Linux Gaming FINALLY Doesn't SUCK!
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2019-05-06
·
1,812 words · ~9 min read
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So in our previous video,
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we discussed the rabbit hole method of gaming on Linux,
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showing off some of the, well,
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more involved methods to get your game on penguin style.
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And in a massive surprise to no one,
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we got a bunch of angry comments from Linux people,
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but their actually outrage wasn't entirely misplaced.
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I can actually definitely see how the average viewer
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might watch that video and think,
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wow, gaming on Linux is really hard,
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when actually many games run on Linux right out of the box.
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So that is what today's video is all about,
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simple gaming on Linux.
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So we pretty much took it for granted
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that because many of them are on Steam,
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native Linux games don't really need a how-to.
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You point and click and Bob's your uncle.
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But,
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that was before Valve unveiled
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some very cool new tech under the hood
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that has the potential to change the gaming industry forever.
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I'm not even exaggerating.
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It's called the Proton API.
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And as it turns out,
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you know that arcane stuff
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that we were showing off in part one?
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Well, Valve has been, very quietly,
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actively supporting developers of software like Wine
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and DXVK in order to improve
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gaming on Linux.
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And Proton actually includes a number of gaming-related fixes
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and performance improvements over Vanilla Wine,
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plus full controller support.
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So what we wanna do today is see if it lives up to the hype.
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Step one is obviously to install Linux on your computer.
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Now, we're not really gonna go into a ton of detail here
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beyond to say that we have gone with Ubuntu.
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Now, you might not like Ubuntu, but quite frankly,
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I don't care.
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If you don't like Ubuntu,
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then go ahead and use whatever you want,
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as long as it can run the Steam client,
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which actually isn't even necessary
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since you could just compile Proton for yourself
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and run it on whatever distro is your personal jam.
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Step number two is to make sure
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that your graphics drivers are up to date.
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Now, for some distributions,
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you may need to download the driver from NVIDIA's website,
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like on Windows.
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But on Ubuntu, all we need to do is load up a terminal,
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then type in sudo or sudo Ubuntu drivers,
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auto install, enter our password,
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and wait for the tuxedoed magic to happen.
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Can I get like a magic sound effect from the editor?
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Now, using the NVIDIA X server settings program,
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we can see that we've got driver 390.48, which is perfect.
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And then a quick note here is
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if Secure Boot is enabled on your computer,
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you will need to follow the prompts to make sure that,
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that everything works afterwards.
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If you don't care about that,
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then you can just disable it in the BIOS.
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Step three then is to install Steam.
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For Ubuntu, that's as easy as clicking download,
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just like you would on Windows,
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then running the .DEB package that you get.
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Once we're done, we can go ahead and launch Steam,
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log in, and get a list of all the games
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we have available to play.
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Step four is to just play your games.
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So in the case of Deus Ex Mankind Divided
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and other Steam play titles,
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we actually don't need to do anything
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with Proton.
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We can just fire it up and run it just like on Windows,
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albeit with usually a significant performance hit.
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Like, I don't wanna oversell the Linux experience.
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I just wanna make it clear that Linux is not to blame
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for a lot of these shortcomings.
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It's typically down to poor driver optimization
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from the video card manufacturers.
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This TV's leg's not bad.
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Like, especially with the G603.
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So we're completely wireless.
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Not bad at all, actually.
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Blah, blah, you're dead.
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Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
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How is he not dead?
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How many bullets do you have to put in these people?
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It's like they're made out of the same
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bullet-resistant flesh that I am.
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Hit markers are so fun.
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Oops, oops, oops, oops, oops.
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Yeah, so the gaming experience then is just like on Windows.
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Okay then, so far so good.
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But now we're gonna go a little deeper.
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Step five is to install a non...
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A non-Linux game.
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So why don't we go with Doom,
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which actually needs an update here before we can start it.
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It's running really well.
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I mean, it's a 1080 TI, so like...
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And like, it's very responsive.
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I haven't seen...
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I saw maybe one thing that I could describe as a hiccup.
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Other than that, it's butter smooth.
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That really is incredible.
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This is a Windows game,
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and I'm just running it like Bob's your uncle.
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Hey, Bob.
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Bam!
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Look at the face.
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Space Marine style.
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Now, the current list of so-called whitelisted titles
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is pretty short,
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but you can expect anything on it
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to basically just work like that.
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And that's not even as far as we can go
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with the new Proton API,
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which I guess brings us to step six, experimentation.
