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Question to developers regarding steam's new "Steam Play" on linux!


GloriousEggroll
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Hi guys. So back at GuardianCon I approached a few people at the Digital Extremes booth to express that I'd written a bash script that gets Warframe working on linux with DXVK. They informed me to try making a post on the forums. Today, Steam announced Steam Play (https://steamcommunity.com/games/221410#announcements/detail/1696055855739350561), which uses DXVK. The game itself runs beautifully in DXVK, but the problem is not the game, but the launcher, which is what my script handles.

Here are the the bash scripts I created which get the game working easily on linux, with DXVK, without touching the official launcher:
https://gitlab.com/GloriousEggroll/warframe-linux

The problem with the official launcher in linux is when you launch it, it tries to update itself, then fails to remove the old version, resulting in the launcher re-launching itself in a never ending loop.

If you fix this. JUST THIS. The game will be compatible with Steam Play. Will you try to fix this to allow Steam Play support?

My script does in bash what the official one does as far as updating the game goes, minus the extra launch options. It also checks the cache by default. You can see step by step details on the script here:
https://gitlab.com/GloriousEggroll/warframe-linux/blob/master/updater.sh

Here is a video of one of my recent streams, which has me running Warframe at max settings on a Vega 64 in linux.  (please excuse my language and general banter). Later in the video I was trying to get Warframe running in Steam (but failing). Neither version works in linux with the official launcher due to the above mentioned bug:

 

 

Update:
After some tinkering, I've managed to modify my script, and made steam think my launcher was the Launcher.exe, so now steam warframe is working for me with full tennogen access!

Would of course be nice to use DE's official method 😜CoQWuaf.jpg

Edited by GloriousEggroll
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2 minutes ago, peterc3 said:

This seems like you're asking for development time to be spent on an edge case that only exists for Linux, something I haven't seen any indication they are interested in officially supporting.

Did you actually read what OP wrote, and think about the implications? OP has already identified the problem and developed their own solution. All that really needs to happen is for it to be "officialized," no?

The context of the Steam Play release makes the subject of Linux compatibility less of an "edge case" and especially time-relevant.

Also, since when are you the authority on how the devs' time should be spent? DE asked OP to come post about it (unless the people at the DE booth were not actually from DE...?), so that's what OP did.

It sounds like what you really mean by "I haven't seen any indication they are interested" is "I am not interested."

It's fine to have an opinion, but don't misrepresent it as some official DE decision. Even if it were technically correct before, Steam support for Windows games on Linux could change that.

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6 minutes ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

Did you actually read what OP wrote, and think about the implications? OP has already identified the problem and developed their own solution. All that really needs to happen is for it to be "officialized," no?

The context of the Steam Play release makes the subject of Linux compatibility less of an "edge case" and especially time-relevant.

Also, since when are you the authority on how the devs' time should be spent? DE asked OP to come post about it (unless the people at the DE booth were not actually from DE...?), so that's what OP did.

It sounds like what you really mean by "I haven't seen any indication they are interested" is "I am not interested."

It's fine to have an opinion, but don't misrepresent it as some official DE decision. Even if it were technically correct before, Steam support for Windows games on Linux could change that.

To my understanding, OP making a thread was not related to there being issues with the launcher, but with potentially gauging interest.

Every time Linux support has come up, and I could be wrong, the answer was always Linux isn't an official platform that they support.

They fix the issue now and what happens when more issues pop up? How much dev time should go to Linux support, heretofore an unsupported platform?

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For my part at least, I will happily move back to Linux when Microsoft's support of windows 7 ends instead of going to windows 10.

It's a personal thing with me, but it's still a thing.

Knowing that it won't take too much in the way of arcane scripting to get Steam and Warframe to work on it is great.  I love seeing posts like the above from the OP.

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10 minutes ago, peterc3 said:

To my understanding, OP making a thread was not related to there being issues with the launcher, but with potentially gauging interest.

OP specifically discussed their script at the booth; how did you come to the conclusion that it was only for "gauging interest?"

10 minutes ago, peterc3 said:

Every time Linux support has come up, and I could be wrong, the answer was always Linux isn't an official platform that they support.

And as I said, even if that has been the position previously... Steam Play support is a new development and warrants additional consideration.

10 minutes ago, peterc3 said:

They fix the issue now and what happens when more issues pop up? How much dev time should go to Linux support, heretofore an unsupported platform?

If Steam Play simply implements Linux support for games that are otherwise developed solely for Windows, why should it need to be supported separately?

Also what is the point in discussing "how much dev time" would be appropriate, given neither of us has any clue how much would be needed and neither of us has any relevant authority over it? That's for DE to decide.

Sure, DE may have previously stated that Linux was too niche to be worth it... But that was before Steam Play was part of the picture. It's time for a new decision, even if it ends up staying the same.

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3 hours ago, peterc3 said:

To my understanding, OP making a thread was not related to there being issues with the launcher, but with potentially gauging interest.

Every time Linux support has come up, and I could be wrong, the answer was always Linux isn't an official platform that they support.

