Proton doesn't work as expected in most cases

[ChildishhAlbino]

Batocera build version

v38 2023/10/14 21:43

Your architecture

x86_64

Your Graphic Processor Unit (GPU)

Dedicated (e.g. GTX 1050; Radeon R9 380)

Graphical brand

Nvidia

Issue description

Proton and Proton-GE community builds were removed from Flathub earlier this year. This has limited the number of working versions of Proton I can install.

Using any version of Proton higher than 5.0.* installed natively in Steam is either very flakey or outright refuses to launch the game (even when multiple accounts of that version or higher working have been shown on ProtonDB)

I have tried using ProtonUp-QT to install versions of Proton-GE with little or no success.

I know in the past I had versions of Proton 6.21 working via Flathub but have had issues as updates have happened to Steam and Batocera.

Expected result

Installed versions of Proton within Steam and via external applications work as expected.

Reproduction steps

• Install Batocera
• Install Steam
• Download a non linux game
• Select Proton Experimental or any version > 5.0.* from the dropdown.
• Start your game

Logs and data

Tried troubleshooting on a long time install and have recently done a completely fresh install to see if that resolved the issue. It did not.

[dmanlfc]

We can't be responsible for Flatpaks being removed which support Steam. The Wine implementations we provide are to run Windows Emulators that are not available on Linux as the primary focus. Although Windows game support is provided, it's there to support what games can run outside of Steam.

Note: Proton isn't supported by Valve outside of Steam OS. So if Wine options are becoming limited within the Flatpak eco-system, then that's an unfortunate and is out of our control.

We will look to improve some Wine options at sometime (maybe GE builds) but it's not the main goal of our distribution which is retro gaming through emulation.

[ChildishhAlbino]

We can't be responsible for Flatpaks being removed which support Steam.

Not saying that Batocera is responsible for the Flatpaks being removed - it seems an alternative method was provided which made it easier to install multiple different versions of proton at the same time. This new app to install proton seems to install them fine but they don't work like the previous method did within Batocera.

Note: Proton isn't supported by Valve outside of Steam OS. So if Wine options are becoming limited within the Flatpak eco-system, then that's an unfortunate and is out of our control.

I am just calling out that this was supported by Batocera under the old approach of installing Proton and is referred to in this wiki page (which is now out-of-date) and for some reason.

We will look to improve some Wine options at sometime (maybe GE builds) but it's not the main goal of our distribution which is retro gaming through emulation.

I was hoping that there is a simple explanation that could be debugged and resolve this issue and make Batocera suitable to act as both a "Steam Machine" + Retro gaming box at the same time. There are plenty of games on Steam that at this stage would already or will be considered retro in the coming years.

This used to work pretty well for MOST games; so just wanted to see if we can easily get this back online. If the maintainers don't see this is a priority or have the time to spend on this - understandable.

Feel free to close this issue if the maintainers aren't going to focus on this.

EDIT: Updated wiki link to intended page.

[n2qz]

I am just calling out that this was supported by Batocera under the old approach of installing Proton and is referred to in this wiki page (which is now out-of-date) and for some reason.

I'm unable to find anything on that page about installing proton. Could you clarify?

[ChildishhAlbino]

sorry @n2qz - must've copied the wrong link in my haste. Have edited the original comment.

https://wiki.batocera.org/systems:steam#installing_alternate_versions_of_proton This is the page/section I was referring to.

[ChildishhAlbino]

Going to close this issue as the above method is still supported although EOL.

I'll follow up in the discord for any troubleshooting advice I might need.