Linux users are biased towards higher technical expertise, and they have a different mindset - most of the software that we use is the result of collaborative projects, and we’re often encouraged to help the devs out. And while the collaborative situation might not be true for game development, the mindset leaks out.
Maybe a dev just right click propertied their folder and typed that in haha. I think it's probably downloaded and cached community content. Unless it's a hint at new danger zone stuff
Bought include both storage for downloaded compressed archives and then to unpack before deleting them?
I’ve run into this when updating games where I have the game installed and enough space for the update but not enough for that middle ground when it’s getting unpacked
This is awesome. As someone that games on all 3 platforms, I’m happy to see that Linux usage has gone up so rapidly, even if it is only because of the steamdeck. It’s a great way to introduce people to the wonders of Linux! And yes I do game on my MacBook. The sims lol, it is actually nice to have SOMETHING to play when I feel like not working. And a surprising # of my favorite games work on Mac wonderfully like cities skylines and the 2 point games and many more. I’m always happy when any platform other than windows can play games as collectively these smaller platforms need to dethrone windows, in my opinion.
I started using Linux / GNU/Linux based operating systems for more than a day or so at a time when I got Puppy Linux on my USB drive back in 2016 or so. Ever since then I put Fatdog64 and other Linux based operating systems such as Ubuntu and Linux Mint on my laptop.
Two decades ago, we at KDE always said that 5% was the magic number. If we got to 5% market share on the Linux desktop, then commercial games, applications, etc. would directly target it rather than ignore it. The steamdeck is wonderful, and if you include it, Linux is at about 3% right now. But it actually caused a huge acceleration in game adoption. So gaming is now ahead of that projection. Applications (i.e. Photoshop) probably still need 5%. Although we made that projection two decades ago, so it may no longer be valid due to cloud apps.
(I’m no longer involved with KDE, but was for a decade. It was an awesome decade.)
Despite having so many game offerings over the years, it REALLY feels like Apple has still spent 30+ years shitting on games and gamers. They want games and gamers to conform to THEIR rules instead of them catering to games and gamers.
I have a $4000 Mac with top-of-the-line hardware that requires that I use emulators or virtualization if I want to play games. I have a bunch of legit “macOS-native” games on Steam that I cannot play because they are 32-bit. OpenGL was also scrapped, and with it any chance of several games that could have been updated to 64-bit. Apple will tell you that those are old and depreciated technologies. Well, guess what, it doesn’t fucking matter.
Meanwhile Microsoft and Linux developers have spent the same 30 years catering to games and gamers, trying to ensure everything under the sun keeps working, regardless of how old it is.
Pretty much any Win32 app from the past 30 years still works on Windows, and Steam on Linux has made it dead-simple to load many Windows games as easily as if they were Linux games.
I’m glad Linux surpassed macOS. I hope it keeps growing. It will be better for everyone when it catches up to Windows, as well.
@BitingChaos@petsoi this is why valve or some other true Linux laptop need to come in the game. Steam deck proves that Linux can be fun and useful. It’s hard finding a gaming laptop that can be used for all day work like school or whatever.
Completely agree with you on all of this, but I do think Apple are making moves to change this by working with developers on the Metal API. However that’s only forward facing rather than looking at “legacy” support for games. My problem is their focus on mobile first gaming rather than any of their other hardware.
As much as I like Apple products, I’m please Linux is finding its place in gaming. Something had to start giving Microsoft some competition somewhere.
I don’t think forcing already over-worked game developers into supporting yet another rendering API is going to win them any bonus points though. Apple’s insistence on Metal is very strange and a total reinvention of the wheel on both sides.
A assuming you mean Vulkan, but did you know Metal is older than Vulkan by 2 years? It’s hardly a reinvention of the wheel from Apple here. Plus it allows them to give complete low level support of their own silicon and hardware that you’re likely to not yet with other APIs. A lot of developers also use MolktonVK to get around that support.
did you know Metal is older than Vulkan by 2 years?
Did you know that Vulkan started out as Mantle which predated Metal by half a year? Anyways, the time of release doesn’t really matter. What matters is whether its a graphics standard. Instead of adopting standards and creating a better developer experience for everybody, Apple chooses to go their own way…again. That’s the reinvention I am referring to and it causes a trickle down effect that affects everybody else. It’s extra work on Apple developers and game devs alike.
Plus it allows them to give complete low level support of their own silicon and hardware that you’re likely to not yet with other APIs.
No reason why they can’t be done via Vulkan extensions IMHO. Also, I am okay with them having Metal for such purposes…as long as they also support Vulkan and other standards. The problem is that they don’t.
A lot of developers also use MolktonVK to get around that support.
