Mac New Game Porting Toolkit is Wine

[Jimmyjames]

I do care how they arrive. If Proton was closed source I would 100% be against it as that goes against Linux ethos. The Steam Deck made Linux gaming marketshare overtake macOS, it's making a dent.

Valve cares about protecting its Store from Microsoft and will do whatever it takes to do. I am glad they those an open approach. They could have a closed off console like Nintendo but it's pure Linux as the kernel and it's also a PC. At the end of the day the outcome was relieased on an open source tool.

I’m not sure Linux has overtaken macOS marketshare. Those figures came from the steam survey after gptk launched. Lots of people launching the windows version of Steam on macOS and the survey doesn’t pick that up iirc. I personally do not believe in open source being the saviour that others do.

 

[Renzatic]

I’m not sure Linux has overtaken macOS marketshare.

Overall? No. On Steam? Yeah, probably.

Very, very few people use their Macs for gaming, so you'll only ever see a small percentage of the overall Mac market on Steam at any given time.

 

[Jimmyjames]

The Mac’s share dropping coincided with gptk, which shows up as Windows on the steam survey. I’m gonna say Linux is still less.

 

[Renzatic]

The Mac’s share dropping coincided with gptk, which shows up as Windows on the steam survey. I’m gonna say Linux is still less.

It's possible, though with the success of Steam Deck, Valve intending to release SteamOS for general use at some point, and rumors of a Steam console floating about, I only expect Linux to grow from here.

Even with GPTK, Macs are limited on the gaming front by the high cost of entry relative to its competitors, so I wouldn't be surprised to see it fall to 3rd place on Steam.

 

[Jimmyjames]

It's possible, though with the success of Steam Deck, Valve intending to release SteamOS for general use at some point, and rumors of a Steam console floating about, I only expect Linux to grow from here.

Even with GPTK, Macs are limited on the gaming front by the high cost of entry relative to its competitors, so I wouldn't be surprised to see it fall to 3rd place on Steam.

I mean if the steam deck = Linux, then the PlayStation = FreeBSD.

 

[Renzatic]

I mean if the steam deck = Linux, then the PlayStation = FreeBSD.

Not quite, since you have full access to the Linux desktop underneath it all, plus you can install native Linux applications outside of the Steam store through Flathub and all that good stuff.

 

[Jimmyjames]

Not quite, since you have full access to the Linux desktop underneath it all, plus you can install native Linux applications outside of the Steam store through Flathub and all that good stuff.

The point is, you can claim the steam deck is a triumph for Linux gaming, but really it’s a triumph for Valve with Linux as an implementation detail. 99% of people using slither Steam deck don’t give a crap about Linux, just as PlayStation users don’t give a crap about FreeBSD.

Plus having access to the “good stuff” of a Linux desktop is about as useful as having access to macOS on your server.

 

[Renzatic]

The point is, you can claim the steam deck is a triumph for Linux gaming, but really it’s a triumph for Valve with Linux as an implementation detail. 99% of people using slither Steam deck don’t give a crap about Linux, just as PlayStation users don’t give a crap about FreeBSD.

Plus having access to the “good stuff” of a Linux desktop is about as useful as having access to macOS on your server.

Everything that Valve does to improve the Linux experience is ported throughout the rest of the Linux ecosystem. You don't have to use SteamOS to play Windows games in Linux, for instance. Proton is just a few clicks away, and works exactly the same in Fedora as it does in Ubuntu, which works the same as it does in SteamOS.

And though the Linux desktop doesn't have access to all the apps that are available in Windows or MacOS, it does have quite a few, so it's not quite useless.

...depending on what you're doing.

 

[Jimmyjames]

Everything that Valve does to improve the Linux experience is ported throughout the rest of the Linux ecosystem. You don't have to use SteamOS to play Windows games in Linux, for instance. Proton is just a few clicks away, and works exactly the same in Fedora as it does in Ubuntu, which works the same as it does in SteamOS.

And though the Linux desktop doesn't have access to all the apps that are available in Windows or MacOS, it does have quite a few, so it's not quite useless.

...depending on what you're doing.

It seems like our experiences of using Linux are vastly different.

 

[dada_dave]

The point is, you can claim the steam deck is a triumph for Linux gaming, but really it’s a triumph for Valve with Linux as an implementation detail. 99% of people using slither Steam deck don’t give a crap about Linux, just as PlayStation users don’t give a crap about FreeBSD.

Plus having access to the “good stuff” of a Linux desktop is about as useful as having access to macOS on your server.

