Can Gamers Using Linux + Proton Access MS Xbox Game Pass Titles Or Titles From MS Store?

[Balderick]

Just saw that Psychonauts 2 is now being published by Xbox Game Studios and only supports windows but is available from Steam Store and MS Store. Psychonauts 1 supports SteamOS and is available from Steam Store and MS Store.

MS have been trying to encourage Valve and Epic to make their clients available through MS Store, which echos what Gaben was claiming about MS intentions back in c.2013 and was one of the bigger reasons SteamOS came into existence - but those older blogs have been deleted from Valve blog.

Do all PC games added to MS Store now show as Xbox Game Studios as publisher?

I have Xbox |Game Pass Ultimate subscription because of xcloud and feel i need to start thinking more about which Store i buy my games from since so little is known about the new arch build of SteamOS + Proton and Valves plans for the future of cloud gaming. i.e. the Steam app on GeForce Now has been removed for about nine months now - which is afaiu due to newer restrictions enforced by Nvidia - though little info on this matter has been confirmed by Nvidia or Valve.

[SydneyAngel]

I’m sure it will work at some point

[Balderick]

Thinking alomng the same lines i pretty sure SteamOS will run inside windows at some point too - though concerningly game devs seem to be opting out of supporting SteamOS or linux for x86 platform


MS adding ARM apps to MS Store is another interesting platform to consider for the future of gaming too

I can see translation/compatibilty layers being more useful on custom ARM silicon for gamers


Cloud gaming is one way to fix the multi platform issue where games get rendered to native os server side and simply streamed to any client. Choosing which Store to buy games from seems to be a more and more relavant thing though. Seems to be war of the Store Fronts and i always thought of Steam OS as declaring the war of the operating systems as i seem to have more reasons to buy games from MS Store today in comparison to what i did back in 2013 when SteamOS and Steam on linux were announced.

[XÆЯO_Vince]

I wouldn't recommend buying ANY games from the Windows Store if you plan to use Linux / SteamOS in any capacity. However, Game Pass Ultimate is fine because xCloud works on Linux via the Chrome & Edge browser.

Steam is the best way with Proton built into the client but even buying games off Epic Store, Origin, Uplay, GOG, etc. would be far better than Windows Store, since those clients will work in Wine / Lutris and EGS even has the unofficial native Heroic Games Launcher client.

[Balderick]

Am hoping Steam Deck will give me more reason to use SteamOS, especially in docked mode. Steam Deck supporting 4K@120/144 hz in docked mode is biggest reason i am excited for Steam Deck. See it as an upgrade to my Nvidia Shield TV (2015 model)

Not sure when to expect ARM64 laptops/desktops with gaming discrete GPUs inside and not sure if Steam Deck or other ARM64 devices like Mac Air/Mini M1X/M2 supports external GPUs.

Just hope MS, Nvidia, Apple or AMD and their partners dont make any announcements before my Steam Deck ships that make me change my mind about Steam Deck

[XÆЯO_Vince]

As far as playing Xbox Game Pass games locally (without xCloud) on Linux, it really isn't supported and improbable but there is a method that you can try and see if it works for you.

1) Install Windows 10 in a virtual machine or dual-boot
3) Use the Xbox app on Windows to download/install a game on Game Pass.
4) Start the game
5) Try using UWPDumper
https://github.com/Wunkolo/UWPDumper
6) Copy the dumped unencrypted game folder to your Linux filesystem via a virtual machine folder share or mount the NTFS partition.
7) Use Lutris or Bottles to create a custom prefix for the game and see if you can get it to run. You may need to examine a similar Lutris installer script for the game to see if you need to use winetricks to install any extra DLLs. Some games may have problems with Media Foundation and cut-scenes, even with Wine TKG/GE/Lutris builds. The "mf-install" script on github can possibly help if that occurs but is a legal gray area.

I've had a couple people tell me that this method works in some cases--not necessarily Game Pass though. More than likely it won't work if the game has stringent DRM but it has worked for some apps and games in the Windows Store, assuming they are MSIX packaged Win32 apps and not pure UWP based.

[Balderick]

That seems like a lot of hoops to jump through but thanks for sharing the synopsis of what is possible option.

Shadow cloud gaming supports games from MS Store and have a linux client iirc as well as support many other platforms as client but they currently have a one year waiting list in UK (Paris server region) but could be considered a much more plug and play option for linux users wanting access to MS Store apps which will probably work better than xcloud.


European server regions for GFN are oversubscribed just now too - so games are gimped by lower than optimal hardware configs carved up server side.

