Quoting: GuestUnity3D beg to differ.

Fall guys and Cuphead (the 2 best known unity games) are windows only.

Quoting: GuestLoki games

bankrupt

Quoting: Guestbut where do you think SDL came from? I was playing the original Unreal Tournament on GNU/Linux with r200 drivers. UT2004 had GNU/Linux binaries on the physical release discs.

1 game in 10000, which the company is now owned by a windows fanboy. (and proton supports SDL)

Quoting: GuestAndroid has a large market share....that Google control. More users alone does not promise anything. If Valve control a larger market (and let's face it, on GNU/Linux they've basically turned it into Steam/Linux) then they control it - and they are saying just make Windows games. Increase in users gives GNU/Linux very little in this case.

Valve doesn't control Linux, it controls steam (Which profit from both systems). People for some reason mistakenly forget it and paint Valve as some kind of "defender of Linux adoption".

Quoting: Guestand they are saying just make Windows games

Developers are already doing it for years without Valve need to tell them to. If you want developers outside of the linux bubble to support us, then it needs to convince them that it's profitable (with market share).

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Quoting: GuestIncorrect. Games were developed, though not as profitable I'll grant.

If you're talking about open source games, while they're awesome as pet projects they can't be compared to mainstream hits. Money is necessary to make those games popular, by marketing it or by making developers dedicate to improve it.

Quoting: GuestMore users alone gives you nothing if those users are still tied to whatever Microsoft dictate. That's what "Proton" is. Developers are not being encouraged to develop for GNU/Linux, quite the opposite, and that is the point. Everything I wrote above would see more attention with more native development. Something Valve, through "Proton", and directly said from them, is actively discouraging.

More users alone creates a market share to be explored. The reason you see more investment in an inferior platform like android/ios instead of desktop Linux is pure because of the quantity of users. The main reason Microsoft can "dictate" anything outside the company is because of their market share (the same reason Nvidia can jeopardize Wayland). So yes, more users is essential.

The worst thing that can happen if Linux has only technology without users is other platforms leeching their work and making people use it elsewhere, without contributing with anything like Sony does with BSD.

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Quoting: GuestOther than lacking of a more friendly and supported development environment on par with Visual Studio?

Not Proton's fault, for all the things against Microsoft I can have, I must recognize that Visual Studio / code is a very good ide.

Quoting: GuestLack of focus in areas that could keep games running across distros, kind of like containers

Like Proton?

Quoting: GuestLack of integration with desktop and features such as Twitch integration? (I like to shout out Hive Time here).

Inside the games you mean? Because OBS is already cross platform (amazing software btw).

Quoting: GuestHow about streaming from main server into the living room? If you think that's covered by Steam, think again.

I failed to see how Proton has impact on this one

Quoting: GuestSimple tweaks to drivers along the lines of what is seen from control panels available to Windows users? Sure, most of that is pretty crap, but ideas do come out of much of it.

I agreed 100% on this one, but this is a problem of lack of standards between Desktop Environments (Aka "linux freedom") where a lot of developers expect that user will have a previous knowledge in terminal usage and tweaking things. Unfortunately "good defaults" is a topic criminally underrated on linux, but still no related to proton.

Quoting: GuestGNU/Linux desktop has had virtual desktops for a very long time. I don't see many games taking advantage of that, or even trying to.

Probably because right now developers don't see the necessity of it (and I'm personally skeptical about performance on this one). If you're talking about the security factor, then It's better not to depend on game developers on it.

Quoting: GuestAnti-cheat mechanisms that don't rely upon kernel level access.

True, but I don't think this one has a solution. They either would need to have access to your kernel info, to "make sure" you're not running cheats (intrusive) or running server-side verification (more expensive to developers). A non-intrusive anticheat on linux could be easily bypassed.

Quoting: GuestWhat about experimental driver features, API extensions? OpenGL had that for years. Vulkan has continued that. Not available with DirectX.

Again I agreed with you, and those are topics that need to be easy to use and some marketing on it. OpenGL lost the battle with DX because of the lack of standards, and Vulkan is now better, but needs to become easy to develop with first (which is a work in progress fortunately). In fact Proton is a consequence of this problem, not the cause.

Quoting: GuestSparse texture volumes would never have existed without that, directly impacting games like Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, Rage, Rage 2, Doom 2016, Doom Eternal. Now granted they were all Windows games - but what would happen if you had a lot more people using OpenGL back then, and more using Vulkan now, on an OS where there are a whole heap more freedoms to experiment?