MoltenVK is just another example of the extra work that everybody else has to do to support Apple’s platform.
With specific regard to OpenGL, GL 4.1 is still supported on the latest version of macOS afaik. It was asinine that they deprecated it, but I’m not aware of any reason it would preclude a 64-bit port of a game that previously worked in x86 mode.
It’s gonna be funny if people start dual-booting Linux on Mac in the future because they get better game support with the reverse engineered Linux GPU drivers.
They want games and gamers to conform to THEIR rules
But they do it in literally everything. Keyboard layout, window management, graphic api, hardware, peripherals, browser api on ios, and the list goes on. Dont get me wrong, I totally hate apple for this, but if in 2023 you expect something different from them, I think it is on you
Seconding this advice. Install ProtonUp-Qt, run it and add the latest Proton-GE version. Restart Steam and change game compatibilty settings to use use Proton-GE.
Workplaces are all about the apps. If those apps you need only run in Windows, that’s what you run. Believe me, businesses would LOVE to cut license costs.
Been a Linux user for 20+ years but windows WAS my daily driver the last 5 of them… got fed up with all the ads and plans for the screen recording and pulled the plug. Linux 100% for me again!
I was getting a couple of pop up ads in my Win10 install, and I switched a couple of months ago. The more I looked at gaming, the more I realized it could be done.
I play a fair bit too. (That’s why I’m here.) People tend to underestimate the selection of games for Linux, always mentioning stuff like Tux Race and the likes. Even before Proton, you could run a lot of stuff; for example I got Cult of the Lamb, Celeste and Cuphead here, those aren’t exactly “old” games (although not exactly fresh either - I’m a patient player).
Minecraft is the exception that proves the rule - Microsoft likely did try to pull off the plug of OS X and Linux support, in a user-hostile move, but it failed due to its popularity.
Minecraft has two main versions:
the Java version. Desktop-wise available for Linux, OS X, and Windows. Predates Microsoft buying Mojang (Minecraft’s developer studio). That’s likely the version played by the people whom you’re referring to.
the Bedrock version. Coded in C++, and desktop-wise available only for Windows. Created after the acquisition of the studio.
Odds are that, when Microsoft funded the Bedrock version, it assumed that every Windows player would adopt it instead of the Java version, because it does perform far better. But there’s a catch - Bedrock cannot be modded (modified by the user with third party code), only the Java version can, and the modding scene for Minecraft is huge. So if Microsoft pulled off the plug of the Java version, a lot of people would leave, in special adult and teen players; and once they’re gone people aren’t introducing the game to young children any more.
Now, on why Java Minecraft runs better in Linux: I have no idea. It might be the mods themselves running better in Linux, as a lot of modders are Linux users.
Bedrock can be modded and has a lot of tools to do so(as far as i know, i dont play it)
Kind of.
Yes, you could call Bedrock add-ons “mods”. But regardless of name they’re clearly a different can of worms, more limited in capability - to the point that most are simply fluff, not changing the game in meaningful ways. Contrast that with the huge survival, industrial, exploration etc. modpacks that exist for Java, that basically use MC as an engine instead of a game. (Or even individual mods. Terrafirmacraft I’m looking at you.)
To give you an idea, CurseForge lists ten times as many Java mods than Bedrock addons, with half of them being stuff like TPs, skins, maps. So if you really want to see Bedrock addons as “mods”, my point changes from “Bedrock has no mods” to “Bedrock has mods, but they don’t matter in the big picture since people playing and modding Minecraft are mostly doing it with Java Edition”. The conclusion is still the same.
On linux, it is much faster for both vanilla and modded minecraft [Java]
@Blisterexe mentioned that it has less CPU overhead and better OpenGL drivers. I never noticed a big difference for vanilla because it’s typically mods that make your computer shit bricks.
Minecraft bedrock edition can be played on linux using third party launchers
The problem of something relying on a 3rd party dev like this is that MS can easily pull off the plug if it so desires, in ways that wouldn’t look like arseholery but “protecting its own IP”: copyright trolling, abusive terms and conditions, etc.
Currently it has no reasons to do so, as it would counter its best interests. But it’s clear that, if Microsoft got its way with Bedrock, and players migrated in mass to Bedrock (to the point that the Java version was deprecated), MS would have all the reasons to pull off the plug.
Yep, with Linux being able to play most games (and growing) and Microsoft’s latest transgression, Linux seems like the logical bastion for anyone tired of features nobody asked for.
Who could have possibly seen that coming? It’s almost like anything other than server side anticheat is conceptually broken! (See the monitors with ML map assist and the past 20 years of client exploits). And that’s ignoring the currently strong financial incentives of breaking these things…
Kinda weird when both Unreal Engine and EAC, both owned by Epic, actually already have Linux/Proton support, yet games that exclusive to Epic Store won’t support Linux, or drop Linux support once they become Epic Store exclusives.
