Madiator's CornerBaldur's Gate 3 now has a native Linux build
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ampersandrewbsky.app/profile/larianstudios.com/post/3lzj7oy…
The store page hasn't updated yet, but you can see the Linux Steam depots on steamdb.
This is huge. I was beginning to lose hope we'd ever see a big budget high-profile non-indie get a Linux port ever again.
Edit: Maybe not that huge...
That is to be expected. Which Linux should they support? Steam Deck is ok, it's stable, new and popular. Arch? No way. Ubuntu? Yeah, no. Any other "gaming distro" some dudes built? Who would want to support that?
So what is Linux you want companies to support?
I use Arch btw.
Support the Steam Linux Runtime. Same as every other port?
When you promise support, you have to take responsibility when it doesn't work.
You can promise support for ’xyz’ distro and advertise that which is what Larian is doing however, if they said they supported Debian for example than that would open a whole can of issues as a lot of distributions are Debian based.
Would be nice to have Debian and Arch be the foundation for Linux based game development and make that the standard throughout all the other distros like SteamOS, LinuxMint or PopOS. Fedora is kinda in their own world I suppose.
You don't have to support any specific Linux, valve provides all the necessary runtimes
https://gitlab.steamos.cloud/steamrt/steamrt/-/blob/steamrt/scout/README.md
But isn't the steam deck Arch as well? So I wonder if there's still a difference where they support just the deck specific specs...
But if it's a Linux native build, and the deck is arch, it would stand to reason that you could at least get the build on arch. Maybe they're doing a check against the uname or something to verify what you're running.
I know native ports are important to some folks, and I know you're one of them, but would you mind explaining why? Maybe you've done so in the past and I didn't internalize it.
Larian's own reasoning here appears to be squeezing it for more performance, and with Linux users now accounting for 6% of English-language players, I suspect more companies will find this to be worth the effort as that percentage rises and Windows becomes more of a pain in the ass.
EDIT: reworded statistic for accuracy
Proton still perpetuates Microsoft’s monopoly on graphics APIs etc.
I guess, but it also simultaneously ports thousands of games that were never going to get updated with Linux builds even if Linux became 100% of the market tomorrow; several games I have now with native Linux ports are worse than the same game run through Proton. And when run through Proton, it's no longer hitting Microsoft code. Anyway, this outcome in this post is the kind of thing that Valve expected to happen but has happened very little thus far, hopefully a sign of things to come.
Totally. And then DirectX 13 comes out and needs to be reversed and implemented, all the while developers don’t think about Linux.
If MS get cheeky with the MZ/EXE/PE format, we could be several years behind.
I’ve been using Wine for years and I think anyone who has been using it all this time will get what I’m saying.
Just because Proton/Wine has caught up (mostly) doesn’t mean it wasn’t a long and painful journey to get there.
Yeah but given that dxvk is a thing, a switch to dx13 would just need to be implemented there. The underlying wine layer would only need to change if the PE format changed. But even then, that would destroy backwards compatibility in the windows world.... something that Microsoft's enterprise customers would (rightfully) crucify them for.
I mean, UWP and Appx was a thing that happened. I doubt it’ll be the last time MS attempt to shift away from PE.
Consumers are being forced to 11 and it seems to be working. I wouldn’t be surprised to see MS bifurcate their consumer and enterprise offerings to accelerate shifts in the consumer space and catalyse shifts in enterprise.
MS have been keen to take stricter control of binaries on their platform for a long time now.
There was a very clear dividing line between Wine before Proton and Wine after Proton. Maybe Indiana Jones and the Great Circle doesn't work great on Proton on day 1, but it catches up so much more quickly than it used to, because there's an incentive to. Anyway, I don't mean to try to change your mind, and at least I get the perspective.
Again, I think you’re coming at this from enjoying Proton today but say DX13 comes out tomorrow, it could be years before Proton is compatible.
It took about 6 years for Proton to be somewhat capable at supporting DX3D 12 after 12 launched in 2014. Arguably it was closer to 7 or 8 years (that’s how long Proton took to get to the state it’s in today).
This is what I’m talking about. If MS purposefully make it difficult to reverse and reimplement (which they have an incentive to do), and game developers continue to focus and target MS platforms, we could be waiting half a decade to play those games on Linux.
Yeah but linux native builds break even with the steam runtime...
Aren’t most games on Vulkan these days?
There’s still plenty of other Windows-only APIs that games rely on.
Unfortunately not. The vast majority of games are DX12. Even DX11 is likely still more popular than Vulkan.
A lot of engines support Vulkan builds, but the default is DX. Almost every game is DX.