Bethesda games? lol
They're the perfect example of how even with the tech available, the company can simply choose to not support linux because of the lack of Market share. I think they're most likely to sabotage linux games than Microsoft (like they did putting Media Foundation on Skyrim SE).

Quoting: GuestBut no, apparently that's all insignificant and "Proton" is the way forward, just do whatever Microsoft dictate. That should get you started on something to think about.

Proton is a consequence to Microsoft dominance, I agreed native technology will always be better but Proton is better than nothing (which was what linux had before in the game subject).

My point is people where not developing games for linux before (except for the Steam machines train hype that derailed), and still would not because of the lack of market share. More important that technology and money, Linux need more users and Proton is helping with that.

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Quoting: GuestIt will, however, slow innovation and adaptability in GNU/Linux gaming.

Interesting, which one of those of those are being jeopardized by Proton?

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Quoting: Purple Library GuyThe question on this comes down to who can move faster.

That's the beauty of the current situation: They can't "move fast enough" like old days because there's more people making it work. Older games won't be updated to being incompatible with Proton, New gimmicks from video cards developers don't have a reason to stick only to Microsoft tech because they're independent companies (even if they have started windows only like RTX).

Quoting: Purple Library GuySince Proton and DXVK, it has been looking rather more like with more effort (and money) and more efficient approaches, chasing the taillights is pretty dashed viable, and the Wine/Proton/DXVK/stuff ecosystem can actually move faster than Microsoft can.

You're correct: The main key here is money and we can thank Valve for that. Without them gaming on linux would be in the sorrow state that was before.

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Quoting: GuestI'm not really concerned with it being worse for Microsoft, so much as not good for GNU/Linux.

It's a cause and effect situation, more people use Linux as their primary is directly "worse" to Microsoft than people using any other non-microsoft system, because at long term this decreases their market share. Not saying this is a threat for them, but it's worse than everyone stuck to windows like we have today.

Quoting: GuestMicrosoft is actually pretty good at documentation and developer help too. It's not really a problem for them to release something new and have developers pick it up - indeed, it's often a selling point. So it's not too difficult for them to introduce a Windows-only bit of middleware, or a subtle change to DirectX, and games no longer work through wine.

It is, if those said changes results in the software being unfamiliar with the older versions like I've said before. They can't limit proton inside their DX API because wine doesn't use any of it, and changing the calls only for the sake of breaking it would result in regressions with native DirectX games too. The same is correct if they release a more restrict api to replace DirectX, because developers would stick to what they already are comfortable to work unless this hypothetically new api could be also way better than what they are used to.

So the best and safer way they can boycott other systems is hide behind patent-protected tech like Media Foundation, and this is worse than relying on open source conversion layer like wine.

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Quoting: EhvisOr they release DX13 and we can start all over again. I'm with mirv on this one. Going for DX on proton as the basis for Linux gaming is just keeping Microsoft in control of the pc gaming ecosystem.

It's not so simple to release so this would take some time to happen, and if MS release a brand new version of DirectX with too much changes from their old ones, this could have the opposite effect for them since developers might be afraid of using it.

My point is something like Proton is worse for Microsoft than for Linux gaming, and what I think it really need to happen is Vulkan to become more mature and easier to develop, in a way that developers can rely on without the fear of causing problems they don't know how to fix.

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Quoting: GuestNot wanting to add any fuel to the fire, but this is a great example to point at why "Proton" is not a good future for gaming. Microsoft will still be dictating the terms of game development, and this kind of scenario is what will happen.

I see this in the other way: The reason something like DirectX is closed source is to bind mainstream users to Windows systems, in a way that you're obliged to use MS systems in order to play it. Software like Wine / Proton makes it possible to run those games without a single line of code from MS, which is terrible to their model business.

So if we get in a state where wine / proton can 1:1 with native DirectX, without the need to rely on Windows, then their only choice would be port / open source DirectX, or sabotage using patent protected components Media Foundation, which is the case with this game.

Our problem isn't games being produce with DirectX, is developers purposefully using software that we can't run outside Windows.

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So I see that the Nvidia monopoly with discrete cards (in notebooks) is not just a South America problem

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Seeing things like this becoming "e-sports" makes me think that an idea of some "e-olimpics" in the future may be actually plausible.

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