Given Proton can actually be faster on some windows games, there might be a legitimate use case for this.
It would also be useful for developers to use for testing. Low friction access to a Linux runtime environment would make it a lot more reasonable for Devs to support Linux as well.
That’s mostly down to DXVK, not Proton in general. You can’t really translate Windows API calls from Windows to … Windows. It wouldn’t change anything. Running games with Vulkan might though, especially with Intel Arc for example.
This is great. Proton is getting a lot of testing just based on Steam’s userbase and it is backed by Valve. We also have a lot of data on proton’s performance and potential game-specific fixes in the form of protondb. Making sure that non-Steam launchers can use all that work and information is crucial to guaranteeing the long-term health of linux gaming. Otherwise it is easy to imagine a future where proton is doing great but the other launchers are keep running into problems and are eventually abandoned.
One thing that I am curious is how this handles the AppId. If this AppId is used to figure out which game-specific fixes are needed, then it will have to be known. Do we have a tool/database that figures out the AppId from the game you are launching outside of Steam?
I hope it makes pirated games easier to launch on Linux. 👍 I’ve got about 5 different games I’ve yet to play cos I can’t be arsed looking into Proton command line flags.
Sounds like this would be easier to setup and use than Lutris though - dunno about everyone else but I'm always so very confused trying to get non-steam games running on linux, with all the custom paths, simulated folder structures and prefixes while steam apparently does it on its own out of the box.
If you’re looking for much simpler interface, Bottles should be good. It makes things pretty simple. Lutris is very powerful but also can be a bit overwhelming. Heroic is great too, but it’s more for installing stuff from Epic Store, GOG or Prime Gaming.
My biggest confusion (so far) with Heroic is its file structure, I had some bugs with BG3 and it took me forever to find where even the save files for backing them up are, less alone how to install and manage mods since I have both wine, proton, lutris terminology all over the place - not to mention that most guides are for steam deck rather than a desktop PC.
I might as well give Bottles a try too I guess. Will I have to redownload the games using their launcher or can they hook into already downloaded (heroic launcher) games?
I’m not sure. They do have a simple way to install EGS and use that though. For me all the Bottles saves and stuff is fairly simple, since it’s all inside the prefix, so I just back up the whole C:/Users.
It’s a bit of a bother that I’m stuck using several Wine solutions. Bottles is simplest for me. Lutris is a bit confusing with so many settings but some stuff that doesn’t work in Bottles or Heroic work there, for whatever reason. Heroic I use for EGS stuff and it seems to have good controller support, which IMO is lacking in Bottles (dunno if it can be fixed).
Alright, thanks! I'll give it a try one of these days. One last question if you don't mind - how reliable is the integrated backup / revert that bottles has, does it also revert saves if they are in the "fake" hierarchy like with heroic, does it mess up mods sometimes? I use Heroic for GOG and EGS stuff and just don't want to make it even less stable...
The snapshots? Afaik It works on the whole virtual drive basis, so if your saves are inside that (which they typically are, being inside c:/users) you’d revert those too. So you might want to revert installing a Windows dependency but unintentionally might lose your save you made after that. I think I got hit with that when I was playing. But for reverting changes to the virtual Windows, it works fantastic. You play around and fuck something up, it’s easy to go back to working state.
I’m doing additional c:/users backups for my saves. Helps with all sorts of accidental issues.
I see, so it's definitely not a replacement for a solid mod manager or anything like that, or maybe I setup a rsync to pull the saves out to an external location. Thanks!
It really depends whether he got the devs of "Lutris, Heroic, Legendary, Bottles, etc." to agree to use the unified runtime before starting this project. As long as he gets most of the big players to join then it will actually become the only standard worth using.
Unification of standards only works if everyone agrees to use it and only it (i.e. mobile phones and USB C), otherwise you're just adding another one to the pile.
My worry is Valve will look at the project and shut it down. Remember, Valve doesn’t care about your Linux, it only cares about money. Not having users on their Client side platform means less revenue and less ads to show.
Proton is open source. Valve has also been incredibly supportive of and is actively contributing to an open ecosystem for Linux and SteamOS. Desktop mode in SteamOS exists so end users can install whatever tools they want on it.