The way I see it, native support means our platform is actually being supported.
Though it seems I may have celebrated too soon here...
For me, it shows that they actually care to support Linux. It doesn't really materially change anything, but to does show a sign that they're putting real effort in to support the growing Linux population, rather than just ignoring it and hoping Proton handles it.
does this mean it will perform better on the steamdeck?
Yes
No, not really. It may, but it doesn't necessarily. WINE + Proton doesn't really have a performance impact, so it's not worse than running native usually. Either one could be more performant I think, depending on the situation.
to some degree a bigger deal would be if the download was smaller.
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For what version of glibc?
Doesn't the Steam Linux runtime have a static glibc version in it that doesn't change?
I think this is perfectly fine. I dont think we should really be expecting them to provide support for the entirety of the linux platform when there is so much variation between installs. If its working on steam deck, it'll work on linux generally.
Hell yeah... Zero regrets paying full price for this game.
It would be awesome if they released it on GOG too
Woul be nice if GoG had a linux client
They promised one years ago, definitely coming soon
They should sponsor HGL. No need to reinvent the wheel, and the project could always use the money and fame.
They have a deal with Heroic to give them a portion of revenue for stuff purchased with their affiliate link. Not quite sponsorship but it's a lot more than nothing, which seems to be what Epic is offering them
Heroic Launcher fulfils the basics for it.
It's hot enough off the presses that the Steam store page doesn't even know about it yet, so it's possible it propagates to GOG, too.
The official post on the website says that there’s currently no support for other native Linux platforms besides steam deck, so maybe a bit further down the road with the next patch.
Was already working fine through proton, but this is great to see as well!
Ooh, I think it's time for me to finally buy this game, hopefully in a way that signals my support for this action.
It blows my mind that I haven't played BG3, btw. The original saga of 1 + 2 + expansions is S-tier nostalgia deep in my heart right along with the other big PC and console RPGs of the 90s. i've just been in one of those phases of life where I am focused on other things and not playing many games at all unless my family gets me to jump into something light and co-op.
And when I say focused, on a scale from 1 to 10 I'm talking ADHD hyperfocus.
Just to let you know, BG3 plays completely different than the original saga. It sounds obvious as I type this but BG3 really doesn’t compare. The tone and humor just isn’t the same. Really the only thing that connects to it are certain characters and map names. I would honestly just consider BG3 a really good spin-off game rather than considering it a mainline Baldurs Gate game. Hopefully you aren’t too disappointed, it’s still a very good game. I just have a hard time including it in the Baldurs Gate saga.
I appreciate the opinion!
I pretty much know that stuff, and it's probably another small reason I haven't played it yet. But also knowing that, I wouldn't expect the turn based CRPG feel or anything like.
Well and also, BG1 EE and BG2 EE work great for me in Linux (I think they have native versions so no surprise) so I can get a shot of the real shit whenever I want, lol.
Having a couch PC with its own monitor(s) able to swing in and out of the way without taking over the TV is a game changer. I can play BG while hanging out with my family and pause it at any time.
You should!
Not sure about your family's ages, but it's not that NSFW and so pretty/cinematic your family could watch it like a TV drama. Or play coop with you (as it is coop).
Also, it really does live up to all the hype. I never played 1-2, heck I don't even like turn-based games and prefer scifi over D&D fantasy, and BG3 blew my mind.
Oh there's DEFINITELY some NSFW parts that show A LOT, . but the game definitely lets you know when they're about to happen/ have to look for it
That is true lol, I forgot about the sexy scenes. And some of the horror.
Isn't there an in-game toggle?
For explicit scenes and nudity. I honestly could barely tell that the nipples had been censored though.
This is technically true, but they specifically state that they
don't support Linuxin their faq.This is "just" a SteamDeck build.
(I actually tried to run it on debian, but it didn't want to start. That said, I invested 0 time, maybe it was just a minor thing. no idea)
SteamOS is Arch based, Debian is well Debian based. Makes sense for it not to work.
Steam packages its own Linux runtimes and seldom uses system dependencies. Maybe SteamOS has a different runtime for Steam Deck though.
Like i said, i just changed the runtime and clicked run, and that was it. it is very well possible that it could work with 30 seconds of brain-involvement.
Wasn't expecting a high profile game to get a native Linux build, especially so much time after release, but I'm glad to see it!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Stadia_games
Of course, Stadia builds were not released to the public.
does it break mods or not work with mods for the windows version?
I assume that would depend on the mod. Some depend on custom DLLs, those will only work on Windows. The ones that you just droo into the Mods folder will probably work.
