Yeah, hard to say what is the issue. Some others are reporting great success in Linux, also with the GOG version.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8cBNBORGfE
https://www.protondb.com/app/367500
https://lutris.net/games/dragons-dogma-dark-arisen/

Is that the only (semi-)new game with which you are having issues? If using a NVidia graphics card, make sure you use the proprietary drivers (not the open source nouveau drivers) as the proprietary drivers are somewhat faster.

I'm glad that Eastward runs completely fine without any problems on Linux Mint through Wine on my system. I just wish I could figure out a way to get River City Girls to run without problems. The gameplay and start screen and menus all work fine, but the animated cutscenes and cinematics are all scrambled and I have no idea how or if this can be resolved. I'm running on the latest version of Linux Mint MATE on an Intel 4000 graphics HP Elitebook 2570p.

Thanks for taking the time to read that. However, Windows doesn’t suffer from this problem anywhere near as much because of it’s API’s. I’m talking about Dot Net, Visual Studio and Direct X. These API’s work by stacking themselves, and over the years Microsoft has improved this. For example, if you want to play something that was made with VC 2013 than you need to install the VC++ distributable 2013. However if it was made using VC 2015 you only need to install distributable 2020 because it includes 2015 and 2016.

Another reason Windows has high compatibility is due to the way Microsoft changes things, or to be more precise the way they don’t. Let’s compare Windows 8 to Ubuntu 21. If you use Ubuntu 21 you may notice that it no longer uses the Unity interface (thank god) but you may have also noticed that a few gog games no longer work on it. Well, that’s one of the reasons why. There are too many changes since Ubuntu 18 and the games got left behind. They won’t even be able to work on 18 for much longer because eventually the repositories will be taken offline and you’ll no longer be able to download the dependencies needed to make the games work.

Now lets talk about Windows 8. They removed the start menu so how the hell did games and other programs continue to work on it without a start menu? The answer is, Microsoft ‘technically’ didn’t remove it at all. Despite what the interface may look like, underneath it all, the start menu is still there. This is so older programs can still work. Whenever Microsoft changes something in Windows they always do it in such a way that will affect the least amount of programs as possible. They tend to build new stuff on top of old stuff while keep the old stuff still functioning. Linux doesn’t do this. There is no Unity or any trace of it in Ubuntu 21. This is why Linux is small, fast and secure. It is also why Windows runs every game ever made. They never get rid of the old infrastructure, they just build on top of it. All things considered, it’s amazing it works as well as it does. Linux doesn’t let old programs hold it back which means it works better, but also means less things work on it.

The mistake you’re making isn’t begrudging people for their lack of knowledge, but rather presuming that you know more than than they do.
When you say things like:

It comes off as condescending. Even if you do know more; no one is going to want deal with you after been spoken to like that. Perhaps you genuinely are unaware of how this comes off as but it’s not a good look and it’s very common among Linux users.


Software developers are the focus of this conversation. It’s why I started it. You do need to cater to end uses but you also need to cater to developers well. Linux doesn’t really do this, and that’s what I wanted to address.

You’re forgetting that Sony pay them and also send them development kits. This is the infrastructure I was talking about. As for xbox there’s even more going on there. Have you noticed the abundance of genres on the PC? Fighting games, sidescrollers, 3D platformers. While Steam is due their credit Microsoft also played their part into making this a reality. There are two tools they used to help make this happen.

#1 They streamlined the development for both consoles and PC. Porting games from the xbox to the PC has never been easier. More than twice the consumer base with less than half the time or expense. You can’t expect developers to just make you stuff you free. Even if you buy games that are ported to Linux, it often doesn’t cover the cost price. So it ends up costing developers more money to produce a game for Lniux than they’ll make back.

#2 xinput proctical. In 2006 Microsoft released a new standard for PC controllers known as xinput. Before this every controller used direct input. Thanks to this standard neither gamers and developers alike wouldn’t have to waist time setting up the controls. You just plug and play. This has done wanders for porting those aforementioned genres; not to mention emulators.

