I think that games have been a strategic priority for Windows for a very long time. Going all the way back to DOS/4GW on Windows 95. But the impression I get from Microsoft is that they kind of don't want the hassle of maintaining a desktop OS anymore, and they would be happier if everyone went elsewhere.
On top of this, gaming used to be (and probably still is) the main reason to cycle through PCs. If you're just going to browse the web, use relatively low resource software, etc then a PC or even laptop from a decade+ ago is 100% fine. The reason consumers upgrade is going to be heavily weighted by games. And each of those upgrades often comes with new OEM software that was licensed and other economic benefits to Microsoft.
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As for modern Microsoft, I agree with you from an outsider's perspective, but I'd bet internally it's a different game. Microsoft seems to be having major issues with labor competency, on both the implementation and management side, and it's making their entire ecosystem collapse. Anything that has major outward visibility (like desktop OS) is going to make the circus most immediately visible. I have little doubt they have the same stuff going on internally with their other offerings.
But this excludes the entire console population. This arguably excludes most Steam Deck customers, who picked it because Valve made the Linux experience seamless, so they don't have to pay attention to the details. This excludes many of the PC gamers I know, that do not care beyond whether their computer is capable of playing the games they want to. They won't even reformat their Windows to remove OEM bloat.
You don't tend to hear them online of course. They are the silent majority keeping the AAA industry alive.
I mean Windows is still a huge cash cow for them and is THE desktop OS but the actions they are taking with it sort of makes it feel like a second class citizen.
Part of the problem seems to be that desktop OS use as a whole is cratering as more and more folks who grew up in the smartphone era enter adulthood. Outside of tech circles, I meet a lot of folks who have a phone + tablet but no actual computer...
This is the last major reason for anyone to use Windows nowadays, with the exception of legacy applications.
Windows' days are numbered.
Linux still is not a great daily driver for video games in many circumstances, unless you're on a specialized device like the steam deck that gets extra attention to smooth out the rough bits.
On my gaming PC I haven't found a single game that runs noticeably faster in Linux. Most run considerably worse often while suffering various glitches (sometimes game-breaking).
Sometimes, with work (different versions of proton, startup options, configs, or even new kernels or compositors, etc) you can get around those problems, but... it takes work. Work that you just don't have to do on Windows.
That's an interesting experience, I'd be interested to hear more. There certainly are games that do not work well, no question, but as far as I'm aware it's a pretty small minority. To my knowledge, the two biggest issues are anti-cheat and video codecs, both of which are business/legal problems, not technical issues. Are those the main problems you're seeing? If not, are you possibly running fairly niche games, or on a niche distro or specialized hardware setup?
- Borderlands 4 was basically unplayable on my hardware (9800 X3D, 3080 TI) - though I didn't care enough to try and fix it.
- Dune Awakening was decent, but noticeably less performant, stuttery, etc. Probably fixable with some settings tweaks and other stuff, but the experience was markedly worse than windows out of the box.
- ARC Raiders runs fantastic - but even still, it had noticeable visual issues particularly with shadows
General issues:
- It seems to vary by desktop environment how confused steam and/or the games were as to which monitor to play the game on
- Steam itself required some futzing to get big picture to use hardware rendering (software rendering is very laggy)
- Multiple games seemed confused what my native resolution was
- Mouse issues with multi-monitor setup in several games (though sometimes this is an issue in windows too)
Games make a lot of assumptions based on how Windows's one-and-only window manager operates, stuff like windowing message and focus event sequences, effects of various windowing states on window sizes and chrome and mouse cursor behavior, and so on. Linux WMs don't match Windows's behavior or even other WM behaviors, so it's a nightmare trying to get every WM to align to how every game expects Windows's WM to behave. Then multi-monitor adds another layer on top of that, for things like reporting resolutions, cursor behavior, window focus, etc.
