I'm tired of people saying Steam on Linux just works. It doesn't.
Tried running Worms: instant crash, no error message.
Tried running Among Us: instant crash, had to add cryptic arguments to the command line to get it to run.
Tried running Parkitect: crashes after 5 minutes.
These three games are extremely simple, graphically speaking. They don't use any complicated anti-cheat measure. This shouldn't be complicated, yet it is.
Oh and I'm using Arch (BTW), the exact distro SteamOS is based on.
And of course, as always, those for which it works will tell you you're doing-it-wrong™ .
These games are all rated gold or platinum on protondb, indicating that they work perfectly for most people.
Hard to say what might be going wrong for you without more details. I would guess there's something wrong with your video driver. Maybe you have an nvidia card and the OS has installed the nouveau drivers by default? Installing the nvidia first-party drivers (downloaded from the nvidia web site) will fix a lot of things. This is indeed a sore spot for Linux gaming, though to be fair graphics driver problems are not exactly unheard of on Windows either.
Personally I have a bunch of machines dedicated to gaming in my house (https://lanparty.house) which have proven to be much more stable running Linux than they were with Windows. I think this is because the particular NIC in these machines just has terrible Windows drivers, but decent Linux drivers (and I am netbooting, so network driver stability is pretty critical to the whole system).
AoE2:DE is rated gold even though multiplayer is broken for everyone, and it lags. By now someone has posted a very complex workaround to the MP issue, but it was gold even before that.
BeamNG (before a very recent native Linux beta) was gold despite a serious fps drop and also a memleak to crash any time there's traffic.
> Installing the nvidia first-party drivers (downloaded from the nvidia web site) will fix a lot of things
Interesting. I saw somewhere else you're using Debian. Is it as opposed from Nouveau or the proprietary drivers from the Debian repos?
I'm currently testing to daily drive my desktop with linux on an NVIDIA GPU, and the Arch wiki explicitly recommends drivers from their repos. However, arch is rolling and the repo drivers are supposedly much more up to date than Debian's ones. Though, I'll keep your comment if I run into anything.
I am not familiar with Arch, so my advice might be wrong for Arch.
But I have a lot of experience on Debian and Ubuntu trying to use the packages that handle the nvidia driver installation for you. It works OK. But one day on a lark I tried downloading the blob directly from nvidia and installing that way, and I was surprised to find it was quite smooth and thorough, so I've been doing it that way ever since.
> Installing the nvidia first-party drivers (downloaded from the nvidia web site) will fix a lot of things.
Crazy—it used to be that nvidia drivers were by far the least stable parts of an install, and nouveau was a giant leap forward. Good to know their software reputation has improved somewhat
Nouveau has never been good for gaming. Not their fault (they had to reverse engineer everything), but it was only really ever viable for mostly 2D desktops in my experience.
Sure, but nvidia has always been seen as a liability for basic operation of the computer. Their driver quality is notoriously as bad as it gets. Nouveau fixed this.
I keep hearing people assert this but I've been using nvidia drivers on Linux for 25 years and aside from the pain of getting them installed, they have always just worked with no issues at all.
Whereas every time I install Debian fresh and temporarily get the Nouveau drivers temporarily, basic desktop graphics are slow (no hardware acceleration) and crash-prone.
Everyone says this but it is not my experience at all. Every time I try AMD cards I run into weird problems. The Nvidia drivers are a pain to install and tend to break randomly on kernel updates, but once built properly they always just work for me...
Did you use the proprietary AMD drivers? You need to use the open source drivers. As far as I know these should be the default on all distros, so just click through the OS installer, install Steam, and start gaming. Don't touch the drivers.
In my most recent attempt to use AMD, my problems were:
1. I needed to install a bleeding-edge kernel version in order to get support for the very new AMD card I had purchased, which was a bit of a pain on Debian. (With NVidia, the latest drivers will support the latest hardware on older kernels just fine.)
