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- Steam Frame and Steam Machine will be another good boost for Flatpaks and desktop Linux overall too
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While I hope we are wrong about this, the prospect of a high profile commercial failure of the steamdeck has me speculating about the possibility that valve will, at some point, "give up" on proton. This has gotten me thinking a lot more about something I was already concerned about, how easy is it to maintain proton?
I'm pretty ignorant here, and I'm opening this thread because my own ability to assess this is extremely limited. On one hand, I have anecdotally observed that most issues that keep games from running properly are what I would categorize as "OS, wine issues", missing DLL's, improper DLL versions, registry misconfiguration, that sort of thing. I see problems that are obvious issues that affect dxvk less often, though certainly they pop up. DX11 seems pretty reliable at this point, but DX12 is still quite unstable.
Another consideration is how much MS can make breaking changes (or non-backward compatible additions) to DX11 and DX12. Obviously these would require modifications to dxvk, but would be difficult for MS to deploy for the same reasons.
So, this is an open question for anyone more deeply involved with proton and dxvk: how maintainable do you think this really is? If valve completely bails on the concept of linux gaming, to what degree do you think the existing community can keep linux a viable option for gaming? dxvk itself looks like it has a truck factor of 1 or 2, which on one hand is discouraging because there probably aren't many experts, but on another is very encouraging because it suggests it might not have taken a monumental effort to get this far.
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Gaming on Windows on Linux would be through some sort of VM with pass-through.
Proton / Wine are a compatibility layer, that runs everything through Linux. It absolutely is Linux gaming. It's already proven itself to be maintainable. Sure it will be behind when Microsoft introduce new stuff, and Microsoft could make steps to be difficult but Valve + CodeWeavers will cross that bridge when/if it happens.
If the Steam Deck was a big success and we suddenly had a good share of users, if it proven too much to get a game working in Wine / Proton - there's every possibility a developer will then do a port. We would never get to that point without Proton / Wine though, because there simply wasn't enough of a push anywhere.
The point being there is a gradient between the two extremes, to which I would draw the analogy for translation layers and VMs both being different degrees of "running 'Windows'".
It's not a solution for an end-user. I want to believe that PC users will start to use other emulators to play games every day. Unfortunately, it's not going to happen.
I can explain to someone that a specific game requires this version of GLIBC, SDL, etc. I stuck with a second PC to run old games and outdated versions of Linux distributions from 2003 and 2010. Sometimes, I want to install a game and play it.
I can't recommend Proton or Wine to someone who wants to switch from Windows to Linux.
I have no idea if someone's game will work without any issues. It's even more complex and highly unpredictable. We are talking about convincing people to buy games for a different platform to run on Linux. I'm a former Wine, Cedega, and Crossover user. Wine can't replace Windows, but it is sometimes fine if you want to unpack something to use a source port.
Last edited by gbudny on 3 Feb 2022 at 3:13 am UTC
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In a way it's a benefit that's better than even the ability to run native Linux games on Linux itself long term, due to Linux userland breaking over time and not trying to support very old libraries intentionally.
This isn't often talked about as a benefit that Wine provides, but it surely is a very useful one. I think it could be cool if someone could also develop the same thing for Linux itself, i.e. a layer that translates Linux libraries into modern ones, so even ancient ones work fine. That would make native Linux games maintainable long term as well. I don't think there is such project at present.
Last edited by Shmerl on 3 Feb 2022 at 12:59 am UTC
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Regurgitate "chicken, hen", critical mass, yada yada dead horse. As with everything, there appear to be two factions with opposite perception of what benefits them best.
Whatever side, "we" are not going to make a dent in the market for Windows games; if it ever happens, it will be companies being fed up with other companies' monopolies.