Did some testing on this on Linux, Arch + KDE 6 (wayland) + Nvidia GPU. It looks like DLSS works on Nvidia hardware. I didn't do formal benchmarks, but I didnt notice performance improvement. On my laptop it actually used roughly 10% more watts on the GPU while capped at 60fps. I don't think I could tell the difference on a blind test. So I'll use it anyway to do my part for hardware surveys.
Although this was Act 1, perhaps Act 3 will tell a different story.
The Steam Deck also means they can assume AMD hardware, so even if you don't see the benefits, they might be there for someone else.
Not yet in GOG, though.
I'm confused. It's a Linux native build, but they call it steam deck native. Does this mean it's not optimized for Nvidia since steam deck is AMD hardware? I'm fairly new to Linux, so the wording is throwing me off.
You have to dig a few layers deep, but it appears that they uploaded a Linux build that only downloads for Steam Decks, and they don't seem to fully support non-Steam Deck. I haven't verified a way to get around this, but often, where there's a will, there's a way. You might be able to force the game to download the Linux version from the Compatibility settings in Steam. At least at this point in time, Larian only seems interested in the Linux build for Steam Deck in particular, which I've never seen before.
Wait, I played bg3 on my steam deck over a year ago and it ran just fine. So what’s the difference here? Is this new thing specifically made to run on the steam deck whereas before I was just lucky that bg3 ran on the steam deck?
What you played on your Steam Deck before was a Windows build run through Proton. It's not really luck that it ran before, but with a native build, you can start tweaking the way things work in Linux to optimize for what the Linux version is using. They must have seen the performance gains to be worth the time investment.
Oooh I see. I might download it on my steam deck then again if it means performance improvements because I’ve been wanting to play on the go. Thanks for explaining!
I actually gave it a try by just disabling the forced compatability and then using _GL13ebad=0x1 %command% in the launch options. it works with dlss. only issue for me are the frame drops that pretty much make it unplayable. i saw a post somewhere, someone was saying more power was going to their gpu on the native build. i think that's what's happening to me and its causing some throttling. on proton with vulkan, the game runs fine for the most part.
Oh nice I'll cop it on Steam Deck for the holidays.
Don't remember if it was the same on Windows (before I permanently switched) but hopefully this will keep my GPU from running full throttle from the second I click the launcher until it's closed.
Yeah. I've got MangoHud throttling it down to 36 fps for that reason - if it tries to run 4K @ 144 fps then my graphics card sounds like a Spitfire getting ready for launch. It's not a game that needs twitch response for any reason, so it's not harmed by that.
It's an amazing game but the graphics are a small part of that, which makes the fact it runs inexplicably badly a bit of a mystery. Complicated lighting and long view distances in the underdark? No probs. Just a row of houses in act 3? Enjoy your stutters and framerate dips.
So anyone know if this'll sync save files between Linux and windows builds?
Steam should do this automatically
Hells yeah!
Okay now I'm buying
Did they fix the problem where for some reason, on steam deck you can't do local multiplayer? You need to provide a command line argument to turn on local multiplayer and I can't begin to comprehend why they did this.
Because the game barely runs single player on Steam Deck, and they'd rather not handle a bunch of support tickets for people wondering why the game chugs when trying to make a low end system handle a lot more processing load.
Same reason they disabled local multiplayer for the Xbox Series S
So I had a weird experience with this. Fedora KDE on my desktop PC and after the update the game ran terribly for me, like even the intro logo animations were chugging
Looked at the game files and it had been updated to the Linux version, but I thought the Linux build was just meant for Steam Deck?
Changing the compatibility settings to use proton instead fixed it straight away and had the game running fine again
Wait does it have the same memory-leak windows version had I might consider if my game doesnt slow down to oblivion after 2 hours.
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Game deserved to be bought at full price
Super awesome. When I am ready for another play through I'll give it a go.
That's nice, now please add FSR 3 and XeSS 2
OptiScaler works just fine with BG3 fwiw, so you can get either that way.
I know, but official support would be so much more convenient. No idea why I get downvoted, I thinks it's a fair request considering how well the game sold
That is cool, I’m going to use this
It’s been playing great on mint for awhile now.
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To be fair, what you tried to do is a pretty strange use case.
Verify the game data, it will re-download the game files. You can't really blame steam when you are changing files out side steams knowledge.
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It might have tried, failed to return a deleted confirmation, and didn't update the internal list of installed files, or something.
Pretty interesting
ok thanks 🙏
I’ll never understand people who do nonsense like this.
Tell steam to verify the files. That should make it realize they're missing.