We focused on the big 2 (Gnome & KDE) on X11, and personally I use multi-monitor XFCE on X11 so I was quite motivated to get games working well there, too. Plus SteamOS's compositor/manager on Wayland, obviously. But there's so many combinations affected by so many things (I didn't even mention graphics driver behaviors on any of the above...) it's just really hard to get right as you add more little edge cases. And as you said, many games get it wrong on Windows, too. We'd often reproduce bugs on Windows just as they were reported against Proton.
All that is to say, yeah, I believe that has been your experience now that you've explained a bit more :)
Once upon a time I was a paying customer (like in the early early aughts). Glad to see them still doing their thing.
Linux is still too bloody awful for power users, never mind the median gamer.
Most Linux usage is SteamOS which only barely counts.
It’s a great hedge that keeps Windows almost honest. But we’re a long long long long long <breathe> long long long ways from the median gaming PC being Linux.
I never installed Windows 11 on any of my PCs, there's no place for it in my work or gaming regimen. If Linux is supposed to keep Windows honest, then some dev at Microsoft must have a Pinocchio nose.
Windows power users expect their habits and instincts to be right and treat the system as broken wherever they aren't. After all, they "know computers"! So when one of them hits a snag, even if it would have been avoided by heeding a system's warnings, reading the documentation, or adhering to its norms, they declare (for others to repeat) things like "Linux isn't (ready) for power users".
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1: Windows power users arrive to Linux with a mixture of incredible fatigue from pop-ups and blindness to all interruptions. They are used to mindlessly batting away constant notifications and distractions. They are also used to a host of familiar warnings that they know are bullshit, and reflexively ignore. But the warnings on Linux systems are not the warnings they know. They don't actually know what they mean or which are safe. To the point that their blindness to warnings becomes outright comical, as in this infamous example: https://i.imgur.com/J39WfLK.png
All the operating systems are very different but also largely the same. There are a ton of dumb little things you need to learn for each of them. It’s annoying. Most people don’t spend the time and just go back to what they and works.
I don’t think your comment is particularly insightful or interesting. It’s bias way yonder too overwhelming.
We're a long way not because Linux cannot do it. We're a long way because publishers refuse to take it serious.
Like if most linux usage is SteamOS that suggests its good for gamers right?
And that all any other distro has to do, is target SteamOS in terms of gaming usability?
The Nintendo Switch (which runs Linux) was a favorite of cheaters after jailbreaks came out.
When anyone can compile and run their own kernel with god knows what for modifications, that makes it substantially easier for cheaters and substantially harder for anti-cheat. I don't see that ever changing.
You can't rely on server-side detection either, because some of the cheats are so advanced they go to great lengths to "behave" like a highly skilled human player would with their aiming
An AI will play these games like a human but better. The AI can be totally separate from the windows box wearing anti-cheat ankle bracelets just as your brain a separate thing to the windows box when when you play. It can interact with the box via keyboard, mouse or controller.
No windows kernel module is useful in detecting and deterring chess cheating no matter how fanciful or factual the vibrating "device" stories are.
Anti-cheat by kernel module, it's day will be entirely done very soon if it isn't already.
"Any time you beat a computer at a game it let you win." Are we there yet? If not, how long?
IE: Quakebots and Fighting games have perfect reaction times and perfect combos. They can simply block perfectly and counter attack perfectly and never drop a combo.
You act like cheating is new to video games??
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We never wanted bot in these games. Still don't want them today, and it's a big reason that playing on public boxes (ex: at an arcade or eSports tournament) is still a thing.
Defeating an opponent in a tournament is a big thing for fighting games. The risk of cheating online is always there so online tournaments are simply never taken as seriously (ie: as much $$$$ risked as real life tournaments).
No, I think the point is that with AI the existing anti-cheat measures can simply be avoided by letting the AI play through the same interface as a human. Therefore anti-cheat kernel modules will no longer be useful, and will no longer be a reason to stay on Windows.
