Dying Light 2 Stay Human is out and works well on Linux

Worse than that.
They have vulkan and still use d3d.

I remember that Vulkan API was still an infant API at the time, not many hardware supported it and lacked of many resources. Nowhere near as stable and resourceful as it is today.

Add this to the fact that they where probably already developing it before the release (due to steam machines at the time) and you can see that they didn't have choice besides going for OpenGL.

Of course nowadays the opposite is true.

I'm pretty giddy about this working out of the gate. I'll need to check the recommended specs, though. My GTX 1070 is nice, but it's not RTX 2080 Ti nice. :)

Any word on how well the multiplayer works, especially the cross-platform multiplayer?


Last edited by Nanobang on 5 February 2022 at 3:52 pm UTC

Any word on how well the multiplayer works, especially the cross-platform multiplayer?

It appears there are some co-op issues, with it possibly crashing https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/5542 however the first comment notes it worked fine on a specific Proton version so it's a bit odd.

That said, Techland did note that there were some issues overall with multiplayer too even on Windows. https://twitter.com/DyingLightGame/status/1489607307164106758?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Dear gamers, thank you for your feedback. Two things on the top of our list: disconnects in co-op mode and problems with redeeming awards, codes, and other in-game content, including Twitch Drops from TechlandGG. Our team is on it. We will update you on the progress.

Last edited by Liam Dawe on 5 February 2022 at 3:59 pm UTC

Could it be that many game developers are a bit like the people who work at Microsoft? People who are (in general) incomprehensibly lazy, do nothing positive all day, get the most worthless work results imaginable, but still become the richest people in the world because of the behavior of the average person.

Conspiracy theories (that might be partially true) aside, the reason is the same as always:
Profit vs Development costs vs Shareholders deadline

Big companies usually opted to DirectX because , besides cultural history, they have more developers with experience and more tools compatible with

If a big company is going to develop a new non-exclusive AAA game, I imagine this is their priority list:

1 - DirectX 11(for now): supported on pre windows 10 system and xbox
2 - DirectX 12: not supported on pre windows 10 system, but supported on modern ones and more powerful that dx11. Also supported on xbox
3 - GNM/GNMX: supported on play station 4/5
4 - Nintendo switch: Using unity or other compatible engine if the hardware supports
5 - Vulkan(windows): supported on modern hardware and some pre windows 10 systems, as a alternative to directx but without the burden of officially support another system

There's also the fact that AAA companies almost never develop a game from scratch, they usually work with assets from their other games (or from the companies they bough) and modify it to make a new game, and most of the time those assets are directX dependent. There's also the fact that these work are made by humans, so they need time to learn how to properly work with a brand new api, and because directx is on the market for years, is very easy to find developers that are already experienced with Dx development (kind of a smaller chicken and egg case)

The same can be said of many new games that will be released this year. Super small developers (like with the game Valheim) can use Vulkan and support Linux and make a very popular game.

Independent developers usually doesn't have a shareholder deadline to meet, and the fact that they usually have smaller and more centered teams means that most of the team knows exactly how the game is being made. Big companies uses developers from various parts of the world, some of them might never have direct contact to others, just a bunch of people developing single pieces of code, then merging together for the quality team to test. Like an open source project, but without the community to test and report bugs and with a deadline to met.

There's one thing that saddens me about this game is that, back then when they attempt to make a native version, they didn't had vulkan and the linux graphics were in a sorrow state. That resulted in a (opengl) poor performant native version specially compared to the later Proton that made use of a more performant API.

Nowadays they have everything to make a great port for a linux version, thanks to so much investment that was made along those years, but there's almost no probability that we'll see another attempt to make it, due to the problems with their first attempt, and the fact that Proton justifies the lack of reason to work with anything that isn't DirectX.

At least we can somehow play the game on linux and hope that they don't put any kind of anticheat latter.

Who in their right mind would forego Proton and thus Valve's guarantee for third-party support by opting to go Linux native and getting to face the bureaucratic and development nightmare that is venturing out to a new, unexplored platform all by themselves? No one. We have to face it, Valve's presence is what had made Linux gaming into what it is, and Proton is what has allowed Valve to bite the bullet and invest into Linux. So for all practical purposes Proton is Linux gaming, and will be for the foreseeable future.

