Comment on Why more PC gaming handhelds should ditch Windows for SteamOS - Ars Technica

• Fubarberry@sopuli.xyz ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I think a lot of people would be more interested in the SteamOS over windows on handhelds if they got to try SteamOS first and see how smooth it is. But without full knowledge on it, a lot of them either assume they’ll like windows more because they already know how to use it, or they assume it’s steam UI only with no desktop mode (even if people won’t actually use desktop mode much, they want it as an option).

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  • vexikron@lemmy.zip ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I am shocked, shocked I tell you that MSFT using PC Gamers still have not realized they are MSFT fanboys basically exactly the same way you had console fanboys a decade ago.

    But, but, they spent so much time learning how to do so much weird esoteric bullshit to make Windows actually run games well, and nearly none of that translates over to a Linux system!

    You mean my decades of mastery of an increasingly enshittifying Operating System is… worthless?

    That a better alternative exists if I would only take the time to do literally any work to learn something actually out of my comfort zone?

    …

    I think the modern equivalent of Socrates getting old and complaining about the youths being disrespectful and dancing too lewd of dances is basically people who styled themselves as early adopters and technologically savvy in their childhood and early adulthood, and then just entirely gave up on that while basically simultaneously still claiming to be tech savvy but also being inherently afraid and dismissive of any /actually/ useful new tech innovations.

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    • vithigar@lemmy.ca ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Gaming has been literally the only thing keeping me on windows for at least a decade now, and with SteamOS/Proton reaching their current levels of compatibility I finally feel like I can make the switch with my next PC and not have to worry about it.

      I could put linux on my current gaming tower, but I’ll fully admit that it’s just easier not to. It’s a comfortable shoe at this point that I can’t be bothered to change while I already have it. Though if my hand was forced and I had some kind of catastrophic drive failure and lost my OS volume linux is probably what would go there in its place.

      There are two other “PCs” in my home that I own, my Steam Deck and a NUC that I use as a home server. Both run linux.

      I’m fortunate in that basically nothing I play uses invasive anti-cheat garbage, which is still a huge compatibility problem. It has skeeved me out on windows for a long time, and I’ve avoided games that use many of them. I had many friends disappointed that I wouldn’t join them in Star Wars: The Old Republic back when that first came out precisely because I wouldn’t tolerate how invasive the anti-cheat was.

      But there are lots of gamers for whom Proton still isn’t enough. A single game they want to play that won’t run is a dealbreaker. Or the only game they want to play won’t run. An OS that won’t run the game(s) they want to play isn’t fit for purpose for them, and those people are a huge proportion of gamers.

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      • vexikron@lemmy.zip ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Well, honestly at this point, generally speaking, the kinds of games that currently are hugely popular and only work on Windows?

        They usually have very toxic communities.

        They usually are expensive.

        They are often addicting and they are often designed to coax players into more and more microtransactions and are thus unethical.

        They are nearly always a kind of gameplay that is actually not very original, or engaging or challenging for anyone who has a good amount of experience with a wide variety of games, but draw people in due to featuring a popular IP characters/setting/world.

        There are nearly always alternative games that take aforementioned extremely unoriginal at this point game mechanics and actually improve on them, but are less popular due to being a less recognizable IP.

        Do you see where I am going with this?

        You are talking about the most stereotyoically gamer type people that give basically all people who enjoy games but also have a personality outside of that a hugely bad rap.

        These are, generally speaking, the idiots that keep shelling out money to hugely exploitative game studios that consistently release buggy unfinished garbage, or are widely known to have horrible working conditions for their employees, or both.

        These are the people who I was talking about, the ones that just need whats comfortable, need that latest version of their favorite IP game, number 7 or 9 in the series.

        Now, I am being hyperbolic and I realize that there are exceptions to this, there are actually good games that are still basically currently Windows only because they dont have a large enough staff to keep updating their games and also make multiplayer work on linux.

        But, if you look into the technicals of that situation… in many cases the technical fix for this is actually so easy that I have seen people literally submit all of the code for this directly to the devs, or if its closed source a comprehensive overview of how to implement something… and they just do not notice it or say that nobody plays on linux so who cares.

        But they are likely to change that stance when they see more and more SteamDeck and Linux Desktop users.

