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A quick run over some details from the recent ProtonDB data

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Every now and then, the people behind ProtonDB release data dumps from user generated reports of games tested in Steam Play.

What is ProtonDB? It's an unofficial statistics website, where you can note how good or bad various games run on Steam when played with Steam Play. It's a fun one to track, so with a new data dump I thought it might be interesting to try my hand at getting something out of the data for anyone curious.

The latest data dump is available here, which shows a total of 29,823 reports so it's getting rather massive. It goes to show just how many people are testing a wide variety of games!

First up, here's a look at how many reports are going in monthly:

Clearly less reports going into it as time goes on, which is quite interesting. Now, it doesn't mean Steam Play is suddenly any less popular of course, we do have to remember this is an unofficial website and given how many games have a lot of reports already, some may now just look to see existing reports.

Specific to this month, there were 3,119 reports. Here's a breakdown of those reports (one didn't seem to have a status set correctly):

As for the actual games being reported, here's the top 15 most reported games on ProtonDB through January:

Quite an interesting and varied selection there, with Yakuza 0 being no surprise since it was part of last month's Humble Monthly.

It's also nice to see so many people trying out (and enjoying) The Witcher 3, with it being the second most popular game. I'm not entirely surprised here, as I imagine a number of people purchased it originally when a big announcement was made about it coming to SteamOS/Linux which never actually happened in the end. It's another reason why Steam Play is such a great idea, for the times we are sadly let down and for those who don't care about port arguments who just want to play great games.

Here's a look at some more details like Linux Distributions. This one is a close-enough approximation, as the list of distributions is quite varied and messy on the naming, as it's gathered from Steam's system information output:

Note: Some distributions only come up as "Linux 4.x". For those, we're verifying using the Kernel string for both Arch, Fedora and Gentoo. Still looking over ways to do the same for others. All other distributions are bundled into "Other".

Next, here's a look at what types of GPU people are using when attempting to play games with Steam Play:

And again here with what CPU people are using:

Additionally, most reports (1,757 of them) were made using the latest available Proton Beta 3.16-6.

Hopefully I will take another look when they do their next database dump, if people find it interesting enough of course.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: Steam Play, Misc
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Brisse Feb 3, 2019
Quoting: mylkaor at least support proton with vulkan

Doubt it. They have been hiring graphics developers and they were listing MS API's as required experience. Not a word about open API's.
Tchey Feb 3, 2019
About Arch being second, around me and also myself, we went from Mint to Manjora recently, and we are pleased by the result. It seems to be "better" for gaming, so far (same games on Mint sometimes didn't run, or with some issue, while they do without any trick on Manjaro).

Also it seems to be growing, from what i've witnessed. So maybe with time, Arch (and derived) >= Ubuntu (and derived) ?
Zuul Feb 3, 2019
Had I been on windows I would not be reporting anything. Wait wat?

Seriously though I have 2 reports. I ought to have 9 reports.Lazy gamer.
iiari Feb 3, 2019
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Quoting: ziabiceAm I the only one that still uses the official issue trackerto report things? It's very well maintained, they (Valve employees) reply in minutes, and sometimes you can talk with Codeweavers developers.
The first two or three things I put there or contributed to went unanswered or addressed for some time (one of them still without reply since Proton roll-out) so I just gave up. I'm glad to hear your experience was different, so maybe I'll go back to that.

Regarding reporting slowing down over the months, I've already reported my whole non-native library! I've just run out of titles. I wonder what percentage of the Windows library has reports so far...
eldaking Feb 3, 2019
Quoting: ziabiceAm I the only one that still uses the official issue trackerto report things? It's very well maintained, they (Valve employees) reply in minutes, and sometimes you can talk with Codeweavers developers.

That said, there are 1576 open issues, 647 closed.

The open issues that are whitelist requests are 445 (that means games that work without problems, with a Platinum or Gold rating), while 913 issues are "Game Compatibility - unofficial" (that means that the game can work with workaround or not at all, it depends).

So we have already nearly 500 games that are click'n'play, that's great! :D

I reported a bug there on the early days (a weird thing with some timezones in Unity games), which eventually was fixed in upstream Wine. I was quite satisfied with the results.

But I feel like GitHub issues serve a very different purpose than a compatibility "wiki". GitHub issues are great for reporting bugs, but not for users wanting to know if a game works or what are the workarounds. Issues posted have to include a lot more details (like logs), and even then it not necessarily is enough for developers to fix the issue. On the other hand, ProtonDB is more convenient for finding games and for "unofficial" tweaks and fixes.

Still, I find that just looking at the rating (Platinum, Gold, Silver, Borked) is not nearly enough. Considering that Gold will always include some tweaks and Silver will always include some problems (and because people misunderstand the ratings, many platinum and borked games are misrated), the description is crucial.
wvstolzing Feb 3, 2019
As to the propriety of 'Platinum' (or even Gold) ratings, extended playtime should be a criterion as well. Some games start OK, but take a nosedive after 5 hours. I get that people are eager to put in enthusiastic reports after 1-2 hours (or even less) of promising gameplay, but that can be very misleading.

I still think that protondb should offer a more detailed survey, and then calculate the final rating itself, based on unambiguous criteria.

Another thing is that there needs to be an option to edit past reports.


Last edited by wvstolzing on 3 February 2019 at 2:34 pm UTC
tony1ab Feb 3, 2019
Oh my.
I want to touch this time for the last time.

Finally, statistics prove what we already knew. So many people have finally played Witcher 3 in linux. If they would have released it natively, the game would have had a lot of sales!
Quoting: Segata Sanshiro
Quoting: Comandante ÑoñardoThese are my platinum reports:

I have more reports to do..

What's the deal with the Metro games? Do they run better with proton or something?

Yes. Metro run MUCH better via forced Proton.



Quoting: liamdaweAnd yes, if you're reporting something as Platinum yet you've used tweaks - that's not Platinum.

Depends of your concept of "tweaks".
For me, a tweak is when I have to manually edit, delete or create some file after the game prefix was created or if I have to install something via console winetricks commands, and that wasn't the case of any of my reports.

Putting something here

for me is not a tweak.
But it can be a requirement:
If you want to play Alan Wake with Latinamerican spanish audio, you NEED to put -locale=esm

Anyway, the PROTONDB ratings system is subjective....
For me a game works fine or it doesn't.



Quoting: GuestHow did you write reports for native games?

You have to do it manually with the usual steps.
Example:




Here, You put the Game ID of the native game you want to report..


In this example We gonna put 203160, the ID of Tomb Raider.



Ignore the warning, and continue with your report.
Brisse Feb 3, 2019
Quoting: Comandante ÑoñardoYes. Metro run MUCH better via forced Proton.

Wierd. I was under the impression that the native Linux version ran the same as the Windows version. I wonder how Proton compares to the Windows version then. Maybe I'm just wrong....
cRaZy-bisCuiT Feb 3, 2019
Quoting: Brisse
Quoting: Comandante ÑoñardoYes. Metro run MUCH better via forced Proton.

Wierd. I was under the impression that the native Linux version ran the same as the Windows version. I wonder how Proton compares to the Windows version then. Maybe I'm just wrong....
Actually the OpenGL Linux version has less good graphics. Still it runs pretty good for me... but the performance of the ("native") port is supposed to be worse then with Proton. I did not compare that yet.


Last edited by cRaZy-bisCuiT on 3 February 2019 at 5:33 pm UTC
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