6 ms·

It’s been many years since I was current on the state of cross platform gaming. Is it possible that proton could become the de facto target platform? That is,

by abtinf 3y ago

It’s been many years since I was current on the state of cross platform gaming. Is it possible that proton could become the de facto target platform? That is, if a developer builds to ensure that their game works correctly under proton, then will it also work correctly under windows? So by just ensuring it works under proton, which seems to be minimal effort, do they get access to the expanded market for “free”? Do any of the consoles support proton, so that the only barrier to releasing a game are the legal agreements?

tmccrary55 3y ago
Microsoft definitely wouldn't let that happen.
- chongli 3y ago
  How will they prevent it?
  - erinnh 3y ago
    Force the move to their UWP platform even more? Only release DirectX 13 with UWP support etc.
    - SoKamil 3y ago
      UWP is dead.
      - erinnh 3y ago
        Is it? Not really up to date on Windows stuff, but isn’t Microsoft only using UWP for all their (new) stuff? Xbox launcher and all games on it are UWP, aren’t they?
        DiabloD3 3y ago
        UWP is dead, and a lot of the people who were pushing that weirdly locked in platform have been pushed out of the company. All future stuff is moving to WinUI 3.x (which belongs to the same family of C# XAML UI libraries, and Visual Studio has a wizard to help you turn your UWP app into a real C# app) and the Microsoft Store is no longer locked to UWP apps only and WinUI 3.x is officially supported on other non-CLR langs (such as calling it from C++ or Rust) and WinUI 3.x is coming to non-Windows platforms (such as Linux). Microsoft isn't going to transform all their own apps overnight (for simple apps, updating a UWP app to a C# WinUI 3.x app buys you nothing), but will happen over time as WinUI 3.x-only features are added to those apps. Microsoft set themselves on this path starting uh, like 5 years ago? They publicly announced it about 3 years ago.
        AtlasBarfed 3y ago
        Well, it's Microsoft, so every 5 years they release a new API/framework and declare the old one dead/obsolete. But they usually maintain backwards compatibility to their credit, and I almost never credit Microsoft with anything. whatever was before MFC (I remember using a Charles Petzold book in 1997) --> MFC --> dotNet (many versions) --> XAML/WPF --> UWP and I guess WinUI now.
        DiabloD3 3y ago
        That isn't quite right. Notice how WinUI 3.x is the first thing named publicly named WinUI, but its already at 3? UWP is 2.x, Metro/WinRT/WPF is 1.x. They're all part of the same family of XAML UIs. The part that got hard killed, and backwards support was absolutely 100% murdered was the Silverlight stuff, which was a XAML predecessor (and RIA runtime to compete with Flash/Air) written entirely in C#. For performance reasons, the WinRT/WPF->UWP->WinUI 3 branch of the family is largely WinRT-dialect C++. So no, Microsoft actually hasn't abandoned the tech, they abandoned the dumb idea that all apps need to work on the Windows Phone (which no longer exists) and must be released on the Microsoft Store (which now allows apps in other languages), and everything has to be written in C# (which, again, is no longer forced on programmers), and everything needs to be Windows-only (Project Reunion aka MAUI brings both CLR and non-CLR WinUI apps to Linux). Also, I'm not sure why you're branching WinUI family off from .net, as WinUI is the UI toolkit for CLR apps.
    - sznio 3y ago
      Wine on Windows.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
peoplearepeople 3y ago
> Do any of the consoles support proton, so that the only barrier to releasing a game are the legal agreements? Steam deck
augusto-moura 3y ago
Support for Proton doesn't imply full support on Windows out of the box, although it should be easier to fix problems on Windows than the other way around. The thing is, currently, having a game built for Windows directly produces a much more performant game on Windows. Wine still has some hiccups here and there.
suprjami 3y ago
Targeting Windows and Proton is already the status quo if you want the green tick on Steam, and apparently tens of thousands of game developers do because Valve promote Deck-compatible games heavily and that audience is more likely to spend money. You can build a "Steam box" console with any Linux distribution and Steam's Big Picture mode. Autologon and start Steam in Big Picture mode on startup. I have this on Debian on a NUC, and there's a distro ChimeraOS which offers a polished pre-installed A/B update experience too.

