5 ms·

Just curious, which games gave you problems?

jjcm 1y ago
Overwatch is the big one - lots of random issues with it. But basically any game with Denuvo DRM is extremely high risk, resulting in either a ban or the game not running at all.
- zamalek 1y ago
  Denuvo counts each proton version as a unique activation, might help you avoid this issue going forward
- foresto 1y ago
  Can you remember any particular problems in Overwatch? I've been down that road, so there's a chance I might have some info that you would find useful. One problem that was unsolved last time I checked: Saving highlight videos. It used to work if you told Overwatch to use webm format instead of mp4, but Blizzard broke that somewhere along the line, possibly in the transition to Overwatch 2. (I worked around this with OBS Studio and its replay buffer feature.)
zamadatix 1y ago
Unfortunately many of the more popular multiplayer games with anti-cheat tend to consider "made working on Linux" a bug rather than a feature. E.g. Easy Anti-Cheat and Unreal Engine both support Linux natively but Epic still doesn't want to allow it for their own game, Fortnite. https://x.com/TimSweeneyEpic/status/1490565925648715781 https://x.com/TimSweeneyEpic/status/1490565925648715781
- rossy 1y ago
  There are even games like Infinity Nikki with anti-cheat that allows the Steam Deck but specifically detects and blocks desktop Linux. You have to wonder if that gets them any real security since the method they use to detect the Deck is probably spoofable.
- ozgrakkurt 1y ago
  Really hope valve’s server side anti-cheat will be a success and more competitive games will move over to that.
  - zamadatix 1y ago
    I'm not familiar with what new changes Valve has been working on in the anti-cheat space but historically most major anti-cheat systems, such as Easy Anti-Cheat, already have long included a server-side anti-cheat component. The catch rate (and overall accuracy) with both is just always going to be higher than only going with one approach.
- dncornholio 1y ago
  Nowhere it says they don't want to.
  - zamadatix 1y ago
    I think you're hitting on ideal vs. constrained wants (or, at least, that's how I've always referred to them). That is: what they want to be able to allow in itself vs. what they want to allow given the trade-offs with other wants. E.g. "I'm going to go to the beach all day" and "I'm going to keep my job" are both likely the results of ideal type wants whereas "I'm going to go to my job today and then the beach tonight" would likely be the result of a constrained want.
- belthesar 1y ago
  There is more nuance to the anti-cheat systems supporting Linux argument than "it supports it but they won't use it". Turning on Linux support does weaken the security posture of the anti-cheat system, so it's not simply a decision of "it works with Linux, but they won't do it". It is moreso a question of whether the security posture changes for the game with this platform support enabled meet the business requirements. It's not a surprise that games with high MTX revenue do not turn this on, as I imagine this would be the biggest concern with this weaker security posture. One of the boons of console hardware is also the strict execution environment that is presented on the system. While this of course doesn't prevent all cheating behavior in online games, a large selling point of it as a platform to publishers is not only the market segment available, but the security aspects of the runtime environment.