In fact, they did such a good job of improving the infrastructure and facilitating workflow that Horizon Zero Dawn, (a PlayStation exclusive) not only came to PC it even came here to gog. Take a moment to think about that. It’s no wander Microsoft doesn’t care about console exclusives. Why make money from selling games when you can make money from the infrastructure itself.

What you call a walled garden I call quality control. This is kind going off topic but it’s worth remembering that Artai almost singlehandedly destroyed the games industry while Nintendo singlehandedly saved it. They used quality control to do this. And by that I mean they used license agreements to effectively build a walled garden which gave them more control over what was released on their system. It also made it harder for competitors to get up off the ground. They even got into legal dispute over antitrust legislation. But you really can’t argue the results. All I can say is, thank god Nintendo won.

Anyway the short and sweet of all of this is, if Linux wants games it’s gonna have pick itself up by the bootstraps and build a garden of it’s own; that developers can use to grow their games.


No I disagree with that. It’s easy to recommend Ubuntu or POP to anyone who just wants an internet machine or who just uses their computer casually. It’s when they want to do something more than it gets harder to do so.



The term walled garden is over used among the Linux community I think. It’s really only Linux users that use that term and it’s quite subjective. Windows might be closed source but it’s pretty customizable. You might actually be surprised to see what people have managed to do with the Windows OS. Also if you do an image search for ‘walled Garden’ what you’ll find is some rather beautiful gardens out there. Sorry, I know this part went way off topic but ‘walled Garden’ is a silly term if you think about it. It’s up there with things that Linux users say that makes normal people scratch their head and think “what the hell is this guy talking about?”

I wouldn’t describe Microsoft as really have ‘control’ over the situation. Compared to other massive conglomerate they seems to have embarrassed chaos as part of their business model. It’s really quite strange, there doesn’t seem to be any consistency to the way they conduct themselves. Maybe they’re a bit like Valve; simply too big to care.

As I stated in one of my previous posts, the backwards compatibility isn’t perfect, but it is leaps and bounds above anything else I’ve ever used. It’s true that people on the internet contribute to Windows compatibility, but the way Microsoft has built it also contributes to it. Linux on the other hand is always moving forward not letting old software hold it back. Thus you get pros and cons to both approaches to building an operating system.


Wow that took ages. Sorry for the late reply but this rebuttable was quite well thought out. I don’t agree with most of what you said, but I appreciate the work you put into this to I’ve responded in kind.

I’m compering it to both Windows and the main consoles. It is subjective, but after reading more of your post I don’t think your points are countering mine.

...but if you are specifically comparing Linux to Windows, then it is a rather easy win for Windows because "Linux gaming" mostly means trying to run Windows games, outside of Windows. So of course Windows has a home-field advantage in PC gaming, regardless of how good WINE, Lutris, Proton etc. have become.

That’s fair enough, but it sounds like gaming is not a priority for you. Having the kind of control Linux offers is. There nothing wrong with that but notice I said “kind of control.” This is because what constitutes control and freedom can also be subjective.

Perhaps, but I think it’s easier to hack those consoles into makeshift PC’s than it is to get games working on Linux through WINE. From a pure practical stand point I think the former makes more sense than the latter.

Windows updates rarely break updates. Though I’ve never experienced this personally. That being said I do use LTSC Enterprise with automatic updates disabled. Linux is designed not to let old and out dated software hold it back and that includes video games unfortunately. But that’s the price you pay for having something small, fast and secure.

Depends what you mean by priority.

If you mean "nothing else matters but (gaming)", then it is not a priority to me that goes over everything else. For instance, I don't see myself subscribing to any streaming game service, even if it happened to have some games I'd like to play. I rather choose not to play those games, than play them through a streaming service, most probably. (It helps I already have hundreds if not thousands of interesting games to play, without using a streaming service).

