this post was submitted on 24 Aug 2023
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Most developers don't support their native Linux release at all. You'll download an automatic update, and suddenly the game doesn't even start; check the forum and find out, they never even tested the Linux build, it's just all automatic, and it's gonna take a couple of weeks before they get their linux box updated and working again so they can fix it because their one linux guy is working on something else. It's crap. Proton has been a massive improvement in game reliability.
Really? Do you have an example of this with non early access games? I've personally never seen this happen and I'm my experience when a studio supports a platform they buy a computer to run the game on for that platform. I can only assume this was an experience with some very indie game?
I don't have a recent example because Proton always works (when it works).
Native builds on steam are by default picked over proton. You might be playing great native builds without realizing. Although since 2016 native build support has gone way down. Even before proton came out.
My experience with native Linux ports has been kinda bad actually. I usually don't play AAA games so maybe that explains it. But Black Mesa or Psychonauts are better on proton. Could be true though, that those are just the ones I noticed. But If I can choose I usually go for the Proton version, seems to be more reliable. It's a shame though.
My guess is that because those games target DirectX during development then they add a native build at the end that uses Opengl. What Proton does is take the DirectX version and route it to Vulkan. So it's potentially just the Vulkan usage being better than actually Proton itself.