Proton is... Very Good

cybereality

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Wow! I'm trying to switch to Ubuntu as a daily driver and have been giving the Steam beta and Proton a test.

It is actually really good. I'm surprised how many games work, and performance is fine.

I even found a way to get Flawless Widescreen to work with it, very surprised it's even possible with a memory/injection type program.

Haven't tried too many games, but DOOM runs perfect, also tried Remember Me and Bioshock Remastered. Linux native games like Celeste, Axiom Verge, and DIRT Rally all ran fine too.

I was keeping Windows around for gaming, but honestly, Linux gaming is viable now with Proton. In any case, I'm okay with consoles like Nintendo Switch. So seeing less and less reason to use Windows at all.
 
Wow! I'm trying to switch to Ubuntu as a daily driver and have been giving the Steam beta and Proton a test.

It is actually really good. I'm surprised how many games work, and performance is fine.

I even found a way to get Flawless Widescreen to work with it, very surprised it's even possible with a memory/injection type program.

Haven't tried too many games, but DOOM runs perfect, also tried Remember Me and Bioshock Remastered. Linux native games like Celeste, Axiom Verge, and DIRT Rally all ran fine too.

I was keeping Windows around for gaming, but honestly, Linux gaming is viable now with Proton. In any case, I'm okay with consoles like Nintendo Switch. So seeing less and less reason to use Windows at all.

It is good to hear you are having good experiences with it. Personally, I do not see a reason to do either or with Operating Systems when we can enjoy all of them today. :) When you mean performance is fine, what are you saying? That all the things in the games you tired worked as designed? It is Steam only games and if so, what about EA, UPlay, and Epic Games store? What about all the Direct2drive downloads I have, downloaded games from Amazon and my DVD and CD based games?

I ask you personally because you said you are going to switch, which is cool, I used to try that back in the day myself. But, it sounds like you are speaking about Steam supplied games only in this post, right?
 
Using a combination of SteamPlay/Proton and Lutris I can literally play ~80% of the titles I used to play under Windows and performance is fine - In fact performance is great.

Currently getting right back into Diablo III. The only games I play under Windows now are retro titles under Windows 2000 on a Pentium 3, UT for the win! I can do this under Linux also, but the nostalgia is great with Win 2000.
 
ManofGod To be realistic, I will probably have a dual boot for a while because some things will likely be Windows only for the near future.

My plan was just try to do as much as I can in Linux (for example, trying to learn GIMP rather than booting into Windows for Photoshop).

Most of what I do on the computer (besides gaming) is programming, and the development tools on Linux are actually pretty good or maybe better than Windows. And day to day web browsing with Firefox is nearly identical.

So the big thing was gaming. I know certain things will probably not come to Linux immediately (like DX12 ray-tracing) but this maybe is not a deal breaker (I do see that G-Sync is working now).

And yes, I am talking about Steam games, since I have like 700 games and I don't use other storefronts as much.

Also, I find my Nintendo Switch and PS4 Pro to be enjoyable experiences. Honestly considering that PC gaming is not as important to me now, there aren't too many PC exclusives any longer, it's not what it once was (or maybe I'm just getting old, lol).
 
Mazzspeed Yeah, I will try more games but compatibility and performance looked good (granted I have a 2080 Ti, but I did not notice unnecessary slow-down in the games I tried).

I did search a sample of titles on ProtonDB and it looked like lots of games I have work. I will say I saw a few small issues, UI oddness, extra load time, etc. but not things that ruined the game.

The reviews on ProtonDB were also helpful for command options to fix any problems. Overall I am very impressed and hope Valve promotes it when it comes out of beta.
 
ManofGod To be realistic, I will probably have a dual boot for a while because some things will likely be Windows only for the near future.

My plan was just try to do as much as I can in Linux (for example, trying to learn GIMP rather than booting into Windows for Photoshop).

Most of what I do on the computer (besides gaming) is programming, and the development tools on Linux are actually pretty good or maybe better than Windows. And day to day web browsing with Firefox is nearly identical.