2. AMD can't support HDMI 2.1 in their open source drivers. Not their fault -- it's a shitty decision by the HDMI forum to ban open source implementations. But I was trying to drive an 8k monitor and for other reasons I had to use HDMI, so this was a deal-breaker for me. (This is actually now solvable using a DP->HDMI dongle, but I didn't discover that solution at the time.)
But every time I've tried to use AMD the problems have been different. This is just the most recent example.
Obviously I'm using the open source drivers, since the entire point of everyone's argument for AMD on Linux is the open source part.
The root problem may just be that I'm deeply familiar with the nvidia linux experience after 25 years of using it whereas the AMD experience is unfamiliar whenever I try it, so I'm more likely to get stuck on basic issues.
I used an Nvidia card for about a year, and I did get it working for the most part, but there was definitely some glitchiness I don't encounter with AMD.
For example, I use the Gamescope/Tenfoot interface on my system, and the actual menu for that is extremely glitchy on Nvidia drivers. On AMD it's absolutely perfect (I suspect because Valve develops this interface around an AMD card).
This has been my experience too, when I upgraded my GPU, I wanted to switch to Linux full time, so I went with AMD because everywhere people kept saying NVIDIA GPUs had a lot of issues, but it turned out to be the opposite. With my old card, I just have to install the proprietary NVIDIA driver, zero issues.
I think people are still clinging onto old "wisdom" that hasn't be true for decades, like "updating breaks Arch", go figure.
FYI the ProtonDB medal system is not a good measurement of a game’s performance. The founder has admitted in the past that he would have used a different rating system if he had to do it again. That’s why he created the newer “Click to Play” rating system. Only 13% of the top 1,000 games are rated Tier 1, and even that doesn’t guarantee Windows-like performance, as there are tens of thousands of issue reports across those games.
I imagine the people saying “it just works” are saying it because it does, at least for them.
SteamOS is based on Arch, but customized and aimed at specific hardware configurations. It’d be interesting to know what hardware you’re using and if any of your components are not well supported.
FWIW, I’ve used Steam on Linux (mostly PopOS until this year, then Bazzite) for years and years without many problems. ISTR having to do something to make Quake III work a few years ago, but it ran fine after and I’ve recently reinstalled it and didn’t have to fuss with anything.
Granted, I don’t run a huge variety of games, but I’ve finished several or played for many hours without crashes, etc.
I use OpenSUSE Tumbleweed, and I've never had trouble running a game that's rated gold or above. I've even gotten an Easy AntiCheat game to work correctly.
I've been gaming on linux exclusively for about 8 years now and have had very few issues running windows games. Sometimes the windows version, run through proton, runs better than the native port. I don't tend to be playing AAA games right after launch day, though. So it could be taste is affecting my experience.
I just bought another second Dell workstation (admit I hated those) and can’t wait to install SteamOS when it is released to the public. I don’t care about AAA gaming but the integrated card should be able to handle most of the games from ten years ago.
I don't have your other games, but I do have a few Worms games and they worked out of the box for me with GE Proton on NixOS.
I'm not saying "you're doing it wrong", because obviously if you're having trouble then that is, if nothing else, bad UX design, but I actually am kind of curious as to what you're doing different than me. I have an extremely vanilla NixOS setup that boots into GameScope + Tenfoot and I drive everything with a gamepad and it works about as easily as a console does for me.
If anything this is the challenge with PC as a platform being so varied, any random software/hardware/config variation could bring a whole load of quirks.
That probably includes anything that isn't a PC in a time-capsule from when the game originally released, so any OS/driver changes since then, and I don't think we've reached the point where we can emulate specific hardware models to plug into a VM. One of the reasons the geforce/radeon drivers (eg, the geforce "game ready" branding) are so big is that they carry a whole catalogue of quirk workarounds for when the game renderer is coded badly or to make it a better fit to hardware and lets them advertise +15% performance in a new version. Part of the work for wine/proton/dxvk is going to be replicating that instead of a blunt translation strictly to the standards.
