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I'm very hopeful that Linux gaming will save the open PC desktop despite big tech is coming to destroy it. Or at least keep PCs alive for another decade. Gamers

• canpan 9mo ago
  Steam developing proton was what made it possible for me to change fully. No dual boot or anything needed. It's great. Funnily I also run GoG games through steam proton.. But looking forward to the GoG client working!
  • theshrike79 8mo ago
    I'm still wondering why Apple hasn't taken a few billion of their trillions and just built/bought a Proton style layer for macOS. The computing power is there, we just need the ability to run Windows-only games on Macs with a single click.
  • the_af 9mo ago
    Steam with Proton is simply incredible. And now it doesn't even split games in "Linux" vs "Windows"; it simply assumes all games run on Linux. And they mostly do! Though to be fair I had to tweak a couple to make them run, and Space Marine II absolutely refuses to play past the cutscene, but most other games "just work".
    • tombert 9mo ago
      I was amazed that the PC port of Spider-man Myles Morales worked perfectly with no tweaking at all. That’s the newest AAA game I own (I think), and it runs silky smooth and hasn’t had any issues. It wasn’t that long ago that Wine was only really useful for games that were at least 5-10 years old. Proton is amazing.
    • hbn 9mo ago
      God I hope Valve gets serious with Steam OS and it becomes a competitive target for PC games. They're making amazing progress with the Steam Deck, and I'm so ready to be free from Windows.
      • mfro 9mo ago
        Considering the Steam Machine will come with SteamOS, it looks like they are going all in.
      • tracker1 9mo ago
        Is there something wrong with the many distros that make Steam a really easy install, or in the box? I mean Bazzite literally has a FS Steam option in the box for installers that's pretty close to the Steam OS experience with broader hardware support.
        • hbn 9mo ago
          I'm trying to word this without sounding dismissive of Bazzite for simply not being from a big company with money to throw around. I'm sure the people making it are doing great work. But I just don't get the feeling it's anywhere near the position it needs to be a "real platform" that could disrupt Windows. It has to be looked at from the perspective of publishers, and whether it's worth their money to target a new platform. Valve has good, stable funds to pay a team full time to build and support Steam OS which, over a long period of time and with enough user uptake, I think will have better chances of getting publishers on board with ensuring their games work on something that isn't Windows. Hell, they could probably make deals with publishers to say "hey, here's a pile of money to make sure your game works on Steam OS day 1, and put it in all the ads" and get the ball rolling that way. Gaming is a tough space to crack. I think Valve's money and their history of supporting the most popular gaming platform on PC inspires more trust needed to make their platform a standard target.
          • 0x1ch 9mo ago
            The core of bazzite has nothing to do with being from a big company or not. The complaint doesn't make much sense given the foundation Bazzite is actually built on is sponsored and developed by Fedora/RHEL. Maybe I'm downplaying what the Bazzite team is actually doing, but from afar it is Fedora Silverblue with gaming related tweaks out of the box, probably targeting handhelds and common gaming hardware in testing. The actual issue of adopting a new operating system is already rearing its head on this thread. "What's Bazzite? What's Silverblue? SteamOS, is that linux? Is that different from this other linux?". There's too many options for someone that wants to sit down and play a game. Unless a major OEM decides to push Linux on their systems, SteamOS is generally the only real competitor in this space due to reputation and control of the PC gaming market. Time in the market, versus timing the market is what comes to mind here.
  • red-iron-pine 9mo ago
    WINE crawled so that Proton could run. Like even in 2014 WINE worked well enough for most games for me. Proton just made it utterly effortless, and lets me run AAA games like RDR2 and CP2077.
    • dimas_codes 9mo ago
      I would say that WINE did 90% of what had to be done, then Proton came and did another 90% so now we are 99% there.
      • ACS_Solver 9mo ago
        Proton is amazing and it's really three different subprojects that deserve a lot of credit each. First is Wine itself, with its implementation of Win32 APIs. I ran some games through Wine even twenty years ago but it was certainly not always possible, and usually not even easy. Second is DXVK, which fills the main gap of Wine, namely Direct3D compatibility. Wine has long had its own implementation of D3D libraries, but it was not as performant, and more importantly it was never quite complete. You'd run into all sorts of problems because the Wine implementation differed from the Windows native D3D, and that was enough to break many gams. DXVK is a translation layer that translates D3D calls to Vulkan with excellent performance, and basically solves the problem of D3D on Linux. Then there's the parts original to Proton itself. It applies targeted, high quality patches to Wine and DXVK to improve game compatibility, brings in a few other modules, and most importantly Proton glues it all together so it works seamlessly and with excellent UX. From the first release of Proton until recently, running Windows games through Steam took just a couple extra clicks to enable Proton for that game. And now even that isn't necessary, Proton is enabled by default so you run a game just by downloading it and launching, same exact process as on Windows.