So the big thing was gaming. I know certain things will probably not come to Linux immediately (like DX12 ray-tracing) but this maybe is not a deal breaker (I do see that G-Sync is working now).

And yes, I am talking about Steam games, since I have like 700 games and I don't use other storefronts as much.

Also, I find my Nintendo Switch and PS4 Pro to be enjoyable experiences. Honestly considering that PC gaming is not as important to me now, there aren't too many PC exclusives any longer, it's not what it once was (or maybe I'm just getting old, lol).

Good job. Don't rule out Lutris either, once you get your head around it, it's terribly simple to use.
 
Wow! I'm trying to switch to Ubuntu as a daily driver and have been giving the Steam beta and Proton a test.

It is actually really good. I'm surprised how many games work, and performance is fine.

I even found a way to get Flawless Widescreen to work with it, very surprised it's even possible with a memory/injection type program.

Haven't tried too many games, but DOOM runs perfect, also tried Remember Me and Bioshock Remastered. Linux native games like Celeste, Axiom Verge, and DIRT Rally all ran fine too.

I was keeping Windows around for gaming, but honestly, Linux gaming is viable now with Proton. In any case, I'm okay with consoles like Nintendo Switch. So seeing less and less reason to use Windows at all.

From the brief look I did, Proton is a separate download and install from Steam, right?
 
From the brief look I did, Proton is a separate download and install from Steam, right?
If you join the Steam client beta, it is all integrated into Steam. You just install a game from Steam just like Windows and play, and for some games that is it.

Some of the time you will need minor configuration changes, renaming an exe file, adding command line launch parameters in Steam, etc. but it is not very complex.
 
If you join the Steam client beta, it is all integrated into Steam. You just install a game from Steam just like Windows and play, and for some games that is it.

Some of the time you will need minor configuration changes, renaming an exe file, adding command line launch parameters in Steam, etc. but it is not very complex.

Thanks, now i just have to figure out how to install the latest AMD driver so that my games will launch correctly. Games will not launch although Steam opens and therefore, I figure it is the driver itself. (Vega 56 Card installed.)
 
From the brief look I did, Proton is a separate download and install from Steam, right?

Proton is a Valve open source project spun off from wine. DXVK is the valve project at its hart. DXVK is only really a little over a year old. Valve didn't admit to being behind it until they launched steam play. They have been paying the DXVK developers salary. DXVK translates DX 10 and DX 11 into Vulkan.

Valve uses their Proton and DXVK projects to power Linux steam play. As cr says install the Linux steam launcher... go into settings turn on steam play. (and really turn on the "beta" steam play for all titles option) After that the launcher will attempt to install any windows title into a Proton bottle (just like a wine bottle... proton has a few enhancements for more reliable/faster game operation)... it will also install DXVK if the title isn't native Vulkan. They are working on a DX12 wrapper... and they I believe use the already included in Wine DXV9 for DX9 only titles. The result is ya 75-80% of all windows titles... you click install and run them just like you would under windows and really don't notice any difference. For the rest a few can be made to work with a few tweaks to command line options. (like forcing the loading of specific libraries ect) There is still around 5-10% that are just borked up at the moment. Although many get fixes at some point then work just fine. The list of perfect working titles grows with pretty much every patch.

Having said all that... you will see DXVK downloads, and install packages for different distros. As well as proton builds. The cool thing with them being open source. If you really don't like steam. You can still use their tools to run windows games under Linux without their launcher. It won't likely be a single click and go experience like steam play but it does give you a bit more control if you want to run different versions of proton ect for instances where a patch may have caused an issue or something. Lutris a popular Linux gaming installer does just that... they have install scripts for 1000s of games and many newer AAA titles scripts will use specific propose compiled versions of proton or wine with DXVK ect.

https://www.protondb.com/
This is always a good site to keep book marked. If your a Linux only gamer and you want to know if that game Valve has on sale for 2 bucks or something works under Linux... check the DB. People often post the sometimes required little tips as well for better performance ect.
 