They fix the issue now and what happens when more issues pop up? How much dev time should go to Linux support, heretofore an unsupported platform?

There is a massive difference between a small problem with the launcher and "Supporting Linux" like a couple of points of magnitude. Additionally DE have a strong relationship with Steam and this simulation environment is supported by Steam.

As a developer myself, this is well worth looking at.

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3 hours ago, peterc3 said:

To my understanding, OP making a thread was not related to there being issues with the launcher, but with potentially gauging interest.

Every time Linux support has come up, and I could be wrong, the answer was always Linux isn't an official platform that they support.

They fix the issue now and what happens when more issues pop up? How much dev time should go to Linux support, heretofore an unsupported platform?

I'm not asking for "official" linux support. If you read into the article at all that steam released, many games are not "officially" supported. Users on linux use Steam Play knowing that it may or may not work. Steam themselves have stated that for unlisted games.

Also, the game itself has run on WINE since at least 2015 in dx9 mode, now currently runs on dx11. Wine developers take bug reports when a game breaks. This is something DE does not need to worry about. Many times a game will work perfectly fine but have a broken launcher. I am not asking the devs to drop extensive time into changing the game to be completely linux friendly. I'm just asking for the launcher bug to be fixed.. that is all.

If they choose not to, that's perfectly fine. As a long time linux user myself and others have always eventually found ways around broken things. I just feel although linux is a small community, it is also a missed opportunity for growth, especially in a free to play game.

And to clarify, I spoke with [DE]Rebecca at GuardianCon.

Edited by GloriousEggroll
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Never understood why programmers in general don't use Linux more. It is one of the best open source OS out there. Capable of being remodified for different purposes, and then redistributed. I worked on it once or twice, and it's pretty #*!%ing cool to mess around with. I don't know, maybe It's because it lacks the fancy GUI that windows has? Even so, you can still  get it to run a similar user interface. Or is it because of its unfriendly user interface? Either way I think it's a wonderful piece of software that should be used more, of course I can see how a end user may not like it. But who cares about those guys 😉

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25 minutes ago, GlaikitMayflies said:

Never understood why programmers in general don't use Linux more. It is one of the best open source OS out there. Capable of being remodified for different purposes, and then redistributed. I worked on it once or twice, and it's pretty #*!%ing cool to mess around with. I don't know, maybe It's because it lacks the fancy GUI that windows has? Even so, you can still  get it to run a similar user interface. Or is it because of its unfriendly user interface? Either way I think it's a wonderful piece of software that should be used more, of course I can see how a end user may not like it. But who cares about those guys 😉

It must have been a long time ago you worked with Linux if you don't think it has a fancy GUI. Both Gnome and KDE has always strived to have a user-friendly interface. Ubuntu's Unity is a matter of taste I guess. I don't like, but a lot of people do. I work with Linux servers, and that's all through a terminal, but if you are just running it on your desktop, you have all the GUI features you could want.

KDE 5:

Gnome 3:

 

 

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I don't use GUI's often for any Linux flavors anymore, since due to my current dev environment setup, I use a Hyper-V virtual machine, that has Ubuntu Server (CLI) on it for coding/testing. In the past, though, I had some VM's with GUI - really was fond of Cinnamon personally, which was originally created by the Linux Mint developers (started out as a fork of GNOME2), though it is available for several other Linux distributions.

On topic, this sounds very intriguing, and I hope DE takes this into consideration for fixing the launcher issue on an official channel. I have a Windows 10 Pro license I am using, but I am not by any means bound to Windows, nowadays I mainly play Warframe, and one other older MMO, which runs fairly well on WINE (or so I've heard.)

However (off-topic again), I also am a music producer, and I do not have any experience with the popular Linux DAW (LMMS). Some light initial reading suggests that VST software instruments can be loaded through some kind of WINE wrapper, I have a few select instruments I mainly use. 

Either way, it would be ideal if Warframe had a relatively smooth Linux experience all-around (including updating and patching, too), without too much effort being spent to fix Linux-specific issues that would be better suited elsewhere.

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5 minutes ago, Lyhtmyst said:

Either way, it would be ideal if Warframe had a relatively smooth Linux experience all-around (including updating and patching, too), without too much effort being spent to fix Linux-specific issues that would be better suited elsewhere.

First, I really can't throw shade at you for just rocking the CLI. 

The part of me that's attracted to shiny objects keeps thinking "but but but E is so pretty!", but in terms of pure functionality... yeah.

On topic, I too would very much appreciate an official Linux version of Warframe, though I know current usage stats wouldn't necessarily support doing so yet. 

Part of it for me is wanting an alternative that isn't a console for playing Warframe, since I know for a fact that I won't upgrade to Windows 10.  The rest of it is that I can do everything on Linux now that I'd want to do on windows (with the possible exception of Silverlight for Amazon Video, but even that looks doable).

I fully sympathize with issues making music on Linux, though.  I'm no musician, though I do have geeky friends who are.

