Proton could integrate VLC to play videos without codecs

VLC and all those other platforms still require codecs to any play video.

Codecs aren't necessarily the problem at all.

Media Foundation may construct a playback topology involving otherwise working codecs which isn't compatible with vanilla wine.

GE-proton adds an extra layer of compatibility atop vanilla wine including patches still pending release from wine-staging which have not been merged into vanilla wine yet. GE-proton may also include additional libraries and configurations to vanilla wine which often solves video playback bugs.

To reproduce testcard screenshot posted from Proton, run:
gst-launch-1.0 videotestsrc ! ximagesink

The testcard video file is available at: https://github.com/GloriousEggroll/proton-ge-custom/releases [External Link]

1. Unzip release (such as GE-Proton10-15)
2. play ~/Downloads/GE-Proton10-15/files/share/media/blank.mkv

View this comment - View article - View full comments

As proven by this Wine bug: https://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=56614#c20 [External Link]

When these video playback bugs occur, one of the best ways to determine fixes are in the works is: https://github.com/GloriousEggroll/proton-ge-custom [External Link]

proton-ge-custom provides a bleeding edge version of proton that includes patches that are in-process for merge into vanilla wine and some of wine dependencies like vanilla gstreamer.

As documented by the Wine bug, The Signifier director's cut video works for proton-ge-custom but not for vanilla proton which displays the test card screenshot posted for this article. The video also does not work for vanilla wine which just displays a black background instead of the test card.

Thus proton-ge-custom is recommended for use for testing if fixes to bugs are in the works by Wine, Steam, Proton, and GStreamer teams.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Correction to previous post which mistook "DX11 video render" as not involving Media Foundation.

Indeed even the simple "DX11 video render" method described actually does involve Media Foundation per the logs for the Wine bug report.

This shines some light onto the latest state of Media Foundation support in Wine. Media Foundation support was added to Wine about 5 years ago which fixed videos for many games including "DX11 video render" but the solution is still not robust enough to handle many games that use Media Foundation.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

For clarity,

The video described by the Wine bug report is playable via gstreamer:
gst-launch-1.0 playbin3 uri=file:///home/any/Downloads/MainMenu_BG_Generico_PROXY.m4v

The video even plays via DX11 video render method that mimics a simple game video streamer not involving Media Foundation.

For the types of games attempting to play videos via Media Foundation, neither codecs nor gstreamer may be at fault but rather how Wine handles Media Foundation calls and maps them to gstreamer and codecs.

"The Signifier" game binary described by the Wine bug was built via Unity on Windows which may add Media Foundation calls to game binaries depending on video formats chosen when enabling the Unity video player component:
https://discussions.unity.com/t/initializing-microsoft-media-foundation-failed-when-enabling-videoplayer-component/872251 [External Link]

Media Foundation enabling via Unity video player component may be a fairly common game dev scenario meaning the collection of games may be fairly large whose videos are not playable on Linux/SteamDeck via Wine until fixed.

Once a fix is provided, a search for all Unity games that use Media Foundation is a worthy effort to test the robustness of the patches. Other game engines likely offer/offered similar Media Foundation video player options to which fixes to Wine's Media Foundation should also apply.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Via: https://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/documentation/tools/gst-launch.html?gi-language=c [External Link]

To reproduce testcard screenshot posted from Proton, run:
gst-launch-1.0 videotestsrc ! ximagesink

Wine uses gstreamer to handle Microsoft Media Foundation. When gstreamer fails to resolve a compatible multimedia topology it falls back to dispaying a default video. In the case of Proton, the testcard screenshot posted is displayed. On vanilla wine the default video may play as a blank black screen instead.

Multimedia system resolver issues may exist outside of any codec issues already suspected.

Here's a link to an open Wine bug referencing this specific issue:
https://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=56614 [External Link] The Signifier (GOG) videos do not play

View this comment - View article - View full comments