Basically Larian is working on a native Linux version of BG3, and that got accidentally set as the default even though it’s not yet in a launchable state.
It’s been corrected now, but you may have to restart your deck to get the fix.
I need devs to be supportive of modding enough that both versions use the same mods or just use proton
I wonder why they’re making a Linux native version? It is one of the ironies of Proton that windows native games are so easy to install it seems a bit pointless? But also making games for Linux is ironically difficult as it’s difficult to support long term as they can break as libraries change over time.
It feels like we need a Flatpak style set up for Linux native games which may help games launch stable long term versions that won’t “break” if newer libraries don’t work with them. Flatpaks “bring your own dependencies” approach is more similar to how windows games often work with their own dlls (even to the point of installing old versions of directx when needed) except without windows annoying set up of spraying dlls all over your hard drive making them difficult to clean up when you uninstall a game.
Although arguably Steam already deals with that on both Linux and Windows currently. But it is proprietary. And maybe Flatpak is already that solution? Maybe Appimage too although not sure how well a 30gb would run from a single file virtual file system? Is it native speeds or have some overhead?
I wonder why they’re making a Linux native version?
I know that good Linux ports can have dramatically better performance vs Windows versions, it just usually doesn’t matter because few companies do actually good Linux ports.
From the couple of games where I’ve been able to compare; frames per second are exactly the same, but the CPU runs a great deal less hot. No concern on desktop, but that would make a difference on the Steam deck.
(Mark Of The Ninja has a deadlocking issue on native that it doesn’t have on proton, got quite a few of Frictional’s games - Penumbra, Amnesia - that just won’t open on my main monitor when native, and most recently Silksong has been really funny about my 8bitdo controller when native. Works great with my fightstick, though.)
Steam has its own set of stable libraries that devs can target.
I guess Larian couldn’t get enough of winning so they started a native Linux version. I hope it gets released on GOG as well.
The article says this build is for Steam Deck only, there won’t be a desktop release. At least, not with this build, maybe in the future.
This explains a lot. I ended up reinstalling on hotel wifi which was painfully slow. 🥲
