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> It’s going to be a uphill battle to get to much higher percentages, as the remaining bastion of unsupported titles is mostly the matter of anti-cheat support

> It’s going to be a uphill battle to get to much higher percentages, as the remaining bastion of unsupported titles is mostly the matter of anti-cheat support How is Apex steam deck certified?

ekianjo 4y ago
Because they supported the Linux implementation of EAC.
jeroenhd 4y ago
EasyAntiCheat, and I believe some other common anticheat libraries, have been made compatible with Proton gaming. They've actually been fir a while thanks to Valve working with the companies behind them, but game studios did need to update their libraries to get that support so older games often lag behind the curve there. Apex Legends was verified on Deck this month. I don't know what changed, but I assume Valve's efforts in the DRM space have paid off.
gambiting 4y ago
It runs great - I play it a lot on the deck, it’s a very smooth 60fps experience. Plays better on the controller than it has any right to.
chaorace 4y ago
Apex Legends uses Epic Anti-Cheat ("EAC"). Valve collaborated with Epic to get EAC functional in Wine back in September[1]. This Wine support is an opt-in flag at build-time, so many games using EAC still remain incompatible (e.g.: Fortnite). Apex players asked for EAC-on-Wine to be enabled and the developers obliged by checking the checkbox. The reasons for why this is opt-in only are not public knowledge, but I wouldn't be surprised if this was some sort of special reduced-security mode. The APIs available to EAC-on-Wine are more-or-less a strict subset of those available to EAC-on-Windows, after all. FWIW: I don't think any Wine-exclusive exploits have ever been found in the wild. [1]: https://dev.epicgames.com/en-US/news/epic-online-services-launches-anti-cheat-support-for-linux-mac-and-steam-deck https://dev.epicgames.com/en-US/news/epic-online-services-la...
- jsheard 4y ago
  EAC runs in kernel mode on Windows, but is limited to user mode on Linux. It's relatively easy to evade detection by the Linux version, and that's reflected in the fact that the most popular Apex Legends cheats now target the Linux version even though most of the people using them probably aren't regular Linux users. Dual-booting into Linux is a small price to pay to minimise the chance of getting caught and losing your account.
  - singron 4y ago
    Nobody would have predicted cheaters would finally cause the year of the Linux desktop in 2023.
    - jsheard 4y ago
      I do wonder what the ratio of genuine Linux gamers to opportunistic Linux cheaters is in the games which have enabled Proton anti-cheat support. If it skews too hard towards just being a crutch for cheaters then it's going to disincentivize developers from allowing Linux clients in competitive games going forwards.
      - johnfernow 4y ago
        Maybe a balancing act would be allowing Linux gamers for casual matches but preventing them from playing competitive matches. Unfortunately, there still might be some cheaters to ruin people's fun, but likely significantly fewer since it wouldn't improve their rank. Long term, maybe Valve could work with Epic to create a driver to support Easy Anti-cheat on Linux that works with Proton so that devs don't need to create a Linux-specific version of the game. Unfortunately, that'd likely be a considerable amount of work and Epic currently has no incentive to help the Steam Deck be successful. However, that could change. PC gaming is so much more expensive to get into than when they first created the Epic Games Store. A PS5 is $400 — good luck buying/building a PC remotely as powerful as that for under $1000. A Steam Deck is also only $400, and while weaker, it is portable and can still handle almost all AAA games so far. The Epic Games Store is never going to be allowed on PS5, but it could be on the Steam Deck. Unless PC hardware prices go down, it's easy to imagine a future where PC gaming declines and consoles become more popular, which is not good for Epic (since their store isn't on traditional consoles.) But the Steam Deck, due to its low price, could very well compete with consoles, and Epic could have their store there. Obviously this future of Windows PC gaming declining is extremely far from certain, but it's nice to be prepared in case it does.
Thaxll 4y ago
EAC on Linux does not run as a driver ( kernel ) therefore it's vastly inferior to its Windows version. It means that if you enable EAC on Linux the security is low. That's the the reason why Fortnite from Epic which owns EAC does not allows Fortnite to run on Linux: https://twitter.com/TimSweeneyEpic/status/1490565925648715781 https://twitter.com/TimSweeneyEpic/status/149056592564871578...

