Feral Interactive have no plans to update their Linux ports for Steam Deck

Are you serious right now?

So, having a loot run in "Project Zomboid" or building an empire in "X4: Foundations" is somehow worthless, while shooting General Barkovs and G-12s at the "Death Road" or smashing Lenin statues while reading some weepy notes of "GULAG victims" in "Tomb Raider" is a worthwhile activity? Are you implying there are "True Gamers" playing only the best games, while my ex-boss (for example) playing some chess on his "Windows 98" PC at lunch breaks every day just wastes his time on garbage?

i dont know what kind of game YOU play, i do know what kind of game i played, i wasted tons of hours on shit games because they were "free" or stuff like that, i was so used to not have money to buy anything, that i start accepting any shit that was free as an alternative to not having anything to play, instead of pirating games like everyone else do.

i'm not saying YOU ARE WASTING YOUR TIME, i'm saying i am and i want to make sure that no one else does what i did.
that is why i'm asking you to reflect upon your actions.
are you really playing an game because its fun? or are you locked F.O.M.O. due to some gimicks like daily login reward?
i havent played tombraider to know if its worth, but i played a lot of games games like DDKR64 , and competing in the time trial against my brother was one of the best experiences ever, that i forgot how good it was when i got used to play any shit, forgot to value my time.

Please, come to your senses! We are discussing games, effectively a time wasters, no matter what appearance they have. There are no "must play" "cult classic" games, only those that are fun (to you) and those that are not. And "AAA" does not make a game fun. Expensive? Sure. Resource-demanding? Most probably (those GPUs won't sell themselves, after all). But fun? Nope.

I say it again: good riddance! Good bye to "lootboxes", "game passes", "microtransactions", "always-online DRM" and other exciting attributes of modern "AAA games".

yes i completely agree that gacha/lootbox, gamepasses, mtx, online drm, are BULLSHIT.
that is exactly the kind of experience that i recomend everyone to boycot.
that said, the moment that you use some thing as basis for comparission, is the moment i know you dont have anything better to compare with.

was kinda clear since hitman 2 did not get a linux version

you need people like 4A games. they made a linux version of metro 3, although it works pretty good with proton

sadly AAA games (onyl if they use directx) need a GOOD native port the most for best performance.
or mimimi games with desperados

if steam deck makes devs using VULKAN more often, then we wont see any disadvantage with proton anymore. that would be a big win against MS.

Are you serious right now?

So, having a loot run in "Project Zomboid" or building an empire in "X4: Foundations" is somehow worthless, while shooting General Barkovs and G-12s at the "Death Road" or smashing Lenin statues while reading some weepy notes of "GULAG victims" in "Tomb Raider" is a worthwhile activity? Are you implying there are "True Gamers" playing only the best games, while my ex-boss (for example) playing some chess on his "Windows 98" PC at lunch breaks every day just wastes his time on garbage?

i dont know what kind of game YOU play, i do know what kind of game i played, i wasted tons of hours on shit games because they were "free" or stuff like that, i was so used to not have money to buy anything, that i start accepting any shit that was free as an alternative to not having anything to play, instead of pirating games like everyone else do.

i'm not saying YOU ARE WASTING YOUR TIME, i'm saying i am and i want to make sure that no one else does what i did.
that is why i'm asking you to reflect upon your actions.
are you really playing an game because its fun? or are you locked F.O.M.O. due to some gimicks like daily login reward?
i havent played tombraider to know if its worth, but i played a lot of games games like DDKR64 , and competing in the time trial against my brother was one of the best experiences ever, that i forgot how good it was when i got used to play any shit, forgot to value my time.

Please, come to your senses! We are discussing games, effectively a time wasters, no matter what appearance they have. There are no "must play" "cult classic" games, only those that are fun (to you) and those that are not. And "AAA" does not make a game fun. Expensive? Sure. Resource-demanding? Most probably (those GPUs won't sell themselves, after all). But fun? Nope.

I say it again: good riddance! Good bye to "lootboxes", "game passes", "microtransactions", "always-online DRM" and other exciting attributes of modern "AAA games".

yes i completely agree that gacha/lootbox, gamepasses, mtx, online drm, are BULLSHIT.
that is exactly the kind of experience that i recomend everyone to boycot.
that said, the moment that you use some thing as basis for comparission, is the moment i know you dont have anything better to compare with.

I don't think you are talking to someone who doesn't know what their taste is, I think you're talking to someone with quite definitely decided preferences, and those preferences do not include AAA games. So you just come off like someone telling someone their taste is shit and they should like what you like, and really that doesn't work.

It would be more smart, if they would use Proton tech to manage the compatibility for games.

That way they could sell TW TWH3 from Release day on and do special optimizations.

But hey, they can use their in House tech too, deliver month later and probably without working multiplayer.

"Special optimisations" like....what, exactly?

Don't forget that there is a delay between when the Windows release goes out, and when Feral will receive all the appropriate updates that they can then work on. This is the main source of any delay in release on their part. Feral also have a lot of experience with the way the Total War engine works now, do tweak a lot to make it run quite well on GNU/Linux systems, and they've already proven that if it were up to them then cross-platform multiplayer would work just fine.

As it works OOTB with Proton, they could release it immediately and then do optimizations if needed.

So using the Proton tech would save them lots of time and maintain and optimizations can also be done.

And they will surely get it early enough for testing with Proton.

yes i completely agree that gacha/lootbox, gamepasses, mtx, online drm, are BULLSHIT.
that is exactly the kind of experience that i recomend everyone to boycot.
that said, the moment that you use some thing as basis for comparission, is the moment i know you dont have anything better to compare with.