Yeah, I think Linus himself pointed out that the desktop is the hardest platform to support because it's unbelievably diverse and varied.
With regards to Linux I generally just focus on hardware from brands that have historically had good Linux support, but that's just a rule of thumb, certainly not perfect.
If you need to use GE Proton then Proton doesn't "Just Work" by any definition. It "Just Works" if you jump through these other hoops and include community fixes. And then if the GE version doesn't work maybe you have to try Experimental or sometimes even Hotfix. All very much not "Just Works". Windows users don't have to download community versions of the Steam runtime in order to play certain games and then play whack-a-mole with versions whenever a new game comes out. There must be a vast difference between what "Just Works" means to folks who have used Linux for years and years and folks who come from Windows. This comment from the Far Cry 5 ProtonDB page highlights this perfectly I think: "Play great with some script. Disable hyperthreading in bios to speed up loading game"
Edit: Just tested another game for "Just Works" status.
Platinum support. 14 minutes before my first crash. Latest NixOS w/latest NVidia drivers. I have had luck on most games I play. But they also always seem to require some sort of effort to tweak settings to get it into a playable state. I'm sure I could spend 15-30 minutes researching KCD2 Steam Proton issues and get it resolved. That's effort I wouldn't have to make on Windows.
> That's effort I wouldn't have to make on Windows.
It's weird the amount of amnesia people seem to have with all the bullshit associated with Windows and Windows gaming. I think you're being absolutely ridiculous if you're claiming that things consistently work better with Windows, even for Windows games. There's been plenty of times when I had to do shit like disable "Data Execution Prevention" [1], or install weird wrappers for older games [2], or if I'm very lucky I have to go find the executable, right click on it and run with compatibility mode.
I don't think you're lying or anything, but I do think you're wrong; I have spent many hours debugging bullshit with Windows to make games run, especially older games but not always. For example, I couldn't get Chronicles of Riddick Assault on Dark Athena to work on Windows (when it was new) initially because of a weird bugginess associated with Securom and Windows. That was a headache of fighting with registry files and reinstalling to eventually get it work. I had many issues with stability when playing Borderlands on Windows, to a point that it became a running joke with my friends (despite having an up to date video card and plenty of memory). These aren't the most up to date examples because I got fed up enough that I ran away to Linux.
I admittedly don't play through a lot of newer games, but I do occasionally play through them, and I played through the entirety of Marvel's Spider-man and Myles Morales, including DLC, without any crashes and as far as I can tell literally no issues at all. I was also able to install and play Resident Evil Village, though I haven't beaten that one yet (but I have played for more than fifteen minutes). Obviously sample size of one though.
GE Proton was something I installed when I was installing the rest of my SteamOS stuff with a custom built machine, so I agree it's not "Just Works" but it was a one time thing I did and never thought about it again. I'm not sure what it buys me over regular Proton honestly; I installed it because someone told me to install it and it's not been an issue.
Nvidia drivers are definitely pretty hit-or-miss on Linux though (mostly miss), no argument on that. I usually just buy AMD and it's a non-issue.
I don't really care if you run Windows, if you like it then you're of course free to make your own bad decisions, but I just think you're wrong if you claim Windows doesn't have its share of bullshit involving basically anything graphical.
> And of course, as always, those for which it works will tell you you're doing-it-wrong™ .
This sounds like you are rejecting help because you have made up your mind in frustration already.
Because you are doing it wrong. If you want an OS that just works, you should use Ubuntu or Fedora. Why is SteamOS based on Arch then? Because Valve wants to tweak things in it and tinker with it themselves to get it how they like.
You don't.
So use an OS that requires less from you and that tries to just work out of the box, not one that is notorious for being something you break and tinker with constantly (Arch).
I've been using Arch for 15 years, it's not like I'm suddenly discovering the concept of the distro.
But when something crashes with no error message whatsoever, it makes it a tiny bit harder to troubleshoot.
Especially when so many people answer, just like I had predicted, "works on my machine". Which would only be a gotcha if I had implied it worked on no machine whatsoever. Which I didn't.
