The situation is currently a bit messy, with conflicting statements but it appears that Roblox should work again on Linux / Steam Deck with Wine eventually.
As a little refresher: Roblox acquired Byfron, makers of anti-cheat software. They've now fully integrated it into Roblox with what they now call Hyperion in their new 64 bit client. They made a choice to block Roblox in Wine with this update, giving an assortment of reasons but saying Wine was still a priority and then later seemingly backtracking on that a bit.
Hope is not lost though Roblox fans, as they've now put out a fresh comment on the subject to make it clear that while they won't support it officially, they aim to get it working again.
Here's the latest word on it:
To clarify one detail: while we have no plans to release a Linux client, we are aiming to support Wine again. It seems possible, and we see a lot of value in it as a way of letting people run on Linux without the large investment on our end of releasing a native client. For all the reasons described above, Wine won’t ever be something that we guarantee will work, but also for all the reasons described above, we’d really like to make it work.
Right now though, it's all just words of course. We'll have to wait and see if it happens.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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The comments on this article are closed.
Quoting: RomlokBecause Proton is for Steam, Roblox is not on Steam and people used and talked about Roblox with Wine for years as a standalone game platform.Quoting: AsciiWolfThis mindset is one of the reasons why I am still not sure whether I am happy about the popularity of Valve Proton or not...Not sure if it'll change yours or anyone's opinion, but I find it interesting that Roblox staffers seem to consistently refer to Wine, rather than Proton 🤔
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Quoting: CatKillerBut if a developer is "supporting Proton" rather than "supporting Windows and hoping for extra money from Linux users" then they need a Linux testing pipeline anyway for their Windows build in Proton. Proton saves them hardly anything, and is just a mechanism to be able to say "Wine won’t ever be something that we guarantee will work" when they aren't doing that testing.Not true.
For Proton, they just need something that can run their game via Proton. That is decently easy to find a guide for, set up and - more importantly - does not require any dev to have knowledge about the platform.
It's more or less a "run and test if it works" kind of deal.
Which is in no way comparable to actually having to work on issues in code specific to the platform, which can be a lot of work even if you are familiar with it.
While (good) cross-platform engines can save you a lot of that work, there still remains some, especially with some topics like files, security, codecs, etc.
Sure, some games - especially smaller indie games - won't be affected by these topics, but the bigger the game, the more likely that it would be affected.
Doing Proton only saves developers a lot of time - otherwise, we wouldn't see a surprising amount of devs doing tests eg on the Steam Deck themselves.
Quoting: mr-victoryThat would be extremely weird, I have a hard time believing it.Quoting: TheSHEEEPa native client FOR A MULTIPLAYER GAME WITH SELF-MADE CLIENT-SIDE CHEAT PREVENTIONAFAIK Mac client doesn't have this anti cheat.
Last edited by TheSHEEEP on 15 May 2023 at 2:34 pm UTC
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Quoting: TheSHEEEPNot true.
For Proton, they just need something that can run their game via Proton. That is decently easy to find a guide for, set up and - more importantly - does not require any dev to have knowledge about the platform.
It's more or less a "run and test if it works" kind of deal.
Nonsense.
If it works, great; you're providing no more support than ProtonDB does. If it doesn't work then you're either saying "works on Windows, screw those guys", so no support, or you need to figure out why it doesn't work. And developers don't want to test in the first place.
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psycho_driver May 15, 2023
I'm not going to hold my breath. I did end both of my daughters' $10 per month subs and listed linux being blocked as the reason. If there were enough people like me that's the only reason they'd care.
Last edited by psycho_driver on 15 May 2023 at 3:16 pm UTC
Last edited by psycho_driver on 15 May 2023 at 3:16 pm UTC
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psycho_driver May 15, 2023
Quoting: AsciiWolfQuotewe see a lot of value in it as a way of letting people run on Linux without the large investment on our end of releasing a native client
This mindset is one of the reasons why I am still not sure whether I am happy about the popularity of Valve Proton or not...
It's just a good thing. I have a huge collection of linux games. Probably 90% of my ~2000 title library I purchased because linux was supported (the rest mostly were from bundles). I've been going through seeing what works on one of my HTPCs with the new big picture mode and a lot of those old native linux releases are broken in some way but they're working fine with Proton. Win-win. I want native titles, but I'm happy Proton exists and is so good.
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Quoting: CatKillerNonsense.Speaking as someone with 15+ years of software development (including a few years with games), you don't sound like you've ever developed anything in your life other than a fever and some kind of attitude issue against developers.
If it works, great; you're providing no more support than ProtonDB does. If it doesn't work then you're either saying "works on Windows, screw those guys", so no support, or you need to figure out why it doesn't work. And developers don't want to test in the first place.
When you officially support Proton, then yes, that means you'll have to figure out why something doesn't work in Proton and can't just say "screw those guys". Duh?
The vast majority of those cases are from those I already listed (with file-related issues and codecs probably taking the biggest chunk), with solutions in most cases coming down to very small changes (such as not relying on some Windows-path-shenanigans or changing the encoding of a video to play on Proton) that any dev can do without having to dive deeper into Linux.
It is exactly as I said: It still does not require you to be familiar with Linux or develop that familiarity in order to fix an issue.
And as time goes on and both Wine and Proton keep getting better, those cases are becoming less and less.
I've seen more than a few devs that don't even do official Proton support still fix something in their game in order to make it work on Proton after someone reported an issue - without ever actually touching Linux.
Last edited by TheSHEEEP on 15 May 2023 at 3:49 pm UTC
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Quoting: TheSHEEEPWhen you officially support Proton, then yes, that means you'll have to figure out why something doesn't work in Proton and can't just say "screw those guys". Duh?
That's entirely the point. I'm glad you agree, despite your attitude.
So you need a Linux test machine, and you need to fix bugs in your game for running on Linux exactly as you would if you had a native build, except you don't get to pick your own cross-platform libraries, nor the environment it's running in: those are chosen by someone else.
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To make your games work with Wine/Proton, you just have to do one thing:
Stick to the bloody API's and don't try to get clever! We'll do the rest. They'll work more reliably, for everyone on Windows too that way. That's the whole point of DirectX and Vulkan and audio APIs (and the Windows APIs too) etc... it's abstracted... you talk to that, it talks to drivers. It's pretty hard to translate trial and error programming.
(Stupid stuff like anti-cheat goes off script too though, of course)
Last edited by Grogan on 15 May 2023 at 5:25 pm UTC
Stick to the bloody API's and don't try to get clever! We'll do the rest. They'll work more reliably, for everyone on Windows too that way. That's the whole point of DirectX and Vulkan and audio APIs (and the Windows APIs too) etc... it's abstracted... you talk to that, it talks to drivers. It's pretty hard to translate trial and error programming.
(Stupid stuff like anti-cheat goes off script too though, of course)
Last edited by Grogan on 15 May 2023 at 5:25 pm UTC
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Quoting: TheSHEEEPLinux is never going to amount to such a large player base that releasing a native client FOR A MULTIPLAYER GAME WITH SELF-MADE CLIENT-SIDE CHEAT PREVENTION would make business sense to developers.I dunno about never. Prediction is hard, especially about the future. But it certainly isn't now, and without something like Proton it would be all the less likely to happen in the future.
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Quoting: TheSHEEEPyou don't sound like you've ever developed anything in your life other than a fever and some kind of attitude issue against developers.Whoa! You get up on the wrong side of the bed this morning or what?
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