Even though there is no kernel-mode driver on Linux, the userspace game process performs significant cheat detection. Linux users accessing multiplayer will be reported to online services as running at lower integrity. Some game developers may choose to prevent Linux users from accessing ranked or competitive game modes. We'll do our best to convince developers and publishers to allow Linux users to participate in competitive modes. Still, we must be honest with them and disclose our reduced detection capability on Linux.

I'd say that's actually a pretty positive response. So another words there's no reason why Denuvo AntiCheat protected games couldn't work via Proton, and is in fact designed to work in Proton, but it will be simply a matter of developers toggling a switch to allow it.

Seems pretty reasonable to me. Hopefully some devs out there are willing to try it. Although if it results in an increase in cheating I imagine they will immediately switch it off again.

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I don't know what Valve 'will do' but I can come up with some ideas for what they 'should consider doing'.

Automatic Proton Crash Reports
Simple concept, enhance Proton with the ability to automatically detect when it has crashed in a way that suggests a game attempted to do something which exceeds Proton's limitations in terms of what aspects of Windows it supports via compatibility layer, or detect crashes that are due to a bug in Proton itself, or due to crashes of the graphics driver, etc. Then report those to Valve's servers, along with useful contextual information, such as the user's distro, Linux kernel version, desktop environment, graphics card, CPU model, etc, to gather better information about crashes to identify bugs faster, to narrow down causes of bugs, and hence fix them more quickly.

Proton compatibility / debugging tools for Windows developers
Some developers may be keen to support Linux via Proton, for those developers, having some tools that let them run their Windows games on Linux and identify causes of Proton related bugs would be very helpful.

Incentivise Linux / Proton compatibility
Perhaps a lower store cut for games with Linux / Proton compatibility? This of course is dependent on just how badly Valve really wants Linux gaming to happen and how immediately. Perhaps they won't want it 'that much'.

Create a Proton-compatible EAC/BattlEye alternative
Why fix EAC/BattlEye, when they can just create something to replace it? Even better, make it open source too. And design it from the ground up to be compatible with Proton. Offer it for free to developers to use instead of EAC, and it would surely be popular if it offers comparable cheat protection.

Expand Proton Whitelist
Some games work very reliably via Proton on all hardware but aren't yet added to the Proton whitelist. It would be great to have the whitelist expanded to include them.

Automatic Per-Game Proton Tweaks
Some games are 'Platinum' with a single command line tweak. But to maximise the pleasantness of Proton's UX, ideally gamers should NEVER have to use a command line tweak, or consult a database to find tweaks to get games working. Everything should 'just work' as much as possible. It would be nice if Proton could automatically apply tweaks to certain games to get them working automatically, so they can be whitelisted.

Automated Proton Game-Like Test Suite on Test Machine Farm
Think of them as unit tests (if you're a developer you know what those are).

Basically a series of small applications developed on Windows, that test one specific thing. Such as:
- A feature of DirectX
- A specific method of a Windows API
- Functionality of a software library, like a physics engine, or audio library, etc
- Common method for achieving common gameplay functionality, such as common code patterns for switching between fullscreen/windowed/borderless

These tests would be all automated.
Even the ones that test user input APIs would do so in an automated way with the automation software faking user input to test it.

The testing system would test for accuracy, bugs, crashes, etc.

Ideally, these would be run on a dozen or so automated machines running varied configurations of Linux gaming setups, different hardware/distro/software setups.

The results of the testing would be a report of what tests failed and on which configurations. Identifying exactly what does or doesn't work in Proton and on what Linux gaming PC configurations.

This would make the task of identifying a problem and fixing it quick and easy. Rather than trying to manually test every game in existence and poke it's huge compiled binary source code to identify what exactly went wrong, these small tests could identify exactly what isn't working.

With enough tests for all the things found commonly in games, including regularly added new tests for new common libraries, APIs, etc, you could identify and fix problems well before they ever prevent games from running at release day.

Summary
More testing.

I think that's going to be the key to keeping progress on Proton moving forward at a rapid pace. Quickly narrowing down bugs and fixing them.