When you buy something, you're paying for support too, so why paying full price for a software that is completely unsupported on your platform, where platform can be Linux in general?

Hmm, no, in my case I personally pay to be able to enjoy the story/gameplay of the game and repay the devs for the effort they put into making it. Support is usually a byproduct.

There is absolutely no excuse that the big developers can not support Linux

There is, and the key word here is "big". For small developers, supporting something new is easy because they lack the red tape and the established practices and the concerned shareholders that big developers have to account for, which usually puts them into a mindset of "don't fix what is not broken". If they already have an established business making games with DirectX and bringing them money in by the bucket, then they sure as hell not going to jeopardize that for the sake of a platform with minuscule market share. That's why Linux must first become a lucrative platform before some of the big devs will maybe get convinced to invest into it. And that's why we need Valve and Proton.

At the moment my biggest problem is the fact that the game doesn't know what a mouse is…
Extra buttons and wheel are not working at all (cannot be assigned). I use macro with Piper as a workaround but apparently extra buttons are not even implemented (https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2742770845.


Last edited by Bogomips on 5 February 2022 at 5:45 pm UTC

Any word on how well the multiplayer works, especially the cross-platform multiplayer?

It appears there are some co-op issues, with it possibly crashing https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/5542 however the first comment notes it worked fine on a specific Proton version so it's a bit odd.

That said, Techland did note that there were some issues overall with multiplayer too even on Windows. https://twitter.com/DyingLightGame/status/1489607307164106758?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Dear gamers, thank you for your feedback. Two things on the top of our list: disconnects in co-op mode and problems with redeeming awards, codes, and other in-game content, including Twitch Drops from TechlandGG. Our team is on it. We will update you on the progress.

Thank you for taking the time to write such a thoroughgoing response. Really, that was nice. And it sounds to me like the sort of rough edges most big games have upon release. I'm confident it'll get sorted sooner than later.


Last edited by Nanobang on 5 February 2022 at 4:30 pm UTC

Who in their right mind would forego Proton and thus Valve's guarantee for third-party support by opting to go Linux native and getting to face the bureaucratic and development nightmare that is venturing out to a new, unexplored platform all by themselves? No one. We have to face it, Valve's presence is what had made Linux gaming into what it is, and Proton is what has allowed Valve to bite the bullet and invest into Linux. So for all practical purposes Proton is Linux gaming, and will be for the foreseeable future.

Read carefully and you will notice that this was exactly what I've said in the comment you quoted.

When the first port of Dying light was made, proton didn't existed yet and Vulkan was still an early tech. Now Vulkan is in a state that they could made a very good native version, but the lack of steam machines hype and Proton existence justifies they not tempting to do it a second time, and that's the sad part about it.

No this is not "Gaming on Linux". This is gaming in Windows emulator, that runs on Linux.
So I could play PSX or Amiga games and say it's "gaming on Linux".
No.
Gaming on Linux is when a game runs on Linux.

No this is not "Gaming on Linux". This is gaming in Windows emulator, that runs on Linux.
So I could play PSX or Amiga games and say it's "gaming on Linux".
No.
Gaming on Linux is when a game runs on Linux.

Hey I get your frustration, I stick to native games as well, but you might want to take a look at GOL's posting rules before you run further afoul of them:

- Talking about zealotry, we are Gaming On Linux and not "Gaming on Linux only native titles or GTFO". If you be a nuisance when talking about Steam Play / Proton, DOSBox, Wine, Cloud Gaming, Emulation and so on, we will give warnings and take further action if needed. Allow people to enjoy what they want, don't be a gate keeper. We don't need constant comments about how you won't buy a game if it's not native, as just one example.

There's one thing that saddens me about this game is that, back then when they attempt to make a native version, they didn't had vulkan and the linux graphics were in a sorrow state. That resulted in a (opengl) poor performant native version specially compared to the later Proton that made use of a more performant API.
...

Interesting, I've been wondering why for some titles using proton performs better than some native ports; this explanation makes sense to me.

