Proton, Valve's rumoured "Linux compatibility" tool has been released into the Steam client!

[bcredeur97]

59 minutes ago, Dabombinable said:

Still got Ubuntu 8.04 on a magazine disc some where. And yeah....its far better than it used to be.

it's a slow improvement. at least now i can definitely say one could use it for basic desktop functionality w/o problems (like the software updater breaking your entire machine haha, that's happened to me too in the past..) and avoid the terminal. (I LOVE the terminal.. its great for power users... but I completely understand from a normal persons' point of view why you'd want to avoid them having to use it)

Still some work left to do. but that's the open source software world. it either fufills your need perfectly; or almost gets you there with just a few holes left to fill. Which usually eventually get filled; just takes some time. 

 

the first time i used ubuntu was when i found a random clamshell-style laptop in a trash pile one time and it booted to then-to-me "weird" OS. I learned it was ubuntu and fooled with it for a while. thought it was neat. I believe it was like ubuntu 6 or something ridiculously old. We've come sooo far from then.

[Rune]

4 hours ago, pipnina said:

Doki Doki Literature Club

[Stefan Payne]

1 hour ago, bcredeur97 said:

oh it's not windows. don't start to believe it needs to be. 

Who are the ones that are most likely to switch to Linux?

Are we, maybe, talking about Windows Users?

And why wouldn't you make the switch from Windows to Linux as easy for them as possible??

 

Quote

And yes, it still needs work. but if you simply look at the progress that has happened; it's definetly gotten a lot better. It's still not perfect yet. needs more time. But so much work is going into it...

Deja-Vu...

That's always the things I have to hear. How about just getting the stuff done?

And make it so that it is hard for me to complain!

 

If I need like 10 Seconds to find something I really don't like - like haveing to have to mount a Windows share with Command Line for example, there is something not right.

 

Also lack of integration of sharing in many distributions (like OpenSuSe)

 

Quote

keep in mind a lot of these ppl who are building this stuff aren't exactly paid to do it. maybe donations or something but that's all they get. so it is what it is. 

See, that is why Commercial Software like Windows is so much better than the Open Source Alternatives. Because they get paid.

But also there is accountability!

 

There is nobody safe at their position, when they totally mess something up. All of the responsible actors can be fired because there is someone that can hold him/her accountable!

 

And I doubt that the core team isn't paid and that they do that in their freetime. If that is the case, something is wrong, they don't have any companys sponsoring the development of that project or getting donations from the users.

The Problem is that the Linux Basis is kinda shit, old and in need of making it new - wich is happening right now with Wayland. 

 

 

Also all that Samba stuff isn't integrated well into the UI, you can't, like with Windows, manually input a Windows share into the Adress bar...

 

In short: Windows isn't as bad as you people claim and Linux is far away from being close to Windows in some areas.

 

And rigth now, Linux is brutally optimized for server operation. Not Consumer use!

 

And the strong point of Linux is the modularity and configurability!!

For a simple Webserver you don't need - or rather Want - all that Graphics bullshit or the Multi Media Crap. That's just ballast for this operation. 

And with Linux you can make your webserver as webserverish as you want it to be.

 

You can't do that on Windows as some services are mandatory...

[Jito463]

Hmm, I have a ultra compact Ryzen/Vega embedded system coming later this year, I think I might try my hand at loading Linux on it and playing around with this Proton software.  By the time I get my hardware, I imagine they'll have a few patches out for support of other games.  This should be interesting.

[suicidalfranco]

33 minutes ago, huilun02 said:

Meh. Should have ported high traffic multiplayer games instead. Like CSGO, TF2, Dota2, other prominent MOBA and BR titles. Now that would send MS into a spiral of panic.

Those games already have native support for linux

[YamiYukiSenpai]

Oh man, I'm so excited for this!  Though I prefer to have games that support Linux natively, this still is great to have for Linux gamers.  I personally would love to see Grand Theft Auto V, Witcher 3,  Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2, & Life Is Strange: Before the Storm be part of this list, though I'm hoping LiS: BtS will support Linux natively since the Life Is Strange has native Linux suport.

