I prefer to have as recent Wine as possible since I started using Wine's Wayland driver. It actually helps for a bunch of things in Blood West (like hangs due to loss of focus when winex11 is used).

Wayland driver in Wine is constantly updating, so having latest version for that can make a difference.

And it's one step closer to stopping using XWayland.

Interesting discussion, I also just gave up getting cutscenes working in a couple of games and watch them online after trying this and that. My the mess I have made.

Yeah, lol. I blow away the prefix after a few of those tries usually to start from scratch if these workarounds don't help and get too complex to revert.

Something worth mentioning, UMU just received an official first launch release and its a major step in playing games you have in GOG on Linux.

https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2024/10/unified-linux-wine-game-launcher-umu-gets-a-first-official-release/

OWC also has a database which UMU will fetch specific fixes from it through protonfixes or even set up the winecfg for ya. Anyone can add its own entry into it https://github.com/Open-Wine-Components/umu-database

I know that ZOOM Platform is supporting this project by adding the games into the database.

This is really great news! I saw it just now on GOL too.

Now we can leverage all the yummy goodness of Steam's proton fixes outside of Steam for our GOG games.

Looking forward to integration with Heroic/Lutris to try it out.

The way UMU Launcher works is that it lets you have it built into any launcher you want, be it Lutris, Heroic Games Launcher. It will use Proton without requiring Steam at all to run the game and even check if the game needs to be set up beforehand through their database.

I have no interest in Steam clones, not even in open-source ones ;)

I don’t need that, as I already have access to WINE.

Is that using a local database, or is it adding an online requirement?

I don't know the particular software mentioned but if Glorious Eggroll previous work is anything to go by (protonGE, ProtonUp-QT, Nobara Linux) it will not be a local database for sure...
The way I understand it Proton is just a marketing name for a bunch of open source tools, the most proeminent being DXVK that runs over wine.
Why would I need a marketing name to runs games?
I mean, you can use standalone Wine or being lazy like me and use Bottles or Lutris, all 3 options can use GEproton.

Is the UMU launcher just a replacement for ProtonUp-QT (tool to inject pGEproton on Steam)?

This is what I have understood so far:

There are many (hacky) fixes and improvements that don't make it to Wine from Valve's Proton. Wine is for all Windows applications, Proton is specifically for games, so it has that benefit alongside being able to incorporate game-specific fixes quickly. Because they don't care how hacky those fixes are.

You're right, you don't need Proton or GE-Proton - but it can get things working earlier than Wine (staging or especially base vanilla), sometimes with new features. Cutscenes in many games were a big one for me, could only see them with GE/Proton for many games. Things like FSR and DXVK-NVAPI came quickly to GE's variants too, as new features. Etc.

The thing is, you're not supposed use Proton outside of Steam. Not in Lutris, Heroic, or Bottles. GloriousEggroll has repeatedly stated this, with many reasons for doing so.

UMU however enables leveraging Proton's fixes and features outside of Steam, where Steam Runtime doesn't exist. That, and the fact that the underlying UMU database will minimise work for the devs - at least, no more duplication of work across the board, people doing the same thing in different places all the time.

Bottom line, when using Lutris/Heroic (Bottles?), the integration should be nigh invisible and seamless, and you get all that good stuff handed to you. You don't need to manually use umu with a dozen environment variables to mimic the good work of Lutris and Heroic devs.

UMU is not a launcher. It's something that launchers use to run Proton in a similar way than on Steam, with its Runtime, to utilise it's gamespecific fixes and other features. Lutris and Heroic will have (currently experimental) integrations for it. You just select Proton for a Wine version/runner, and that should be it.

Protonup-Qt is just a Wine/DXVK/VKD3D downloader, it doesn't actually do anything except queries for new versions of different runners/softwares and allows you to download them into the right folders.

Don't get me wrong, it's extremely convenient and I use it too, but it doesn't do anything else. Lutris and Heroic have their own downloaders too, though more limited in versions you can obtain.

Thanks for the explanation, now it makes sense, specially because:


I didn't know this, since it's available on both Lutris and Bottles.

I'm all for having a central place to collect and share game specific settings and fixes for Wine. But an essential point is not clear to me yet, can I retrieve these game specific settings through some standard protocol and cache them locally to still run the game offline using the retrieved settings or does UMU add an online requirement?

My understanding is that the gamespecific settings and fixes are applied when making the Wine/Proton prefix. They are just Python scripts with usually things like Wine DLL overrides based on game ID.

https://github.com/Open-Wine-Components/umu-protonfixes
]https://github.com/Open-Wine-Components/umu-protonfixes
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The Proton version will have them all bundled together, so there is no need to be online when applying the fixes, it does it locally, based on installed files.

To be honest, using terms like "querying a database" is a bit misleading, I find that too. I don't think there is an actual database, at least online. And adding an online requirement would be huge. A huge detriment I mean, which would not be done just to get a DLL override fix.

I don't know how to get the fix specific info easily for your own use - they are by game IDs, each store having their own, in a list on his GitHub, and then the python script is linked to that game id. Then you have extract the fixes from that python script.

Maybe they will add a convenient command to produce human readable game info for the fixes? These fixes should definitely be shared by all, for the community. Well, at least it's on Github.

Is it using the Gamescope and etc.? I prefer a more direct and upstream Wine approach, also using Wine Wayland and etc. so this seems to be moving in some other direction and trying to copy Steam's approach.

No it does not, its literally just using Proton of its own (or any other Proton variation of your choice like GE) outside of Steam in its own environment. You don't even need Steam to be installed. Every component can be seen in OWC's github profile page and in each of these repositories ya can find out what they do.

ZOOM Platform just recently announced this project.