Thanks, now i just have to figure out how to install the latest AMD driver so that my games will launch correctly. Games will not launch although Steam opens and therefore, I figure it is the driver itself. (Vega 56 Card installed.)

Which distro are you running... With AMD there really shouldn't be any driver to install. AMDs recommended Linux gaming drivers are the open source ones. As long as your distro is running a recent kernel... and a newer version of MESA you should be golden. For the most part that isn't a problem with rolling releases like Manjaro / Arch / Suse Tumbleweed.... but for things like Ubuntu you may want to find a PPA for the latest MESA open source drivers.
 
Which distro are you running... With AMD there really shouldn't be any driver to install. AMDs recommended Linux gaming drivers are the open source ones. As long as your distro is running a recent kernel... and a newer version of MESA you should be golden. For the most part that isn't a problem with rolling releases like Manjaro / Arch / Suse Tumbleweed.... but for things like Ubuntu you may want to find a PPA for the latest MESA open source drivers.

I only use the LTS version of Ubuntu, in this case, 18.04.
 
I only use the LTS version of Ubuntu, in this case, 18.04.

I think most Ubuntu gamers use the Padoka PPA for the MESA drivers. (the Ubuntu LTS ones are likely pretty old... but should still run most games I think) Padoka stable should actually be more stable then the old Ubuntu LTS libraries.

https://launchpad.net/~paulo-miguel-dias/+archive/ubuntu/pkppa/

On the kernel... Your distro shipped with kernel 4.15 which is pretty old now and AMD has released a lot of Vega fixes since then.

I think this article should properly explain what you would want to do.
https://itsfoss.com/ubuntu-hwe-kernel/
No external stuff needed just need to install the latest point release then command it to use the newest kernel. Ubuntu leaves the old kernel running even after the point release by default.

With kernel 5+ and the latest MESA stable you should be golden for gaming. You can run bleeding edge kernels and mesa if you want... I don't in general bother with that myself unless there is some big fix in them I have been waiting for or something. lol
 
I think most Ubuntu gamers use the Padoka PPA for the MESA drivers. (the Ubuntu LTS ones are likely pretty old... but should still run most games I think) Padoka stable should actually be more stable then the old Ubuntu LTS libraries.

https://launchpad.net/~paulo-miguel-dias/+archive/ubuntu/pkppa/

On the kernel... Your distro shipped with kernel 4.15 which is pretty old now and AMD has released a lot of Vega fixes since then.

I think this article should properly explain what you would want to do.
https://itsfoss.com/ubuntu-hwe-kernel/
No external stuff needed just need to install the latest point release then command it to use the newest kernel. Ubuntu leaves the old kernel running even after the point release by default.

With kernel 5+ and the latest MESA stable you should be golden for gaming. You can run bleeding edge kernels and mesa if you want... I don't in general bother with that myself unless there is some big fix in them I have been waiting for or something. lol

Well, I just installed the PPA from these directions: https://github.com/lutris/lutris/wiki/Installing-drivers I installed Lutris and that is where I was directed. The computer rebooted and came back up correctly. So, do you think the kernel version is why Batman Arkham Knight is not opening in Steam with Steamplay and Proton?
 
Well, I just installed the PPA from these directions: https://github.com/lutris/lutris/wiki/Installing-drivers I installed Lutris and that is where I was directed. The computer rebooted and came back up correctly. So, do you think the kernel version is why Batman Arkham Knight is not opening in Steam with Steamplay and Proton?

https://www.protondb.com/app/208650

It looks like that game is still a bit of a PITA unfortunately. A few people there have reported getting it working, if not perfectly using Lutris install scripts. I don't know millage may very on that one. Of course the one game you go to try is listed as borked. lmao Sorry man.

The most recent report seems to say it works on Manjaro anyway... but that is a lot of Borked reports. Probably not the easiest game to get running well it seems.