Rocket League dropped its native Linux support to upgrade to DirectX 11. If the move to Epic were the reason and the justification is fake, why did the game also drop Mac support despite it being supported by the Epic launcher?
Previously, games like Rust and Valve’s own CS 2 stopped supporting Linux and Mac without any store changes.
You raised a good point about rocket league, which seems to be using the ancient unreal engine 3. Epic basically updated ue3 to support directx11 but neglect updating vulkan/metal support on the old engine. But Fortnite is using unreal engine 5 though, which has excellent Linux support. Epic had a presentation bragging about how they got Fortnite running on Vulkan as “same game, not port”, so the decision to not support Linux is certainly not a technical one.
They are only sampling ten paaticular games. If they included all games or even just games that run poorly then it would be far behind. I use Linux on my desktop but will still boot into windows rather than fussing with it.
When was the last time you tried “fussing with it”? I’ve been gaming on Linux for over a year now, and it’s been incredibly seamless. The only game that gave me any trouble at all was Assetto Corsa (the first).
Edit: and I did get it running. I won’t lie, it was a PITA. And it ran, and I played it for maybe 30 mins. :)
Not everyone has the same repertoire of games and not every game will run natively on linux. Depending on your flavour, messing with a compatibility layer can be fussy for some people and depending on your choice of games, your ratio of native/near-native:compromise:does not work will vary. It can’t be “it works for me so it should work for thee”.
Of course – but that works the other way as well. It doesn’t mean Linux gaming is lacking somehow if your library happens to be filled with the few remaining problem cases.
My point is simply that, by and large, it’s ready and seamless, and things like Protondb support this.
Yeah, I’ve played both with no issues as well. Curiously, BG3 ran better for me with DX vs Vulkan, but iirc the devs said the Vulkan build had issues at first.
Are you saying you had issues with them? If so, would you mind sharing your specs? BG3 in particular has a Gold rating on Protondb, but even AOE4 is Silver.
Yes, I had issues. I have a 3080 and some recent generation i5, 32gb ram. I’m sure I just need some configuration for my video card or something. It just takes about 5 seconds to boot into windows with nvme sticks. Every game works perfectly every time. I can’t be bothered.
Got it. I suspect it’s something related to nvidia tbh. Their Linux support leaves a lot to be desired. Valve’s (and many other’s) work on Steam Deck or Steam Deck adjacent stuff has made the AMD world a lot more Linux friendly as a result. I’m on an all-AMD system (Ryzen 5 7600X, RX 6600XT) which is probably why I’ve had a very smooth time.
But totally understand not wanting to waste time with it if Windows is still working fine. I think that will be harder to do, however, as MS continues to move down the path of OS as a service.
A few years of linux and the game becomes finding stuff that doesn’t work and making it work. Once you get it working you don’t bother using it, because it’s more fun to go find the next thing that doesn’t work and figure out how to make it work.
I occasionally do, but mostly if I’m intending to play it on my Steam Deck and it’s marked as unsupported or untested. That’s still pretty rare though.
Is HDR just so amazing that it’s worth the hassle of using windows though? Games get shinier all the time, it’s not really exciting to me anymore. Give it a year and it’ll be in anyway, and people will be on to the next randomnhotness that they can’t possibly live without that somehow they were fine without the year previous.
It’s not even implemented well in very many monitors. I think a lot of people just turn it in cause it’s supposed to be “better” even if it doesn’t make much of an actual difference.
i think it’s mostly due to how prevalent fake hdr monitors are
most people don’t understand it’s essentially impossible to get hdr without an OLED/microLED or MAYBE VA and keep buying into marketing bullshit, which leads them to having pretty shitty experiences
If you’re using an actual HDR capable display, HDR is pretty amazing. I know it’s weird reading about it online, but the lighting seems so much more “real” when you’re playing games on HDR. You actually have to “see it to believe it” as you can’t see it from screenshots or from people taking pictures of their displays.
Windows 11 actually has a calibration tool similar to the ones at the console so you can get good HDR on Windows.
10 game benchmarks hardly are an argument when only 1 in 7 games on Steam are Linux compatible.
Proton runs the Windows version of games on Linux, including games using DX12. They don’t have to be marked Linux compatible. That just means those can run without Proton (Linux native binaries).
Those shown in the video are using Proton (e.g. there is no Linux build of RDR2).
From the dev on disc when someone asked about smart tv support:
Playnite currently has heavy Windows dependencies so it’s not even technically possible.
Long term there is a plan to look into Linux support, but mobile or TV (Android in general) is very unlikely to happen any time soon.
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