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Game devs should 100% focus on making sure their game runs flawlessly on Proton instead of releasing a half-assed Linux version. This is what Valve has infamous

Game devs should 100% focus on making sure their game runs flawlessly on Proton instead of releasing a half-assed Linux version. This is what Valve has infamously done with games such as Left 4 Dead 2, whose Linux version has multiple game-breaking bugs that have been known for over 15 years. Unfortunately that game does not run on Proton because of an obscure VAC bug that Valve hasn't bothered to fix since they can already claim Linux compatibility through their terrible Linux port.

john01dav 1y ago
Game devs should just design their games to be cross platform from the start, thus making this problem go away. Every major language compiles everywhere, so all that you need to do is not use libraries that tie you to a specific OS. When I test on the OSes that I'm not developing on I usually find a few bugs to work out, but never anything major. DirectX is the main thing to avoid, so I use Vulkan for my graphics work. From when I first got into graphics, I immediately dismissed DirectX because of platform locks. I wish that more developers had this same stance of refusing all options with abusive practices like platform exclusivity.
- pjmlp 1y ago
  Consoles only do C, C++ and Assembly, C# does it via IL2CPP or in-house compilers, so not "every major language compiles everywhere". Games industry is built on platform locks and exclusives since the Atari 2600.
  - john01dav 1y ago
    > I wish that more developers had this same stance of refusing all options with abusive practices like platform exclusivity. I don't touch consoles. They're cesspits of abusive practices: computers that can't do general purpose computing, shit like xbox demanding a monthly fee to have networking capabilities, and, of course, the fact that you need permission from the console's manufacturer to make games for them. Steam deck is an exception. They do consoles how it should be done. (I will touch such technologies when being paid to do so, after expressing my concerns about them if applicable)
pjmlp 1y ago
Until Proton becomes another OS/2, "runs Windows better than Windows". Just wait until all the PC handelds start shipping the better Windows version, like it happened with netbooks.
- sph 1y ago
  > runs Windows better than Windows It already does. When Elden Ring released, it suffered from terrible performance problems, which were worked around in VKD3D (DX12 for Wine) in the first week of release. I've heard people complaining about Elden Ring performance on Windows for months afterwards.
  - pjmlp 1y ago
    OS/2 also did, until it did not. The point is the historical lesson of building castles on other companies kingdoms, not the technical achievement.
    - surajrmal 1y ago
      But Linux offers more value beyond running games written for Windows so the analogy doesn't hold.
      - rnd0 1y ago
        OS/2 was more stable than Windows and it had threaded application support -so the analogy does hold, IMO.
      - dfe 1y ago
        OS/2 did offer a lot of value beyond just running Windows software. The WPS (Workplace Shell) is to this day one of the better desktop UIs. It brought a lot of the classic Macintosh feel to the PC world and improved upon it. Where Windows only vaguely looked like a Macintosh, OS/2 had things like a spatial filer so it felt a lot more like a Macintosh on steroids. It had neat ideas like "template files" and a bunch of other stuff I can't even remember. On the non-GUI front it had a better command processor, CMD.EXE, which is a precursor to the Windows NT one. It had an actually decent scripting language (REXX). It had a better filesystem (HPFS). It was also incredibly good at running DOS games of the era, while comfortably multitasking in the background, including serial port and network usage. You could be downloading something while fragging some demons in Doom. You could also pause the game at any time and switch back to the desktop, then go back and resume. The thing that was different between OS/2 and Linux + WINE is the engineering approach. IBM had a license to use actual DOS and Windows code, at least until they cancelled the JDA (Joint Development Agreement) contract with Microsoft in 1990. Even after they cancelled, they still had rights to everything from before, which included Windows 3.0. In order to avoid having to pay Microsoft a royalty on the Windows portions of OS/2, which they had to pass along in the retail price, they even released a variant of OS/2 version 2.1 called "OS/2 for Windows" which took your existing Windows 3.x, the one that you almost certainly already paid for as part of your computer, and binary patched it to work under OS/2. There was some grousing when Windows 3.11 came out and broke it, but IBM issued a patch. So, in essence, they were able to market OS/2 less like a replacement OS, and more like a utility program you added on to your existing system to make it behave better. Kind of like hey, you just dropped $2000-$3000 or more on a new system, what'a another $129 to make it really sing. And because it leveraged the fact that you already paid for Windows when you bought the computer, compatibility was top-notch: it was actually running real Windows. In my opinion as a user at the time, what killed it was the move to Win32 software which OS/2 couldn't run but Windows 95 could. Once computers started regularly coming with enough RAM to run Windows NT 4, the nice things about OS/2 just weren't enough to justify the inability to run basically every new software package.

