Steam On Linux Drops Below 2% For August 2024 Survey

[avis]

Meanwhile Windows 11 is already at 50%.

Compatibility and support matter.

[vextium]

Let me just add that this fluctuation continues for the third month:
June: -0.24%
July: 0.00%
August: -0.16%
---------------------------------------------------------------

Getting back to my main topic - an addition to the survey:

Linux has: 1.92%
AMD AMD Custom GPU 0405: 27.79%
AMD Radeon Graphics (RADV VANGOGH): 12.79%


So GNU/Linux without Deck for the month of August has: 1.92 * (1 - (0.278 + 0.128)) = 1.14%

I wonder how this statistic would look like if W11 had a better reputation .

My guy, I legitimately don't understand your hate boner for Linux and why you're here. Surely you have better use of your time? Like post this on Twitter with Twitter Blue and at least you'll get paid for ragebait.

[AmericanLocomotive]

Every single time the Steam Hardware Survey indicates a trend against someone's favorite hardware/software, the claims of it being inaccurate or purposely biased start coming out.

Valve is a software company and publisher. It is in their own best interest, and their partners' best interest to have accurate, reliable data. If 20% of Steam users are running Linux, and Valve is only saying 2% do - how dose that help Valve, their partner developers/publishers, and Steam users?

It doesn't. It would essentially just be leaving a huge part of the market sitting there with no software available for them.

[TheMightyBuzzard]

Proton came a long way my friend. Something not running on Linux/SteamDeck is the exception these days.

Games don't need to be developed natively for Linux anymore. As long as devs don't go overzealous with DRM, it just works. Proton is _that_ good.

Oh it's still nowhere near "_that_ good" but it's pretty passable for about 8-9 out of 10 games. Leaving out any that use recent .Net of course.

[loganj]

LMAO what are you on? Native games barely function. They generally have low performance and no Wayland support, among with other issues.

so steam has wayland support?????
since when?

[skeevy420]

This information is years out of date. Almost all modern games not protected by invasive anticheat work fine on Linux. The performance is usually on pair with Windows, some run a bit worse some run a bit better. A very tiny fraction runs significantly worse, but also a very tiny fraction runs significantly better.
YES, THAT'S HOW MUCH OF AN OVERHEAD THE WINDOWS DESKTOP ENVIRONMENT/SPYWARE SUITE IS OVER JUST THE WINDOWS KERNEL & various syscalls wine/proton needs to translate for.

>I tried it , but not so easy and doesnt work for too many games.

If you are not addicted to one of the anticheat titles, then picking great games to play is simplicity itself on Linux. Native ports are often worse than using proton as well. Perhaps your experiences are years out of date, or it's a user error, such as using syswine to run games etc.. It is true that a certain degree of fiddling is required outside of the Steam client to run stuff well.

I both agree and disagree with that. A lot of games work great on Linux, especially through Steam with Proton. It's when they don't just work that you're left scratching your head and have to be somewhat keen with debugging and troubleshooting. Over the past week I've been installing some GOG games with Lutris or manually and then adding them to Lutris to configure Wine, etc with a handy UI. Some of them just work, some don't. When they don't work it's usually fucking weird.

Take installing and running Myst (2021) the day before yesterday, when I used Proton GE or any Lutris provided Wine or Proton runner then it wouldn't work fullscreen. Only maximized or windowed. Switching to the CachyOS provided Wine allows it to work fullscreen. That's just fucking weird and probably related to some random patch. Most Linux noobs won't think to try multiple Wine runners.

Then there's knowing quirks in the programs you're using. That's especially true when you go outside Steam. Take Lutris, if you use it to launch Gamescope for HDR then you have to know to disable Mangohud else you'll get the HDR swapchain error. Basically, Lutris isn't smart enough to know to switch from "mangohud" to "gamescope --mangoapp" when the HDR switch is flipped. You as the user have to know to untick mangohud and add in the custom flag to gamescope. That'll probably be fixed soon enough, but it's damn annoying when you forget the Mango-HDR quirks. That's not so bad except that there's a bug where my GPU reports 0% in Mangoapp but not Mangohud.

Also, Optiscaler over on Nexusmods is the shiznit. It replaces DLSS with either XeSS, FSR2, or FSR3. I'm using it for FSR3 on Myst and Control to get 1440p60 ultrawide with high/epic settings and ray tracing set to medium (or just on in the case of Myst). I'm using a custom rendering scale of 1.44 on Control via that mod.

I wonder if EA is why there's a dip in Linux usage. EA has been on a roll adding their anticheat to games all summer long. I know that because I saw Battlefield 2042 on sale, thought I'd buy it, and then I read the reviews from other Linux users. Adding anticheat to a bunch of mass multiplayer games during peak multiplayer gaming season is going to lead to less Linux users. At the end of the day most people would rather play with their friends than with a penguin.

[pWe00Iri3e7Z9lHOX2Qx]

I tried it , but not so easy and doesnt work for too many games.
Games need to be native or they wont work good on linux.

I want to focus on the part I bolded. You literally click one setting in Steam to enable Proton. Sure it doesn't work for every game, but it works for a hell of a lot of them. Also, since the release of the Steam Deck, there's a steady stream of games making changes to work better and get Steam Deck verified (just follow GOL).

[pWe00Iri3e7Z9lHOX2Qx]

Sometimes they even work better than on Windows. Going over how old DirectX is not fully supported in last versions of Windows, the Linux community's gamepad mapping automatically installed with a Windows game allow you to play it on Steam Deck. Unlike on the Windows handheld consoles where this mapping is missing and the game e.g. needs physical keyboard for some actions.

Also, containerizing stuff in Linux is just way easier. I'd much rather install games via the flatpak version of Steam or in a distrobox container, especially when they have Easy Anti Cheat and other goop.

[mSparks]

Let me just add that this fluctuation continues for the third month:
June: -0.24%
July: 0.00%
August: -0.16%
---------------------------------------------------------------

Getting back to my main topic - an addition to the survey:

Linux has: 1.92%
AMD AMD Custom GPU 0405: 27.79%
AMD Radeon Graphics (RADV VANGOGH): 12.79%


So GNU/Linux without Deck for the month of August has: 1.92 * (1 - (0.278 + 0.128)) = 1.14%

I wonder how this statistic would look like if W11 had a better reputation .

Fairly normal cycle now over the years. Clearly Linux gamers just take much longer holidays than windows gamers.

Also CS2 is smth of a shtshow right now.

I wonder how this statistic would look like if W11 had a better reputation .

With windows coming in to its end of life in around 12 months, I wonder how this will look when windows is no longer a supported platform.

[r1348]

Lots of Chinese playing monke