A key difference is that that non-SteamOS Linux users can install Proton games and if Linux native gaming were to take off as a result of Valve’s efforts, yes I agree that’s an if, the rest of the Linux ecosystem can benefit. The same is obviously not true for FreeBSD and PlayStation.

 

[Jimmyjames]

A key difference is that that non-SteamOS Linux users can install Proton games and if Linux native gaming were to take off as a result of Valve’s efforts, yes I agree that’s an if, the rest of the Linux ecosystem can benefit. The same is obviously not true for FreeBSD and PlayStation.

I’m saying it won’t take off because literally no one cares about Linux on the desktop. Furthermore this idea that Linux as a whole benefits is dubious.

Also the idea that the very thing that has destroyed native gaming, is somehow going to allow native gaming to take off is…interesting.

 

[dada_dave]

I’m saying it won’t take off because literally no one cares about Linux on the desktop.

They don’t have to for Linux users to benefit. Targeting SteamOS is targeting Linux.

Furthermore this idea that Linux as a whole benefits is dubious.

It just does. SteamOS simply is a Linux OS and doesn’t gate the software or fork it. I don’t think this will make the year of the Linux Desktop happen any time soon, Linux as a whole has too many usability problems beyond software availability. But current Linux users benefit from SteamOS success.

 

[Jimmyjames]

They don’t have to for Linux users to benefit. Targeting SteamOS is targeting Linux.

What Linux users? A friend was trying to get proton to work on Ubuntu and because they used snap, it wouldn’t work. They then used a deb and it was fine. This is the kind of nonsense one faces with Linux on the desktop. A massively fragmented landscape with a million different ideas about what to do. The entire effort is a mess. It can’t succeed until there is some unity, and there will never be unity in Linux.

It just does.

I don’t agree. There is no “just” on Linux because none can agree what it is outside the kernel.

 

[dada_dave]

What Linux users? A friend was trying to get proton to work on Ubuntu and because they used snap, it wouldn’t work. They then used a deb and it was fine. This is the kind of nonsense one faces with Linux on the desktop. A massively fragmented landscape with a million different ideas about what to do. The entire effort is a mess. It can’t succeed until there is some unity, and there will never be unity in Linux.

I don’t agree. There is no “just” on Linux because none can agree what it is outside the kernel.

I was editing while you responded

SteamOS simply is a Linux OS and doesn’t gate the software or fork it. I don’t think this will make the year of the Linux Desktop happen any time soon, Linux as a whole has too many usability problems beyond software availability. But current Linux users benefit from SteamOS success.

As to your friend’s experience that’s odd as that should’ve worked almost out of the box. But yes I agree that’s a pain point of Linux. That doesn’t change the point however that Linux users benefit from an increased availability in software.

 

[Renzatic]

This is the kind of nonsense one faces with Linux on the desktop. A massively fragmented landscape with a million different ideas about what to do.

It's bad on Ubuntu, which wants to force their homespun Snap packages down everyone's throats. Every other distro uses Flatpaks without any issues whatsoever.

Linux these days does still require some technical know-how and a basic understanding of all it's various bits and bobs to use well. That will never change, and it'll be something that MacOS and even Windows will have over Linux.

That said, the learning curve for Linux these days is considerably less steep than it once was. You almost never have to go to the terminal anymore, and the fragmentation issue is pretty much solved with Flatpaks, and work everywhere regardless of what distro you're using.

 

[dada_dave]

@Jimmyjames this you?

 

[Jimmyjames]

@Jimmyjames this you?

View attachment 27763

Indeed!

 

[dada_dave]

Indeed!

I haven’t watched the video yet but the title is definitely clickbait

 

[Jimmyjames]

I haven’t watched the video yet but the title is definitely clickbait

I skimmed through it and it seemed very confused to me.

He says Apple needs people play games on the Mac so that game devs make games for the Mac and the best way to do that is open source GPTK which will cause game companies to open source their game source code which the “community” will then use to port the games….hmmmm.

I’ll watch it properly to see if I’m being unfair but uhhhh

 

[mr_roboto]

I mean, if he doesn't immediately turn around and say that's totally unrealistic and will never happen, he's naive at best.

Naive is what I think. In what I've watched (not this video but others), Tsai seems like a young guy who's taught himself the surface level of game porting by playing around with the GPTK, and he's really excited about it. He was able to lead the way on "porting" a bunch of games! Of course he hopes it can become a community thing so he can be part of this fun new hobby. He probably doesn't understand that things get 1000x more difficult and technical in the post-GPTK phase of making a native port, so nearly all "community" members (probably including himself) might not have the ability to meaningfully contribute. He also doesn't have any feel for how the owners of game intellectual property think if he believes they'll just open source their stuff.