Recently, i had to move from nixos to windows against my will simpy because of anti cheats. While i dont game that much, the few games i enjoy playing are all online with some kind of anti cheat. I used to dual boot but i was tired of having to wait for my slow hdd to load windows (i only have one ssd). I literally used linux for everything else but because of anti cheats i am forced to move to windows. I managed to make it a little better by using wsl2 and removing bloatware but it will never be the same as linux
I refuse to buy a game that has DRM or anti cheat.
I would too, but it play it with firends and they couldn’t care less about free software and linux. They just want to play no questions asked
Get better friends.
Or recommend better games.
Here’s a good place to get better friends: https://friendlylinuxplayers.org/
Which is fine, but it isn’t a perfect strategy, because developers and publishers have complete control to replace the client at any time to add features you decline to use, and you are not automatically entitled to a refund if that happens.
Do you use the Steam storefront at all then?
I prefer gog.com
Not every game on Steam has DRM. Lots will let you just copy your entire install directory to another machine and play without logging in to your account.
Yup. It’s not obvious which those are, but with some digging you can find them. I wish Valve made those more obvious.
I think what you meant to write is “online games with anticheat are the worst thing”.
Because “online anticheat” is becoming a thing wherein the anticheat system is run on a remote server and not your local system. Not only does it not need to install malware on your local system, but it does a better job at catching cheaters.
Yup, and it’s a fantastic option. AFAIK, that’s what Valve uses for CS:GO, and while it’s not perfect, it isn’t intrusive and largely does its job.
I could be wrong but I believe most games (e.g: Fairfight in all EA games) do have a server-side anti-cheats, just not very effective ones because they like for EAC/BE to do most of the work.
Same here. I’ve only a Linux machine for over a decade but I had to go out and buy Windows just so I could play on FaceIT. I’m praying that cs2 supports Linux and the MM experience is good enough to make FaceIT obsolete.
Cs2 is 100% getting Linux support. Wouldnt make sense for a company that heavily invested in Linux to not support it
100% im switching to nixos/arch when cs2 releases
should release this summer, right?
Counting down the days… Less than a month to go??
They’ll release it in valve time
Buy windows? 🤯🤯🤯
I hope they didn’t actually buy it from M$ at least, but a third party reseller for five bucks
Personally never bought it. (Windows activation script ftw)
A Windows license is in the realm of $200
I don’t want to encourage Windows usage, but if you really need it you can buy a grey market license for $10-20.
Why should he?
Sometimes you have to choose between what is convenient and what is right, and sometimes that means giving things up. But not everyone is willing or able to do that. It’s fine, do what you feel you need to.
This. Use whatever is best for you and sometimes that just isn’t Linux. We don’t win people over by trying to force anything :)
Hopefully this issue will continue to get better over time, which it is slowly.
Don’t be so spineless.
Plenty of games work without anti cheat on Linux and I only play them.
You just buckled under the tiniest amount of pressure, but you would have to pry Linux out of my cold dead hands.
Not sure why there are so many downvotes. Are there really that many people in here of all places who think gaming is just triple-A games from companies that don’t respect their players and nothing else?
Edit: wording
It’s actually pretty hard to fuck up your game that much that it doesn’t work on Linux.
Many anti cheat even work under proton.
So yeah, just don’t fucking buy shit games.
Those anti cheat games usually need to opt in to supporting Proton/WINE. For Easy Anti Cheat (perhaps the biggest one out there), devs just need to tick a build option to support it, but then they feel obligated to do QA for it, so the option stays off until the higher ups decide to formally support that configuration.
So it’s not that it’s hard to mess it up, it’s just hard to convince higher ups to allow their game to work on Linux.
If a AAA MP game doesn’t work on Linux, it’s probably intentional.
I don’t like it because that’s the kind of elitist attitude that turns away new people from checking out Linux gaming. Imagine that as a response to “Hey I play these games and am interested in Linux”. You’re going to tell them: “switch to Linux and give up those games and if you don’t you’re not committed enough”?
It’s gatekeeping “console-wars” fanboy mentality. Like a
LinuxPlaystation fan attacking someone for playing anWindowsXbox Exclusive. As if that’s supposed to be their whole identity, and not just a way to play video games.There’s nothing wrong with having multiple consoles; there’s nothing wrong with dual-booting.
In my experience, most Windows-exclusive games work just fine under Wine. It’s not that big a deal.
This thread isn’t even about Windows games per se, but about a few games whose anti-cheats are screwing over Linux users.
