21, 2022
Quoting: elmapul
Quoting: denyasis
Quoting: elmapul
Quoting: denyasisI guess it's another win for Valve and Open source successes. I guess I feel slightly conflicted about it. While I appreciate Feral's work, I'm also glad that open source tools like Wine/Proton have finally taken over in a meaningful way.

I guess it's both a loss and a gain.

it is a loss.
on one hand, its good that an general purpose solution like wine/proton is better than porting, but that says more about the porting process and quality than about wine.
the ideal solution is linux geting enough marketshare to be threated like an first class citizen and open apis like vulkan becoming the standard.
its almost like if we were living the flash era vs html5 era, flash was multiplatform but had an crap support for linux, where html5 would be the "native" solution, using open standards.
while wine is gpl, directX isnt.

Is it? I'm under the impression most of these porting companies use wrappers, don't they? It's not like they all rewrote the binary and renderer into openGL. Maybe some did, but Valve has toGL, I forget what Aspry's wrapper was, etc. I'd bet some of these older ports looked a lot like a windows game under the hood, and the proprietary porting tech worked a lot like wine in some cases. Heck, there are even projects using DXVK as a wrapper for porting. I believe there are a number of Linux releases on GOG that are essentially wrapped with Wine.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that, in a sense, we've put the power to "port" into our own hands, at a level simple users like me can leverage. And if a "native" port is just using its own wrappers and layers under the hood, is there really a huge moral difference there?


take a look at this conference, where the company who ported dying light to linux comment about the porting process:
https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2015/04/techland-presentation-on-porting-dying-light-to-linux/

TL:DR, it was impossible to rewrite the code writen by 200 employees with only 2~3 employees, especially considering that the game was still under development and as a result the code was changing all the time, so they had to seek for paterns and make an translator or layer or soomething akin to that.
but if they relied only on this layers, the performance would tank and no computer in the world would be able to play the game in an acceptable framerate even on minimal setings, so they had to manually optimize any bootnecks.

i think that is how you port anything, write an general purpose code converter, then look at the profilers to see what is kiling the performance and optimize by hand.

as for anyone who want to complain that 'this or that company' is lazy, then go port something, there are plenty of open source projects on github that are windows only.
in the mean time, try to turn this ports of you into an sustainable business model, and if you can, you can complain about feral all you want.

Thanks! I'll try to check it out on my lunch break. I think it totally make sense that a porter would use a layer/translation tool/wrapper, especially if it is a business trying to maximize efficiency. I wasn't trying to imply the porters are lazy or anything, my apologies if it came off that way.
Alm888 Feb 22, 2022
Quoting: elmapul
Quoting: Alm888
Quoting: KimyrielleI know, some people are still clinging to the "No Tux, No Bux" mantra, but in reality, we're unlikely to see another major AAA game on Linux native anytime soon.
And I'd say "Good riddance!".
NTNB FTW all the way!

i hope you at least play the games even if you have to pirate then, otherwise the only one losing will be yourself, and you will regreat(sic) it later looking back.
Rest assured, I have more than I will ever be able to finish. All Linux native. Most on GOG, some on itch.io or Humble. Had not to "pirate" a game in a long time (sinse 2012 at least). Oh, and I have exactly 0 (zero) "Feral games" on my Steal library because… I have no Steam library.
elmapul Feb 22, 2022
Quoting: Alm888
Quoting: elmapul
Quoting: Alm888
Quoting: KimyrielleI know, some people are still clinging to the "No Tux, No Bux" mantra, but in reality, we're unlikely to see another major AAA game on Linux native anytime soon.
And I'd say "Good riddance!".
NTNB FTW all the way!

i hope you at least play the games even if you have to pirate then, otherwise the only one losing will be yourself, and you will regreat(sic) it later looking back.
Rest assured, I have more than I will ever be able to finish. All Linux native. Most on GOG, some on itch.io or Humble. Had not to "pirate" a game in a long time (sinse 2012 at least). Oh, and I have exactly 0 (zero) "Feral games" on my Steal library because… I have no Steam library.

its not about the ammount of games, but the time you spend playing then, its worth?
there are tons of free games for android that, while they are free, they dont worth our time.
time is the most important thing in life, money? you can won on lotery and get rich and never need to worry about it again, but time? you cant recover that, and you only realize when its too late.
yes, i'm talking about myself.
elmapul Feb 22, 2022
Quoting: denyasisThanks! I'll try to check it out on my lunch break. I think it totally make sense that a porter would use a layer/translation tool/wrapper, especially if it is a business trying to maximize efficiency. I wasn't trying to imply the porters are lazy or anything, my apologies if it came off that way.

i has been a long time since i saw this video for the second/last time, so feel free to correct me if i made any mistake about its content, my memory isnt perfect after all.

in any case i didnt wanted to say that you implied that porters are lazy, i was just predicting that someone would come with that argument and replying it before it could ever happen to save time/headache for my future self.
TheRiddick Feb 22, 2022
Yes but updates and DLC will cease to work if released after Feral license. So you just gotta be careful. Also likely multiplayer cross-platform doesn't work due to patches halting on feral version if game has it.
officernice Feb 22, 2022
Lord Carmack prophesized this ages ago; emulation is the way forward for Linux. His will be done.
TheRiddick Feb 22, 2022
You mean translation-layer... Emulation is what Console-Emulators do, wine/proton/dxvk/vkd3d are translation layers.
Alm888 Feb 22, 2022
Quoting: elmapulits not about the ammount(sic) of games, but the time you spend playing then, its worth?
there are tons of free games for android that, while they are free, they dont(sic) worth our time. time is the most important thing in life, money? you can won on lotery(sic) and get rich and never need to worry about it again, but time? you cant recover that, and you only realize when its too late.
yes, i'm talking about myself.
Are you serious right now?

So, having a loot run in "Project Zomboid" or building an empire in "X4: Foundations" is somehow worthless, while shooting General Barkovs and G-12s at the "Death Road" or smashing Lenin statues while reading some weepy notes of "GULAG victims" in "Tomb Raider" is a worthwhile activity? Are you implying there are "True Gamers" playing only the best games, while my ex-boss (for example) playing some chess on his "Windows 98" PC at lunch breaks every day just wastes his time on garbage?

Please, come to your senses! We are discussing games, effectively a time wasters, no matter what appearance they have. There are no "must play" "cult classic" games, only those that are fun (to you) and those that are not. And "AAA" does not make a game fun. Expensive? Sure. Resource-demanding? Most probably (those GPUs won't sell themselves, after all). But fun? Nope.

I say it again: good riddance! Good bye to "lootboxes", "game passes", "microtransactions", "always-online DRM" and other exciting attributes of modern "AAA games".
fabertawe Feb 22, 2022
I spent many a happy hour on the Tomb Raiders, Deus Ex, Hitman and XCOM 2. I had no Windows partition (long gone by then) and was very excited to play them on Linux. Some of the few games I was actually happy to pay full price for. Thank you Feral.
einherjar Feb 22, 2022
It would be more smart, if they would use Proton tech to manage the compatibility for games.

That way they could sell TW TWH3 from Release day on and do special optimizations.

But hey, they can use their in House tech too, deliver month later and probably without working multiplayer.
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