 

Wish Origin games can work because I really wanna play the Mass Effect series on Linux.

[Humbug]

1 hour ago, huilun02 said:

Meh. Should have ported high traffic multiplayer games instead. Like CSGO, TF2, Dota2, other prominent MOBA and BR titles. Now that would send MS into a spiral of panic.

LOL, all those already work on Linux natively.

There lots of games that work fine natively on Linux including (off the top of my head) stuff like everything you mentioned above + Bioshock infinite, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Civilization series, Dirt rally racing games, Witcher 2, Metro series, Dying Light, Rocket League, Cities Skylines, Kerbal Space Program, Total War Warhammer, Deus Ex Mankind divided etc..

 

Microsoft is not gonna panic unless all the big publishers start supporting Linux. i.e EA, Ubisoft, Bethesda etc.

For example iD said that internally they have Doom 2016 working on Linux but they won't release it, that would require official direction from Bethesda. Still Linux people do play it via WINE.

[Guest]

MacOS support when?

[Humbug]

1 hour ago, RorzNZ said:

MacOS support when?

Good question.

 

It seems like they are using DXVK.

That means they are mapping directX to the Vulkan API, to get DirectX games to run on Linux... However Apple is blocking AMD/Nvidia/Intel from releasing Vulkan drivers on Mac OSX. So it may not work.

 

I think WINE does work on Mac using openGL, but performance is slower and compatibility is less due to outdated openGL versions. Unless Valve wants to redo the work using the Metal API just for Mac users.

 

If Apple had not blocked Vulkan it would have been easier.

[Nicnac]

Wow didn't think it would be that simple and quick! Would be awesome if it works for a bunch of games

[Humbug]

1 minute ago, Nicnac said:

Wow didn't think it would be that simple and quick! Would be awesome if it works for a bunch of games

It's in beta now, the game list will grow as they test and whitelist more windows games.

 

Ya I agree a big part of the appeal of this being part of steam now is that it can be done with a few mouse clicks. Because most of the windows users switching over do not want to be fiddling with WINE and figuring out how to get windows games to work. They want steam to take care of it for them.

 

Nvidia's ray tracing stuff is being added to vulkan, and not just DX12

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=NVIDIA-RTX-Vulkan-WIP

This is important because it will be needed in order to play windows ray tracing games on Linux.

[jagdtigger]

8 hours ago, Drak3 said:

Personally. I think all Linux that is not Android is shit for those that aren't either power users or literally only need the OS to get a web browser.

Did you tried any current distro? Because it seems you are basing one some pretty ancient experiences....

[Guest]

28 minutes ago, Humbug said:

Good question.

 

It seems like they are using DXVK.

That means they are mapping directX to the Vulkan API, to get DirectX games to run on Linux... However Apple is blocking AMD/Nvidia/Intel from releasing Vulkan drivers on Mac OSX. So it may not work.

 

I think WINE does work on Mac using openGL, but performance is slower and compatibility is less due to outdated openGL versions. Unless Valve wants to redo the work using the Metal API just for Mac users.

 

If Apple had not blocked Vulkan it would have been easier.

Wine performance is pretty much the same on MacOS as Linux. 

[jagdtigger]

4 hours ago, Stefan Payne said:

See, that is why Commercial Software like Windows is so much better than the Open Source Alternatives.

Like when it ignores user preferences(win10), reinstall crapware without asking, etc? Get real man....

[Daiyus]

This has me very excited. I've only starting trying Linux in the last six months and it's been an interesting experience. Having more supported ways to play a wider library of games on Linux is a good thing.

 

I'm already ensuring that if I want to play a game that has a native Linux port that I do so on Linux; I'll even wait for Shadow of the Tomb Raider to have a Linux port before buying it. Proton will allow me to (hopefully, eventually) move my entire Steam library to my Linux partition. That's a huge deal as my Steam library is bigger than my Battle.net/Origin/Uplay/Windows Store/Galaxy libraries combined.