Allthough these things help show cloud gaming is being widely adopted it also shows it hard for cloud gaming service providers to ensure best QoS possible to all subscribers all the time.

Have only usedd xcloud on android tv device - which is not well supported, so try not to be too critical as it is very much wip.



Just seeing Psychonauts 2 changing publisher to Xbox Game Studios in Steam Store and dropping steamos support got me asking questions. Even Steam Deck is indicated as a windows only device in my wishlist.

[XÆЯO_Vince]

Originally posted by Balderick:

That seems like a lot of hoops to jump through but thanks for sharing the synopsis of what is possible option.

Shadow cloud gaming supports games from MS Store and have a linux client iirc as well as support many other platforms as client but they currently have a one year waiting list in UK (Paris server region) but could be considered a much more plug and play option for linux users wanting access to MS Store apps which will probably work better than xcloud.

Shadow's future is uncertain with it's bankruptcy and convincing gamers to cough up $30 per month after spending $400+ on a handheld PC meant to play games locally will be a tough sell.

XCloud game streaming should be fine for Game Pass Ultimate, especially considering that the Deck's native screen resolution is 800p.

But like I said, ANY other store besides Windows Store would be far better to purchase individual games from. In fact, even if I used Windows regularly, I wouldn't want to buy games from the Microsoft Store because it's known to be buggy and malfunction and pure UWP games on the store can have limitations compared to Win32 counterparts on Steam.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YM7s8cLBdQ
https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Store:Microsoft_Store

[Balderick]

I just see subscribing to cloud gaming services as an alternative to upgrading the hardware on local pc - especially with what we hav seen with availability and price of gaming GPUs in this last year or two.


Have to admit buying a current gen console has never been so appealing too, especially when considering the OG Steam Machines were supposed to be console killers.

I found Shield TV and cloud gaming made it a pc killer - removing the need to own a high end gaming spec PC

[XÆЯO_Vince]

Originally posted by Balderick:

I just see subscribing to cloud gaming services as an alternative to upgrading the hardware on local pc - especially with what we hav seen with availability and price of gaming GPUs in this last year or two.

Have to admit buying a current gen console has never been so appealing too, especially when considering the OG Steam Machines were supposed to be console killers.

I found Shield TV and cloud gaming made it a pc killer - removing the need to own a high end gaming spec PC

Having used Stadia and GeForce Now, I can say cloud streaming is cool tech but its far from perfect. Both have very noticeable video compression artifacting (especially during lag spikes) and split second to multi second lag spikes due to Internet bandwidth and connection reliability fluctuations can cause massive input lag. This is even worse over Wifi networks. When my internet is working perfectly, it can be a somewhat satisfactory and maybe not see a lag spike for several minutes at a time. However, it's nothing I would consider great or as good as playing locally. When things aren't working well, it can be completely unusable garbled slideshow lol.

I suppose if you have a rock-solid fiber connection to a data center within a hundred miles or so, you can obtain an near native experience but real world conditions are generally far less ideal.

The original Steam Machines were a good idea by attempting to expand the audience of the open PC ecosystem as opposed to the walled garden consoles. But not being able to play 80% of the games on Steam was an obvious deal breaker as were the stupidly high prices for some of the machines.

Steam Deck can be in a better position to compete if Valve can deliver on it's Proton compatibility promise. There are far more native Linux games compared to before, the Deck is priced aggressively low and the Switch-like form factor is in popular demand compared to a living room computer.

The question is whether or not Valve can deliver on that promise. Many games are still not click and play and require tweaks with Protontricks and custom environmental variables. Something like Glorious Eggroll's Protonfixes scripts could help here. Then there is of course kernel anti-cheat that Valve promises to solve but hasn't yet.

[Balderick]

Originally posted by XÆЯO_Vince:

Having used Stadia and GeForce Now, I can say cloud streaming is cool tech but its far from perfect. Both have very noticeable video compression artifacting (especially during lag spikes) and split second to multi second lag spikes due to Internet bandwidth and connection reliability fluctuations can cause massive input lag. This is even worse over Wifi networks. When my internet is working perfectly, it can be a somewhat satisfactory and maybe not see a lag spike for several minutes at a time. However, it's nothing I would consider great or as good as playing locally. When things aren't working well, it can be completely unusable garbled slideshow lol.

I suppose if you have a rock-solid fiber connection to a data center within a hundred miles or so, you can obtain an near native experience but real world conditions are generally far less ideal

We must not under estimate how much server side issues contribute to poor game performance in cloud gaming services and not one cloud gaming service provide debugging tools to more easily identify these server side issues.

