Quoting: const

Quoting: sarmad

Quoting: const

Quoting: sarmadI don't understand this number. There are 9800 games on Steam that natively support Linux. I understand the verified status having more to do than just the game being playable, but shouldn't playable include all those 9800 native titles by default?

No, absolutely not. Matter of expectations.
There are quite a lot of games that work perfect on Linux but need fixes for handhelds in general or deck in specific (often the same would apply on windows)

Examples:
Games with very small text.
Games that get confused with any input you throw at them.
Games that have issues after waking up from sleep.
Games that show totally wrong control glyphs while playing.

etc...

One current example for me is Talos principle.
You can absolutely play it on Deck. It's beautiful, there is a great default controller layout defined, even with nice gyro settings. BUT: When I put it to sleep and wake it up, sound has gone and won't come back until I restart the game. And the ingame control glyphs are all just fancy rectangles. For me, it's still enjoyable, but Valve can't seriously call that ready for consumers.
Another example is Psychonauts. I may have to retest at some point, but last time I tried it, it would simply not react on any input.
There were quite a few other native titles that I couldn't get running. Some of them were fixed by forcing windows version with proton, some weren't. Yet, there are so many games that do run great, I just switch games and may come back to these games later...

You are describing "verified". I was talking about "playable".

I don't think missing sound would fall under playable. Missing input neither. There are native games that are clearly not playable. Every game needs to be checked.

I have a great example of a Verified game that I had a bit of specific problems with; Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance.
1) It installs the Windows version; which the Devs apparently have not selected the thing to do cross-platform cloud sync. So while switching between my Linux desktop running the native game and the Steam Deck running Proton, it would not sync. Changing the Deck to the Steam Linux Runtime fixed that issue.
2) but changing to the Linux version made it unplayable... until I changed the vsync / max fps to 60, then it ran BEAUTIFULLY, even better native than it did with Proton. Weirdly enough, if I changed to Desktop mode, it ran perfectly fine without tweaks (I'm assuming at this point the DeckUI has limiters in place that desktop mode does not).

Edit: at this point I think Star Wars: Force Unleashed should be promoted to Verified, that game works flawlessly! Though I think the game itself glitched on the level I got to last night, as it wouldn't let me pull down some bridge I needed to.

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Quoting: wit_as_a_riddleLooking forward to comments about those few games that slipped through the cracks of the verification system and somehow don't work as expected according to their rating. Best, most interesting and original sentiments, and very important to note since by all indications Valve is an evil and greedy company which lies to their customers (for profit!) at every opportunity. /s!

🤣🤣🤣 Sorry, couldn't help myself.

3500 games with console-like experience. Many more with PC-like experience. It's incredible!

Fantasy Grounds and Fantasy Grounds Unity... FG is Verified and it is completely jacked. FGU works, but only after setting it to native, the windows installer literally cased my Deck to crash.

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Quoting: const

Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: const

Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: constdo something important like further improving SteamOS (which is their most important product for us, by far).

I would have said least important. It's just another distro, of which we have plenty.

Did you actually try it? In it's core, yes, it's mainly just Linux, but Valve added a lot to the experience.

I'm not saying it's bad. But I'm not against distros in general either. Lots of them add stuff, and then other distros and desktop environments step up their own game. GamerOS adds stuff, too, as I understand it. So, sure, I'm absolutely willing to believe SteamOS adds a nice bit of user experience and is a good fit for the role they adapted it for. Although I put SteamOS as such in a separate category from the UI stuff that applies specifically to the deck--I see SteamOS as what you get when you go into "desktop mode". And really, that could be any decent distro, wouldn't matter much.

That nice SteamOS (as such) experience is not strategically important. The Deck itself is strategically important. Proton is strategically important. Even the Steam Runtime Environment has some importance. I would even say that the Steam Deck's gaming side UI, which is independent of the distro you run it on, is more important than SteamOS itself. SteamOS, particularly in the context of "something we want Valve to spend lots more of their energy developing", because it's an important product "for us"--no, SteamoS isn't important, and it's certainly not important for any "us" who doesn't own a Steam Deck.

Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: const

Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: constdo something important like further improving SteamOS (which is their most important product for us, by far).

I would have said least important. It's just another distro, of which we have plenty.

Did you actually try it? In it's core, yes, it's mainly just Linux, but Valve added a lot to the experience.

I'm not saying it's bad. But I'm not against distros in general either. Lots of them add stuff, and then other distros and desktop environments step up their own game. GamerOS adds stuff, too, as I understand it. So, sure, I'm absolutely willing to believe SteamOS adds a nice bit of user experience and is a good fit for the role they adapted it for. Although I put SteamOS as such in a separate category from the UI stuff that applies specifically to the deck--I see SteamOS as what you get when you go into "desktop mode". And really, that could be any decent distro, wouldn't matter much.

That nice SteamOS (as such) experience is not strategically important. The Deck itself is strategically important. Proton is strategically important. Even the Steam Runtime Environment has some importance. I would even say that the Steam Deck's gaming side UI, which is independent of the distro you run it on, is more important than SteamOS itself. SteamOS, particularly in the context of "something we want Valve to spend lots more of their energy developing", because it's an important product "for us"--no, SteamoS isn't important, and it's certainly not important for any "us" who doesn't own a Steam Deck.