This doesn’t affect valve at all though. It’s borrowing their tech that they’ve made open source, and figuring out how to use it elsewhere outside of steam.
Actually, it’ll benefit them. More eyes are on proton and any fix will benefit everyone, including games played via steam.
It’s really up to the corporation whether they think it will benefit them. I agree that Valve has so far not been hostile toward GE, and it looks like proton has a very permissive license, but if it were any other digital storefront, doing anything to allow users to consume your content without using your storefront would be seen as at attack on their bottom line.
I’m actually curious how this new standard would potentially benefit other storefronts who haven’t natively supported Linux yet. If it’s going to make things easier for existing open source launchers, then it would also make things easier for competing launchers. I know as a consumer, I want GOG, Epic, EA, etc. supporting Linux, but does valve? I don’t know, maybe, maybe not. On the one hand, maybe they don’t want competition in their niche space, on the other hand, maybe they’ll do anything to take marketshare from msft.
Valve's Proton is open source but is it also free to use and distribute in commercial software? Cuz if so, there'd be nothing stopping GOG or Epic from implementing it already, they don't need this project at all
Valve’s Proton is open source but is it also free to use and distribute in commercial software?
Yes.
Valve’s Proton code is licensed under the BSD licence, which is a “do anything you like with this code” licence.
Wine code is under the LGPL. You can ship this in commercial software as long as you “make the source code available” (which, assuming the distributor isn’t modifying the Wine code further, can be achieved by just linking people back to the main Wine project code repository).
DXVK is licensed under zlib, which is functionally the same as the BSD licence.
Someone else already explained the licenses, but to your second point, yes, nothing stops any other launcher from using proton, which is what all the other open source launchers do. And yes, no one “needs” this project, just like we don’t “need” any standards for anything, but it could make things a lot cleaner and easier to support.
You’re the troll if you can’t explain why no one owns all the code. You can’t even accept the lawsuits that the people of America brought against to Valve Corporation.
Dont talk like you have anything worthwhile going when you refuse to acknowledge their crimes.
The code isn't the operating systems that Valve owns. networking 101, something connects to make the thing work. Not the code that follows the rules. Learn about it.
Afaik proton is BSD-3, and everything else important is part of wine which is LGPL. Sure, valve can be hostile if they choose, but they haven’t given themselves the legal tools to do much.
This is a bigger issue for hardware than software. This is why we can use heroic, proton, lutris, or whatever. And most programmers who can offload a part of their code onto another project that is doing the job well will. That’s exactly how Linux started.
It is a big issue for software. But usually companies are happy to try to trap users into their own thing, or developers are too arrogant to work with thee work on another developer.
You realize we’re talking about multiple projects based on WINE, which has had updates supplied by Valve, who has made a Linux distribution, which is based on multiple different projects all packaged together in one big install file, right?
Yes, you will get ego and “not invented here” syndrome in software, even in open software. But these groups are literally based on building off another person or group’s idea to make something better or easier.
Haven’t you heard of the stories ego or hubris that make projects split and die? Maybe you’re one of those people who think Linux was already fine 10 years ago and users should try a little bit to use it instead of setting for Windows without thinking?
Diversity is a strength. But hubris is a weakness. Inventing a new standard every 6 months is stupid.
C is 50 years old. Http is 30 years old, as is python. We forgot about fortrans, and it is a good thing. But you don’t build lasting things on technologies that are revolutionised every 6 months.
Isn’t one of the features of bottles etc that you can select different versions of wine on the fly per-app? This sounds like it’s meant to supersede that
It sounds like it’ll replace that functionality, but not eliminate the ability to select different versions. So instead of using whatever Bottles is doing, Bottles would use this mechanism to select WINE versions.
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From the naming it’s clear that GE wants this to be the new standard, but it’s not really a new standard. This is porting Steam’s launcher, which already exists, to non-Steam clients.
I’m tired of seeing devs on Discords and Slack channels jerk themselves raw with it every time they get any kind of negative feedback whatsoever on a change they pushed.
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