 

Anything to support more open and collaborative practices is a good thing. With any luck this move could spur others to support Linux better (except Microsoft obviously), or at least provide a similar service to Proton.

[Sniperfox47]

I wonder how well they're going to keep up with DXVK releases though. They only announced DirectX11 and 12 as supported but DXVK launched DX10 support late last week which adds support for some older titles. Been using it on Lutris and it works great.

 

Also d3d9-to-11 for DirectX 9 games would be great once that project matures. And d3d8-to-9 (an already finished project) once that's done.

 

1 hour ago, RorzNZ said:

MacOS support when?

Probably after the beta.

 

31 minutes ago, Humbug said:

Good question.

 

It seems like they are using DXVK.

That means they are mapping directX to the Vulkan API, to get DirectX games to run on Linux... However Apple is blocking AMD/Nvidia/Intel from releasing Vulkan drivers on Mac OSX. So it may not work.

 

I think WINE does work on Mac using openGL, but performance is slower and compatibility is less due to outdated openGL versions. Unless Valve wants to redo the work using the Metal API just for Mac users.

 

If Apple had not blocked Vulkan it would have been easier.

Valve purchased and opened up MoltenVK which converts Vulkcan calls to Metal, and DXVK works fine on top of it. It does come with a slight performance hit but not much more so than the initial DirectX11 to Vulkan conversion since the shaders don't need to be entirely recompiled.

3 minutes ago, RorzNZ said:

Wine performance is pretty much the same on MacOS as Linux. 

Not even close >.> With DXVK and e-sync? Sure. But for DX8/9 games the OpenGL performance is much worse due to lack of support for newer OpenGL featuresamd an incredibly bottlenecked OpenGL interface. In some cases OpenGL on MacOS can be as slow as 1/5th the speed as on Windows and Linux as recently as last year in testing done by Phoronix.

[Guest]

5 minutes ago, Sniperfox47 said:

 

Probably after the beta.

 

Not even close >.> With DXVK and e-sync? Sure. But for DX8/9 games the OpenGL performance is much worse due to lack of support for newer OpenGL featuresamd an incredibly bottlenecked OpenGL interface. In some cases OpenGL on MacOS can be as slow as 1/5th the speed as on Windows and Linux as recently as last year in testing done by Phoronix.

I've had no such trouble with the latest WINE versions, perhaps you are using outdated software for testing? Remember to use WINE and not wineskin.

[Shally]

I cannot wait to play Bejeweled on Linux now!

[Humbug]

9 minutes ago, Sniperfox47 said:

Valve purchased and opened up MoltenVK which converts Vulkcan calls to Metal, and DXVK works fine on top of it. It does come with a slight performance hit but not much more so than the initial DirectX11 to Vulkan conversion since the shaders don't need to be entirely recompiled.

Ya I thought of that.

directX game --> Vulkan --> Metal

Just seems messy, like too many translations...

 

I guess it should work apart from cutting edge stuff like the new Nvidia Ray Tracing which will not be supported in Metal.

 

Apple could simplify the whole ecosystem by allowing the GPU devs to just ship Vulkan drivers to OSX.

They can still promote Metal while doing that...

[Linus_torvalds]

8 hours ago, Drak3 said:

Personally. I think all Linux that is not Android is shit for those that aren't either power users or literally only need the OS to get a web browser.

My Cousins, her friend, my sisters friend and some other people around me would not agree with you

They do not know what OS runs on their laptops or PCs. Hell they do not even know that there exists something other then windows. They still say that windows works great on their computers since i installed it. I installed manjaro on most of them, some of them run ubuntu 16.04. They use those machines for many things. Not gaming They have no problems and i have no problems too They do not get viruses like they were on windows. Their PCs work as fast as in the day i installed it. No slowdowns and so on. Oldest install is now 3 years, and that laptop still goes strong. Linux is much better then windows. You just have to set things up. That's it.

