Which is a little troubling, considering all the other concerns with the EGS.
Sun tried to get the Windows API to be an open standard by submitting it to ISO, so that they could claim their alternate implementation (Wabi) was standards compliant.
Microsoft told the standards committee "you can't do that! That API is our IP!"
And so the Public Windows Initiative came to an end. Funny, now Microsoft is arguing against APIs as IP as an amicus in Oracle v. Google.
They are also doing a great work supporting the SDL2 library. AFAIK they are employing its original author and developer Sam Lantinga.
[1] https://github.com/derrod/legendary
EDIT: i actually meant to reference the Heroic games launcher, which is the frontend for Legendary. you can find it here:
Rather than funding the development of the similar initiatives on PC (i.e. Linux) to prevent Microsoft from doing the same thing, instead Tim Sweeney tweets about how switching to Linux is like moving to Canada and is generally rude and unpleasant about it.
The fact that someone else had to make a launcher for Epic is further proof that Epic is not interested in even supporting Linux, let alone invest in it.
Epic is almost taking the opposite approach. Denying or not addressing a problem until it's already established to the point is a market norm. If Epic had caused the amount of fuss they are now in 2011, maybe it wouldn't have needed a hundred thousand dollar YouTube campaign and a multi-million dollar lawsuit to resolve.
I dunno, it's true that's it's not Epic's MO, but it's not _smart_.
My big complaint is the number of titles that receive a Platinum rating on ProtonDB, in spite of technical issues. I have purchased more than one title with a Platinum rating that had significant issues running on my machine.
This is compounded that Steam/ProtonDB user reports typically have an abysmal level of detail to replicate a working configuration. Someone got it to run flawlessly, but there is so much wine configuration jargon that each time I need to dig into the issues, I waste time on something that otherwise would work on Windows. I would love if there was a 'share my Proton configuration' per game that could be made available to the community.
That said, part of why I know anything about computers was trying to get games to work on my old 486. I sort of miss the feeling of reward of really wanting to play a game and needing to dig into the technical weeds to finally get the right boot disk. Proton almost scratches that itch for me, sadly there aren’t enough games anymore to really motivate me.
Do you have anything to back that up? In my personal experience Overwatch absolutely doesn't perform better on Linux. Haven't tried Borderlands, but in any case two games don't count as 'many'. Unless you mean all Borderlands games.
Also, I refrained from listing more games out of respect for your time. Out of the games I've tried, I've noticed better performance in the following: Team Fortress 2, MGSV The Phantom Pain, Valheim, Fallout 4, CS:GO, Insurgency, Mirror's Edge, Payday 2, Warframe, Prey, Kerbal Space Program, DOOM (2016), and Terraria.
If I had a larger library, I'd probably try more games.
To expand a bit on some of the "tweaks" that must be endured....
To play War Thunder you must use the launcher to set it in a window at native screen resolution then start the game. Then you move the game to your desired monitor and Layer>Always on top, and Undecorate the window.
Boom. War Thunder works.
(works great for original Warcraft III)
and they have a linux version.
While many games work there are hundreds of annoyances, crashes and quirks that don't exist on Windows at all.
* alt-tabbing out of a game will often crash a lot of games, so you can't really use discord or similar team chat software properly without risking crashing out of the game. * If you have a multi-monitor system the game will frequently start on the wrong screen. Thanks to how mondern video drivers identify the monitors even switch the cables round might not work! * A lot of games will work fine at 1080p. At 4K you will see performance problems, also streaming to other people can be terrible. * Single player games that require high refresh rates and stable framerates like Doom Eternal will have variable performance for no reason what-so-ever and are rock solid on Windows (I had two game crashes in the past year and I play a lot of Doom Eternal). * Loads of older games that use the build engine or the KeX engine like Blood does not work properly with Proton. * Lots of indie games do not work at all. * Game streaming on discord will tank framerate on a lot of games in Linux, but it works flawlessly in Windows. * Some graphics setttings just don't take at all, it doesn't seem to error.
Everytime one of these articles get posted there are comments such as this where people say that it is flawless and it simply isn't true. Having a dual screen setup isn't a strange setup these days at all and using Discord is the choice of most PC gamers these days. I stream games to friends (some are disabled and can't play the games, others might want just to watch me play the game as I am good at these games).
I am quite proficient with Linux (I've been using it since 2002) and I cannot recommend it. Maybe it is good enough for you but you and many the people on this thread are giving a false impression of the solution. I have about 450 games in my steam library (I've had a steam account since Half life 2 was released) and about 50 in my GoG account and I've tried a fair few, everything from modern triple A titles to older games, so I have a good sample size for anyone claiming that is merely ancedotal.
Besides that, I understand where you're coming from. The experience isn't flawless, but neither is gaming on Windows. It's ultimately up to you to pick and choose your battles, but the majority of the games I play work relatively well, even compared to Windows.
You previously said for single player it was.
I experience them all the time and I tried different distros (Ubuntu, Fedora, Manjaro) it has been quite consistent issues over at least the last two years.
I find it very hard to believe you haven't seen any of these issues (especially alt-tabbing). I actually sometimes think people are just straight up lying but I have no hard evidence.
