Hacker News Reader

Comment by pjmlp | Hacker News Reader

Hence why Valve should make the needful to change that, instead of "emulating" Windows.

They tried earlier on before they realized this approach made way, way more sense. Even the native linux versions of games that have them often run worse than the windows version wrapped in Proton. Developers just aren't going to commit to making native linux versions for the most part and that isn't going to change. This is reality.

The magical thing is that they've done so much work with Proton that a device like the Steam Deck is more than a curiosity. It is a viable product. It is viable to play games on Linux in a way it has never been before. Even better, they aren't keeping it to themselves.

A purist ideology about linux isn't going to change reality. But Proton is. The Deck is a wildly popular device and the knock-on effect is going to be more systems running linux for regular people. The games may not be native but if they're indistinguishable from native games, then who cares? Meanwhile adoption of linux as a viable platform still goes up. Maybe on a long enough timeline things swing around, though I still very much doubt that.

The Year of Linux on the Desktop is still a fantasy, but reading the steam hardware survey, it is more true than it has ever been before, thanks to the Deck and Proton.

Yeah, a hooping change from 1 to 2%, to another 20 years.

Think embrace extend and extinguish...in reverse!

1. Make wine really really good.

2. Start adding Linux-only features.

hehehe

This would only have a chance of working if they dramatically improved performance over native I think.

Those Linux only features don't matter because games are targeting Win32.

the DXVK project out of all this has been a godsend for the older DX11, DX9 games on modern hardware, its being used to increase FPS on older titles on windows

Isn't Intel even shipping DXVK on window for their shiny new GPUs as it is often works better than their DX9 drivers?

Yep. Their driver switches which DX9 implementation based on which game is running, according to which they've observed has better performance.

The promise is that they start targetting Proton or devices like the steam deck in particular.

They already do that by targeting Windows, and letting Valve do the work, no need for more development costs.

That's exactly what proton is for: bootstrap a linux gaming ecosystem without having to port thousands of games

That only works if studios ever bother to write native Linux games, otherwise is like being happy MAME supports Linux.

Proton is a platform.

If Valve gets gaming studios to target proton and guarantee compatibility, is a win.

If that's equivalent to gaming studios explicitly targeting MAME and QAing it, I'll take it.

They already target Proton by writing Windows games, no need to bother with Steam.

Anyway it hardly matches Switch sales, for which studios do actually bother to actively support.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com