Then we disagree. SteamOS and gameUI are connected in a lot of ways. GameUI so far is developed for the Deck on SteamOS, they are pretty much developed in sync. You actually upgrade the OS through gameUI and gameUI lets you even load up the DE inside. Both make the experience on Deck and if you put SteamOS on other devices, the experience will be pretty much the same.
Put SteamOS on an Aya handheld and map the Steam and burger buttons and you get a much better experience then with Windows. Put SteamOS on a couch PC and it will feel like a console. If Valve manages to make other hardware producers integrate SteamOS well, things might finally start cascading.

Personally I think what they need to do now is sell a small box version of the Deck that you hook up to a TV with Steam Controller 2, which would be exactly like the Deck's controller layout. I'd buy one for sure.

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Some of it is even down to what drivers you use. While AMD drivers are out there in the kernel, I have had less issues with my nvidia setup than I have read others complain about with native versions.

There were quite a few releases that specifically stated there were issues with D GPUs. So that is definitely a factor here. The Deck using AMD hardware may be the main reason they favor Proton over native builds. But I can only report on the things I have tried, and so far running Proton bs Native has for sure caused me mkre issues than not on the Deck.

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Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: Beamboom

Quoting: slaapliedjeBut then you get into the conundrum of which version of Proton?

Theoretically, yes.
But then we are back to probability. The probability of a game working on the latest version (if working on Proton at all) is very high. Just like the probability of a native game running as good or better on Proton is very high. And vice versa, if a game doesn't work on the latest version it probably won't work on earlier versions either.

Simply put I play exclusively on Proton, so I have some mileage on it. And it's been quite a while since I had to choose an earlier version to run a specific game. It's happened, yes, but it's one or two titles and maybe two years ago - maybe even longer.
And, come to think of it, then it's always been to go from experimental to latest stable.

Bu that's just my experience. That's not to say it won't or doesn't happen anymore. I'm sure it will. An extra layer does add complexity.
It's just that statistically speaking Proton works bloody well, and increasingly so for each month.

As a counterpoint I'd like to note that I first got a game working on Proton two days ago, but in all my time of playing native titles the only ones I've found to not work any more are my old Loki games. And at that I've had some luck getting Alpha Centauri working, although it takes some fiddling around.
Mind you, it may be that some of the games I've played in the past would be problematic now and I just haven't tried them lately. Still, my experience hasn't involved a lot of this "native games going bad" thing that I hear a lot about.

Last time I tried, I managed to get Heavy Gear II to work, and it was just a few years ago. I should try again. But usually it isn't terribly difficult to get such things to work in Linux.

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Quoting: Beamboom

Quoting: slaapliedjeShould be a simple process here;

if native ask;
if native version is working...
is the game released cross platform or ported by a third party?
if third party, has third party been keeping it in sync with first party?
if no; go proton
if yes; go native
if cross-platform released by first party; go native

Problem is, it's not that easy. What defines "working"? How can they automate a test on performance proton vs native? How about multiplayer games that won't work cross platform? Or native versions that's abandoned next week? Or single player games with a multiplayer additional mode that's not working? Or a game that runs well native, but with a DLC that's not ported?

I think they need to keep it simple for practical reasons. If it works on Proton, chances are very high that it'll work as good or better than the native version. That's just the reality.

But then you get into the conundrum of which version of Proton?

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Quoting: CyrilDamn, this game is available nowhere. Go boost the GOG's wishlist!

I couldn't even find it when it was released... at least not the Linux version.

Gog is dead to me until they can fix their crap though :P Why are their games DRM-Free, but only if you use the data where they want you to? https://zeropointdevelopment.com/how-to-use-a-bash-script-to-restart-linux-server-services/ [External Link]

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Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: constdo something important like further improving SteamOS (which is their most important product for us, by far).

I would have said least important. It's just another distro, of which we have plenty.

Pretty much, but it's THEIR distro. And it's closer to something like AtariOS, where they have it default to a read only file system. Sure you can turn that off and mess around with it at a lower level, but I honestly think if you're going to do that, then you may as well just install your favorite distro on it.

Installing everything through flatpaks has advantages and disadvantages for sure. But I do think SteamOS is important in that if / when they release it, it may be rather nice on some of the more powerful NUC-Style systems.

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Quoting: Hamish

Quoting: robvvI was expecting a review of Llamatron ;-)

Ha, well, if we are looking for Linux releases of games from 8/16 bit computers, perhaps the next instalment will not disappoint. :whistle:

Linux kind of requires an MMU, which very few 8 or 16 bit systems supported. 68030 or 386 required, right?

I should fire up llamatron on my Jaguar again...

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Pretty sure I still have the original copy of this, and I always meant to play this and Revenant (which I want to say came out roughly at the same time).

And now of course I also confuse it with Nox Archaist...

Amusingly of course I check if OpenNox is in the AUR yet, and looked only for 'nox' and get the packages for NoX (As in No X11). They should have called Wayland that...

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