Heroic Games Launcher continues to evolve into an even more impressive cross-platform game launcher for GOG, Epic Games, Amazon Prime and more with v2.16 bringing some great enhancements.
For people using it on Linux / Steam Deck there's some nice compatibility improvements to see from it. For starters, the UMU project is now the default, which is a unified way to run Windows games with Proton outside of Steam, including various automatic fixes being applied for you. This also switches the compatibility layer to GE-Proton, from the now unmaintained Wine-GE.
There's a ridiculous amount of other changes, making it what they said is "one of our biggest releases yet".
Some other highlights include:
- Env Variables in Known Fixes: Customize game fixes with environment variables for better compatibility.
- Launch Arguments via URLs: Pass game arguments directly through protocol URLs for streamlined launching.
- Steam Shortcuts for Uninstalled Games: Add Steam shortcuts for games you haven’t installed yet.
- Anti-Cheat Logging: Anti-cheat details now appear in logs for easier troubleshooting.
- Gamescope "Force Grab Cursor" Toggle: Prevent cursor escapes in full-screen games.
- GOG game setup improvements.
- DXVK-NVAPI Enabled by default for NVIDIA GPU users on Linux.
- + various UI improvements and other smaller updates.
See more on the GitHub.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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Since we don't have a forum anymore, I'll ask here: what is the best way to run GOG and itch.io games on Steam OS?
1 Likes, Who?
mr-victory 22 hours ago
itch.io has a native client like Steam, use this for gog.
4 Likes, Who?
Caldathras 21 hours ago
DXVK-NVAPI Enabled by default for NVIDIA GPU users on Linux.Lutris has been doing this for a while. This feature is an annoyance for me. My Nvidia dGPU predates NVAPI. I have to make sure this feature is disabled to avoid poor performance that eventually leads to games crashing. It took me quite a while to figure out what was causing the problem. Made worse by the fact that most of the games I play are not enabled for NVAPI, so the game that was enabled for it took me by surprise.
1 Likes, Who?
I've been getting into heroic lately, not as a replacement to lutris (which still has its own uses) but rather as my main front-end to view and launch all my pc games
It's smooth and attractive looking, but I do wish games were easier/smoother to browse with keyboard keys, it tends to cycle through the play and config/settings button and various other buttons making it feel a little cumbersome
It's smooth and attractive looking, but I do wish games were easier/smoother to browse with keyboard keys, it tends to cycle through the play and config/settings button and various other buttons making it feel a little cumbersome
0 Likes
All of these fixes are stuff I've wanted for a while, kudos to the HGL team, there's a reason I go out of my way to buy GOG stuff using the affiliate link inside the launcher.
Would only be 2 launchers after this addition, Steam and HGL, if HGL also gets a "full backup" option like Bottles has where it zips up a WINE prefix and all the changes I made to it into one file that can be transferred and deployed across different systems and distros, since that's the main reason I can't do without Bottles.
Last edited by WMan22 on 2 Mar 2025 at 9:20 pm UTC
itch.io has a native client like Steam, use this for gog.Would still be nice to eventually get itch.io implemented in HGL so I only need 3 launchers to play games on linux, not 4.
Would only be 2 launchers after this addition, Steam and HGL, if HGL also gets a "full backup" option like Bottles has where it zips up a WINE prefix and all the changes I made to it into one file that can be transferred and deployed across different systems and distros, since that's the main reason I can't do without Bottles.
Last edited by WMan22 on 2 Mar 2025 at 9:20 pm UTC
3 Likes, Who?
Have been getting a bit peeved at heroic lately - having no option to keep it offline and not being able to disable playtime tracking creeps me out. That's on top of the annoyance of having a shop inside the launcher.
I am an un-fan of the slow but steady stacking of such features that one can't disable.
Last edited by emphy on 3 Mar 2025 at 4:24 am UTC
I am an un-fan of the slow but steady stacking of such features that one can't disable.
Last edited by emphy on 3 Mar 2025 at 4:24 am UTC
0 Likes
fenglengshun 6 hours ago
Have been getting a bit peeved at heroic lately - having no option to keep it offline and not being able to disable playtime tracking creeps me out. That's on top of the annoyance of having a shop inside the launcher.Playtime tracking is done through the timestamp.json file.
And yeah, there are some things about Heroic that's sub-optimal for me, but it's compromises that I'm fine with given it's the most convenient client for GOG and Epic (aka the free-games-dispenser marketing-black-hole platform).
0 Likes
I have to make sure this feature is disabled to avoid poor performance that eventually leads to games crashing. It took me quite a while to figure out what was causing the problem.
@Caldathras which game and GPU are you having issues with? dxvk-nvapi shouldn't be causing trouble.
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