I'll tinker some more and I'll be sure to post my findings if I get these games to work.
Well then look at the logs? Sure it's not as in-your-face, but steam/proton does log and I'm fairly sure that a combination of at most setting a command invocation parameter, looking at the game logs and system logs will show you the exact problem and given that these games run just fine for a lot of people, the fix is probably trivial.
Counter point: I don’t have to look at the logs to discover obscure error reports to spend my weekend debugging something which works flawlessly on Windows. We shouldn’t have to do that.
You don't have to look at logs either in case of games and hardware combos that do run flawlessly on Linux, which is a huge chunk of all games.
But feel free to try to run a game with a missing video card driver (as you likely miss something like that) and the like on windows. I would say it's an even worse experience.
Possibly because you won’t have as many logs to look at on Windows, merely given the option of sending a proprietary dump blob to the developer’s bug tracker, and then hoping they eventually fix whatever mystery issue is affecting you. God help you if it’s the overzealous DRM or anticheat from some other game that likely isn’t present in their QA machines.
I am using Arch and all the games I played on Steam (at least 20, not the ones mentioned above) worked perfectly.
One thing that I do though is get most games at least one year after release, when probably many issues are fixed. I had tons of issues many years ago, with buggy games bought immediately after release (on Windows back then), so now I changed strategy...
Arch is nice if you want to tinker. Based on your reasoning, I wouldn't recommend it.
But if you still want arch-based, I would recommend EndevourOS, and for even a simpler/better distro, Bazzite.
You are definitely doing it wrong, I rarely have issues and when I do I just switch comparability tools. I play multiple indie games, marvel rivals, I played lots of among us on my machine in 2020. Running Pop OS
As an Arch (btw) user myself, yes, you're doing something wrong.
Arch won't hold your hands to ensure everything required is installed, because many dependencies are either optional (you have to read the pacman logs) or just hidden (because it's in the game itself). Valve actually does a great job providing a "works everywhere" runtime as their games are distributed in a flatpak-like fashion, but things can seep through the cracks.
The compositor can have an effect. The desktop settings. The GPU drivers. What's installed as far as e.g. fonts go. RAM setup, with or without swap.
As for steamOS, the real difference, is that despite being Arch-based, you're not installing Arch, but steamOS. A pre-packaged pre-configured Arch linux, with a set of opinionated software and its set of pre-made config files, for a small set of (1) devices. It's not really Arch you're installing, but a full-blow distro that happens to be arch-based.
That said, I understand your frustration as I've hit this many times on a laptop with dual graphics. Getting PRIME to run with the very first drivers that supported it was fun. Oh and I'm likely to hit the same walls as you since I just switched my gaming rig to Arch. GLHF!
Well, but many games just work. Actually, I try starting the games without any tweaks before heading over to protondb.com, and often they run just fine.
But it is also true that many games still require minor tweaks. For example, just last week, I found out that I had to enable hardware acceleration for the webview within Steam, just to be able to log in to Halo Infinite. It was just clicking a checkbox, but otherwise, the game would not have been playable.
But I am always surprised when you find out you have those kinds of issues with Windows as well.
Yeah, the same. I sometimes google "wine WoW issues" and every time there are recent threads, so I don't even try. Linux has the long way to become gamer platform.
The games don't fail to run because they are so "graphically powerful" they fail to run because you chose to set up your system without the necessary runtime.
There are people who make stripped-down versions of windows. Is it fair to say that because these releases exist that windows isn't "just works" either?
Tried running Worms: instant crash, no error message.
Tried running Among Us: instant crash, had to add cryptic arguments to the command line to get it to run.
Tried running Parkitect: crashes after 5 minutes.
These three games are extremely simple, graphically speaking. They don't use any complicated anti-cheat measure. This shouldn't be complicated, yet it is.
Oh and I'm using Arch (BTW), the exact distro SteamOS is based on.
And of course, as always, those for which it works will tell you you're doing-it-wrong™ .