  • ActorNightly 9mo ago
    Im not super familiar with the space. Is the only reason for needing Proton is to do direct x api translations?
    • johnny22 9mo ago
      Games use plenty of other win32 APIs. Creating windows, running processes, opening files are all APIs. Something like wine is needed to do that translation too.
      • ActorNightly 9mo ago
        right but some games like CS have native linux clients. Is it that hard to recompile the game to run under linux?
        • xeonmc 8mo ago
          Run under which display server protocol?
        • notpushkin 8mo ago
          It often is hard. If you’re using win32 APIs extensively, you’ll have to port your code to Linux counterparts. There’s also the issue of forward compatibility. Sometimes you just can’t run an old Linux game on a newer distro, while it works fine in Wine. Or it might partially work: for example, I’ve managed to run a Linux build of Heroes of Might and Magic III, but didn’t get any sound, because it relied on some ancient sound API (pre-ALSA; perhaps OSS?). Windows version works great in Wine to this day. For some game engines though, porting is really easy. There are some piracy groups releasing Linux ports of Unity games (that don’t have an official Linux version) by just replacing the game executable with a compatible one from another game.
• mschuster91 9mo ago
  > Gamers are still a huge factor as hardware customers. They are but AI has fried the markets for RAM, SSDs and GPUs. Everything has gotten ridiculously expensive ever since the wash trading and the 100s of billions of $ worth of deals really took off. Personally, I think at least one or two of the major GPU OEMs will go bust thanks to all of this, and I would be surprised if Framework, Pine64 and Steam's hardware line survive it. Hell, at the point we're at, I even have serious doubts the Xbox line survives.
  • emsign 9mo ago
    My next GPU will be from AMD, not just because I'm in the process of switching to Linux but I have a gut feeling that Nvidia doesn't see desktop GPUs as their priority anymore and support might diminish faster.
  • nottorp 9mo ago
    Thing is, you don't need a GPU. One of the major x86 manufacturers makes CPUs with integrated graphics that is good enough for gaming. It's in "Steam's hardware line" btw. Oh yes, AAAs maybe won't run on that. But they're boring af anyway. And predatory. So not much loss.
    • Tsiklon 9mo ago
      Intel also sees the value in decent onboard GPUs now, their newly announced laptop processors have solid onboard GPUs too
    • bigstrat2003 9mo ago
      > Oh yes, AAAs maybe won't run on that. ...so you do need a GPU.
      • nottorp 9mo ago
        > ...so you do need a GPU. Well, for modern AAAs you also need to afford to pay for the IAPs. The GPU is the least of your problems.
    • 9mo ago
• orbital-decay 9mo ago
  Most gamers don't give a shit about openness. A much more likely outcome is "big tech" following the numbers and slowly making Linux unusable by using EEE or any other tactic under the pretense of usefulness.
  • giant_loser 8mo ago
    > Most gamers don't give a shit about openness. Most gamers are idiots. They are okay paying exorbitant sums for broken games and most have no problem with forced rootkits. I don't think gaming is or should be driving people to Linux. Microslop turning their OS into a data mining and ad platform should and is pushing normal, rational people to Linux. But, most gamers don't care about such things as long as they are getting their sweet, sweet dopamine hit. Ironically, lower framerates(even though they are higher than the human eye and nervous system can perceive) on Windows 11 might push gamers onto Linux.They still want their rootkits, though. It is always the dumbest reasons that get gamers upset.
  • lifetimerubyist 9mo ago
    Gamers generally game on PC because they like building their system. Otherwise they would use a PS5 Pro or whatever. The PC is an “open” platform in that you can buy and choose your own hardware. Intel vs AMD vs Nvidia, Seagate vs Western Digital, etc…. Using open software isn’t really more than a few steps from that. Being able to pick how your system works and customizing it to your liking is basically the software version of picking your PC parts. Gamers also like to run all sorts of software to rice there Windows desktops and will install all sorts of abominations tha mess with the Windows desktop shell. Much easier and fun to rice a Linux desktop. Linux enthusiasts need to just learn how to appeal to their sensibilities. Valve knows, and they are very effective at getting people excited for a Linux based gaming platform. They’ve also proven they can walk the walk, not just talk the talk. Sure, they won’t give a crap about the source code but there is more to libre software than just being able to change the source code if you want. We’re also at an inflection point where people are getting really really really annoyed with companies like Microsoft treating them like lab rats and shoving Copilot down their throat when they don’t want it. There is a chink in the armor; people are opening up to the idea of alternative platforms where you don’t have to worry about any of that garbage. > making Linux unusable by using EEE or any other tactic This will never happen because projects will just be forked.
