I was a long time Windows user, starting with XP. I only tried Linux a few years ago, and while I loved it, at the time I had to dual boot for a couple specific Windows only things (VR and flight/racing sim hardware).
A couple months ago though, I got sick of it. I figured if I really wanted to do those things, I could boot up a VM, or just force myself to be patient and wait for a proper Linux solution. So, I wiped all my drives and installed Arch. Around this time, I also got an AMD RX 7600XT, so that was a nice performance boost, plus it waranted a switch to Wayland.
Let me tell you, I have been so pleasantly surprised by basically everything I’ve tried. Cyberpunk 2077 through Heroic Launcher, for example, with 15 odd mods. Runs at a solid 80fps at 1440p on high settings, the only graphical issue I noticed was flickering volumetric clouds. This game ate my old card (the venerable GTX 1080) alive even on Windows.
Just last night, I found my joystick, an old VKB Gladiator + Kosmosima grip, plugged it in and it worked perfectly.
What has really, really impressed me though is VR. I have a Quest 2 that I used to use via Steam link to play my PC wirelessly. Obviously that isn’t an option on Linux (yet) but that’s where ALVR comes in. Sideload the client on the quest, run the streamer on the desktop, start SteamVR, and bam, it works. The first game I tried was Elite Dangerous, one of my all time favourite games and easily my favourite VR epxerience. Now, I won’t go ahead and claim it’s perfect, hence the 99% in the title. After fiddling with the settings and making sure I had hardware encoding/decoding set up right, I had very good clarity, up to 120hz refresh rate, but occasional blockiness and artifacting, especially in heavier graphical scenes, like during docking. However, out in open space, it felt just like the ED I know and love.
At this point, I’m just going to look at fiddling with some settings and hopefully smoothing out the stream, but the fact that I can play my favourite games, with my favourite hardware, with great performance and in VR, and the amount of setup is really comparable to what it is on Windows is just kind of wrinkling my brain. Plus, only a couple months ago, this wasn’t the case. Support for things that were once doomed to be dual boot material for the foreseeable future is coming along rapidly. This is a great time to be a Linux gamer.
those shitty anticheat platforms that just assume you’re a cheater if you use Linux. Cause, you know, Linux scary.
To be fair, the people at the cutting edge of modern computing are statistically very likely to be Linux users. Therefore it’s not entirely unreasonable to have some prejudice against Linux users.
But as a sweeping measure these anti-cheat measures are absolutely unacceptable. The only other explanation is that they just don’t want to bother with the market share still being low compared to Windows.
Personally, if a game requires anti-cheat, it’s probably not a game I’d enjoy playing. Not a big fan of competitive gameplay. But for those that are, this needs to stop. Especially with all the new bullshit Microsoft has been pulling in Windows lately.
To be fair, the people at the cutting edge of modern computing are statistically very likely to be Linux users. Therefore it’s not entirely unreasonable to have some prejudice against Linux users.
Can we drop this “linux is hackerman territory for cheats” stereotype?
Most people cheat on windows. Not cause they are technical or knowledgable… but because they have a credit card
cause they buy cheats designed for windows.
The overwhelming majority of people out there cheating are cheating using tools they bought and use on windows.
So if anything, its Windows that should be treated as the pariah dog of hackers. Cause its where the credit swiping script kiddies are.
People buy cheats ?! Is that how this works ? So there are cheat developers making a living off this ?
Yes. Thats why cheaters are so rampant in certain games.
its not because each cheater is a elite linux hackerman, using unique and custom cheats personally created by them.
Its because they are dumb idiots with mommies credit card buying a product that some asshole has made and put up for sale to ruin everyones fun.
Can we drop this “linux is hackerman territory for cheats” stereotype?
I don’t see this as a negative thing and it is absolutely true to some degree. Most of the incredibly talented low-level developers in the world (you know, those that are actually capable of making non-script kiddie hacks) have a tendency towards Linux.
So no, I’m not dropping the “Linux is a sign you might mean business” thing, especially if their idea of a desktop environment is just a collection of terminal windows neatly tiled together. We should be proud of the fact that some the most talented coders in de world choose freedom of software over anything else.
But luckily most of those people focus their efforts on different subjects. So yes, the problem is definitely on Windows with all the 14 year olds buying cheats off the darknet using their mom’s credit card (dramatized for effect).
@KrokanteBamischijf @hperrin But it needs to stop in a way that keeps those competitive games fun…
- Trusted Computing-based solutions
- Don’t tell the game anything-based solutions…
- ??
Trusted-Computing requires a more locked down system than any distro provides, and also (effectively) everyone going along with some MS-controlled standards for TPMs and so forth.
Ignorant-Games approaches perform terribly.
What else ya got?
@KrokanteBamischijf @hperrin Protecting code from the computer it runs on is either impossible or really really hard, depending.
https://multicians.org/thvv/mirror/obfreport.pdf
https://www.iacr.org/archive/crypto2001/21390001.pdf
A few options in my personal order of priority:
- allow private servers - you can still have competitive play, just with people you trust to not cheat
- anti-cheat on the server only - would require human moderation as well (users could submit reports, which could be compared to server logs)
- increase cost for cheating - maybe have players ante up, and lose their ante if they’re caught cheating (e.g. pay for game licenses and have the license revoked); to be fair, this would require independent review
@sugar_in_your_tea Private servers exclude MMOs as a class of game. That works well for death-match style (or BG3 style) 4-player games, but doesn’t work for 30-300-3000 people games.
Anti-cheat server-only allows too many cheats. There’s already enough trouble distinguishing someone using wall-hacks from someone with good headphones in a game that does 3d-spacial-sound… trying to do that on the server side … just won’t work. Same applies for other ways of increasing the costs if detected
@A_Random_Idiot That’s basically a form of @sugar_in_your_tea 's suggestion about making cheating more expensive: “We’ll find your cheat program later, and retroactively find that you were cheating and ban you. Well after the match ended and everyone else’s game was ruined”
@KrokanteBamischijf @hperrin (my wife suggested auditing suspected cheats in games like battlefield by forcing them to play in real world paintball tournaments.
I think her experience as a teacher is impacting her suggestions)