All problems become immediately harder to solve when finding the cause of the problem is like finding a needle in a haystack. Having better tools to discover causes of problems, will result in solutions arriving faster.

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It's a great thing to see. As the store that most loudly and directly supports Linux, it's great to see Steam doing well. More people gaming on Steam means more people gaming on a Linux friendly platform. Means more people in a position where they can easily switch to Linux and more people being exposed to Linux gaming as a concept.

It was a great year for Proton too. I suspect Proton 6.0 is probably just around the corner. Looking forward to that.

Hopefully last month's blip in the market share stats for Linux goes back the other way at the end of this month and we see Linux continue it's slow trend of climbing upwards in the stats. That plus Steam coming to Chrome OS some point soon should give Linux a healthy boost on Steam. Which will further encourage developers to pay more attention to Linux when releasing games on PC.

All good stuff, everything is heading in a positive direction, steady as she goes. :)

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Quoting: elmapul

Quoting: gradyvuckovic

Quoting: TheRiddickDoes Blender use vulkan now?

... work is already in progress to make the switch.

wait, really? i didnt knew that!
now i have mixed feelings, i dont have many hopes for projects like upbge, on the other hand, eevee made blender have an good performance for real time applications and it can get even better with vulkan

It's been underway for a while now, it's part of a longer term project. You can track the progress here [External Link].

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Quoting: TheRiddickDoes Blender use vulkan now?

Not yet but it will eventually, work is already in progress to make the switch.

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Quoting: elmapuli think we (the open source comunity) should focus on donating to small projects until they get big enought that big corporations start to donating for then...
then, when those projects can survive without donations because companies are already donating enought for then, we move away our funds to another small project that desperatedly need help.

gimp, blender, goodot wont die any time soon, they are already sucessfull enough.
i cant say the same about (for instance) make human...

Absolutely agree, I'd add one caveat: Preferably to projects which are actually going somewhere.

Some projects are, unfortunately, in reality just hobby projects, and always will be, because those in charge of the project don't actually want any more than that. They aren't trying to take over the industry, or displace the leading commercial proprietary alternative, they're happy to just do their own thing and proceed at their own pace.

That's fine for them, but personally I'd rather donate to the projects who want to go somewhere big in the long term to help them get there.

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Well Liam, I think bloody amazing and I love it!

The Blender Foundation has worked very hard for many years, and on a shoestring budget, to prove to the professional tech industry that they are serious and committed to developing a production grade quality tool, and the industry in 2019/2020 has finally recognised that. It's been a lot of hard work for the folks who make Blender happen, and by 'Blender' I mean the whole deal, the software and everything around it, the ecosystem, such as Blender Cloud.

I have repeatedly heard from Maya users that they are thoroughly impressed with Blender and increasingly believe it's the better app to use for most tasks over and above Maya (not better value, simply 'better') and recommend to artists who want a long term career in animation to start learning Blender now 'because it's probably what you're going to need to know to get a job in the future'.

But the one thing I repeatedly hear following those comments is, 'Except for animation, Maya still has Blender beat in that area.'.

Well Amazon just signed on for 3 years to fund Blender Foundation to improve just the animation tools. It's fair to say that the animation tools are going to get better rapidly.

Blender is soaring right now and it's beautiful to watch.

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Quoting: dibzThe beginner friendly thing, while absolutely true, always baffles me when people talk about it regarding Linux Mint -- it tends to sound like it's only for beginners.

Personally I'm no beginner, not by a long shot, but I like a solid distribution that just works and tends to match my preferences out of the box. I personally recommend Mint for everyone.

Absolutely. You don't have to be a 'beginner' on Linux to want an OS that you can plug in, turn on and know confidently it's just going to work. Mint is rock solid, and just has sensible defaults out of the box.

Cinnamon is customisable, a pleasant UX, with defaults that are almost perfect out of the box, I usually don't change much more than a couple of colours in the theme settings out of personal preference. It's not 'trying too hard to look modern' or 'designed by a programmer', just a happy middle ground of functional and pleasing to look at.

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Is it safe to assume this is yet another project that Valve is funding as well?

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Amazing work as always from Valve.

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