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1 hour ago, GlaikitMayflies said:

Never understood why programmers in general don't use Linux more. It is one of the best open source OS out there. Capable of being remodified for different purposes, and then redistributed. I worked on it once or twice, and it's pretty #*!%ing cool to mess around with. I don't know, maybe It's because it lacks the fancy GUI that windows has? Even so, you can still  get it to run a similar user interface. Or is it because of its unfriendly user interface? Either way I think it's a wonderful piece of software that should be used more, of course I can see how a end user may not like it. But who cares about those guys 😉

Can't speak for everyone, but for me it's it's mainly because I'm a born-and-raised Windows user.  I've used Macs, I've used Linux, but Windows is the only one that feels nice for just everyday use.  I know what it does and how to make it do the things I want it to do, and can use Linux for development.  Windows is comfortable, even if I have to smash it with a metaphorical crowbar and tear out parts of its brain every now and then, while all of my experiments with switching to Linux for everyday use felt like I was constantly arguing with it to make it do what I wanted it to do, as opposed to Windows only being like that like that sometimes

In the end I have just never found a compelling enough reason to switch entirely, and I haven't had the time, energy, or motivation to want to learn, adjust to, and use a new OS in years.

Of course, I'm not suggesting any of this is reason to not support Linux, I just wanted to share my point of view.

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22 minutes ago, XANi said:

There is issue about it on Proton bug tracker, while I advise to not spam it with "+1" and  "mee toooo" comments, maybe fix at Valve side would be possible

https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/167

 

Interesting that it's an easily fixable bug. I hope Digital Extremes implements this and give the approval for this for their game. Would be nice to see DE give valve direct support for warframe.

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On 2018-08-22 at 3:26 AM, GloriousEggroll said:

After some tinkering, I've managed to modify my script, and made steam think my launcher was the Launcher.exe, so now steam warframe is working for me with full tennogen access!

Nice work, sounds promising! Would you mind sharing how you achieved this? I'd love to get it running here.

EDIT: Just saw the steamplay-proton branch in your gitlab repo. I'll give that a try soon.

Edited by Tenshar
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You can not imagine how happy seeing some more Linux support would make me. Literally the only thing still tethering me to the festering horse carcase that is Windows is readily available game support. That's all MS still has going for them at this point and if they lose that "exclusive" it's pretty much game over. *top kek*

I say exclusive in quotes because you can get a lot of games working in Linux but it's just slightly more work than I'm willing to commit to on a semi regular basis. That said it's already worlds better than it used to be. I remember the time back when I had to manually configure and compile my audio drivers to get them to work. Now pretty much everything is about as Plug and Play as any other OS. It just needs games to be as convenient and it's off to the races. 

So I implore you DE help free us from the shackles of the Microsoft. 

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57 minutes ago, JimmieTheApe said:

My only real concern now is would I get banned for playing this using steam proton. There's been talk before about dxvk being against terms of service and stuff.

There have been people successfully running Warfarame on various WINE / DXVk configurations for a few years now who have not been hit with bans to the best of my knowledge - the fact that there is now a similar compatibility layer officially sanctioned by a platform Warframe supports should hopefully mean there is very little cause for concern.

It would be nice to get some official word from one of the community team regarding a stance on this, though I'm sure they're looking at it just now.

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3 minutes ago, Voidhymn said:

There have been people successfully running Warfarame on various WINE / DXVk configurations for a few years now who have not been hit with bans to the best of my knowledge - the fact that there is now a similar compatibility layer officially sanctioned by a platform Warframe supports should hopefully mean there is very little cause for concern.

It would be nice to get some official word from one of the community team regarding a stance on this, though I'm sure they're looking at it just now.

Yeah if I can get an official response I will feel at ease. I miss my xfce desktop.

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26 minutes ago, JimmieTheApe said:

Yeah if I can get an official response I will feel at ease. I miss my xfce desktop.

They responded officially once already but the person who requested the response read it completely wrong...
 

The way he read this is completely wrong. DXVK is -NOT- expressly forbidden because it does not alter any of Warframe's libraries or any official game content what so ever.


Here's the actual response from DE that he referred to:


https://forums.warframe.com/topic/41660-guide-warframe-on-linux-with-wine/?page=21#comment-9812901

 
Quote

 

[DE]Nate February 14, 2018 19:39

Hello MEXAHOTABOP,

The long and the short version is that if you are changing .dll files within your computer for your own purposes, there will not be any backlash at all. The time this becomes an issue is if .dll files are changes in the Warframe library and then you logon, or if you are currently logged on, and you change the .dll files in the Warframe library.

Hopefully this helps resolve the issue.

 

 


Let me clarify:
"The long and the short version is that if you are changing .dll files within your computer for your own purposes, there will not be any backlash at all. The time this becomes an issue is if .dll files are changes in the Warframe library"

DXVK and WINE do not modify -any- of Warframe's official files. At all. DXVK translates DirectX calls to Vulkan. WINED3D (The graphics engine used in WINE) translates DirectX calls to OpenGL. None of this happens anywhere near Warframe's game files.

Edited by GloriousEggroll
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