I could stop playing these games right now. As i said i’m don’t use my computer for gaming that much. I could be perfectly satisfied with only minecraft. But i play them with the homies and i can’t let them down
DENY YOURSELF EVERY PLEASURE IN LIFE IN SERVICE TO THE OPEN SOURCE GODS
I don’t think I would consider “games with anti cheat” to be “every pleasure in life”. We’re spoiled for choice in games. I can increasingly narrow the scope of what I’m willing to support with my money every year and still not run out of great games to play.
I figured the “open source gods” line would have given away that I was being hyperbolic.
We’re talking about online multiplayer games. Unless all of your friends are in the same camp as you, have fun playing not playing with them.
DRM, especially the always online kind, is shit. I get that and I agree. But to act like OP is weak for wanting to play the games that have it is EXACTLY the dismissive shit that turns people away from the FOSS community. It’s gross and I hate it, get off your high horse (not you in particular) and have a real conversation with a person who comes with an earnest question, don’t tell them they “buckled”
Unless all of your friends are in the same camp as you, have fun playing not playing with them.
You won’t play everything with your friends, but you probably don’t have a 100% overlap in interest in which games you play anyway. Plus, a friendly suggestion goes a long way. “Hey, want to play Quake now that it just got remastered?” or “I just found this game X, and it’s on sale. It’s kind of like Y but with Z. Want to check it out with me?” And yes, I knew you were being hyperbolic, but I think you were serious when you were saying you were denying yourself some pleasure rather than sticking to some principle. And the value of that principle is going to vary from person to person, so I also agree with you on the “buckling”, but there’s just so much to play out there that one criterion is unlikely to be a deal-breaker given the breadth of games available.
I mean you’re basically saying “it’s different for everyone so do what you want” which is very different than calling OP spineless for wanting to play games that don’t work on Linux. I’m not arguing that the best games require Windows or that nothing else is worth playing - I’m saying it’s arrogant and idiotic to insult someone over wanting to play.
have fun not playing with them
I absolutely do.
I’m personally not interested in MP anyway, but I will occasionally play if there’s a Linux compatible game on offer, but I’ll probably burn out after a few sessions anyway. For example, I used to play L4D and similar co-op games with friends, but I got bored after finishing the campaign, so I bailed when they were still playing together.
There are plenty of MP games out there that work on Linux, and I’ve played several of them with friends. The big MP games just don’t interest me.
So it’s less “stand up for Linux” and more “stand up for yourself.” If you don’t like a game your friends like, for whatever reason, feel free to just not play it. I recommend suggesting something else that does interest you. We got into a rut and it turned out my friends didn’t really like the games we were playing anyway, so recommending something else really spiced up our gaming time. Try it out and see what works.
But if you really want to play something, I don’t see a problem with firing up Windows from time to time. I have it installed on my system as well, I just haven’t used it in a year or two, but it’s there if I need it.
NVMe drives have become to inexpensive recently I just bit the bullet and dual-boot windows from it’s own drive. Takes less than ten seconds to switch.
Just make sure you physically disconnect all other storage devices while installing windows. The windows boot loader seems to make itself comfy on any drive it can find.
Dam. Sorry to hear.
Honestly something I’m surprised no game is doing is embrace the hackers.
For example, create a HvH gamemode where users can use lua scripts to aid them. I bet this would turn a lot of people away from the actual cheating scene.
Out of curiosity, which games are those?
Fall guys fortnite and apex (judge me if you want but my broke firend don’t wanna try anything else)
I’m not judging, as I said I was curious. I get it though, Apex just had a Linux ban wave, Fortnite well, it’s owned by Epic and Fall Guys to my knowledge requires editing AC files so Windows in your case is more convenient
Sorry if i sounded a little rude. It’s just that most of the time people think i’m 6y/o just because i play fortnite and it got quite annoying
With the exception of the false positive ban wave reported a few days ago, Apex Legends has played flawlessly on Linux for the last couple of years. According to comments on protondb, Fall Guys also appears to be working fine, including multiplayer with anti-cheat. I’m not trying to tell you that you shouldn’t run Windows if you want to, but perhaps you didn’t fully explore all options?
If you switch back to Linux you could suggest Shatterline to your broke friends. It’s f2p and had no issues with anti-cheat last time I tried it. I think Overwatch 2 is also f2p.