Check the kernel your on though. with
uname -a
As I understand it if you are running the point release... you may actually be on a 5+ kernel anyway. If not its a simple fix. I would still suggest running a more current kernel. I have never had any issues running released kernels LTS or not. Only times I have had issues was with pre release stuff.
 
https://www.protondb.com/app/208650

It looks like that game is still a bit of a PITA unfortunately. A few people there have reported getting it working, if not perfectly using Lutris install scripts. I don't know millage may very on that one. Of course the one game you go to try is listed as borked. lmao Sorry man.

The most recent report seems to say it works on Manjaro anyway... but that is a lot of Borked reports. Probably not the easiest game to get running well it seems.

Check the kernel your on though. with
uname -a
As I understand it if you are running the point release... you may actually be on a 5+ kernel anyway. If not its a simple fix. I would still suggest running a more current kernel. I have never had any issues running released kernels LTS or not. Only times I have had issues was with pre release stuff.

Yeah, I wanted to try that game so I could run the benchmark for comparison. :D I think I will try Shadow of the Tomb Raider next, that is what i was playing and finished a couple of months ago. :D

Kernel is 5.0.0-32-generic
 
Yeah, I wanted to try that game so I could run the benchmark for comparison. :D I think I will try Shadow of the Tomb Raider next, that is what i was playing and finished a couple of months ago. :D

Kernel is 5.0.0-32-generic

Should be interesting to see how it goes.

https://www.protondb.com/app/750920

Its not a pure platinum release either. But its not borked. See a few people running 5.0.0.32 kernel pop os reporting platinum. Hopefully it goes smoothly. :)

I believe I also read... that a native version of that one is coming shortly. So you should be able to install a native Linux version hopefully soon anyway.

EDIT... went to dig it up... November 5th. Linux native. :)
http://www.feralinteractive.com/en/news/1005/
In the past windows games that got feral ports if I owned them on steam I had no issue downloading the Linux executables once they where released.
 
The title of this thread reminds me of Nethack. When you found a new item in the cave and it was evaluated... :D And if you got a cursed item it not only performed bad but it got stuck to your hand until you found a release spell lol.
 
I think my biggest issue is people being honest with protondb. A good example is with Divinity 2: Original Sin. Its labeled as gold/platinum but if you go through the comments, you have to jump through some major hoops just to get it to work. If people were honest, it would be a bronze at best but for some reason the community likes to talk things up and make them seem better than they are. If you go into it knowing that and with realistic expectations for proton, a feature that is still VERY much in its infancy, you will have a great time.
 
I think my biggest issue is people being honest with protondb. A good example is with Divinity 2: Original Sin. Its labeled as gold/platinum but if you go through the comments, you have to jump through some major hoops just to get it to work. If people were honest, it would be a bronze at best but for some reason the community likes to talk things up and make them seem better than they are. If you go into it knowing that and with realistic expectations for proton, a feature that is still VERY much in its infancy, you will have a great time.

Honestly, I ignore all those comments in relation to most titles. I download the game and run it, as yet any title marked as gold/platinum has never failed to run perfectly with absolutely no modification or jumping through hoops whatsoever - No matter what the comments claim.

Running most titles is no harder than running the same titles under Windows. Same with Lutris in many cases.
 
Honestly, I ignore all those comments in relation to most titles. I download the game and run it, as yet any title marked as gold/platinum has never failed to run perfectly with absolutely no modification or jumping through hoops whatsoever - No matter what the comments claim.

Running most titles is no harder than running the same titles under Windows. Same with Lutris in many cases.

My 2 most played games take several extra steps on Lutris/Proton. Squad and Divinity 2 Original Sin both take some terminal work to even launch. Its not ideal, but Its better than not playing them though.
 
My 2 most played games take several extra steps on Lutris/Proton. Squad and Divinity 2 Original Sin both take some terminal work to even launch. Its not ideal, but Its better than not playing them though.

I do have one title that has issues under Lutris...

Battlefield 4. It starts and runs, but audio is choppy in the menus and punkbuster keeps kicking me - Performance is OK though. Doesn't surprise me however, being an EA game and all.