  - zamadatix 1y ago
    Agreed, that's the angle Tim Sweeney argues in the linked comment as well.
mococa 1y ago
For me, Red Dead Redemption 1 via Proton does not work on Pop_OS + NVIDIA.
- la_oveja 1y ago
  i play rdr1 via proton on opensuse + amd and i get better frames than windows
- margorczynski 1y ago
  In general you want to avoid Nvidia if you want to play games on Linux, but maybe things will get better.
  - arzig 1y ago
    Isn’t pop_os shipping ancient components at this point due to their hate brained idea to try and create their own de and pinning their next release to it?
    - mococa 1y ago
      RDR is now working fine on Pop_OS with Proton 10.x.
npteljes 1y ago
For the curious, the protondb front page gives a pretty good overview of the state of Linux gaming: https://www.protondb.com/ https://www.protondb.com/ Scrolling to Medals, 50% of all 25.000+ games tracked by the site are playable, either working perfectly or mostly (Platinum or Gold ratings). Another 20% can be alright under specific circumstances, and with compromises (Silver rating).
- frollogaston 1y ago
  AoE2:DE has a gold rating, but multiplayer doesn't work at all, and it's not even due to anticheat.
  - npteljes 1y ago
    Yeah there's a lot of random issues with the different games. In case user experience is the main goal, I always recommend going with the main supported ways, which in this case would be Windows 11. I personally try things first on my Linux, but I always keep a backup Windows just in case.
  - alexjplant 1y ago
    Did this change recently? I haven't played in a month or so but it's been working great for around a year now for me.
    - frollogaston 1y ago
      It's been waffling back and forth but always had a "gold" rating even when I verified it was broken. I haven't tried recently (haven't really played video games in years), but there's a comment from 5 days ago saying it's broken again. At some point, Proton users reported success using some patch, then that stopped working, then there was a different patch... A lot of user reports say "thumbs up" then have a comment explaining how it goes out-of-sync unless you fiddle with it, so it's hard to trust. Seems the root of the problem is this game's picky netcode, which is similar to the original 1998 game I played as a kid. If your game state diverges from the other players' at all, it goes oos and ends the game for everyone. And yes this happened often enough that people had an abbreviation for it.
2OEH8eoCRo0 1y ago
Escape from Tarkov and GTA V (online).
falcojr 1y ago
https://areweanticheatyet.com/ https://areweanticheatyet.com/ Anything "denied" won't work ever unless they change their minds. Anything "broken" is...well...broken.
neogodless 1y ago
When I ran a two month experiment, Hogwart's Legacy and Anno 1800. The former ran slowly at low settings, with the occasional complete single digit slowdown. On the same laptop in Windows 10, it ran medium settings and easily twice the frame rate, no issues. The latter wouldn't connect to multiplayer, and would occasionally just crash out. (Comment written from memory, but I enshrined my experiment here: https://retorch.com/blog/linux-mint.htm https://retorch.com/blog/linux-mint.htm )