> It’s going to be a uphill battle to get to much higher percentages, as the remaining bastion of unsupported titles is mostly the matter of anti-cheat support How is Apex steam deck certified?

ekianjo 4y ago

Because they supported the Linux implementation of EAC.

jeroenhd 4y ago

EasyAntiCheat, and I believe some other common anticheat libraries, have been made compatible with Proton gaming. They've actually been fir a while thanks to Valve working with the companies behind them, but game studios did need to update their libraries to get that support so older games often lag behind the curve there. Apex Legends was verified on Deck this month. I don't know what changed, but I assume Valve's efforts in the DRM space have paid off.

gambiting 4y ago

It runs great - I play it a lot on the deck, it’s a very smooth 60fps experience. Plays better on the controller than it has any right to.

chaorace 4y ago

Apex Legends uses Epic Anti-Cheat ("EAC"). Valve collaborated with Epic to get EAC functional in Wine back in September[1]. This Wine support is an opt-in flag at build-time, so many games using EAC still remain incompatible (e.g.: Fortnite). Apex players asked for EAC-on-Wine to be enabled and the developers obliged by checking the checkbox. The reasons for why this is opt-in only are not public knowledge, but I wouldn't be surprised if this was some sort of special reduced-security mode. The APIs available to EAC-on-Wine are more-or-less a strict subset of those available to EAC-on-Windows, after all. FWIW: I don't think any Wine-exclusive exploits have ever been found in the wild. [1]: https://dev.epicgames.com/en-US/news/epic-online-services-launches-anti-cheat-support-for-linux-mac-and-steam-deck https://dev.epicgames.com/en-US/news/epic-online-services-la...

jsheard 4y ago
EAC runs in kernel mode on Windows, but is limited to user mode on Linux. It's relatively easy to evade detection by the Linux version, and that's reflected in the fact that the most popular Apex Legends cheats now target the Linux version even though most of the people using them probably aren't regular Linux users. Dual-booting into Linux is a small price to pay to minimise the chance of getting caught and losing your account.
- singron 4y ago
  Nobody would have predicted cheaters would finally cause the year of the Linux desktop in 2023.
  - jsheard 4y ago
    I do wonder what the ratio of genuine Linux gamers to opportunistic Linux cheaters is in the games which have enabled Proton anti-cheat support. If it skews too hard towards just being a crutch for cheaters then it's going to disincentivize developers from allowing Linux clients in competitive games going forwards.
    - johnfernow 4y ago
      Maybe a balancing act would be allowing Linux gamers for casual matches but preventing them from playing competitive matches. Unfortunately, there still might be some cheaters to ruin people's fun, but likely significantly fewer since it wouldn't improve their rank. Long term, maybe Valve could work with Epic to create a driver to support Easy Anti-cheat on Linux that works with Proton so that devs don't need to create a Linux-specific version of the game. Unfortunately, that'd likely be a considerable amount of work and Epic currently has no incentive to help the Steam Deck be successful. However, that could change. PC gaming is so much more expensive to get into than when they first created the Epic Games Store. A PS5 is $400 — good luck buying/building a PC remotely as powerful as that for under $1000. A Steam Deck is also only $400, and while weaker, it is portable and can still handle almost all AAA games so far. The Epic Games Store is never going to be allowed on PS5, but it could be on the Steam Deck. Unless PC hardware prices go down, it's easy to imagine a future where PC gaming declines and consoles become more popular, which is not good for Epic (since their store isn't on traditional consoles.) But the Steam Deck, due to its low price, could very well compete with consoles, and Epic could have their store there. Obviously this future of Windows PC gaming declining is extremely far from certain, but it's nice to be prepared in case it does.

Thaxll 4y ago

EAC on Linux does not run as a driver ( kernel ) therefore it's vastly inferior to its Windows version. It means that if you enable EAC on Linux the security is low. That's the the reason why Fortnite from Epic which owns EAC does not allows Fortnite to run on Linux: https://twitter.com/TimSweeneyEpic/status/1490565925648715781 https://twitter.com/TimSweeneyEpic/status/149056592564871578...