This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Yeah it has. I don't even bother looking at the supported operating systems for most games on Steam anymore. I also don't play overhyped microtransaction-laden bullshit like cod or fortnite, either, so no loss there. If I ever wanted to play that kind of game, I have a PS5.
So, my middle aged ass plays the microtransaction-laden bullshit known as Roblox because my 3rd grader and all his friends love it.
It doesn't even have a Linux version but thanks to the project "sober" it plays absolutely fantastically on Linux. I think they claim 2x the performance of the windows version. I just know I have a powerful but old system (8c/8t 9700k cpu and gtx1080 gpu) and I can lock it at 144fps at 1440p and it uses like 20% of my system resources. Not that it's a visually demanding game, lol.
Going all-in on my switch to Linux (my win10 partition for dual booting lasted less than two weeks) has had zero negative impact on my ability to play the games I want. In fact, it has led to me using my PC a lot more and my phone a lot less. Feels good.
I've suffered one loss, I can't play Mechabellum any more. But other than that my experience has been much the same, smooth across all fronts.
So, Valve has indeed done a lot to make Linux more attractive for gamers. It isn't perfect yet, but we are getting there. And yes, kernel-based anti-cheat is one of the reasons why it isn't perfect yet.
I'd argue kernel-based anticheats are one of the areas gaming on Linux excels. Video game developers should not have that level of permissions over consumers' machines, certainly with how little your average gamer understands the potential consequences of these rootkits. So the fact that all of the ones I know of can't be installed under Linux is more than acceptable, it's ideal.
Are they working on a fix for the kernel anti cheat? Is it possible?
Not really. But from a security perspective, giving software for a video game, done by InfinityWard, EA, Activision, Treyarch and similar, access to the lowest level of your operating systen is kinda insane.
I wouldn't want any personal data on such a device, let alone do online baking on that thing. It's weird how normalized it has become give entertainement-software this kind of power over your devices.
From Wikipedia:
Programs and subsystems in user mode are limited in terms of what system resources they have access to, while the kernel mode has unrestricted access to the system memory and external devices. Kernel mode in Windows NT has full access to the hardware and system resources of the computer.
From what I read, Microsoft is planning to kick anti-cheat out of the Windows kernel too, so maybe that will help on the Linux side as well.
Proton is the reason I daily drive Linux. That is a simple, unequivocal fact.
Not me! I switched in 2017, right around the time Windows 10 "telemetry" (read: spyware) was getting backported to Windows 7.
It was a rough first couple of years, gaming-wise, but I managed to get by playing mostly Linux-native games and using PlayOnLinux with pre-Proton WINE for the one or two games important enough to justify the hassle.
(INB4 "weird flex but OK")
I gotta admit, I was pretty conflicted about Proton when it was first announced, since there was a lot of fear that it would reduce developer impetus to make proper Linux-native games. I'm not actually sure whether that came to pass or not, but I feel like the issue is a lot less important than it seemed at the time.
weird flex but OK
Whatever allows us to leave the clusterfuck that is Windows is a blessing. M$ has had a monopoly for too long and I'm not paying for MacOS.
I love it! Not only do I use it on the Steam Deck, but also on my Desktop PC running Linux.
I'm getting back into PC gaming after being consult exclusive for a while. I'm assuming anything with kernel anti-cheat is still not trying to work which is a problem because it means I either have to buy a windows licence or mess around with a cracked one which has its own security concerns.
I think my plan is to dual boot and use Windows as little as often.
There's this handy list of online games with anti-cheat that are compatible with Linux. The majority isn't supported, but some major titles are, surprisingly.
Literally this week I learned that you need to install flatpak Nvidia drivers if you use flatpak Steam. Once I found that out, proton works great!
A sidestory to this is that Flatpak and AppImage have been miraculous boosts to Linux OS machines. After I figured out that ya gotta throw the --user flag into your flatpak installs so they don't jam up your / tree, and also throwing flatpak override --user xyz.app onto a few apps that benefit from universal access, things have been fine and dandy.
I continue to be happy with how awesome Linux has gotten just over the past 5 years.
Thank you Lord Gaben
Thank you to the workers who actually programmed, tested, and implemented the thing*
to his credit as a billionaire he could have paid all those people to do something that sucks way more
I'm glad he's not as evil as the other billionaires, but can we stop with the billionaire simping? Ironic that an account on a left-wing anarchist instance made that comment lmao
I want it to evolve to support more desktop applications. This is the one thing that will continue to hamper Linux adoption. Games are the best place to start, but we need all those old obscure, irreplaceable desktop apps to work now.
Get it to run Office and you've a game changer.
Yes, yes I know Libre/Open Office but try telling Shelly in Accounting who still struggles with Excel after 36 years of experience.
It's built on Wine, any general improvements to compatibility will generally support desktop programs using the same APIs
Common GabeN win
It's pretty cool.
Praise be to Gaben!
I really only miss fortnite and the ocassional call of duty warzone but other than those two or some multiplayer games Linux is far more enjoyable. Yeah I know this games and those companies but let someone enjoy something for once. Help me find a work around. Until then I dual boot mint and windows debloated as much as possible for only a few multiplayer games.
It's not that the companies should be boycotted, it's that they chose this themselves, the publishers choose these types of drm and anticheats when they could have included decency, neither the players, developers or elitists need to take any heat it's just a greedfaced choice for a publisher that carefully weighs gold against reputation and outrage, because they're a parasite on Earth, a made up elaborate middle man professional scam that; just like hedge funds provide heavy negative benefit to the human race, actively ruining our chances as a species to survive, a bloated boil about to burst and provide nothing but pox on everything they touch