(In a way that actually proves games are very important to me, even so much that I want them to be DRM-free and not depend on e.g. any streaming service, just so that I can play those games also 20-30 years from now, showing them to my kids or grandchildren, and they will be like "Wow grandpa, you are so cool!", which I am, admittedly.

To me people like you, who don't care if their games will be playable also in the future, don't really care about their games. They are just some kind of throwaway trash to you that you just happen to use for some time. Shame on you.)

If, however, you mean games are very important to me, then they are a priority. They are my most important hobby, and have been such for the most of my life. If some game I want to play does not run acceptably on Linux, then I play it on Windows instead.

Not sure if you missed it, but I am using Windows too, Windows XP/7/10 (XP and 7 only for games that work poorly elsewhere). And yes most of my gaming overall still happens on Windows, even though increasingly in Linux, at least if I happen to be playing a game which has no issues running in Linux, like currently my two most played games are Team Fortress 2 (Steam) and Planescape: Torment Enhanced, both of which run great on Linux, so I have no reason to boot to Windows just to play them.

Bullshit, you don't know what you are talking about, and I can even prove it to you.

The Nintendo Switch I have can't be, at least for the time being, hacked or modded to run homebrewn games or to use it as a multipurpose computer. It is too new version, with too new firmware (Nintendo has specifically tried to prevent the hacking with firmware updates). I sure have searched for a way, but so far it doesn't seem doable, not sure if it ever will be, at least without changing the hardware itself somehow.

And even if it was possible, there is a possibility Nintendo will detect the alterations online, and block your device from any Nintendo services, so it might make your digitally purchased and installed Switch games unplayable. Many of those hacking instructions warn about that,

At the same time, I am happily running many Windows games in Linux WINE without any issues, like the aforementioned Planescape: Torment Enhanced. I just installed the GOG Windows version of the game (the offline installer) with WINE, and that was all there was to it. As easy and simple as running it in Windows.

So no, something that is totally impossible, is not "easier" than something that works without issues.

In the first message you said your main gaming PC is an offline Windows (XP?) PC, which means it does not even receive any updates that might break some of your older games. Similarly, if you have an offline Linux machine, of course all its games and other applications will keep running the same over time, as you are not changing anything in the system.

New Windows releases and even mere updates do break older software (games) every now and then. One easy example is how retail PC games using certain copy protections (I think SecuROM and SafeDisc) wouldn't work at all in Windows 10 anymore. In Windows 7 you can still make them work.

Similar was also the retail version of "Peter Jackson's King Kong" game, which has some kind of copy protection that works only in Windows XP, and not in Windows 7 or later. I know as I own that game.

Also for a more recent example, in certain update Windows 10 stopped supporting a certain old video codec that e.g. the GOG version of Two Worlds relies on, so now the videos in that game don't work anymore in Windows 10. They still work fine in Windows 7 (and used to work earlier also in Windows 10), but now you have to re-encode those videos yourself to some other format that Windows 10 still accepts, which unfortunately also makes their quality a bit worse in the process (as encoding a video file to some other lossy format will always take out some detail).

Excuse me, as the authority on myself the upmost highest priority for me in regards to gaming is being able to play games now and into the future. Linux doesn’t let old software hold it back and since WINE is just so bad at everything. I really can’t trust to ensure that games continue to work in the future. In fact WINE struggles the most with older game which tell me all I need to know about what the future hold for the games that do currently work on it. That is, they won’t be working for much longer.

Fret not, you’ll never have to worry about anyone referring to you as ‘cool.’


I don’t care what you use this has no relevance on this topic. This conversation is about how how the Linux community, specifically WINE doesn’t safe guard gaming compatibility due to it’s inflexibility to work with developers and attitudes towards closed source software.

This is hilarious, normally I don’t make fun of spelling mistakes. But saying that you’re going to prove me wrong, only to follow it up with something completely incoherent, is pretty funny XD.