• jagermo 9mo ago
  Plus, the backlog of playable games is so awesome. I am working through things I always wanted to play that I can now throw on my steam deck.
• pjmlp 9mo ago
  There is nothing to save as long as it relies on game studios using Windows workstations, coding in Visual Studio and targeting DirectX. The goal has to be to make native Linux attractive, so that they actually bother to create native executables, using Vulkan and co. Until then it is no different from playing arcade games with MAME on Linux.
  • nialv7 9mo ago
    nothing stopping them from developing on Linux workstations, cross-compiling to Windows, and testing with Wine/Proton. saves them Windows license fees too.
    • pjmlp 9mo ago
      The incentives are not there, as it is, they work as usual, and Valve is the one that has to make it work.
      • nialv7 9mo ago
        there will be incentives once windows becomes shit enough.
        • pjmlp 9mo ago
          Nah, regular people buy what is on shopping mall computer stores, they don't go online ordering from Tuxedo. They are more likely to move to PlayStation and Switch than SteamDeck, the amount of sales already show that.
  • ecshafer 9mo ago
    Targeting DirectX and Win32 has become targeting Linux with how good Wine/Proton have gotten. I am able to play brand new games with no Linux support absolutely perfectly through proton. These games run better than games that had linux support actually ran on linux.
    • 9mo ago
• baq 9mo ago
  With GPU, ram and flash prices where they are pc gaming isn’t moving anywhere but backwards for the next couple years, unfortunately.
  • hedora 9mo ago
    On the one hand, hardware prices went up. On the other hand, they didn't go up as much as our grocery bill and other bills. So, they're not keeping up with inflation, at least around here.
• cromka 9mo ago
  On top of that, Nvidia just released a beta version of their GeforceNow client.
• giancarlostoro 9mo ago
  I also feel like this is an insane opportunity for companies who previously did not offer Linux native clients to start doing so and see some of a hike in sales specifically coming from the Linux crowd. I would absolutely pay good money for high quality Linux compatible software, after all, its not free as in free beer. I am still surprised most Linux Distros haven't changed their package managers to allow for selling of proprietary solutions directly, fully opt-in by default of course. I think maybe Ubuntu did? I don't know that Arch ever has. I think its a wasted opportunity to fund Linux distros by taking a small cut (probably not 30%) from commercial products directly on those app repositories.
  • pxc 8mo ago
    > I am still surprised most Linux Distros haven't changed their package managers to allow for selling of proprietary solutions directly, fully opt-in by default of course. That's essentially being done with Flatpak. Linux is largely still built on the old (and indeed, outdated) Unix trust model. The system itself is assumed to be trusted, and the primary security boundaries on the system are drawn between users. Since Linux package managers actually install and manage the base system as well as end-user software, anything the package manager installs is treated as part of "the distribution", and thus trusted. It's not a good idea to use such a thing to install proprietary, third-party software. The curation and vetting of the distro maintainers is actually vital here, and when you add a third party repo, you're giving it a lot of trust. At the same time, why would distro maintainers give free labor to integrate proprietary software? Most are not super interested in that, and even if they are, they don't generally have the rights necessary to redistribute, let alone modify, proprietary software. On the other hand, those third-party developers and publishers don't want to master and manage a half-dozen different packaging formats, and various other packaging ecosystem differences that vary across distros. Flatpak is positioned to solve all of these problems, and it's no secret that enabling (relatively) responsible use of proprietary software is one of the goals. It enabled distributing a small number of large, common runtimes of which different versions can safely coexist on the same system, addressing fragmentation. To reduce the amount of trust given to installed apps, it separates what it installs from the base system, and offers sandboxing to help limit the permissions granted to an app that still runs under the OS user of the person using it. And it supports third-party repos that publishers can run themselves. I'm not currently a daily Flatpak user, so idk how much the current reality lines up with that goal, but that's where the movement towards this is on the Linux desktop today.
• lm28469 9mo ago
  > Gamers are still a huge factor as hardware customers. A drop in the bucket really, nvidia used to make the majority of their revenues from gaming, now it's under 10% https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!4U09!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F50d6e7f9-0bcb-45dd-b7e3-8d5dde62ac42_1423x1033.png https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!4U09!,f_auto,q_auto:...