I'm loving it.

Super excited about any work done to improve anticheat compatibility and it's great to see the progress.

It's going to be a slow process I imagine, but they're getting there, building it brick by brick. Anticheat is definitely one of the 'hard problems' for Wine, so I imagine once it's fixed there will be flow on benefits to other areas too.

The only thing I don't like about Wine updates is waiting for them, they're so good. Someone put me to sleep so I can wait up next year and binge read all the update changelogs!

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This is exactly the kind of thing Linux needs to encourage more gamers to make the switch to Linux.

Next we just need a universal app for managing your devices, like headsets, keyboards, mice, for changing hotkey mappings, RGB lighting, DPI settings, etc.

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Quoting: rustybroomhandle

Quoting: gradyvuckovicBlender, the chad open source software.

This is the second time in a week I'm seeing someone on here using MRA/incel terminology. What the heck is going on?

It's just a reference to the virgin vs chad meme. No MRA reference or whatever.

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Blender, the chad open source software.

Blender is easily as good as Maya or 3ds Max and even leaves them in the dust in some areas. Eevee? Grease Pencil? Cloth sculpting brush? Autodesk doesn't have anything to match those features.

The difference is.. Maya costs $205 per month.

Blender is free and open source.

Autodesk should be very worried.

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The thing which gives me hope every time I see Linux marketshare go up, is the thought that more marketshare makes further growth even easier.

It's hard to gain marketshare when your platform has no organic third party support. But if you can achieve it, and bring users to your platform, then organic third party support will always follow. Developers and manufacturers of software and hardware always follow users. So if we get more users, we get more support.

At 0.91%, we're not exactly commanding a noticeable portion of the marketshare yet. But every little bit of growth means a bit more organic third party support. Which only makes it easier for more users to make the switch to Linux, as more of the stuff they want is already here.

It's really a feedback loop in both ways. No users means no developers. No developers means no users. The chicken and egg problem that has haunted Linux for years. But it goes the other way too, more users means more developers. More developers means more users.

I really feel like Wine/Proton has short circuited the chicken and egg problem. Which is the second thing which gives me hope. Proton is really only partially complete in a sense, it's missing what I consider to be more or less 'the final piece of the puzzle', ie; anticheat support.

It feels like we're getting closer to the point where something is going to happen on that front. When it does, that's going to make even more games playable on Linux that aren't currently. Which will just bring more users to Linux, even faster.

At some threshold, between where Linux is now, and where MacOS is today, is the level of threshold which makes a company decide to support an OS. Origin has a Windows and MacOS client, but no Linux. Same with Battle.net. Same with EGS. Same with GOG.

We're not far from that threshold, if we can keep getting steady rises, plus anticheat support, we could reach that threshold for at least one of those platforms, which will see even more gamers come to Linux as a result.

We just gotta keep pushing, keep improving the experience of gaming on Linux in every way possible and keep our eyes on whatever roadblocks exist that are keeping Windows gamers from making the switch, while ensuring those who do stick around. As long as we have a better retention rate than Windows, we'll keep gaining ground.

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Quoting: SonataWasn't sure if I was gonna post or not as someone who has come to Linux somewhat recently (now that i think of it, it's almost a year now o.O) after randomly stumbling about how much easier Valve made gaming on this wonderful platform by integrating Proton and realising that most my games actually work.

True is that I always hated Windows for it's lack or privacy and security and I know I'm the minority in that case, as I notice whenever i bring those topics up and get the same redundant/stupid answers like "Well, i got nothing to hide anyway" etc.

One of the main problems I see with the lack of widespread linux adoption is so many companies being locked into windows and microsoft's office suite or other windows-only programs like adobe for instance as well as that the "common person" as in not really tech-savy, often don't know that there ARE alternatives. Maybe they know about MacOs, if at all.

I recently brought my mother over to Linux Mint for her work-related stuff - and thinking about if I hadn't done the switch myself and told her about it, she would still be complaining about how shitty Windows 10 is (aka forced updates during Webinars and all that fun), because she wouldn't know that there was a viable alternative and Desktop Linux in many aspects has become viable for the common user. (as in browsing and light office-like work)

Gaming for me was always what kept me using Windows and I hated that situation (as already stated) and with every blunder MS does, as they seem to not have any QA for their operating system by the looks of past updates, we can get minor adoption with tools like Proton and the likes.