I tried playing fall guys back in the days but it needed a few tweaks and it just didn’t work. Maybe it has changed so idk. Also thanks for your suggestions i’ll try them and see if i can switch back to nixos
I can confirm that both apex and fallguys are working just fine on Linux. Fortnite on the other hand does not.
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I just refuse to buy any games with client side anti cheat. It’s just too much of a security and privacy risk to have those rootkits on my computers.
There’s unfortunately not much to do.
Linux is inherently less “secure” to developers. They have to sacrifice anti-chest efficiency to enable them on Linux, which is a tradeoff most aren’t willing to make.
Most every game I play requires me to stay on windows. I don’t really get any enjoyment out of single player games anymore. So windows stays as the primary OS and that’s likely never going to change.
So don’t get into those games in the first place. There are so many games available. You will never exhaust them all.
I primarily play competitive fps games. They’re more or less the only genre of gaming that’s any kind of fun anymore imo.
I don’t enjoy single player games. I own literally thousands of dollars of indie/AA single player games that I don’t enjoy, so I’ve stopped buying new ones. I’m simply not interested in non-competitive games. They’re not fun and I’d rather not play them.
Personally I don’t really enjoy multiplayer games much because they are all so stale nowadays.
I guess I grew up with dedicated servers, map editors, and mods coming out all the time but most of the modern ones are so fixed on DLC and battlepasses.
You’re essentially the opposite from me. I keep trying MP and it just doesn’t click for me. I played Rocket League a bit with friends, but after 20-30 hours, I got tired of it and didn’t pick it up again. I used to love FPS MP, but it just feels so repetitive these days. I’ve tried MP strategy games, and it’s just the same repetitive thing. It becomes more about flawless performance of the same task and less about experiencing something new.
I love SP games with good story, unique gameplay, or immersive atmosphere. There’s just so much variety in the AA and indie space that there’s always something new to experience.
I haven’t played any of the recent big MP games, and I’m much more satisfied as a gamer than I was when i played them.
I guess I don’t see the appeal anymore. But then the are people who are the exact opposite and see the appeal of SP gaming. And I think that’s interesting.
But it’s not. Easy anti-cheat, for example, works on Linux. The problem isn’t with Linux, it’s that developers don’t target Linux, so their anti-cheat systems don’t work on Linux.
And that’s fine with me, though it would help Linux adoption if those games worked on Linux. But it’s not an inherent limitation of Linux, it’s just something devs need to proactively support.
Correction, EAC barely works on linux. Apex is just safer because Respawn themselves are putting in some effort.
So EAC works, but it works at a different level than it does on windows. EAC does become less secure on both platforms when Linux support is enabled from my understanding. BattleEye, Vanguard and Riots AC don’t work on Linux either, which is a significant portion of major games right now.
I’d argue it is an inherent limitation of Linux, as it’s so open that it’s harder to validate a user isn’t using 3rd party programs to cheat.
Honestly, I’d rather the anti cheat be there. Playing a game with a bunch of cheaters ruins the game. Not wanting to play it is equal to not buying it in the first place in terms of enjoyment. So I’d rather have strong anti cheat on Linux. Anti cheat doesn’t ruin the game, you are still able to enjoy it.
But this is also why I think supporting native Linux builds is better. If they are supporting native Linux builds they are supporting Linux as a platform. With proton the developers don’t think about Linux. Proton overall has kind of hurt Linux support because it means no one thinks about the platform anymore.
Anti-cheat as a concept is fine but invasive client-side anti cheat just aren’t it.
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.
I play League of Legends via Proton. I assume it has an anti cheat and I never had issues with cheaters/hackers. I refuse to believe they need kernel level anti cheat for valorant. Not that I care about shooters.
If you refuse to believe it then my 10 years of making fast-paced shooters won’t change your mind. League uses a userland-level anti-cheat that is easily broken. This is why most of their hacking detection is server-side. Also, reaction time doesn’t really play a huge factor in League. So as long as it’s within human range, the cheaters can go undetected since Rio believes that using cheats to get you high human reactions “defeats the purpose of cheating.” as documented here: https://www.leagueoflegends.com/en-us/news/dev/dev-anti-cheat-in-lol-more/
So overall, shooters are much faster and require client-side authority to feel good. In league, the game is slow enough to wait for the server to tell you what happened. In something like Overwatch, the clients report what happened. When you have that level of fidelity you need that level of trust. But you don’t care about shooters, so don’t worry about it. You can make your flawed argument that all games can be league and all anti-cheat systems can focus on league-like gameplay.
