this post was submitted on 07 Oct 2024

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Proton is the Future of PC gaming. But how does it work? [Gardiner Bryant, YouTube] (youtu.be)

submitted 1 week ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

27 comments fedilink hide all child comments

cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/16434132

YouTube video: https://youtu.be/uScsmjvdwyo

Invidious video from YouTube without YouTube: https://inv.nadeko.net/watch?v=uScsmjvdwyo or https://invidious.nerdvpn.de/watch?v=uScsmjvdwyo

Video description:

It’s clear there are some people who don’t understand Proton. So let’s talk about it. #Proton #SteamPlay #CompatibilityLayer

00:00 Introduction
00:41 The basics of a computer
01:46 What Proton is not
03:04 What is an emulator
04:32 Proton acts like a map
05:25 Proton translates API and system calls
06:18 Proton provides a Windows-like software environment
06:55 Why are some games incompatible?
08:52 Shouldn't we demand native Linux games?
11:07 Conclusion

all 30 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] [email protected] 45 points 1 week ago (1 children)

YouTube face.... And useless red arrow?

Definitely No thanks

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 week ago (2 children)

YouTube faces and click bait titles invention are one of the darkest hours of the internet. I get it, it gets more clicks and views, but that is so cringe.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 week ago

https://dearrow.ajay.app/

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

I agree mostly but ironically, I think the whole “cringe” thing is the darkest. It gives a get back in line* vibe (to me anyway) that’s been played out forever. Straying away from the norm should be encouraged or ignored if it’s not for you but openly insulting someone for it is pretty lame.

[+] [email protected] 18 points 1 week ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (4 children)

[deleted]

[–] [email protected] 32 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Sadly this has more or less died with unmaintained games. It's a pain the arse to get old native games working. And for many titles the Windows version with Proton works much better than the Linux native one. Win32 has somehow become the most stable Linux API.

[+] [email protected] 9 points 1 week ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

[deleted]

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 week ago (4 children)

I know, I have many of them. Most of them I specifically bought when they got Linux support, like Tomb Raider and Alien Isolation.

Not a single commercial game runs as well natively as it does through Proton. Tomb Raider - has much worse graphics. Alien Isolation - for some reason the DPad doesn't work. Baldur's Gate - I have to supply some old openssl (or so, can't remember) library. And I shudder at the thought of trying to get Unreal Tournament 2004 or Doom 3 (not the open source version) running. I should try to dig out my disc for Ankh to see how hard it is to get that one running.

Maintained games and especially open source ones run great. But the sad reality is that it costs money to maintain software. Linux backwards compatibility is abysmal. It is much easier to get a 20 year old Windows game to run than a 20 year old Linux game.

Though to be fair, it is also hard on Windows to get a 20 year old Windows game to run. Wine is just a great piece of software.

I would love to have more native games. My own game is native as well. And luckily most indie devs usually also bring out a native port. And still most of the time the Windows version via Proton just runs better.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 week ago

Yeah, wine is incredible for preservation. Many older games don't work on either platform (old windows games on windows, old linux games on linux), but running old windows games through proton usually works great.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago

Quake does.

[+] [email protected] -6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Not a single commercial game runs as well natively as it does through Proton.

It's funny when people like you make such statements because someone needs to literally name just a one commercial game and you're already being proven a liar. OK, I start: Selaco.

But the sad reality is that it costs money to maintain software.

So what? They should stop taking money for unmaintained games then.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The guy said he bought games, and those don't work as well natively. You can list games all you want, if he didn't buy them it won't change his experience.

So what? They should stop taking money for unmaintained games then.

Yeah, fuck those Linux users! Only sell those games to Windows users! That will help Linux market share :)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

The guy said he bought games, and those don’t work as well natively.

No, he didn't say "those". He made a statement about commercial Linux games in general (edit: in a separate paragraph).

if he didn’t buy them it won’t change his experience.

Shouldn't make a generalized statement like that then.

Yeah, fuck those Linux users! Only sell those games to Windows users!