Still. What we need is a big player supporting the platform.

Valve is kinda doing that, which i commend them for but the reason is fairly obvious:

They're afraid of Microsoft trying to take over the gaming market as their marketshare on windows is already that big and this is exactly what we're seeing currently:

MS pushing Game Pass and UWP trying to lock-in the market on their platform.

If Valve doesn't push Linux adoption harder, we might see this end up happening: That gaming will end up (mostly) being bound to windows with games being locked into the windows store itself or maybe steam even being forced to pay some kind of share. (as in MS trying to create a more google playstore like platform)

I really hope I'm reading this whole situation wrong.

That's pretty much exactly how I read it. It's not because "Microsoft is evil, they're satan!" it's just basic common sense, all companies that control a platform want a more locked down platform, because that makes them more money. If Valve didn't exist and Microsoft had free reign over the PC gaming market, they would absolutely lock it down as tight as they can to eliminate any possibility of Windows games spreading to other OSes. They have shareholders to please, profits to make, and that's how you make money.

Valve is no angel, they want to make money too, but in this case, I think Valve's interests so closely align with ours and with 'software freedom' in general, that Valve is without a doubt our best friend right now. So I want them to succeed, because what works for Valve right now, works VERY well for us.

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Quoting: kuhpunkt

Quoting: tmtvl

Quoting: PatolaI wonder if we will eventually be able to get VR through streaming, since Valve is so invested on it now?

For VR to be bearable for the average person they need a high framerate (I forget what the minimum comfortable level was), but trying to stream, say, 144FPS with current infrastructure is hard to achieve. It's an interesting technical challenge that may require creating of a new data transfer protocol, various new types of hardware,...

The FPS aren't the problem, but the input delay, If the image is processed at a server far away it needs to reach your home without any delay. If you add just 10ms to what's already there, it might cause problems.

This isn't actually entirely unsolvable..

It can be solved with streaming, but you just need to stream more than just the raw image that's going to the headset.

You'd need to stream a 360 degree image instead. It would need to be a large resolution to compensate of course. As a performance optimisation however, you could broadcast the video with varying pixel density resolution. And put the most pixel density in the direction the user is looking, and gradually taper off the pixel density to a lower level for the parts of the image behind the user.

To make it really work well, you'd need to also stream a depth buffer stream as well. Using that, you could reproject the 360 degree video stream, to adjust for the user's local current headset rotation and position.

This could actually result in LESS latency than current VR, because the local machine wouldn't need to do any complex rendering of a large environment, just reprojecting an image.

Unfortunately it would do nothing for the latency between moving your hands and the virtual hands moving. But with the depth image of the 360 degree image, you could just render the hands separately and mix it with the video stream. You can do that when you got a depth buffer. It's just like the old PS1 games with their prerendered backgrounds.

There's ways in theory to make VR work via game streaming.

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I'd hold ya breaths until we see a formal announcement for what this means for users. I'm really curious to see what Valve does with this. I think it'll be big.

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Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: LinuxwarperYou speak of Proton as if it's complete when reality is it's not. It still lacks support for anticheat, and VK3D is still not mature. How can Proton make a significant impact when it's still lacking? I am certain a completed Proton will drive adoption.

I'm afraid you missed my whole point. Proton, whether incomplete or complete, is a thing which reduces barriers to adoption. It cannot in itself drive adoption. With Proton, you can potentially say "If I switch to Linux, I can still have my Windows games." But people who stay with Windows can already have their Windows games--that's not a reason to switch.
If barriers are high, there can be drivers of adoption and people still won't switch--they'll say "I'd like to switch, but I wouldn't be able to play my Windows games." So something like Proton is important in its own way. But it is not in itself a driver of adoption, just an enabler if such drivers exist.

For people to switch, there need to be both few and low barriers to switching, and positive drivers, actual reasons why you get something out of switching. My point was that Linux people have tended to work very hard to reduce barriers, but have not put as much effort into creating actual incentives--and Proton is in the former category, not the latter.

Couldn't agree more.

The problem is, all the traditional means of driving adoption that spring to mind are more or less the anti-thesis of everything 'free and open source software' stands for and probably beyond the scope of what we could achieve anyway. It's not like the Linux community is going to suddenly start pumping out 2 or 3 AAA Linux exclusive games a year, or sign third party exclusivity contracts with publishers, or do weekly game giveaways.