jjcm 1y ago

Overwatch is the big one - lots of random issues with it. But basically any game with Denuvo DRM is extremely high risk, resulting in either a ban or the game not running at all.

zamalek 1y ago
Denuvo counts each proton version as a unique activation, might help you avoid this issue going forward
foresto 1y ago
Can you remember any particular problems in Overwatch? I've been down that road, so there's a chance I might have some info that you would find useful. One problem that was unsolved last time I checked: Saving highlight videos. It used to work if you told Overwatch to use webm format instead of mp4, but Blizzard broke that somewhere along the line, possibly in the transition to Overwatch 2. (I worked around this with OBS Studio and its replay buffer feature.)

zamadatix 1y ago

Unfortunately many of the more popular multiplayer games with anti-cheat tend to consider "made working on Linux" a bug rather than a feature. E.g. Easy Anti-Cheat and Unreal Engine both support Linux natively but Epic still doesn't want to allow it for their own game, Fortnite. https://x.com/TimSweeneyEpic/status/1490565925648715781 https://x.com/TimSweeneyEpic/status/1490565925648715781

rossy 1y ago
There are even games like Infinity Nikki with anti-cheat that allows the Steam Deck but specifically detects and blocks desktop Linux. You have to wonder if that gets them any real security since the method they use to detect the Deck is probably spoofable.
ozgrakkurt 1y ago
Really hope valve’s server side anti-cheat will be a success and more competitive games will move over to that.
- zamadatix 1y ago
  I'm not familiar with what new changes Valve has been working on in the anti-cheat space but historically most major anti-cheat systems, such as Easy Anti-Cheat, already have long included a server-side anti-cheat component. The catch rate (and overall accuracy) with both is just always going to be higher than only going with one approach.
dncornholio 1y ago
Nowhere it says they don't want to.
- zamadatix 1y ago
  I think you're hitting on ideal vs. constrained wants (or, at least, that's how I've always referred to them). That is: what they want to be able to allow in itself vs. what they want to allow given the trade-offs with other wants. E.g. "I'm going to go to the beach all day" and "I'm going to keep my job" are both likely the results of ideal type wants whereas "I'm going to go to my job today and then the beach tonight" would likely be the result of a constrained want.
belthesar 1y ago
There is more nuance to the anti-cheat systems supporting Linux argument than "it supports it but they won't use it". Turning on Linux support does weaken the security posture of the anti-cheat system, so it's not simply a decision of "it works with Linux, but they won't do it". It is moreso a question of whether the security posture changes for the game with this platform support enabled meet the business requirements. It's not a surprise that games with high MTX revenue do not turn this on, as I imagine this would be the biggest concern with this weaker security posture. One of the boons of console hardware is also the strict execution environment that is presented on the system. While this of course doesn't prevent all cheating behavior in online games, a large selling point of it as a platform to publishers is not only the market segment available, but the security aspects of the runtime environment.
- zamadatix 1y ago
  Agreed, that's the angle Tim Sweeney argues in the linked comment as well.

mococa 1y ago

For me, Red Dead Redemption 1 via Proton does not work on Pop_OS + NVIDIA.

la_oveja 1y ago
i play rdr1 via proton on opensuse + amd and i get better frames than windows
margorczynski 1y ago
In general you want to avoid Nvidia if you want to play games on Linux, but maybe things will get better.
- arzig 1y ago
  Isn’t pop_os shipping ancient components at this point due to their hate brained idea to try and create their own de and pinning their next release to it?
  - mococa 1y ago
    RDR is now working fine on Pop_OS with Proton 10.x.

npteljes 1y ago

For the curious, the protondb front page gives a pretty good overview of the state of Linux gaming: https://www.protondb.com/ https://www.protondb.com/ Scrolling to Medals, 50% of all 25.000+ games tracked by the site are playable, either working perfectly or mostly (Platinum or Gold ratings). Another 20% can be alright under specific circumstances, and with compromises (Silver rating).

frollogaston 1y ago
AoE2:DE has a gold rating, but multiplayer doesn't work at all, and it's not even due to anticheat.
- npteljes 1y ago
  Yeah there's a lot of random issues with the different games. In case user experience is the main goal, I always recommend going with the main supported ways, which in this case would be Windows 11. I personally try things first on my Linux, but I always keep a backup Windows just in case.
- alexjplant 1y ago
  Did this change recently? I haven't played in a month or so but it's been working great for around a year now for me.
  - frollogaston 1y ago
    It's been waffling back and forth but always had a "gold" rating even when I verified it was broken. I haven't tried recently (haven't really played video games in years), but there's a comment from 5 days ago saying it's broken again. At some point, Proton users reported success using some patch, then that stopped working, then there was a different patch... A lot of user reports say "thumbs up" then have a comment explaining how it goes out-of-sync unless you fiddle with it, so it's hard to trust. Seems the root of the problem is this game's picky netcode, which is similar to the original 1998 game I played as a kid. If your game state diverges from the other players' at all, it goes oos and ends the game for everyone. And yes this happened often enough that people had an abbreviation for it.

2OEH8eoCRo0 1y ago

Escape from Tarkov and GTA V (online).

falcojr 1y ago

https://areweanticheatyet.com/ https://areweanticheatyet.com/ Anything "denied" won't work ever unless they change their minds. Anything "broken" is...well...broken.

neogodless 1y ago

When I ran a two month experiment, Hogwart's Legacy and Anno 1800. The former ran slowly at low settings, with the occasional complete single digit slowdown. On the same laptop in Windows 10, it ran medium settings and easily twice the frame rate, no issues. The latter wouldn't connect to multiplayer, and would occasionally just crash out. (Comment written from memory, but I enshrined my experiment here: https://retorch.com/blog/linux-mint.htm https://retorch.com/blog/linux-mint.htm )