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What's wrong with it? Having the Windows APIs turn into a portable abstraction layer is certainly amusing, but having wine sitting underneath the program is rea

What's wrong with it? Having the Windows APIs turn into a portable abstraction layer is certainly amusing, but having wine sitting underneath the program is really nice (essentially for the same reason a VM is). For one thing, winedevs are way better at linux support than random gamedevs.

gpderetta 5y ago
Yesterday my son wanted to play Overlord II that I had purchased ages ago. It has a native linux version, and I remember 3-4 years and a few distro/steam updates ago it worked fine. Yesterday it would hang on startup. I didn't want to spend an evening debugging it, so I flipped the proton override on steam. After a quick reinstall, it worked immediately and flawlessly. So, I don't care whether a game is native [1] or run on an emulation layer as long as it works and performs reasonably well and, most importantly, it is supported. [1] the reality of course is that many, but not all, native ports still run on some sort of buggy, proprietary translation layer.
deng 5y ago
One has to remember what Valve tried to achieve. If I remember correctly, Microsoft back then announced that the Microsoft Store would be an integral part of the upcoming Windows 10. Seeing the huge amounts of money Apple/Google/Valve were making with their stores, they openly played with the idea to only allow application installations through the Microsoft Store, most importantly games. So Valve tried to break the Windows monopoly on games by creating a native Linux SDK and releasing the Steam Machine, which was based on Ubuntu. The goal was to make Linux a first class citizen as a gaming development platform, not just something to run an emulation layer. The Steam Machine failed, because it simply wasn't very good. Valve quickly lost interest in native Linux and let the native SDK rot away into obsoletion. Fortunately, Microsoft being Microsoft, the Windows Store was (and still is) a terrible platform, so pretty much nobody is buying games there (except for Minecraft), and you can still install anything you want on Windows. So of course you can say that you don't care if it runs natively or in an emulation shim. It would have been nice if Linux had become a game development platform and not just a kernel with a Windows API layer on top. So in a way, Linux' success here is similar to Android's: Yes, it's technically Linux, but not really.
- georgyo 5y ago
  > Fortunately, Microsoft being Microsoft, the Windows Store was (and still is) a terrible platform, so pretty much nobody is buying games there (except for Minecraft), and you can still install anything you want on Windows. Microsoft has the disadvantage of being the biggest platform and the most scrutinized. The Microsoft store is as good as the Apple and Android stores, but people using Microsoft are much more used to downloading something from the website they want to install something from. And developers don't have a strong incentive to send them to the Microsoft store from their website. And Microsoft being such a big player, even time they make moves, everyone else digs in to prevent them from taking over. An example of the is steam machine.
- pseudalopex 5y ago
  > The goal was to make Linux a first class citizen as a gaming development platform, not just something to run an emulation layer. Was it? Or was it a strategy they ended up not needing?
- sangnoir 5y ago
  > One has to remember what Valve tried to achieve. If I remember correctly, Microsoft back then announced that the Microsoft Store would be an integral part of the upcoming Windows 10 Your recollection is incomplete. Microsoft was threatening to lockdown Windows app installations by requiring app signing for all executables in Win10. In the worst case, it meant the Microsoft Store would be the only store on Windows, and Steam simply wouldn't work on Windows. Microsoft was toying with an idea that posed an existential threat to Valve. IMO, Valve's goal was to be unshackled from Microsoft's mercurial whims, and despite a slow start, they have finally achieved that goal in the last few years. Microsoft is still proceeding doen the TPM path, and has a turnkey walled garden - I think Valves call was the right one.
pjmlp 5y ago
Check OS/2 and Windows compatibility layer.

gpderetta 5y ago

Yesterday my son wanted to play Overlord II that I had purchased ages ago. It has a native linux version, and I remember 3-4 years and a few distro/steam updates ago it worked fine. Yesterday it would hang on startup. I didn't want to spend an evening debugging it, so I flipped the proton override on steam. After a quick reinstall, it worked immediately and flawlessly. So, I don't care whether a game is native [1] or run on an emulation layer as long as it works and performs reasonably well and, most importantly, it is supported. [1] the reality of course is that many, but not all, native ports still run on some sort of buggy, proprietary translation layer.

deng 5y ago

One has to remember what Valve tried to achieve. If I remember correctly, Microsoft back then announced that the Microsoft Store would be an integral part of the upcoming Windows 10. Seeing the huge amounts of money Apple/Google/Valve were making with their stores, they openly played with the idea to only allow application installations through the Microsoft Store, most importantly games. So Valve tried to break the Windows monopoly on games by creating a native Linux SDK and releasing the Steam Machine, which was based on Ubuntu. The goal was to make Linux a first class citizen as a gaming development platform, not just something to run an emulation layer. The Steam Machine failed, because it simply wasn't very good. Valve quickly lost interest in native Linux and let the native SDK rot away into obsoletion. Fortunately, Microsoft being Microsoft, the Windows Store was (and still is) a terrible platform, so pretty much nobody is buying games there (except for Minecraft), and you can still install anything you want on Windows. So of course you can say that you don't care if it runs natively or in an emulation shim. It would have been nice if Linux had become a game development platform and not just a kernel with a Windows API layer on top. So in a way, Linux' success here is similar to Android's: Yes, it's technically Linux, but not really.

georgyo 5y ago
> Fortunately, Microsoft being Microsoft, the Windows Store was (and still is) a terrible platform, so pretty much nobody is buying games there (except for Minecraft), and you can still install anything you want on Windows. Microsoft has the disadvantage of being the biggest platform and the most scrutinized. The Microsoft store is as good as the Apple and Android stores, but people using Microsoft are much more used to downloading something from the website they want to install something from. And developers don't have a strong incentive to send them to the Microsoft store from their website. And Microsoft being such a big player, even time they make moves, everyone else digs in to prevent them from taking over. An example of the is steam machine.
pseudalopex 5y ago
> The goal was to make Linux a first class citizen as a gaming development platform, not just something to run an emulation layer. Was it? Or was it a strategy they ended up not needing?
sangnoir 5y ago
> One has to remember what Valve tried to achieve. If I remember correctly, Microsoft back then announced that the Microsoft Store would be an integral part of the upcoming Windows 10 Your recollection is incomplete. Microsoft was threatening to lockdown Windows app installations by requiring app signing for all executables in Win10. In the worst case, it meant the Microsoft Store would be the only store on Windows, and Steam simply wouldn't work on Windows. Microsoft was toying with an idea that posed an existential threat to Valve. IMO, Valve's goal was to be unshackled from Microsoft's mercurial whims, and despite a slow start, they have finally achieved that goal in the last few years. Microsoft is still proceeding doen the TPM path, and has a turnkey walled garden - I think Valves call was the right one.

pjmlp 5y ago

Check OS/2 and Windows compatibility layer.