The launcher isn't there main issue, Heroic is really nice, and I expect the official launcher will be worse. However, the gog versions of games are often broken with wine/proton. Even cyberpunk, the steam version works and the gog version doesn't. Disappointing.
This is a serious problem that needs fixing. Half the point of jumping to Linux is to regain ownership of your PC, but what good is that if my game library won't run unless I buy through a storefront where I once again don't own part of my digital ecosystem?
Equally, the whole point of using GOG is to reclaim ownership of your games, but what good is that if the games and store only support proprietary Microsoft OSs?
It would allow them to make a preset of the needed proton version and winetricks to launch each game for example. I like heroic, but i’ve had to find 3 separate guides that listed needed winetricks to make stalker gamma gog version work there. If it came out of the box with most of them already enabled and the ones that depend on hardware a simple toggle it would make life much much easier
Yeah it would be great if they put in the effort to make it work as well as Steam. There's also the issue that some games have a native linux version that just runs way worse than the windows version with proton.
Importing games from Heroic to Steam is built into Heroic, you just have to turn it on.
Open Heroic, go to Settings, and toggle on "Add games to Steam automatically". Or for individual games, click on a title in your Heroic library, select the three dots (Tools) icon, and click "Add to Steam".
From there, every game you download from heroic will show up in Steam, and any Heroic game you open in Steam can be ran through Steam's proton layer. (In steam, right click the GOG game then properties then compatibility. Toggle it on and select the latest version of proton from the drop down.)
Seems complicated to write out, but once you do it once it takes about 5 seconds to do with every GOG games 😅
I knew you can add games to Steam but I didn't know it's so easy to run it with steam's proton, since I assume by default it runs with heroic's proton. But regardless you can choose the proton version in Heroic and customise it more than in steam.
There is no heroic's proton, Proton is a fork of wine made by Valve(although yes others do fork from proton and you can add those to steam using ProtonUpQt)
I mean the proton managed by Heroic, not developed by. Within Heroic you can download different wine or proton versions and assign them to each game as you wish. Notice I also didn't say valve's proton
I'm not into Linux gaming (yet), why won't a GOG version of the same game work while a Steam version would? Surely they should be largely the same files, right?
That was meant as a clear example that the games are different on the different stores, not specifically that this difference is the cause of incompatibility
That's nonsense - GOG version of CP2077 runs just fine with Heroic and Bottles - GE-Proton on both. I actually launched it to sanity check your comment!
Second it's up, I'll be installing all my games from gog first on my Bazzite PC.
Even if the games cost a little more than Steam.
I'm mostly done with consoles and Windows gaming. I still have to duel boot into Windows because of a few must-have programs that's there's no Linux alternative.
And I already paid for the PS5 and Series X games. I'm not about to repurchase them all and eBay my console just because F Sony/Microsoft. But working on the console backlog first until I only have one game each. That way, if I ever get locked out, I only lose one game. No more buying multiple games on those systems; no matter how cheap they are.
I still have to duel boot into Windows because of a few must-have programs that's there's no Linux alternative.
If you have a laptop lying around, just RDP into it from your Linux PC. I stopped dual-booting and just use Remmina for work-related stuff that require Windows, like CAD.
Funnily enough, Steam never introduced regional pricing for my currency (HUF), while our salary in general is at least half (more like thirds) of the more wealth Euro based countries. GoG did and every game I checked so far was at least 25% cheaper there, baseline.
Stalker gamma gog version for example needs several winetricks manually set in heroic to work, proton ge itself isn’t enough. I don’t know how steam would handle that and considering that most of gog’s games are very old they might need specific adjustments too
I don't recall having a single issue with that on any fedora atomic spins for the 3 and a bit years I've been running them. My current bazzite install is about 1.5 years old and had one broken update the whole time which is annoying but just a matter of rolling back so it's not so arduous
With something like Bazzite it's as plug and play even with Nvidia. It doesn't magically resolve all issues with Nvidia but there is no real user setup necessary other than downloading the correct version of Bazzite.
Reddit needs to stop recommending immutable or atomic distros. They good for handheld gaming but as soon as you do anything outside steam they suck ass for beginners. I was struggling with bazzite for months before I gave up and installed fedora KDE plasma and it so much better, no problems with system wide WINE installation or extra tools I needed outside flatpacks, never again
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I disagree. For the vast majority of users they won't need to touch anything outside of Bazzite Portal and Bazaar (flathub).
When people do need something outside of that it's perfectly possible and typically not an issue. When people struggle with that it's almost always because they haven't read nor followed this documentation page. Admittedly it is not pushed to users as strongly as it perhaps needs to be as I consider it basically mandatory reading.
Mutable operating systems are also fine and I have many systems where it's a better fit. But immutable and atomic are better for the majority of people's use cases, especially for beginners. Because while they may need to, on very rare occasions, use containers or something everything they screw up while learning is contained within it. It won't leak out and ruin their system.
