Escape Simulator drops the Linux build to focus on supporting Proton
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And then an update comes along and breaks compatibility. News stories about this are frequent.
A proton update? Just use the last version.
If you mean game update, this dev is targeting proton. As in their "linux support" will take the form of making sure they don't break anything on their end.
A proton update? Just use the last version.
I meant mostly game updates because developers get lulled into the belief that "Proton just works, don't need to test anything". Wine and Proton developers are not a huge team either. There is no guarantee that Proton will always work. That's even spelled out in the license. There were rare occurrences of a Proton update breaking a game. Granted, they are very rare but I had to switch to an older Proton release for a game once.
As in their “linux support” will take the form of making sure they don’t break anything on their end.
Their previous Linux support consisted of "maintaining the native build across many distros" instead of targeting only Steam Linux Runtime. Of course targeting a big number of Linux distributions is more work. Valve didn't release SLR for the lulz. It's a stable environment, based on Debian Stable.
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"Drops the Linux build to focus supporting proton" makes as much sense as "drops the windows build to focus supporting direct x in wine"
“Drops the Linux build to focus supporting proton” makes as much sense as “drops the windows build to focus supporting direct x in wine”
They could target WSL for Windows compatibility.
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Do you remember the days before proton? Like the time I couldn’t play Terraria for months because they didn’t have anyone in their dev team who could update the Linux version to keep it working. The workaround was to get the windows version working through wine.
Using wine to play windows games is something we have done for years before proton made it easier. It’s a very Linux thing to do. Even some old ports were just using wine wrappers.
Do you remember the days before proton?
The days before Proton are the days before Steam Linux Runtime because Proton runs on top of Steam Linux Runtime. It doesn't run on top of the host Linux libraries.
The problem with Linux ports isn't Linux, it's sloppy ports. The 1.0 Scout runtime wasn't properly containerized back in the day, so games could call host libraries. That changed with 2.0 Soldier (using Bubblewrap, the same tech used by Flatpak) but Valve made it hard to target 2.0 because game developers had to request its use from Valve. That changed with 3.0 Sniper last year.
Only the Escape Simulator developers know why they didn't switch over from "maintaining many distributions" to requesting SteamRT 2.0 Soldier years ago.
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As a cross platform developer I consider this incompetence.
That's not necessary a bad thing. The world is full of less experienced programmers. But they're making it look like it's a hassle to release for Linux when in reality you can foresee and plan for this from the start, without much overhead down the line.
But they’re making it look like it’s a hassle to release for Linux when in reality you can foresee and plan for this from the start, without much overhead down the line.
They have the overhead to support macOS, though:
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Fair. I'll take a working Windows build with proton over a janky Linux port any day of the week
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But they’re making it look like it’s a hassle to release for Linux when in reality you can foresee and plan for this from the start, without much overhead down the line.
They have the overhead to support macOS, though:
Linux has proton, Mac OS doesn't.
If they give half a shit about it then supporting the gam through proton is a lot less effort than making an actually good native linux version.
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Linux has proton, Mac OS doesn't.
If they give half a shit about it then supporting the gam through proton is a lot less effort than making an actually good native linux version.
Linux has proton, Mac OS doesn’t.
macOS has Apple Game Porting Toolkit which is just another Wine distribution for which developers made easy installers for. GPT + Windows version of Steam is how I played Counter Strike 2 against a Mac user just recently.
https://developer.apple.com/games/game-porting-toolkit/
That said, I didn't really expect someone with that Lemmy handle to know such things.
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It makes perfect sense to do this. You have no idea how much extra work it is to maintain a Linux-native version that works predictably across the entire range of Linux machine configurations. Factorio has one guy, raiguard (hallowed be his name), in charge of the Linux build, and he wrote a blog post about the unique challenges of supporting the Linux native build.
Proton is already known to be perfectly capable of running most games as good as or even better than Windows. Game developers can defer the issue of compatibility and focus on developing the game instead of having to implement client-side decorations for GNOME users.
I'm a software developer that releases for Linux. I know it's a pain. I'm just in the camp of thinking we should fix it instead of giving up.
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On the one hand, it's a shame in general, as Proton has truly been a pesky thorn on the foot for Linux gaming. There's a world of difference between having native, first-class support, and basically running every game on an emulator that is on a lease.
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On the one hand, it's a shame in general, as Proton has truly been a pesky thorn on the foot for Linux gaming. There's a world of difference between having native, first-class support, and basically running every game on an emulator that is on a lease.
wrote on last edited by [email protected]Yes, its such a thorn being able to finally drop windows and play all my games on linux.
God won't someone save us from this terrible miscarriage of justice. If we cant have perfection, then we don't deserve anything at all!
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As a cross platform developer I consider this incompetence.
That's not necessary a bad thing. The world is full of less experienced programmers. But they're making it look like it's a hassle to release for Linux when in reality you can foresee and plan for this from the start, without much overhead down the line.
Why do people attribute decisions like that to the competence of the programmers? This is a business decision, nothing else. Most likely, some MBA looked over the numbers, saw a few hundreds or thousands of hours logged for tasks related to supporting Linux, and decided that Proton was good enough. Most likely, no programmer was even asked whether Linux support should be dropped.