But honestly, considering I'm running a Windows native title under Linux, I've been quite surprised at just how simple and effective the process is - And it's improving at a vast rate, the entire community seem determined to make it work this time.
 
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I never managed to run Doom in Vulkan mode on Linux. Am I doing it wrong? So far Vulkan on Linux is pain. My 5700 can't even run 2d with Vulkan installed
 
I never managed to run Doom in Vulkan mode on Linux. Am I doing it wrong? So far Vulkan on Linux is pain. My 5700 can't even run 2d with Vulkan installed

Really? Doom is the easiest game ever to run under Linux, it runs better than native Windows in my experience. Are you sure you weren't trying to get the Doom demo running? Because that doesn't work. However the full version should work perfectly.

Were you installing it via Steamplay/Proton?
 
Yeah, I’ve had no issues with Doom either. To have issues with Doom isn’t typical
 
My biggest problem with Doom is that I'm stuck on a particular level - Very frustrating!
 
Yeah, DOOM was the big launch title for Proton. It worked no problem on my machine.

Make sure your GPU drivers are up to date, and you may prefer the proprietary drivers.

Vulkan does work on Mesa, but it's not 100% conformant (last time I checked) so for Vulkan you are better of with Nvidia binary drivers (I think the situation with AMD may be better but I haven't tried recently).

You can try the test app "vulkaninfo" to see if Vulkan is properly installed and working.

DOOM was a moderate difficultly, but there was one room (with the trains) that is nearly impossible. I almost broke my thumbs trying to beat it (but I did manage somehow).
 
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Really? Doom is the easiest game ever to run under Linux, it runs better than native Windows in my experience. Are you sure you weren't trying to get the Doom demo running? Because that doesn't work. However the full version should work perfectly.

Were you installing it via Steamplay/Proton?

Read my post again. Yea, it runs on my 1070 but only OpenGL and that is a lot slower than Vulkan. Game crashes on launch after I changed graphics api to Vulkan. id has since removed OpenGL from their code, meaning the new game will only have Vulkan. That's good news but software in Linux land is still not there :|
 
Read my post again. Yea, it runs on my 1070 but only OpenGL and that is a lot slower than Vulkan. Game crashes on launch after I changed graphics api to Vulkan. id has since removed OpenGL from their code, meaning the new game will only have Vulkan. That's good news but software in Linux land is still not there :|

Are you sure you have everything in your distro needed to run it using Vulkan? You would be surprised how many distros there are where you need to jump through some hoops in terminal to install the API
 
I wish I had a 5700 xt to play with. Is OpenGL your only choice with the 1070? I reinstalled it just now and it defaulted to OpenGL but you click on it and Vulkan is the next option.
Not sure why the 5700 has issues with Vulkan.
 
Are you sure you have everything in your distro needed to run it using Vulkan? You would be surprised how many distros there are where you need to jump through some hoops in terminal to install the API

Well, I had to install Vulkan, yes. I had to run the Blizzard launcher
 
Works perfectly under Nvidia hardware, probably due to the fact that Vulkan comes packaged with the drivers.

Start the game via terminal and note the error when the game crashes.
 
I wish I had a 5700 xt to play with. Is OpenGL your only choice with the 1070? I reinstalled it just now and it defaulted to OpenGL but you click on it and Vulkan is the next option.
Not sure why the 5700 has issues with Vulkan.

But have you tried enabling the option? I did... several times. Game worked fine in OpenGL mode but crashes with Vulkan. It's frustrating reading on everyone's good experience when mine isn't
 
Did you run vulkaninfo? That may give you a clue to what the problem is. Or any other Vulkan game like Mad Max?
 
But have you tried enabling the option? I did... several times. Game worked fine in OpenGL mode but crashes with Vulkan. It's frustrating reading on everyone's good experience when mine isn't
Yeah, mine does work with Vulkan and you are right, it is frustrating. I have had issues that should have been easy fixes as well, only to embark on a journey through a private hell.

Hopefully someone can lead you in the right direction as Doom plays wonderfully on the system in my sig.
 
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