john01dav 1y ago

Game devs should just design their games to be cross platform from the start, thus making this problem go away. Every major language compiles everywhere, so all that you need to do is not use libraries that tie you to a specific OS. When I test on the OSes that I'm not developing on I usually find a few bugs to work out, but never anything major. DirectX is the main thing to avoid, so I use Vulkan for my graphics work. From when I first got into graphics, I immediately dismissed DirectX because of platform locks. I wish that more developers had this same stance of refusing all options with abusive practices like platform exclusivity.

pjmlp 1y ago
Consoles only do C, C++ and Assembly, C# does it via IL2CPP or in-house compilers, so not "every major language compiles everywhere". Games industry is built on platform locks and exclusives since the Atari 2600.
- john01dav 1y ago
  > I wish that more developers had this same stance of refusing all options with abusive practices like platform exclusivity. I don't touch consoles. They're cesspits of abusive practices: computers that can't do general purpose computing, shit like xbox demanding a monthly fee to have networking capabilities, and, of course, the fact that you need permission from the console's manufacturer to make games for them. Steam deck is an exception. They do consoles how it should be done. (I will touch such technologies when being paid to do so, after expressing my concerns about them if applicable)

pjmlp 1y ago

Until Proton becomes another OS/2, "runs Windows better than Windows". Just wait until all the PC handelds start shipping the better Windows version, like it happened with netbooks.

sph 1y ago
> runs Windows better than Windows It already does. When Elden Ring released, it suffered from terrible performance problems, which were worked around in VKD3D (DX12 for Wine) in the first week of release. I've heard people complaining about Elden Ring performance on Windows for months afterwards.
- pjmlp 1y ago
  OS/2 also did, until it did not. The point is the historical lesson of building castles on other companies kingdoms, not the technical achievement.
  - surajrmal 1y ago
    But Linux offers more value beyond running games written for Windows so the analogy doesn't hold.
    - rnd0 1y ago
      OS/2 was more stable than Windows and it had threaded application support -so the analogy does hold, IMO.
    - dfe 1y ago
      OS/2 did offer a lot of value beyond just running Windows software. The WPS (Workplace Shell) is to this day one of the better desktop UIs. It brought a lot of the classic Macintosh feel to the PC world and improved upon it. Where Windows only vaguely looked like a Macintosh, OS/2 had things like a spatial filer so it felt a lot more like a Macintosh on steroids. It had neat ideas like "template files" and a bunch of other stuff I can't even remember. On the non-GUI front it had a better command processor, CMD.EXE, which is a precursor to the Windows NT one. It had an actually decent scripting language (REXX). It had a better filesystem (HPFS). It was also incredibly good at running DOS games of the era, while comfortably multitasking in the background, including serial port and network usage. You could be downloading something while fragging some demons in Doom. You could also pause the game at any time and switch back to the desktop, then go back and resume. The thing that was different between OS/2 and Linux + WINE is the engineering approach. IBM had a license to use actual DOS and Windows code, at least until they cancelled the JDA (Joint Development Agreement) contract with Microsoft in 1990. Even after they cancelled, they still had rights to everything from before, which included Windows 3.0. In order to avoid having to pay Microsoft a royalty on the Windows portions of OS/2, which they had to pass along in the retail price, they even released a variant of OS/2 version 2.1 called "OS/2 for Windows" which took your existing Windows 3.x, the one that you almost certainly already paid for as part of your computer, and binary patched it to work under OS/2. There was some grousing when Windows 3.11 came out and broke it, but IBM issued a patch. So, in essence, they were able to market OS/2 less like a replacement OS, and more like a utility program you added on to your existing system to make it behave better. Kind of like hey, you just dropped $2000-$3000 or more on a new system, what'a another $129 to make it really sing. And because it leveraged the fact that you already paid for Windows when you bought the computer, compatibility was top-notch: it was actually running real Windows. In my opinion as a user at the time, what killed it was the move to Win32 software which OS/2 couldn't run but Windows 95 could. Once computers started regularly coming with enough RAM to run Windows NT 4, the nice things about OS/2 just weren't enough to justify the inability to run basically every new software package.