When mentioning server side issues with regards to GeForce Now i had to access Steam client Help feature System Information (after setting game to run in windowed mode and minimising it to see GFN desktop to access Steam client running in large mode) which has helped see what hardware has been assigned for streaming session. And use in game debugging info i.e. TT Isle of Man game has verbose frame info which includes minmum framerate which is great a way to identify cpu bottlneck and game struggling to run due to hardware config. And Fortnite has network debugging info like ping which is agreat way to check if connection between cloud gaming server and game server have a strong and clean network connection.
If game server and cloud gaming server are in same DC you should see 1 ping and if connection is clean there will be very little ping variatiion if any.

My point is i know if i get assigned CC150 which only a 2 core 4 thread cpu together with RTX T10-8 GPU it only has 8GB of VRAM and there is only 7 GB of system RAM available TT Isle of Man in game stats show there are times where less than 10 fps are rendered in the game before streaming and so game can not be expecetd to be rendered at 60 fps with v sync on in game. Due to these low minimum frame rates there also audio stutter and video stuttering which cause input to dropped so game feels and looks very poor.


However if i get assigned Xeon E52697v4 CPU with 4 cores and 8 threads along with Tesla P40 GPU there is 24 GB VRAM and 15 GB of system RAM available TT Isle of Man game runs better than local with zero lag. TT Isle of Man on screen stats show game is running at over 100 fps i.e. min framerate is more than 100 fps


The problem is have never been assigned the better hardware config for weeks now - which is indicative gaming service is over subscribed for my server region. Nvidia need to add more server pods to handle more concurrent users. imo. Maybe Nvidia have assigned the better hardware to other games with more users. All i know is my favourite is running like a bag of spanners due to low hardware specs being used server side to render the game before streaming.

All the cloud gaming services debugging tools really only check your connection from client device to cloud gaming server.


It very frustrating trying to describe these things to the appropriate support channels- as they always blame and want to troubleshoot your connection from client device to cloud gaming server only and thge on screen stats only show stream parameter debug info so does not help see if there issues with game being rendered or connection issues server side before streaming. Even if the network test native to streaming client shows no issues.

It saddens me that even after eight years of development GFN still struggles to run games at 1080p @ 60 fps which was not the case five years ago when i first started using it am sure GFN supported all resolution that Gamestream did including 4K@60 fps. But Nvidi a gimped stream capture configuration by end users to try and ensure better QoS for more users.

Much of these issues are caused by GFN business model which is dependent on vAPP GRID model and am pretty sure Nvidia offering vPC or vDWS type GRID virtualisation options would open the door to folks choosing SteamOS and not just offering a full windows desktop experience delivered from the cloud


It is not available bandwidth from your ISP that is important as a superfast is more than enough. What is important is your ISP peering partner tier level. GFN games use less than 40 mbps for a 1080p @ 60 stream but do not support HDR or highger refresh rates or higher resolutions.


I found cloud gaming service providers are in exact same situation now compared to when Valve were working on PowerPlay which required ISPs to better optimise their peering partners and routers for online gaming c2000 before Steam platform even existed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valve_Corporation#PowerPlay

I really like the idea of a provider of a digital gaming platform or online game being an ISP -- which is what Valve intended wit heir partnership with Cisco on PowerPlay.

[Guybrush]

Boosteroid is another cloud gaming provider that works similar to GFN so is store neutral, not used it personally but seen some positive comments on it.

https://boosteroid.com

Native Xbox game pass support under SteamOS is unlikely, if Steam Deck proves very popular then MS might try to make it happen but they're not going to go out of their way if the Deck is only mildly successful.

[Balderick]

I guess as long as game devs like Double Fine Productions the creators of Psychonauts 2 make their titles available on Steam Store and MS Store it doesnt really matter; even without SteamOS port, thanks to proton Though Psychonauts 2 being optimised for Xbox X/S and dropping support support for SteamOS in Steam Store may encourage folks to just buy a Xbox X/S
https://www.xbox.com/en-GB/games/psychonauts-2

It will be interesting to see how well Psychonauts 2 performs on Steam Deck running through SteamOS 3.0/Proton in comparison to Xbox X/S

[XÆЯO_Vince]

Originally posted by Balderick:

It will be interesting to see how well Psychonauts 2 performs on Steam Deck running through SteamOS 3.0/Proton in comparison to Xbox X/S

Well for the case for Psychonauts 2, the game is planned to come to Linux and Mac natively later this year.