Quoting: Guest

Quoting: GuestI find it quite ironic if people try to tell that Steam Play isn't Linux gaming. If I look at all the interesting technology that improved our Linux infrastructure then I can only disagree. Linux is about free software and this improved a lot with the help of Valve, just look at Mesa, radeonsi, RADV, wine, proton, faudio, DXVK, D9VK, ... I would call this a really vital platform now!
Linux gaming before Steam Play was not a place where all the "native" games have been developed directly for our platform, instead we had lots of wrappers mostly propriety in between. And replacing these wrappers with our own free software is now less Linux gaming then before? I feel contrary, I like how many options we have now, the broad community support, the option to use Vulkan for hundreds/thousands of games and I like how our infrastructure improved since then!

What makes Linux gaming great are things like day-1 support. Windows games aren't supported on Linux, so you can never have that and all the other benefits of normal support. We don't want to become a 2nd class gaming platform that only props up Microsoft Windows gaming. We deserve support just like every other gamer does, and that support only comes when we demand it and will not pay developers who don't give it to us.

Well, please face it, Linux gamers are not even 2nd class citizens, but more like 3rd or 4th citizens considering the user numbers.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: Guest

Quoting: eldakingWell, inXile is just very full of bullshit. The kickstarter page for Bard's Tale 4 has a really passionate text about how they loved crowdfunding in all their projects and having a publisher sucks ("crowdfunding is how games are supposed to be made"). Of course, now that they got bought by a huge studio it apparently is great. And all their updates about how the ports were top priority, then about how well they were going, then not so well, then a lot of other things that had to come first... if they don't delay it again (which they certainly can), it will be just over one year late.

As for the remastered old games: everything so far indicated that they were not going to support Linux at all. And, well, they won't. If they didn't mention SteamPlay it wouldn't even be a surprise. But, yeah, unsurprisingly they are full of bullshit. Whether they use Proton or they create another version is a small difference, but unless they offer actual support (with actual testing and committing to fix any bugs) they are just ignoring Linux users.

Any developer who doesn't offer support for our platform is neglecting our platform and us gamers on that platform, correct.

Quoting: liamdaweAnother point of Steam Play I don't think I talked much about, is that it spreads our purchases even thinner with our smaller market share. Not something I've seen others talk about either, just something to think on.

True, and I can think of two ways that could have an impact:

1) If developers see Linux gamers buying Windows games, they'll have that much more reason to NOT offer Linux support. As the number of Linux gamers playing the Windows version in an unsupported way increases, the amount of money they would get if they did provide support decreases. In other words, if anything, you don't want developers seeing the fact you've paid for the Windows game and are playing it on Linux because that disincentivizes Linux support. If ALL Linux gamers were happy with zero support and with funding and paying for the Windows version, developers would have ZERO incentive for releasing Linux support.

2) If developers were looking at such Linux gamers playing Windows games numbers with the idea that it represents Linux gamer numbers, that would be bad indeed, but even then they would still be thinking, "well, they'll pay for the Windows version, so no reason to provide Linux support."

Either way it's a lose for us.

If you want more (bigger) gaming studios and publisher to support Linux, you'll need people that play on Linux. Actually a lot more than now. Really a lot more than the current tiny 1%. Strictly buying for Linux only will get you nowhere. Look at the time before Proton arrived. I had the idea that the number of big/bigger titles for Linux were already decreasing at that time. SteamPlay/Proton is the best chance since a long time for our platform to actually increase the number of Linux users by a noticeable chunk. With SteamPlay people that switch to Linux won't have to go back to the middle ages regarding availability of games. Furthermore SteamPlay purchases appear as Linux in statistics. This last bit is pretty important for me and make the difference. I avoid wine stand-alone (now and before SteamPlay) because mostly the reasons you state, this would indeed move numbers in favor of Windows. Not so with Steam Play. Once the market share moves into our favor I'm would bet that more games will come too, either native or supported by SteamPlay. Both approaches would let you play a game on Linux, so no difference for me.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Regarding the increased performance, please read https://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/bxo3t5/proton_426_released/eq9o33q?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x [External Link]

Do note , that optimization is only relevant for 32 bit DX10 / 11 titles. So usage case of it is limited since 32 bit DX11 titles is very rare.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: Purple Library GuyI guess the question is, are computer games more like other computer stuff or more like movies and music?