> I'm running a dual-monitor setup off my 1050ti, with my primary display being a 1440p 144hz display. I only have windowing issues on games that already had windowing issues natively (the Fallout and Elder Scrolls games are a particularly large sore thumb), and I have never seen a game spawn on the wrong display. I haven't played Doom Eternal, but Doom (2016) ran at a locked 60hz for me. I could push it higher, but at 1440p I'm already stretching the capabilities of this card. Game streaming, while partially broken (eg. you can't stream an individual display), never had that considerable of a performance impact for me. I streamed Valheim over Discord the other day, and only lost ~3 or 4 FPS overall.
Discord streaming literally halves my framerate and I have a 1080Ti with a Ryzen 3700X. So I just don't believe you. You won't see performance problems with Doom 2016 as even a medicore card back in 2012 can play that game decently (my old 660GTX played the game fine at medium on a i7 from 2014ish).
> Besides that, I understand where you're coming from. The experience isn't flawless, but neither is gaming on Windows. It's ultimately up to you to pick and choose your battles, but the majority of the games I play work relatively well, even compared to Windows.
It isn't flawless on Windows but it doesn't have any of the problems I've mentioned, it is generally very stable and it has worked consistently for year. I have no idea about the so called issues you have. I have a sizable library and I will fire up old games every so often and they work without issue.
However I know how to look after a Windows installation (a lot of people don't and that includes so called tech savvy users). I've played all sorts of games on Windows 10 fine. Games going back to 2002. The main problem I have is the resolution of my screen is soo high the fonts and sprites are tiny.
I've got thousands of hours gaming on linux and I've never had an alt-tab problem. Kind of weird to go right to claiming people are outright lying, maybe there's another issue you're running into?
Rule 1 for having a good time on HN: Never argue with a green account.
If you actually have any solid rationale against my position other than the lies of these things never happening (even though on proton db there are reports of it happening in games).
Most of the arguments have anecdotes about how it works fine for them and then claim I am making anecdotes myself even though I have a very large steam and gog library and have tried a good sample of games on at least two machines now and a few distros. It isn't anecdotes when you have made a lot of effort to investigate the viability.
I really want to stop using Windows but unless the gaming situation improves I can't and people pretending these issues such as the ones I have mentioned don't exist they won't get solved.
Anyway it will be back to lurking again because this place is a total hive mind.
My green account rule is separate to the matter.
No, I had originally said
>...others give you a chance to have a flawless experience...
I'm sorry that Discord streaming doesn't work for you. It sounds like an isolated issue judging from the reactions of other commenters here, perhaps you should contact Discord? And as for Windows, I honestly don't know what you're going for here. Yes, games run "fine" on Windows, we are in agreement here. Many games also run "fine" on Linux, and that has been my argument from the start. If your concession is "it runs fine if you aren't tech savvy", then it sounds like this whole point is moot and we're back to square one.
This is splitting hairs. You were making out like it "just worked". It doesn't for me and I know plenty of other people that have run into the problems.
> I'm sorry that Discord streaming doesn't work for you. It sounds like an isolated issue judging from the reactions of other commenters here, perhaps you should contact Discord?
It does "work". The problem is the performance is crap. I have far better GPU than you do and I have a pretty decent CPU, so if you were playing the same game you would have it worse. The fact that it is that variable is the problem. It just quicker and easier to reboot into Windows and not have to deal with the issue at all. Which is the real point I am driving at.
> Many games also run "fine" on Linux, and that has been my argument from the start. If your concession is "it runs fine if you aren't tech savvy", then it sounds like this whole point is moot and we're back to square one.
They don't run fine on Linux . If you have even the most non-standard screen configuration things do not work correctly (as I said in my original post) and I have the same problem on different distros on different machines I own (I have some computers in the graveyard with different GPUs). I have messed around with GPU pass through (GT1030s are garbage so regular desktop video playback was poor but the gaming worked fine).
Gaming on linux is a massive compormise in terms of either quality, reliablility, performance or compatibility. You cheer leading to people in your comment and giving them a false impression of the situation will just sour those that attempt it against using alternative operating systems (I am an operating system enthusiast and I use some very odd things for fun).
But it is rarely an issue with new-ish games (in Windows). But is a big issue in Linux with proton with a lot of games I've tried. Rome Total War 2 (which was at the time infamous for it bugs) could be minimised and left running for hours without issue and that is quite an old game now.
PC Gaming has long been a brittle experience due to moving OS and hardware targets.
People usually have problems when they have bad hardware, gunked driver installs. As for the overhead of Windows. Linux and Windows benchmarks on games (from many many sites, even places like phoronix) show that framerates on games that have native versions of each are about the same.
So at no point does it make my point moot. Windows does not need any special configuration with the vast-vast-vast majority of games. Many things just work and that does include a lot of older games (btw compatibility with older software has actually improved under 10).
You mis-characterising what I said doesn't negate the fact that many of the things I mentioned are issues in my original comment are real problems that continue to exist (and have existed for many years) and are unlikely in my opinion to be ever be fixed. You and many other pretending they don't exist doesn't make them go away.
With that being said, I truly and honestly believe Linux is the way to go if you're not into multiplayer. Valve's commitment to Linux is nothing short of herculean, and it's heartwarming to see them give back to the open source community in such a remarkable way. If it weren't for Proton (and DXVK), I'd still be using Windows on my main computer, which made development hell. Now, I feel comfortable moving to a system where I can enjoy Overwatch, Titanfall and Team Fortress on a regular basis without dual-booting.