This is just a vent post / unpopular opinion (? unsure if unpopular). Specifically on Steam. Linux native builds are so buggy and glitchy and never work right. Always some combination of:
- No sound
- Old outdated version missing content and incompatible online
- Controllers don’t work
- Crashes, doesn’t launch at all
- Horrific FPS
- Cutscenes don’t play
- Weird game breaking softlocks and logic errors, like critical items not spawning and dialogue not triggering
- Zero support and low priority from the developer
I have none of these issues with Proton. Proton works perfectly fine, I love it. This only happens when a game doesn’t use Proton. As soon as I change to Proton all issues are resolved. This problem has followed me across distros with fresh installs, so it’s not a config issue. Yes I have the correct drivers and such, NVIDIA proprietary unfortunately. It’s so strange, you’d imagine the native build would run better not worse.
The worst part is, it’s not easy to tell when a game will launch using Linux native as it’s the default priority. Games can even silently update and stop working when they gain Linux native “support”. You have to manually go in to properties and override compatibility to proton. Normally I do this when I notice a suspiciously large amount of bugs and I’m like hmm… oh look it’s Steam Linux Runtime 1.0 again.
I wish there was a way to just force Proton globally. Either that or people actually test and maintain their Linux builds. I’d rather there be no Linux build at all if they’re going to be so terrible.
Edit to add commented example list of games:
I couldn’t get a full list because I was relying on having set a flag forcing a specific version of Proton to identify which games were problematic to jog my memory… Unfortunately this data is local only and was not synced between computers, so it was lost when I changed distro. Just from my limited memory though, I can list some that I distinctly remembered when writing up my post, though it’s many more in reality. It’s also surprisingly hard to see whether a game even has a Linux native version, you usually have to wait for the store page to load and scroll down to compatibility, which is just annoying.
Games that worked well:
- Factorio
- Stardew Valley
- Baba Is You
- All Valve games (TF2, DotA2, etc)
Games that had issues:
- 1001 Spikes
- The Case of the Golden Idol
- Broforce
- Spiritfarer: Farewell Edition
- The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe
- Cook, Serve, Delicious
- Valheim
- A Game About Feeding A Black Hole
- Audiosurf 2
- Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes
- Slay the Princess
- TIS-100
- Cassette Beasts
- Brotato
- Bit.Trip runner
- Don’t starve together
- Unpacking
- While True: Learn
- Fez
- Magicka 2 (controllers not working)
- One Shot (critical gameplay bug right at the end. Had to watch a let’s play to finish it. I messaged the dev who left me on Read)
- Just Shapes & Beats (no sound)
- Tiny Bookshop (no sound)
- HiveSwap (critical gameplay bug right at the end, and savefile bricked, had to watch a let’s play and the dev ignored me) (I’m not a “fan” I swear, please don’t lynch me)
I’m getting tired and I’m sure you get the point. Almost every game in my experience has been unplayable on Linux runtime. I’m glad it’s working well for you though.
This is less unpopular opinion and more of just a fact that a lot of people don’t know yet. Native linux builds are often buggier than the Proton versions, especially if the game is older than a few years because Linux packages move fast and break old versions every now and then.
When Baldur’s Gate 3 made a native Linux version (mostly for Steam deck) everyone started reporting that the game is a buggy mess.
Terraria had a number of bugs on the Linux version back when I played, to the point where everyone on ProtonDB just said use the Windows version.
Hollow Knight Silksong on release had an issue where controllers on the Linux version wouldn’t work. I forced it to use Proton and get the windows version and it just worked.
So I can’t help but roll my eyes when somebody from the Linux community asks a developer with a perfectly working game to make a native version for Linux. For what? They’ll put a lot of time and effort making a more unstable version of their game where, at the end of the day, the performance will probably be exactly the same? You’d be surprised how many people still parrot the idea that native builds are magically better.
Yeah exactly. At first glance native = better; probably because we have had so much experience with non-native stuff being garbage, like Electron apps and such. But Proton Is Not an Emulator, it actually is much more clever than that.
You end up with the opposite of what you initially expected, where you’re asking each individual developer to target an environment they’re not familiar with, probably can’t easily test, and for very little renumeration. If anything it’s surprising some developers even manage to make good native Linux versions at all.
It’s much better IMO to rely on the very smart people working on WINE / Proton to handle the compatibility layer, where all that Linux specific knowledge can be put to the most efficient use. Especially because Linux isn’t just one thing, it’s like a billion things, so it’s really not an easy task at all.
In my mind the only thing that could be done is to make Proton’s job easier in some way. Like if more games used Vulkan instead of DX11, that would probably help compatibility between all OS’, right? Maybe or maybe not, I’m not particularly knowledgeable about the details of that kind of stuff.