And yes, even if you know what you are doing, every build going out to tens of thousands of active players needs to be tested, and that costs time and thus money, which is something every experienced cross platform developer should know.
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Yes, its such a thorn being able to finally drop windows and play all my games on linux.
God won't someone save us from this terrible miscarriage of justice. If we cant have perfection, then we don't deserve anything at all!
you're missing the point. the linux gaming market is increasing, but proton is in some ways a crutch keeping proper linux support from games because its much easier to support just one platform rather than two.
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Linux has proton, Mac OS doesn’t.
macOS has Apple Game Porting Toolkit which is just another Wine distribution for which developers made easy installers for. GPT + Windows version of Steam is how I played Counter Strike 2 against a Mac user just recently.
https://developer.apple.com/games/game-porting-toolkit/
That said, I didn't really expect someone with that Lemmy handle to know such things.
I've been messing with that tool on and off from the day it was available to developers. I'm well aware of it. It's ass.
It's been a few months since I've used it so maybe it's gotten better? But this is Apple and gaming, so I don't have high hopes.
It's not at all comparable to proton other than it does the bare minimum to make a game work. All of the tools and tweaks that go into proton are what make it so good. Maybe for CS2 someones put in the work to make it ok. But whether it's through crossover, wiskey, or whatever else it's been awful for me. Maybe version 2 is better. But even then I doubt it will be as seamless or good as proton is.
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you're missing the point. the linux gaming market is increasing, but proton is in some ways a crutch keeping proper linux support from games because its much easier to support just one platform rather than two.
yes yes, if its not the perfect solution, then we should have no solution. its a tired old argument.
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Why do people attribute decisions like that to the competence of the programmers? This is a business decision, nothing else. Most likely, some MBA looked over the numbers, saw a few hundreds or thousands of hours logged for tasks related to supporting Linux, and decided that Proton was good enough. Most likely, no programmer was even asked whether Linux support should be dropped.
And yes, even if you know what you are doing, every build going out to tens of thousands of active players needs to be tested, and that costs time and thus money, which is something every experienced cross platform developer should know.
Why do people attribute decisions like that to the competence of the programmers?
Because supporting multiple platforms, especially in gaming, isn't magic or rocket science and almost always comes down to the setup of the toolchain.
This is a business decision
Very possible. But I go by their actual statement: "maintaining the native build across many distros was taking time away from developing new content". My point is regarding the "maintaining [...] across many distros" and not the "taking time away". A good toolchain would make these differences extremely minimal.
hundreds or thousands of hours logged for tasks related to supporting Linux
Extremely unlikely. That would mean more than 10 developers working fulltime purely on Linux support since the release of the game. According to their team page on their website they have 7 developers in total.
every build going out to tens of thousands of active players needs to be tested
This is why experienced developers decouple the game from the platform specific stuff and test them separately.
The game is made in Unity so most of the platform specific stuff should already be production ready. Unity literally markets their engine as "Industry-leading multiplatform support" with the motto "Create once, ship anywhere".
So my argument still stands. And as I said, it's not a bad thing. The only thing I dislike is the indirect implication of Linux being a hassle when it would be nicer if they would take more responsibility for it.
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yes yes, if its not the perfect solution, then we should have no solution. its a tired old argument.
i don't think anyone in this thread is saying we shouldn't have proton, but just that it is holding back actual linux development. I for one love my steamdeck and use proton all the time.
but facts are facts, and there are less games being developed for linux because of proton.
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i don't think anyone in this thread is saying we shouldn't have proton, but just that it is holding back actual linux development. I for one love my steamdeck and use proton all the time.
but facts are facts, and there are less games being developed for linux because of proton.
I have several native Linux games but I use the Windows version on proton because it's more reliable. The games used to work great but not so much anymore.
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On the one hand, it's a shame in general, as Proton has truly been a pesky thorn on the foot for Linux gaming. There's a world of difference between having native, first-class support, and basically running every game on an emulator that is on a lease.
It's not an emulator it's an abstraction layer for the DirectX API etc. They're similar in ways but not quite the same.
As for the difference in native support, well actually having such a later might mean longer support. Some older native games may not run well on future systems as libraries and the kernel change, whereas so long as proton runs, the older games should continue to work.
Proton also adds functionality that wasn't really in the native Windows, i.e. superior suspend and certain input mapping features.
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i don't think anyone in this thread is saying we shouldn't have proton, but just that it is holding back actual linux development. I for one love my steamdeck and use proton all the time.
but facts are facts, and there are less games being developed for linux because of proton.
i don’t think anyone in this thread is saying we shouldn’t have proton,
Really?
On the one hand, it’s a shame in general, as Proton has truly been a pesky thorn on the foot for Linux gaming
Cause that implies wanting to get rid of it. You don't tend to fondly keep as a momento the thorn in your foot.. you rip it out and get rid of it.
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I have several native Linux games but I use the Windows version on proton because it's more reliable. The games used to work great but not so much anymore.
Yeah, outside of Stardew Valley and minecraft, my experience with linux native games has been.. unpleasant. Meanwhile, the proton version of the same games have never given me issue.