No idea how you get to that from my statement that's advocating to make unmaintained games free. 🤷

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

No, he didn't say "those". He made a statement about commercial Linux games in general.

When a normal person talks about a topic, they don't have to continuously clarify that they still talk about the same topic, it's assumed.

He mentioned that he has a bunch of Linux native games. The commercial ones run worse compared to running under Proton. This isn't complicated. Accept that you misunderstood and move on.

No idea how you get to that from my statement that's advocating to make unmaintained games free. 🤷

Oh, now we interpret according to the intent of the author?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

When a normal person talks about a topic, they don’t have to continuously clarify that they still talk about the same topic, it’s assumed.

It's a new statement in a new paragraph.

Oh, now we interpret according to the intent of the author?

Accept that you misunderstood and move on.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago

It's a new statement in a new paragraph

What is a new statement in a new paragraph? You didn't reference anything specific in your paragraph, so I have no idea what you're talking about.

Accept that you misunderstood and move on.

Accept what? Move on from what? You're making no sense.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 1 week ago

Win32 has somehow become the most stable Linux API.

Windows is a moving target. Wine/Proton is a reverse engineering chase of a moving target. WINDOWS GAMES ON PROTON BREAK ALL THE TIME! Stop making stuff. It's great that Proton exists but it's not like Java. What does not break? Flatpak Runtimes and Steam Linux Runtime.

[–] [email protected] -4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Yep. Linux is a total pain in the behind to write applications for, because of API and ABI instability. Just ask notable Linux desktop application developer Linus Torvalds.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

Linux is a total pain in the behind to write applications for, because of API and ABI instability.

Flatpak

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 week ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tux_Racer

We already have the only one we need.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Why? They comprise like 3% of the market and the native Linux versions usually run worse than the Windows ones run through Proton...

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

in my experience that usually boils down to the Linux version getting (an understandably) low priority compared to the windows version. Which is something that won't change until Linux has a significant market share and I can't fault the devs for it. For an example of a game where that is not the case I'd like to take Factorio, where the devs went out of their way to properly work on the Linux native version and even include Linux/Mac exclusive features for their next update. But that only happened because one of the devs themselves uses Linux.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Proton is the gateway drug to us getting more Linux native games. In due time!

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago

Yeah, can't get market share without games, but it's hard to get games without marketshare. Proton made sure we have games, now we need marketshare. Once we have marketshare we'll get more high quality linux native ports (I hope).

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago

Proton is the gateway drug to us getting more Linux native games.

It's not when Win32 apologists keep making insane claims how stable Proton is... "Proton is great, it just runs all the Windows games" is the mess that got us to the place where games we buy just start crashing suddenly because nobody of those developers realizes that each major release of Proton must be treated like its own OS with proper QA targeting that. Proton works great for old games because these old games no longer change. For modern games that still get updates Proton is a gamble because a reverse engineered version of the Windows API just isn't stable.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 week ago (1 children)

As a consumer and Linux user I want to agree that there should be more native support for games but from a realistic standpoint it just wouldn’t make sense. Even the Xbox having an estimated 20% of PlayStation’s sales has been enough for publishers and to slow down on support for that console. Linux makes an optimistic 3ish percent of consumer’s PC operating systems and doesn’t easily allow kernel level installs by games to support their anticheat measures. Again I would absolutely love to boot into Linux more often when I’m gaming but the numbers just aren’t there.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 week ago

With any luck windows won't continue to allow kernel anti-cheat much longer either. I also assume that sooner or later there may be government action on kernel anti-cheat, since many of the popular games/anti-cheats are Chinese owned. If tiktok spying is enough of a concern to ban the app, it's a pretty short logical step to being thinking that Chinese companies shouldn't be allowed to install full access, unremovable backdoors on millions of PCs.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Can someone explain how portability is still an issue? Are there no cross-platform API and libraries that allow developpers to write portable apps?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago

Many game engines let you make Linux builds, but there are still bugs and optimizations that have to be done manually to get it working. The video claims it takes ~6 months to make a proper port, and even then it might not run as smoothly as the windows proton version does.