Well, the steps needed from movies to interactive movies to gaming are not that big ;)

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Using Steam Play I was able to spend a lot of hours with big titles like GTA5, Dark Souls 3, now The Witcher 3 and ACC. I never dreamed a few years ago that this will be possible on my Linux box (which is all I have). I really don't care how I run the game as long as it runs fine and that I know that my money ends up in the Linux column in some charts. Steam Play offers both, thus I'm all in. Yes, things may break, but this also may happen with "native" titles. (I have to admit that sometimes I even welcome the challenge to get something running again ;) ).
My hope is that getting Linux more prominently in the usage charts with the help of Steam Play will make developers aware that there is a market out there which deserves attention by either with a direct release or at least by making sure that titles run nicely with Steam Play. I'm seeing responses like from this developer as collateral damage in the long term game.
Lets see what happens..

PS: My exception are titles that are announced to get a Linux version. E.g. I haven't even touched the demo version of Shadow of the Tomb Raider but will wait until Ferals port is out and spend all the money that is needed on day one in their store.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

I'm taking the protondb numbers with a grain of salt. Some people tend to rate their enthusiasm to get something running instead of actual compatibility. I think it would have been better if the overall score was calculated based on some questions which cover most game aspects (e.g. number of actions to get it started, graphics rating, sound rating, single player ok, multi player ok etc.).

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Time is limited here but Assetto Corsa Competizione is now out of Early Access and deserves some attention. Next to that I've had spending some hours with The Witcher III. I never played a game in this series, though I'm starting to understand why there is such a hype around this game. I run both games using Steam Play.

I'm also sincerely looking forward to Shadow of the Tomb Raider by Feral.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

The 430 drivers is now available in negativo17 repositories for Fedora. Performance especially on Assetto Corsa Competizione (Unreal Engine 4) has indeed quite noticeable improved. Thanks a lot everyone involved!

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: Comandante ÑoñardoTake a look their Linux port of Tomb Raider (2013)... They can update it to Vulkan for to improve the performance, because it runs better via PROTON.
But, no. They don't update it because blah, blah, blah. :><:
The same for Deus Ex Mankind Divided, Mad Max and LIS:Before the Storm... I know, Mad Max has a vulkan beta, but it is not the same...

This is just silly, these games run just fine with OpenGL. Sure, they would run better with Vulkan on older hardware (that already has Vulkan), but I'm pretty sure that this is not something Feral does on a Friday afternoon. Feral wouldn't earn a single cent by doing so for these older games, but would have the extra support costs for all the people that can't run the games anymore due to broken Vulkan setup.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: Comandante Ñoñardo

Quoting: jens

Quoting: Comandante ÑoñardoThe Game of The year edition already exist and is called Shadow of the Tomb Raider CROFT EDITION [External Link]

I wouldn't be so sure that this is the GOTY version. But lets see what happens. I'm also really looking forward to this one, certainly a first-day-full-price-at-feral-store purchase for me.

There is a TRIAL version of SotTR that you can use as a benchmark... My olde GTX970 barely can handle it.. Time for an upgrade.

I know that, but I refuse to touch or (even read) anything of that game until Feral's version is out.
So far I have been strong, lets hope I can keep it like this. ;)

Quoting: Eike

Quoting: Comandante ÑoñardoThere is a TRIAL version of SotTR that you can use as a benchmark... My olde GTX970 barely can handle it.. Time for an upgrade.

Using Proton?

Yes.

View this comment - View article - View full comments