I’m glad to see this community picking up, the old sub is probably the community I’ll miss the most from Reddit.
How about a discussion topic? Native Linux games!
Gaming on Linux has absolutely never been better. I’ve been using Linux for 6+ years now, and I’ve been daily driving it since Proton first launched. I don’t even check ProtonDB anymore, I just buy games and they work. It’s amazing. However, it feels like native games almost always have an extra step, forcing Proton.
A lot of people predicted this when Proton launched, but the moment it got really bad for me is when I switched to Wayland. Native games that used to work under X11 suddenly stopped working never to be fixed, but the Windows version with Proton continued to work just fine.
I skimmed through the native Linux games in my library to get examples. In all of these cases, forcing Proton fixed the problem. The only two games with functional Linux ports that came to mind are Stardew Valley and Zachtronics Solitaire Collection.
- CrossCode – Controller didn't work.
- N++ – Crashes on startup.
- NeoDash – Controller didn't work.
- Bioshock Infinite – Awful performance, possibly still broken because of 2k launcher thing?
- Hexologic – Game breaking level bug in Linux port.
- DiRT Rally – Awful performance.
- Drawer – Crashes on startup.
- Super Meat Boy – Last level runs too fast and the game breaks.
- I also remember having trouble with DiRT 4 and one of the Tomb Raider games, but I can’t remember what was happening.
It’s gotten to the point where if I experience a single issue with a native game, I just immediately force Proton instead of wasting time troubleshooting, and that strategy hasn’t failed me yet.
So, here are some discussion questions. You don’t have to answer all (or any) of these if you have a more interesting thought to add!
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What do you think of the state of native Linux games? Has your experience been different from mine?
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More and more developers are choosing to officially support Proton rather than maintain a native Linux version. This is resulting in a better experience in the short-term, but will that have consequences in the long run?
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In the above cases, the community seems more accepting of indie developers going this route due to their more limited resources. Do you agree with that, or do you treat these cases the same as larger studios doing the same?
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Do you think this will change in the future? Linux market share is slowly but surely ticking up. Do you think there’s a threshold where studios start putting effort into native ports again, or will Proton be the way forward indefinitely?
EDIT: Formatting improvements
Here's a potentially unpopular opinion... Games that target the Proton API are actually native Linux games. Proton isn't virtualization or emulation, it's just an API that happens to be mostly compatible on both Windows and Linux. Other than the kernel itself, Linux has never had one true API to do anything... there's always more than one option to target (as you note with your Wayland/x11 example, but also pulse, alsa, pipewire, the list is endless). Proton is an API that's available on Linux, and programs that target the Proton API are Linux programs in every way that matters.
The question isn't native vs proton. The question is whether proton is a good API. At the moment, it's an API that offers pretty good cross platform compatibility with windows, which is hugely valuable to developers and they're using Proton for that reason and even testing against it. That's good for us as users and for gaming on Linux.
If Windows evolves their versions of the proton APIs in ways that break compatibility and are difficult to fix, we may find that game devs complain on our behalf to avoid breaking their Linux builds. If Proton begins to suck compared to alternatives, and enough people are playing games on Linux with Proton, devs will organically start to look at other porting options more seriously. But Proton is both a way to kickstart the chicken/egg problem, and itself may just actually be a good API to develop Linux games against.
Philosophically there isn't much difference between a Windows game running in Proton and a native Linux game. Devs that port games to Linux are going to be doing most of the same things Proton is doing anyway. In that sense, Proton is basically just an automatic porting tool that works in real time. And I'd like to say there is still value in native Linux games but... is there? Proton is open source, so devs could (theoretically) just submit changes to it themselves if they want to optimize things or fix bugs. And that could benefit everyone, not just that one game.