Rog Xbox Ally Runs Better on Linux Than Windows It Ships With

Yes, win32 is ugly, and so is x86.

The only way it changes course is an enormous rug pull that removes most of the differentiation between PC and Console gaming and you end up with Steam as a dying product unable to compete with either other modes of PC gaming or the dominant console players. (Sadly that's basically what I expect when gaben retires)

The anti cheat developers rely on Microsoft asserting that other cheats aren't loaded prior to the anti-cheat in the kernel. There is no such entity in Linux to attest that a particular linux install is not modified to load the cheats into the kernel before the anti-cheat.

Now, such an entity could be created, and a linux distro released that is signed by that entity, and then the anti-cheat could work on that distro. That would require you to only use that particular distro, though, and you would be limited in how you could change the kernel.

So far, there has not been the push needed to make that happen.

One of those experiences can't replace the other.

I am married with two young children. All of my video game time comes in the hour or two after they go to bed and before I go to bed. I don't have friends around at that time, yet I still want to get some good multiplayer gaming in.

Online matchmaking is amazing these days. You are able to match up against people of about your skill level at any time of day. That experience is magical, compared to the matchmaking from 25 years ago where you would try to find a random lobby, and the players might be amazing or terrible.

I’ll be honest, no matter how unpopular it is I’m really sorry, but those kind of solutions genuinely are the only way. I’ve said it before on HN, but we really do try everything. And not having anything leads to some of the worst experiences possible.

If you genuinely have a better solution, then you are more than welcome to enter the industry and make a significant amount of money.

Hell, I’ll offer you a job right now.

No game developers of seriously looking at enabling even in the cases where it is extremely easy and trivial to enable, because the additional support button isn’t considered worth it for the number of users as they might get.

so when I say it’s defeatist, what I mean is all you have to do is vote with your wallet enough and the games will follow. I know this an absolute fact because I’ve been in this conversation many times.

I am not sure what behavior on the margins I can change that would change the situation. My favorite games can't be played on Steam Deck. Like I said, I have been playing these games for 30 years. I am not about to change my favorite games just so I can make a point about the importance of Steam Deck compatibility. That won't change anything other than I won't be able to play my favorite games anymore.

Honestly, I am happy that they have added proper PC support along with cross platform play at all. Most sports games focus almost exclusively on consoles, and most of the player base play on consoles. Before they added cross platform gameplay a few years ago, it was really hard to find games when I would try to play online. Now it is easy.

The reason they are able to offer cross platform support is because of the anti-cheat.

Take. for example, the NBA2k series, which I used to play a lot; the anti-cheat for PC is awful. They don't allow cross platform play because of that, so games are hard to find and every few games you play a game against a guy who is 12 feet tall and hits every 3 pointer from any spot on the court. It was so bad I stopped playing entirely. For years I settled on playing on XBOX, but i eventually got annoyed enough i stopped buying the game completely.

But that’s beside the point. Gaming companies who produce competitive online games know that the competitive scene will die very quickly if there is rampant, unaddressed cheating. This is why kernel-level anticheat exists. When you have a free to play game banking on the competitive scene & selling cosmetics, cheating is an existential threat to your entire business model, and players demand you do something about it.

Valorant players BY FAR don’t care about kernel-level anticheat, but do care about cheaters getting detected and banned. People put a lot of time into ranked matches, and enjoy the game a lot.

Does riot have other options? Sure, and it probably uses a lot of tools beyond the kernel-level system to help with it. But there is zero business incentive for them to migrate to a different anti-cheat system.

It does not take much to upset your competitive players, because they spend so much time in your game system. And they’re the ones paying for season passes & cosmetics keeping the game alive. There is a lot of risk that companies have no business reason to tackle.

This doesn’t matter for plenty of games, sure, but for people who care about doing well and who enjoy being able to be ranked (and work toward being better) in a fair system, anti-cheat is an important part of the puzzle.

The HN crowd is asking people to prioritize something they don’t care about (how anticheat works) over something they already enjoy and put a lot of time into. That’s not how this works.

It’s going to take a company seeing the value of a Linux market to invest in better anti-cheat solutions for Linux, or investing completely into server-side tech.

Actual cheats are different because it fundamentally changes the game.

Online matchmaking is what lets that be possible. I used to dream of having something like that, all the way back when I first started playing online games when you had to call your friend, then tell your family not to pick up the phone because it was your friend calling your modem, then lose connection when your sister tried to make a call. I remember having to set up a code with my friend; if the phone rang twice and then hung up, that means the next call would be me on a voice call wanting to talk, otherwise let the modem answer it.

I used to dream about being able to play people at any hour of the day, and now it is possible. It is an amazing invention.

That is impossible with custom servers. I have played MANY games that are based around custom servers (and still play some today), and there are many great qualities with those types of games. However, you lose that 'find a good game in under a minute' quality.

I am older now, and I don't want to spend the time to find and join custom servers. I don't want to have to talk to people or deal with server admins or get caught up in drama that a community like that can have. I just want to play competitive, fair games.

Of course, Apple and friends will try to convince you that their gatekeeping is the good kind.