It performed so bad that it can't be due to the api or the bad drivers because:
1 there are examples of opengl games that perform much better
2 Drivers now are fine, but it still performs bad.

Much of the first opengl ports were just bad coded or badly wrapped.

That the first Dying Light performed bad on Linux is news to me, now I don't know how much different it would run on Windows on my hw since I don't have Windows anywhere, but I have 117 hours into the first game and performance for me is extremely good (RX480).

I'm still deeply impressed by that Proton layer tech.

I'm still messing with settings but, surprisingly, after changing Sharpness from 45 (default, I think) to 60 the game looked and played smoother. I've 'FSR, Quality' setting and, while I found it playable, there was noticeable chunkiness. I'm finding the parkour not as refined as DL1 and, I haven't tried again yet since the update, but I can't bind my mouse's side buttons, but those aren't Linux related problems. Other than that I'm enjoying the game and going back and forth between this and God or War.


Last edited by StalePopcorn on 5 February 2022 at 7:41 pm UTC

I'm still messing with settings but, surprisingly, after changing Sharpness from 45 (default, I think) to 60 the game looked and played smoother. I've 'FSR, Quality' setting and, while I found it playable, there was noticeable chunkiness. I'm finding the parkour not as refined as DL1 and, I haven't tried again yet since the update, but I can't bind my mouse's side buttons, but those aren't Linux related problems. Other than that I'm enjoying the game and going back and forth between this and God or War.

I have a Logitech mouse so I used Piper to assign keypad's key via macro to the side buttons but you can also look at this post https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2742770845

Ha, so I pre-ordered it for the PS4 (I would have gotten the PS5 for me and the PS4 version for my brother, but had read for some reason PS4 and PS5 players can't play together... yet.) but of course what happens? My brother's copy shows up on the correct day of launch... mine still says it hasn't shipped, and I literally ordered them back to back, and we are in the same state...

There's one thing that saddens me about this game is that, back then when they attempt to make a native version, they didn't had vulkan and the linux graphics were in a sorrow state. That resulted in a (opengl) poor performant native version specially compared to the later Proton that made use of a more performant API.
...

Interesting, I've been wondering why for some titles using proton performs better than some native ports; this explanation makes sense to me.

It performed so bad that it can't be due to the api or the bad drivers because:
1 there are examples of opengl games that perform much better
2 Drivers now are fine, but it still performs bad.

Much of the first opengl ports were just bad coded or badly wrapped.

That the first Dying Light performed bad on Linux is news to me, now I don't know how much different it would run on Windows on my hw since I don't have Windows anywhere, but I have 117 hours into the first game and performance for me is extremely good (RX480).

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kKdT3RuL9jQ

When you buy something, you're paying for support too, so why paying full price for a software that is completely unsupported on your platform, where platform can be Linux in general?

Hmm, no, in my case I personally pay to be able to enjoy the story/gameplay of the game and repay the devs for the effort they put into making it. Support is usually a byproduct.

It is not about what you want to pay for, but what builds the price you're gonna pay.
And support is part of the offer, because a lot of people care about it.
Without support, prices would be way lower, because it is a cost for the developer.

So that the right price for an unsupported software is lower than the full price; it's just math.

Granted, you're free to pay more or even give extra tips to devs if you think they deserve it.


Last edited by kokoko3k on 5 February 2022 at 10:52 pm UTC

Worse than that.
They have vulkan and still use d3d.

I remember that Vulkan API was still an infant API at the time, not many hardware supported it and lacked of many resources. Nowhere near as stable and resourceful as it is today.

Add this to the fact that they where probably already developing it before the release (due to steam machines at the time) and you can see that they didn't have choice besides going for OpenGL.

Of course nowadays the opposite is true.

Indeed, i was talking about nowdays.
They went to dx11 and 12, leaving vulkan behind.

Indeed, i was talking about nowdays.
They went to dx11 and 12, leaving vulkan behind.

Unfortunately prioritizing DirectX grants free xbox support

Indeed, i was talking about nowdays.
They went to dx11 and 12, leaving vulkan behind.

Unfortunately prioritizing DirectX grants free xbox support

What about vulkan and d3d12 then :) ?


Last edited by kokoko3k on 6 February 2022 at 6:46 am UTC