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So if we go to the settings menu in Steam,
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we can actually see that we've got this Steam Play,
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Steam Play section here,
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where we can enable Steam Play for all titles.
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Pretty cool.
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This opens up the entire library for us to install,
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though it's worth saying that here be dragons.
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While many games may work out of the box
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on your particular hardware,
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only games on the whitelist are guaranteed to work.
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You can actually tell Valve, which is cool,
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which games you want them to work on,
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or if you have issues,
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or if they work fine
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by using their newish platform-specific wishlist function.
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For now, let's experiment
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and see what we can get running, shall we?
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Why don't we start with a PC building simulator?
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This just trips me the crap out,
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just seeing a Windows game run on Linux.
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Ooh, okay, this one doesn't run very well.
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Okay, well, I said could, I didn't say has already.
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Give them time, Ed.
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Let's try something else.
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And I didn't try it in OpenGL yet.
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Actually, I'm gonna try it in OpenGL.
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This is Linus Tech Tips, not Linux Tech Tips, okay?
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We are separate.
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The spinning fan looks like it's running a little smoother,
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but no guarantees yet.
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Okay, that's a lot better.
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Okay, let's shut this one down
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and try something totally different.
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And now for something completely different.
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Some of the kids will get the reference.
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The old kids.
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Log out!
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I thought force quitting stuff, you know what I mean?
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Force quitting stuff is supposed to be easy in Linux.
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Terminal.
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Do it in the, no, I can't even get the terminal up.
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I'll control alt function F2.
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Oh, and she's locked up.
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She's done, she's done.
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Is that a reset button?
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There it is.
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We did say here be dragons.
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Okay, Grand Theft Auto 5 is taking a little while here.
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Should this one launch?
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No, oh, okay.
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So you knew this was gonna happen,
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you're just messing with me.
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Okay, so much for that.
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Why don't we try duck game?
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Duck game, I've never heard of it.
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This one doesn't work either?
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You're just messing with me.
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Oh, you're trying to show different ways of it failing.
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So it could have a launcher come up and then fail.
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It could just do absolutely nothing.
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Or we could move on to Skyrim.
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Failed to extract plugin file.
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Okay.
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Speaking of here be dragons, Skyrim might be working.
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That actually even seems like it's running
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at an okay frame rate.
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Dang.
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Skyrim works.
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I'm gonna bloody my fist on this rock.
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Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
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And you're dead, blah.
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I'm probably screwing up whoever save game this is.
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Whatever, I'm probably a loser anyway.
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That's okay, I'll fight it with this ax.
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Well, let's see if it takes out this guy.
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Whatever, this guy sucks, let's take his clothes.
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All right, that's probably enough of that.
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Not everything works that well.
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Crisis is a DRM fail.
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It's probably the DRM crap that won't run,
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not necessarily the game itself.
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And then PUBG is a similar story.
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In this case, it's the easy anti-cheat that fails to install.
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Wait, Witcher 3, isn't that a Steam game?
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This one is running pretty pretty though.
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It should be noted that this particular game
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supports Hairworks in Windows, but not in Linux.
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And that was true of DXVK too.
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But does Hairworks really enhance the experience that much?
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I mean, I guess it depends who you ask
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and what they're a fan boy of.
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So there you have it.
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I guess the real takeaway here is that we wanna give
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the less Linux savvy folks out there
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a little bit more of a push to give this a try
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because it really is simpler now.
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For the power users out there,
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by the way, you're probably gonna ask,
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Proton doesn't yet support running games outside of Steam
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like Wine does.
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But for the enormous library of games on Steam,
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you are completely,
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TM, covered.
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So then is the year of the Linux desktop upon us?
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In my opinion, not yet,
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but it does feel a little different this time.
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Linux driver support, for example,
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actually seems to be becoming a priority
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for AMD and NVIDIA for once.
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So to use like a train analogy,
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the train might not be here yet,
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but I also wouldn't throw on my noise canceling headphones
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and take a walk along the track that it's approaching on.
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So thanks for watching guys.
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If you disliked this video, sorry, Mr. Balmer,
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you don't even work there anymore, man.
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Why are you bothering to run around
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hitting thumbs down on my videos?
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For those of you who liked it though,
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hit the like button, get subscribed,
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or maybe consider checking out where to buy the stuff
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we featured at the link in the video description.
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JK, it's free.
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Also down there is our merch store,
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which has cool shirts like this one
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and our community forum, which you should definitely join.
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Maybe we'll put links to buy like game controllers
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or something.
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Sure, what the hay?
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Or this wireless mouse, which rocks, V603.
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Man, that feels good.