Linux as a platform for gaming, can of course add convenient features to make life easier, but then we quickly enter a 'everything you can do, I can do better!' song and dance with the other platforms, where they adopt any new features we come up with shortly after we create them. Same has happened with Windows for years, every time Linux desktops gain a new feature, eventually it comes to Windows (eg: multiple virtual desktops).

I've spent some time thinking about if and if I had to come up with a list of 'Reasons to Game on Linux', this would be it:

• Linux is free and open source, this isn't just an ideological benefit, this is also a practical benefit. Keeping track of Windows licenses or paying for them is one less thing to worry about on Linux. If you ever need a copy of a Linux distro you can just jump on the distro website and download it. Super convenient.


• Better graphics stack. I can't explain it nor do I understand it, but in my opinion, rendering graphics on Linux is faster. For example, you can see as much as 30% faster rendering with Blender. I have no idea why this is, but it's definitely something I've observed. Of course this doesn't translate to faster graphics in every situation, such as lazy ports or running Windows games on Linux. But even then, sometimes Windows games have run faster on Linux in certain circumstances, which is a testament to just how much faster Linux generally is than Windows for graphics rendering.


• Superior update UX. Not only on Windows do you have to deal with the annoyance of the now infamous forced updates, but the UX of updates on Windows is quite bizarre. Windows communicates very poorly when it's checking for updates, what updates it's performing and what even is being updated. Not only that but usually software is updated separately to the OS. On Windows, it's very common for software to have it's own 'updater' service that runs in the background, consuming memory and CPU cycles just to constantly check for updates. Contrast that to Linux, there's usually very well made update utilities that allow you to update when you feel like, tell you what's being updated, and update both your OS and your software at the same time. Linux in my opinion has a cleaner UX here.


• Another Windows annoyance to avoid, the incoherent mess of UIs for Settings/Control Panel in Windows 10, especially for things like changing filetype associations. It's one of the few areas where I can say with confidence Linux is definitely offering a better UX, almost all the popular Linux distros have a better UX here. OS settings on Linux are usually offered via a single global settings UI, and actually easier to follow than what you usually get on Windows. I don't know how Microsoft has screwed this up so much but they definitely dropped the ball here, but their loss is our gain.


• Generally speaking there's no need to install drivers on Linux any more as long as your hardware is supported. It's still common on Windows to need to install manually drivers for things like printers and wifi cards and monitors, etc, it's common for these things to come with instructions telling you to go to a website and download & install some annoying little application that will live in your system tray forever. It's usually one of the first things you need to do with a new Windows installation, and at the very least you need to go grab the GPU driver. These days most Linux distros are actually coming with GPU drivers out of the box or install them at the same time as OS.

Those are things which come to mind when I try to think of reasons to use Linux instead of Windows.

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To parapharse a recent comment of my own, regarding 'DirectX <3 Linux' and the comparison to DXVK..

Proton(/Wine): The negative side effect is that we see Windows software running fairly reliably on Linux now, with great performance. The positive side effect, is that it's bringing more users away from Windows and to an OS where Windows software isn't running natively, Windows software is a second class citizen, something that is being supported with basically a compatibility solution to help users phase out Windows from their lives, not to endlessly keep using Windows software.

So effectively, Proton neuters the disadvantage of Windows platform lockin, by taking away one of Window's benefits, the Windows game library. But it does so at the cost of making Windows software more universal. This in theory reduces the incentive for Linux native game development.

However the catch is.. Right now there isn't enough incentive for Linux native game development anyway. That's exactly the problem we face. Because there aren't enough gamers on Linux, there's not enough incentive.

Now that could change, in theory there could come a time when there are more than enough gamers on Linux to incentive Linux native game development, but due to Proton's availability and effectiveness, we could see those native games not happen.

However!

In my opinion, that won't happen, and here's why:

Right now Proton is a benefit due to the lack of Linux native game development. This is because of the lack of Linux gamers. The only reason why there'd be incentive for Linux native game development is if the number of Linux gamers increased.

If the number of Linux gamers increased, say to 5% of the market, game developers would have more, not less, incentive to ensure their games run on Linux. Whether that is via Proton or a native game, the game developers would choose which method is most cost effective, but regardless of which they choose, the requirement is the same: The game has to run on Linux.