        I will be completely fine if all of the COD 386 players are still using Windows in 5 years when someone has figured out how to do a more fun, less bullshit, less toxicity inducing shooter on Linux, or something analogous to that.

        Let them keep paying for their own suffering while others move on and… you know. Have fun. Playing games. Remember when games were fun, and engaging instead of soul crushing addictions that ruin you and your life?

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• NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Yeah I am baffled at this point anyone at all would consider a MSFT portable PC.

  Gamepass is still amazing if you are primarily in the MS/Xbox ecosystem. And not all games work in Linux. And, increasingly, modding (for what few games “support” it) is dependent on third party applications that are rather annoying to set up under linux.

  Oh right did anyone mention you can emulate basically anything other than current gen consoles on a Steam Deck, and the operating system is not going to fight you on that?

  Does Windows “fight you on that” either? Also, it has been a minute, but I want to say that some of the better emulators are still “windows only” and best run through proton?

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  • vexikron@lemmy.zip ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    You’re right, its not perfect, but the ball is now rolling down the mountain, picking up more and more snow.

    The technical foundations are now clearly evidenced to be viable, all problems that remain more or less revolve around whether or not a developer decides to intentionally not support linux via a Windows Only AntiCheat that is actually a RootKit or not.

    And thats up to momentum of overall users on linux, which is up to other kinds of games making the platform more relatively popular, which we already see happening but of course cannot predict everything about.

    Maybe some kind of game developer who is a bit jaded with MSFT for various reasons will make a significantly popular Linux Exclusive game. Who knows?

    But yes uh Windows does often fight you in ways when you try to emulate. Most of these ways can be overcome by reasonably competent Windows users, but its far more straightforward on say, a SteamDeck.

    In this case it comes down to the experience of the noob user, who will be scared and confused by the experience of maybe i went to a bad website and downloaded a virus, windows is asking me to make sure i know what i am doing and i dont, wow this sure seems risky!

    On SteamDeck and SteamOS its less confusing and scary.

    Also, theres the whole Pluton thing which I am still baffled people do not know about. The latest gen of AMD and i believe now also Intel CPUs are designed with a basically below ring 0 bit of always active, network enabled microcode than runs below Windows, even below the BIOS/UEFI.

    The whole point of this is advertised as being necessary for security, but it actually isnt. It interfaces with Windows in a way it /almost/ certainly cannot on Linux, and its capable of accessing literally everything on your computer.

    It is highly likely that what it will actually be used for is DRM at a below the OS level.

    Oh you wanna install known binary with know signature of latest release of an emulator? Nope, not allowed, no matter what you do.

    It hasnt happened yet, but the security minded section of the linux community have basically already worked out that its entirely capable of doing this and its absolutely within MSFTs uh, philosophy or market strategy or whatever to do this.

    Its also literally documented to have been developed as a result of MSFT not being able to figure out how stop XBoxes from being hard modded and softmodded to allow it to run emulators, amongst other things.

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    • NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      But yes uh Windows does often fight you in ways when you try to emulate. Most of these ways can be overcome by reasonably competent Windows users, but its far more straightforward on say, a SteamDeck.

      Do you have any examples of that?

      In this case it comes down to the experience of the noob user, who will be scared and confused by the experience of maybe i went to a bad website and downloaded a virus, windows is asking me to make sure i know what i am doing and i dont, wow this sure seems risky!

      As opposed to the newbie who was told everything works perfectly with no issues and then can’t play Valorant or whatever? That has ALWAYS been the problem with linux gaming. The evangelists overhype everything and people very rapidly find the frustration points. If you go in knowing what those are, you can make an assessment. If stuff that “should work” doesn’t? You assume even more problems will occur and reinstall windows.

      As for the giant wall of speculation on hardware level DRM: Uhm… if anything, that would be an argument to stick to windows if you are “a gamer”. Since most people, as has been demonstrated time and time again, don’t actually care about that kind of stuff.

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      • vexikron@lemmy.zip ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Well I was talking specifically about the ease of setting up emulation on in particular SteamOS vs Windows.

        Its complex on both compared to say installing a game from Steam on either Windows or SteamOS, but installing Emus is more user friendly on SteamOS than on Windows.

        Also its fairly easy to see if a game will work on SteamOS. You look for the little SteamDeck verified icon.

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