Fill a room at the mall with Linux boxen with midrange GPUs and fiber internet and the sort of keyboards you can clean with pressurized water. Charge an entry fee and then sell pizza, cheetos, coffee, soda and beer. Open at 11AM and close at sunrise.
Then publish the public IPs used by the arcade-owned machines at each location in the chain and use different public IPs for the customer WiFi. No DRM nonsense, just a way to know you're playing with someone at the arcade where the management doesn't allow cheats on their machines.
It’s just that it doesn’t work.
In addition, there’s not much these things can do against subtler stuff like ESP.
It is scary how nuanced the cheating tools already here. Here is a video promoting cheat software explaining how nuanced their aimbot system can be made to mimic real play: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrBohlkHMjU
Great. Now we are going to get “secure cables” for mouse and keyboard and bluetooth device attestation.
Have you even played an FPS vs an aimbots before?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real-name_system_for_online_ga...
This was to prevent children from getting addicted but also leads to real life penalties for cheating in video games.
The idea of Mao's face or Trump's face on the global reserve currency feels really off.
"Quotes" of something not said directly that you are quoting is always bad. Quotes containing a summary that is entirely false are even worse. Don't do that.
You can try to deal with cheating as chess.com and others _do_, or you can do something you know will not work. Kernel mods for chess.com would be stupid. Their anti-cheat strategy involves zero windows kernel mods. That is how it will go for all online gaming if it hasn't already. So use something else.
Windows kernel modules won't work much longer if they even still do. Pretending they will, doing nothing to stop cheating is a a nihilistic, give up, faintly ridiculous attitude.
If you disagree with my interpretation of your nihilism, please go ahead and provide a workable solution for significantly suppressing cheating without the use of kernel level anticheats. Right now you're talking about of both sides of your mouth.
“Something you know will NOT work” Is what is written right on the page. You quote it without the “not” wTH? Kernel mods won’t work much longer if they still work at all. Gotta find something else. What? Let’s see. Won’t be kernel mods.
Doesn’t make much sense to see this level of non comprehension of plain English. There’s no point talking against it what i say makes no difference if you read the opposite. Maybe this is convo with AI? Dunno.
Best.
I don't want to beat a computer, I want to beat another person.
If you're saying the Nintendo Switch system software is Linux-based, I don't think that's correct. It's a proprietary system based on a microkernel architecture.
Shouldn't that be the goal of anti cheat? That cheating is indistinguishable from expert gameplay? Seems to me like these companies are just trying to avoid implementing proper infallible server-authoritative gameplay by offloading the cheat detection to the untrustworthy client, and then trying to lock down the client to make it trustworthy.
I feel that the solution is just to have a decent ranking/level system so that users play with other people, cheaters, bots or regular users of the same level. When I was playing mario kart with my 5y old daughter, I didn't mind she had access to helps to not run out of the road as it allowed us to play together. I don't see how different it is between say, a super skilled player, and a lower skilled player with cheat/assists. If cheating/assists system becomes so efficient, cheaters will just end up playing together and non cheater will have got rid of them and play between non cheater of similar level. Prolem solved. No?
EA did a big announcement about switching to kernel level Anti-Cheat for Battlefield 6 to combat cheating, yet there's still plenty of cheaters around. It's looking more and more like an excuse in order to give the appearance of combating cheating.
The cheating issue isn't really a matter of being able to run custom kernel code. You can do the same thing on Windows, which is why remote attestation is a thing for some games. As someone who has developed games for Linux (and Windows / Mac), it's an endless cat and mouse game. So long as the system can execute code that is not yours, you never really are getting perfect anticheat. Ease of loading custom kernel code isn't really a hurdle to that.
I find that client and server based in combination is the robust approach. I once implemented anti-cheat in which the server lied about game state, which a regular client without cheats would act predictably on. Deviation from that behavior is a useful heuristic to build a suspicion score.