That being the case, you'd see more games running more reliably on Linux. More games running more reliably on Linux means more Linux gamers. More Linux gamers means more incentive for game developers to ensure their games not only run on Linux, but run well.

Proton is, and always will be, in my opinion, an imperfect compatibility solution. It will never produce optimal results. I could foresee a time when game developers may invest small amounts of effort into ensuring their game runs "Semi reliably" via Proton to maximise their sales, but if Linux marketshare reached the point where the cost/benefit analysis of Linux support equates strongly to profit, that would mean game developers would want to upgrade to "Strong reliability".

Proton is a complex machine with lots of moving parts, it changes regularly, and so does Windows, leaving it up to Proton to provide your game support is a risky move and would not result in the 'Strong reliability' that developers would want to maximise their sales.

Bottom Line: It would be far easier to debug a native Linux game on Linux, than to debug a Windows game running via Proton on Linux.

So Proton is in my opinion a winning ticket and will have a net positive impact for years to come.
The question is really, is it enough?

Reading over everything you wrote Liam about the different platforms competing, I don't think there should be any doubt that the way every major player in this market is competing right now, is with a strategy of platform lockin.

It's the name of the game. Every platform wants exclusives, or a subscription model, or at the very least to lock players into their platform with huge libraries of games, or a sense of dependency on a particular feature set, or 'something'.

And that's common sense. Think about trying to convince someone to switch from one platform to another. What's the first response you get from the person you're trying to sway?

"Why?"

Each platform needs a reason to convert people to it, each platform needs a reason to keep people on it.

Even retail shops selling clothes have customer loyalty programs, because they don't want a customer to come into their store to buy just one pair of pants. They want the customer to come back every month to buy something else.

Sure you can compete on price and quality, but when you got 40 clothes stores in one supermarket alone, and you're all importing your clothes from the same overseas countries anyway, there's only so much you can do to compete on price and quality.

That's business, and whether we as the 'Linux gaming community' wish to acknowledge that reality or not, when we're trying to get more gamers to come to Linux, we're competing in a market full of very large and aggressive companies and corporations, and that is how this 'game' is played. It's a dirty fight that doesn't respect software freedom.

Linux, by it's nature, as a gaming platform, is the only platform that isn't fighting dirty. Our way of competing is to 'open all the things'.

Look at how we compete:
- Improve Linux Desktop UX
- Pro-consumer behaviour
- Wine
- Proton
- DXVK
- Vulkan
- Godot
- Lutris
- Flatpak

Everything we do is all about breaking down the walls others have erected, or genuinely improving Linux to make it a better platform those who might come use it.

Now look at how Microsoft competes:
- UWP
- Exclusive Games
- DirectX
- Buying game studios

We can, and do, work all day until the cows come home, trying to 'open all the things' to neutralise the 'platform lockin' tactics used by those fighting dirty. We can improve Wine, improve DXVK, promote pro-consumer buying activity to encourage developers to support Linux, we can build emulators for console games, open source PS4 remote play clients, etc etc..

At the end of the day, that's like a clothes store honouring the loyalty program of another store, it neutralises the advantage the other store might have.. but it's not actually creating an incentive to come to 'our shop' is it?

What I'm saying is: We're playing strong defense, but we got no offense.

These are all 'reactive' responses to the disadvantages as they emerge and they often take a lot of time too, meaning we're always years behind the actions of our competitors. The early bird gets the worm, gamers want stuff now, not in 4 years. Yes we'll eventually get DX12 to work on Linux 'almost perfectly'. But will every DX12 game work on Linux on day 1? ... No.

So looking forward, the biggest question in my opinion is, how do we get ahead of the curve?

We can 'open all the things' all day long, but what can we do that creates an incentive for either developers to target Linux, or for gamers to switch to Linux?

Arguably we have one constant incentive that works in our favour: Linux is free.

That's good! No other competitor in our market has the ability to say that, this is a good and proper incentive to bring people to Linux. (Microsoft neutralised that advantage for this very reason, when they made W10 free for several years.)

That's one incentive. We need more than that.

What do we do?

There's one advantage we have that other platforms don't have. We have very loyal 'users'. Many Linux gamers are very loyal to the cause. Perhaps our secret weapon is to organise ourselves more. Companies respond to demand. We can fuel demand by coordinated action.

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