by abtinf 3y ago

tmccrary55 3y ago

Microsoft definitely wouldn't let that happen.

chongli 3y ago
How will they prevent it?
- erinnh 3y ago
  Force the move to their UWP platform even more? Only release DirectX 13 with UWP support etc.
  - SoKamil 3y ago
    UWP is dead.
    - erinnh 3y ago
      Is it? Not really up to date on Windows stuff, but isn’t Microsoft only using UWP for all their (new) stuff? Xbox launcher and all games on it are UWP, aren’t they?
      - DiabloD3 3y ago
        UWP is dead, and a lot of the people who were pushing that weirdly locked in platform have been pushed out of the company. All future stuff is moving to WinUI 3.x (which belongs to the same family of C# XAML UI libraries, and Visual Studio has a wizard to help you turn your UWP app into a real C# app) and the Microsoft Store is no longer locked to UWP apps only and WinUI 3.x is officially supported on other non-CLR langs (such as calling it from C++ or Rust) and WinUI 3.x is coming to non-Windows platforms (such as Linux). Microsoft isn't going to transform all their own apps overnight (for simple apps, updating a UWP app to a C# WinUI 3.x app buys you nothing), but will happen over time as WinUI 3.x-only features are added to those apps. Microsoft set themselves on this path starting uh, like 5 years ago? They publicly announced it about 3 years ago.
        AtlasBarfed 3y ago
        Well, it's Microsoft, so every 5 years they release a new API/framework and declare the old one dead/obsolete. But they usually maintain backwards compatibility to their credit, and I almost never credit Microsoft with anything. whatever was before MFC (I remember using a Charles Petzold book in 1997) --> MFC --> dotNet (many versions) --> XAML/WPF --> UWP and I guess WinUI now.
        DiabloD3 3y ago
        That isn't quite right. Notice how WinUI 3.x is the first thing named publicly named WinUI, but its already at 3? UWP is 2.x, Metro/WinRT/WPF is 1.x. They're all part of the same family of XAML UIs. The part that got hard killed, and backwards support was absolutely 100% murdered was the Silverlight stuff, which was a XAML predecessor (and RIA runtime to compete with Flash/Air) written entirely in C#. For performance reasons, the WinRT/WPF->UWP->WinUI 3 branch of the family is largely WinRT-dialect C++. So no, Microsoft actually hasn't abandoned the tech, they abandoned the dumb idea that all apps need to work on the Windows Phone (which no longer exists) and must be released on the Microsoft Store (which now allows apps in other languages), and everything has to be written in C# (which, again, is no longer forced on programmers), and everything needs to be Windows-only (Project Reunion aka MAUI brings both CLR and non-CLR WinUI apps to Linux). Also, I'm not sure why you're branching WinUI family off from .net, as WinUI is the UI toolkit for CLR apps.
  - sznio 3y ago
    Wine on Windows.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

peoplearepeople 3y ago

> Do any of the consoles support proton, so that the only barrier to releasing a game are the legal agreements? Steam deck

augusto-moura 3y ago

Support for Proton doesn't imply full support on Windows out of the box, although it should be easier to fix problems on Windows than the other way around. The thing is, currently, having a game built for Windows directly produces a much more performant game on Windows. Wine still has some hiccups here and there.

suprjami 3y ago

Targeting Windows and Proton is already the status quo if you want the green tick on Steam, and apparently tens of thousands of game developers do because Valve promote Deck-compatible games heavily and that audience is more likely to spend money. You can build a "Steam box" console with any Linux distribution and Steam's Big Picture mode. Autologon and start Steam in Big Picture mode on startup. I have this on Debian on a NUC, and there's a distro ChimeraOS which offers a polished pre-installed A/B update experience too.