Now even gaming got better on linux. But it's only start. After many gamers start playing on linux, developers will start supporting it natively, nvidia will jump in with good drivers and noone would need any compatibility layer For now this is needed to start game development for linux.

I run linux on my router too. Have you heared about wifi wpa2 security problems? on CPU problems? meltdown, spectre? Those things got fixed as soon as i heard about them in openwrt (The linux OS i use for my router). It has so many features, just like a normal computer. You can build/compile some packages directly on you router LOL. I never have to restart and it's rock stable.

 

I tried it and it works great! I tried racing game Race 07 on my t440s with Intel HD 4400. 720p + auto video settings = 60 FPS 1080p + auto video settings = 35-45 FPS. Absolutly no lags, no freezes, feels just like on windows. Valve is GREAT!

[Humbug]

6 minutes ago, mate_mate91 said:

My Cousins, her friend, my sisters friend and some other people around me would not agree with you

They do not know what OS runs on their laptops or PCs. Hell they do not even know that there exists something other then windows. They still say that windows works great on their computers since i installed it. I installed manjaro on most of them, some of them run ubuntu 16.04. They use those machines for many things. Not gaming They have no problems and i have no problems too They do not get viruses like they were on windows. Their PCs work as fast as in the day i installed it. No slowdowns and so on. Oldest install is now 3 years, and that laptop still goes strong. Linux is much better then windows. You just have to set things up. That's it.

LOL, add my grandmother to that list.

Support calls to me have greatly reduced since I switched her from Windows to Linux Mint. I installed the programs she needs; chrome for Internet, VLC for videos, Skype for Video chat, Libre Office etc. Also installed team viewer so I can remotely login and check if she gets stuck.

 

That was a year ago. Been so much more solid than windows and she doesn't need a virus guard anymore. Things are not randomly breaking now and she doesn't get into trouble clicking dodgy links. Has made my life simpler... She doesn't know she is using Linux.

[Linus_torvalds]

4 hours ago, huilun02 said:

Meh. Should have ported high traffic multiplayer games instead. Like CSGO, TF2, Dota2, other prominent MOBA and BR titles. Now that would send MS into a spiral of panic.

I litterly now was playing CSGO NATIVELY on my thinkpad Those games already support linux natively. There are many more modern games that support linux natively. Like: Metro REDUX, Tomb raider, Grid autosport, Dirt rally, dirt showdown, Spec ops the line, Portal series, Withcer 2, CS (all of them), Dying light, and many more do not remember all of them.

[sof006]

This is awesome, Linus please make a video on this! @LinusTech

[Doobeedoo]

Oh that's really cool though.

[Sniperfox47]

57 minutes ago, RorzNZ said:

I've had no such trouble with the latest WINE versions, perhaps you are using outdated software for testing? Remember to use WINE and not wineskin.

I wasn't specifically talking Wine I was talking OpenGL on MacOS in general. https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=intel-mac-clear&num=1

 

And what version of Wine were you using? If you were using the standard version without e-sync your bottleneck was probably before the OpenGL part anyways, and if you were using DXVK with it you aren't using OpenGL so you won't see it either.

 

54 minutes ago, Humbug said:

Ya I thought of that.

directX game --> Vulkan --> Metal

Just seems messy, like too many translations...

 

I guess it should work apart from cutting edge stuff like the new Nvidia Ray Tracing which will not be supported in Metal.

 

Apple could simplify the whole ecosystem by allowing the GPU devs to just ship Vulkan drivers to OSX.

They can still promote Metal while doing that...

I mean RTX isn't supported in DX11 anyways which is what DXVK is targeting so that doesn't really matter and in terms of DX12 to Vulkan with VKD3D it's not like game devs are going to be jumping up and building games that *require* DXR anytime soon since that would limit their userbase to the tiny percentage of users with a 20 series nvidia card.