Huh, vkbasalt is already available as Flatpak? Hm, at some point can we get a list of all the gaming tools that are available as Flatpak, and how do they work for both normal Linux and Steam Deck?

I haven't been following all the recent Flatpak shift so I feel like I missed a lot. Maybe a full guide for Linux Gaming purely via Flatpak? That would be great as a singular guide to point all newbie Linux gamers towards regardless of distro.

In any case, more update is nice, but for now I have to use bottles-git because still waiting for libadwaita 1.2 to come out before non libadwaita-git bottles could be packaged again. Though I'm still not fully using it since I'm still waiting for play time count in Library mode -- hope it comes soon, because I'd be pretty to ditch Lutris once I have that, as I love to report my play/read-time for the games/VNs I play.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Initial Wow64 thunking in WIN32U.

The promised future! Soon, no more lib32 dependency nightmares!

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quite a lot of Japanese exclusive ones. It might not be "good" to a lot of people, but Ar nosurge is still a PS3/PS4 exclusive for their English version. Lots of Japanese games never received a port either.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Yes! I've been following the PR on Github after they mentioned they're working on it. I wasn't expecting it this soon, but this is amazing.

GOG is finally an option I can consider now, since Cloud Save is one of my primary factors to buy instead of pirate- they've been slowly becoming a "backup plan" to Steam for VNs and have uncensored releases, so I've been wanting for them to have good experience for me. And Epic Overlay solves the issue that made people had to do some workarounds with compatible games.

Now that that's a major milestone crossed, I think we might soon see Heroic's plan to expand to other stores. Itch, Ubisoft, and EA Origins maybe? Maybe Battle.net, Minecraft, FFXIV, and Riot games as well? They've just been solid experiences that I prefer them over Bottles and Lutris.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

I don't care what they said in the past - businesses aren't the only ones capable of looking the other way when it fits their agenda - people kept saying that the problem for Linux adoptions are the lack of devices pre-installed with them and this is yet another step in that ladder. I want to see more of them.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: Liam Dawe

Quoting: fenglengshunHi, while this is quite interesting, perhaps for the next lists we could also add a column for their ProtonDB rating? As someone who can't purchase the Deck, it would still be nice to keep track a comparison of the Deck Verification ratings and the ProtonDB ratings.

On it. Edit: done.

Thank you! That's actually pretty illuminating. Only Alyx is Silver, and that's a VR game (even if it has Native release) so that's not a surprise. A few "Playable" also have "Platinum" rating which is interesting - I'm not sure what Deep Rock can do about its texts, but DDLC I'm pretty sure could be tweaked to have an in-game keyboard if the creator is motivated enough (assuming he doesn't just support auto-invoke On-Screen Keyboard) and Tomb Rider is more of a 'willingness' issue with Launchers and stuff.

It's quite interesting to see that all of them has very good Proton ratings, and generally pretty good Deck ratings. I suppose if they're the type to get high ratings, they're also the type to listen to player requests and thus more likely to pay some attention to Linux support.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

as an accountant, every time i see a keyboard without numpad, i just feel so scared...

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Hi, while this is quite interesting, perhaps for the next lists we could also add a column for their ProtonDB rating? As someone who can't purchase the Deck, it would still be nice to keep track a comparison of the Deck Verification ratings and the ProtonDB ratings.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: denyasisIsn't that the point for Valve? It ties Linux to the Steam ecosystem garunteeing sales income.

You can still use Proton outside of Steam. Bottles outright support using Proton + Steam Runtime. Pretty sure Heroic does as well, and so does a few other runners. And there's also the Wine builds that clearly benefits from Proton, like Wine-GE and Wine-Tkg, which is used as base for other builds like Wine-Lutris and Bottle's Caffe.

What Steam is selling is pretty simple: the It Just Works experience on Linux, for both consumers and developers. For Linux as a platform, what it's offering is an integrated platform that can be used downstream as well (not just the Deck- we've seen their OS being used by other handheld PCs and I know at least two distributions based on SteamOS 3.0).

That's the crux of what Steam is doing. They're not just doing one thing, they're creating an integrated platform that developers can target without THAT much additional work, they created a hardware+software combo that is genuinely compelling to mainstream users even if they don't care about the ideas of Linux (which is what drive most of us to tolerate the hassles of Linux), and they even created a framework that other vendors can take to use for themselves.

The real genius is that they're all so integrated to it that it's more of a hassle to separate them all that it's much easier to just use Steam and what they put out. It's a strategy that's definitely born from the corpses of several failed projects, tuned to really appeal to everyone who hasn't already set in their mind about certain things (for example the "No Tux, No Bux" crowds as well as Tim "muh EGS" Sweeney).

It reminded me of Android and Chrome. Sure, you can separate a lot of Google stuff from it, but they appeal so much to people that at some point they become entrenched. Even Microsoft is basically doing the same with Game Pass. I think that's the only real way to grow and sustain a new platform these days.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

...god fucking dammit, I was actually one of the people who had their hopes up. You know what? Fine, if they don't want to support Linux, then open up the Cloud Save API so that Heroic, Lutris, and Mini Galaxy can easily access them. THAT is literally the one reason withholding me from buying games on GOG. I'm even willing to pay more (since they don't have regional pricing for my region) if it meant I could get the VNs I want and I could have Cloud Save to go with them!

Fuck GOG man. Until they open up Cloud Save, they're a no go for me, no matter how much I want to just buy Muramasa and Evenicle 2 (because, yes, they have that) from them.

View this comment - View article - View full comments