I don't think you are talking to someone who doesn't know what their taste is, I think you're talking to someone with quite definitely decided preferences, and those preferences do not include AAA games. So you just come off like someone telling someone their taste is shit and they should like what you like, and really that doesn't work.[/quote]nah, what i was trying to say is:
it dont matter if the game is AAA or indie, dont give up on a good game just because it dont support linux, you may not fund it, but play it.

Sad? A bit - I enjoyed their ports, and I'm grateful they made them. Like Aspyr.

Surprised? Not in the least. If we think Proton *can* be an industry changer, some change in the side industries is inevitable.

Yep. Times change.

I used to think the state of Linux gaming was "perfect for me" 5 or even 10 years back because some indie devs did make the effort to port to Linux and brought superb titles. It was closer to my vision of what gaming should be - not a gigantic industry, titles not requiring super powerful machines. Not too many of them, but quite a few gems in most genres. And I used to buy directly from the devs, not funding some huge companies.

Now that basically everything works, it's just another way to get any game working. Of course, it's way easier & better for the consumer. But still, I don't feel like contributing anymore now. This whole Proton thing made me want to upgrade my machine and buy huge GPUs - exactly what I had been fighting for in the past 15 years. Fortunately, I could eventually get rid of it all !

Of course, I still have the choice to only get a couple of games from a couple of indie devs directly - through itch for instance. I just have to feeling Linux gaming was a sort of alternate universe, which induced some specific behaviors.

Oh well, there are more serious problems in the world.
Still, I regret the time the first Humble Indie Bundle was released.


Last edited by bidinou on 23 February 2022 at 8:57 am UTC

From what I know of such things, there are changes right up to the last minute. And don't forget the stuttering of shader compilation that can happen with using DXVK.

But these last minute changes did not prevent TW WH3 from running very well on Proton OOTB without special work being done for it.
And forcing shader compile at start is really not that problematic.

Then add on top that you've just suggested they knowingly release a sub-par experience because "it can be patched later" -

That is a common thing nowadays. TW WH3 is being worked on and if you really want Linux releases to be delayed until the time everything is optimized and nearly bug free - the market will be dead. No one wants to wait for a game that his friends on Windows already play.
Especially if they ask you to play with them in coop.

And then you keep saying "Proton" like it's a cure-all, which it isn't, and Valve can (and do) change it on a regular basis (making it a running target).

No, I did never say that. It is an existing tech that can be used to achieve the goal of sameday or at least same week releases.
And even if Valve changes things, the prior versions can still be used and optimizations for a special game can be made and also you could ship a game similar to a bottle with the Protonversion you like.
So where exactly is your moving target problem going?

There are reasons that very few games offer official "Proton" support. It might work fine, they might tweak to make it work ok, but how many actually officially support it? That number is less than you might think.

Of course, and the most shining reason is market share.
But if you do a port anyways and use a similar self developed technology instead of the existing one that works already, than your customers have to wait month longer, than the Windows customers....

Feral is not Feral anymore.

No they are they just dont have a business anymore because they need people willing to pay/licence a linux port why would you bother when valve will fit all support bills and fit all support requests you just gain profit from sales none of the headaches. Feral are like any other business they trying to survive and make money

But these last minute changes did not prevent TW WH3 from running very well on Proton OOTB without special work being done for it.
And forcing shader compile at start is really not that problematic.

Great that it's working for you. Unsupported.

it's okay to disagree. But please don't put things in my mouth that I didn't say.
I did never say it work for me. It works well, and you can check that on ProtonDB. Surely it does not only work for me. And on Steam you also find a lot of Windows gamers complaining about crashes and bad performance. So it seems to not run worse than on Windows.

Unsupported

OMG. I said it would be great if it would be supported via Proton and you reply with "Unsupported".

Let's agree to disagree and I am out of this discussion.
Have a nice day.

Rest assured, I have more than I will ever be able to finish. All Linux native. Most on GOG, some on itch.io or Humble. Had not to "pirate" a game in a long time (sinse 2012 at least). Oh, and I have exactly 0 (zero) "Feral games" on my Steal library because… I have no Steam library.

its not about the ammount of games, but the time you spend playing then, its worth?
there are tons of free games for android that, while they are free, they dont worth our time.
time is the most important thing in life, money? you can won on lotery and get rich and never need to worry about it again, but time? you cant recover that, and you only realize when its too late.
yes, i'm talking about myself.

Of course you're right that games should be worth one's time.
But I sure still have more native Linux games totally worth my time than I have actual time to play.
Four big CRPGs alone that are still unplayed, 4 * 50 hours at least, which amounts to many months for me, four new WadjetEye Games ports, four unplayed Zachtronic games, ...

I'm not even sure it's worth running ported games any more if they're just going to drop support anyway.

I think it depends on who's doing the port. Almost all of Ethan Lee's ports are still supported and being updated to run on Steam Deck.


Last edited by Curupira on 25 February 2022 at 5:47 pm UTC

I think it depends on who's doing the port. Almost all of Ethan Lee's ports are still supported and being updated to run on Steam Deck.

Ethan did a lot because he cares deeply for our hobby. You can't ask for that level of commitment from a porting house like Feral or Aspire.

The time of contracted ports is probably over. Proton dominates and if our marketshare grows, we may see transition to inhouse ports and hopefully a lot of games that are built upon Vulkan or even multi-platform to the core. Or not. What counts is that games run well and everyone trying Linux can find something to enjoy.


Last edited by const on 25 February 2022 at 5:26 pm UTC

Just FYI, I wasn't part of that quote!

Sorry about that. I've now rectified my comment.