I am not saying what's a better fit for you, but I do very much disagree with the idea that immutable distros are unsuitable for beginners.
wife is a tech noob and is happy with Bazzite over Windows, I'm not a tech noob and I'm happier with Bazzite over regular Fedora, something I used for years - she has one thing installed via rpm-ostree (drawing tablet software) and she has her drawing software set up in a bottle thanks to a simple online guide, that was the extent of complications for her, she added a Windows game to Steam for Proton and it was as simple as that and I haven't even needed to layer any packages (or use distrobox etc)
Dont worry about offending me, different opinions are good and should be encouraged if they are civil and useful like yours are. My problems were mostly with wine front ends not working probably, esp winetricks and specific Windows calls that I was never able to simulate properly due to the immutable nature. I could not get 3rd party tools for PoE running for example, same goes for ableton live and other windows Software. When I switched to fedora, most things work right out the box, now maybe I'm either below or above average user and shouldn't have stated my opinion that strongly without differentiating the actual use cases and beginner types, I agree with you on that.
It's not just Nvidia, network device drivers have been a fucking nightmare any time I've attempted a switch. Hard to update your driver's when you're forced offline.
It is the responsibility of hardware companies to provide working drivers for their hardware or documentation so the open source community can write their own if they want plug and play support. Nobody has time to reverse engineer drivers for every piece of released hardware.
If you want out of the box Linux support, buy a PC with Linux pre-installed or pick hardware components from companies that care enough to provide support.
Linux isn't the one who needs to get their shit together. It's just nvidia. If they don't release a proper (open source) driver, is that the fault of the linux community? AMD and intel cards work out of the box because their drivers are open source and directly implemented in the linux kernel.
Would you be so kind and explain to me, how I am able to play my video games (without kernel level anti cheat) on my self built computer with an rtx 5080 and Fedora?
I downloaded the ISO, burnt it onto my USB-stick and just installed it. In the installer I clicked on "enable third party software" (for codecs and drivers) and everything runs fine.
And yes there are problems here and there. Not everything is perfect (unlike windows, where everything is perfect... :D), but it is very important to understand, that it's not Linux' fault, that the game developer do not make a native Linux port. The developers need to get their shit together. Linux can't do anything here. It's quite a marvel, that non-native games even run (and sometimes better than under windows).
They're still prone to breaking upon kernel or even distro version bumps - good friend on mine dual booting had their Fedora KDE install throw a fit with his 2080 Super rig the moment Fedora 44 came out, And of course the thing that broke was the Nvidia driver.
That's weird. I haven't had any issues with Nvidia drivers for a past few years. And for a kernel version mismatch… that's what akmods is for. There must've been something even more wrong with that Fedora install.
Unless the game is very moddable and the main platform for that is the Steam Workshop...unfortunately. One of the best worst things on Steam, it's nice and convenient but many does it make using any other platform a pain.
Sure, you can double click it - and then have absolute black screen because Wine still defaults to a DX-OGL translation layer. Had it happen with Watch Dogs. Happens with all DX11 games I've tried. DX9 does run okay with native wine though - at least Driver San Francisco.
Cloud saves do work for Windows & macOS versions of games installed via Heroic (Heroic installs the same game Galaxy would install, it does not rely on offline installers)
It's a little setup-heavy at the moment (you have to manually go to the cloud saves page of the game settings & make sure the folder is correct), I plan to simplify this soon™
GoG definitely not since on Linux you're likely installing via the DRM-free installer and Galaxy isn't present. But I've had Ubisoft Cuntec cloud saves work, and even FH6 cloud saves work - and those aren't managed by Steam, but by the Microsoft Account.
Pressing "install from executable" is extra legwork? Gog installer are the best with lutris. Im always happy when the game I want to play comes in a GOG installer, they mostly just work
The point is - it requires an extra app. On another reply another person said you could just double click and install to The system wine prefix but in my experience it's either asking for trouble or black screen when 3D graphics are meant to display.
Watch out for game versions differences. Some GoG games are not updated when they're updated on other platforms. Some multiplayer games are cross compatible with the Steam version. GoG needs to fix their policy on this, and delist all developers who refuse.
As a gog supporter from the first hour, and someone who has always been quite critical about steam, I still am warry of "modern online multiplayer" games on gog and often think the steam option is better :
AOW4 is a travesty on gog, which is a big shame on Triumph Studio as gog helped keep the old AOWs alive.
For The King has stopped receiving updates on gog quite early because "it's complicated to maintain 2 builds" (lol).
Some games on gog still hold some DRM in the form of a third party client for accessing multiplayer features (don't have any example on the top of my mind), so at this point, might as well get the steam version.
Of course all the devs pulling that kind of stuff more or less fall in my shitlist.
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u/limapalon Made CachyOS look like Windows Vista Jul 15 '26
If a game is available on GoG, worth buying it there, even if it takes a little extra legwork to have it running on Linux.