I may have jumped the gun a bit, it’s been a while since I modded a console, but it was pretty simple. From what I’ve read online the Switch isn’t that hard to mod but without hands on experience I really can’t say. But that’s not the point anyway. Even a stock standard switch is still a more desirable gaming platform than Linux. For starters all the games released for it are guaranteed to work. As long as you have the system and the games it should all work. Even the stuff made for Linux tends to break, because again Linux doesn’t let old software hold it back. Look and Nintendo 64s. They still work and I guarantee young kids of the future will be more fascinated with that than whatever Linux is doing at the time.

You expect me to believe you’ve never had a single issue with WINE? Of course you have, because everybody has. Windows has it’s issue, but it’s high compatibly and Pcgamingwiki tend to make short work of them.



No it’s Windows 10 LTSC Enterprise. The other computer I’m currently using which is older and less power is currently running Ubuntu 21. Once I finish my Linux scripts I will put it back to Windows, so I can still play some games on it.

You couldn't have picked a worse example. It’s actually good that those DRM’s no longer work and anyone who knows anything knows how to make the games to work without them. I’m sure updates to break things but it’s a much bigger problem on Linux than Windows. My gaming rig I told you about. It’s a struggle to fing anything which won’t work in it. It’s an omni gaming station at this point.


If I get Peter Jackson's King Kong working on Win 10 what will you say? What if I got footage of it working. Sake for Two Thrones. Give me more examples and I’ll gladly take up the challenge. Bare in mind I am using LTSC so that what I’ll be testing these games on.

thats fine , as technology advances old tech is no longer needed
sometimes they need to cut the old out as it just bogs down things

I've been having the exact same thoughts lately. I REALLY want to ditch Windows, but can't justify moving to an OS that has dramatically less support for gaming. I realize that it's always improving, but I have hundreds of games on GOG that I wouldn't be able to play. I really wish that GOG would put more effort into getting their games (and Galaxy) to run natively on Linux.

Probably do what i do. Put Linux on machines other than gaming, and have one system with windows just for windows games and a GPU usage.

Assuming drivers work for using the full ability of GPU's you could have a VM for games that won't work with Wine.

I'm not sure the state of CODA support on linux, as it isn't a core piece the kernel needed nor is part of the API the entire system is based on; Though more likely the xWindows drivers would handle it.

Windows used to have this too. But it's gone now. Windows 7 still had some, but 10 eviscerates it. :(

They're actively hostile to the concept of the user having control of and ownership of their own device. Heck, good luck even deferring an updates. Or axing Cortana without breaking other things, or expecting an update not to fuck up all your configuration and customization. System mastery with Windows is punished, and those who have it get frustrated.

Big reasons i don't want anything past 7, and more people should just refuse and let 7 be a repeat of XP where for 10+ years it became the standard of which they made programs and hardware expectations. Windows 8 i was ready to throw the computer out the window.

Reminded with apple 2's, where they tried to teach you both how to program it and use it fully, it seems to be the opposite where they don't want you to know anything, the less you know the more they can re-sell you another computer. Hell they aren't any better than scammers at that point.

I know the feeling. I think it's a little out of GOG depth to be able to fix this though. It would take a lot of time and money.

Yeah, I would totally love it if I could play DRM-Free games on a PC that had the security/privacy of Linux with the functionality of Windows. I'm always stuck in between. You wouldn't believe how much I flip-flopped between Windows and Linux in the past week alone, before finally settling with the one PC for Windows gaming and the other PC for Linux web browsing route. It's funny when I think about it, because when I was a kid, I used to keep a DOS-only 486 PC for exclusive DOS-gaming and a Pentium II for exclusive Windows gaming (Tony Hawk's Pro Skater II was eternally installed on there). The whole thing about control has me rethinking everything about technology including phones. I'm starting to really hate Apple and I ditched Android and anything Google a long time ago. I'm not sure if I'll go the De-Googled phone route or just grab a Linux phone somewhere down the line.

I bought the Pine Phone when it was first released, but sadly it still has a LONG way to go before it's a daily driver. I ended up selling it to someone on the UBports forum, but I might pick one up again if they make more progress on the OS.