I’ve never really thought about whether the game looks the same using its Windows vs Linux renderer. I installed HL2 to check out the anniversary update and decided to try the Windows renderer on Proton. Would you look at this difference… Linux is the top one, Windows is the bottom:
Is this is a thing? Have you tried other games and seen the Windows version looking better?
huh, I kinda prefer the top one. posters are different too…
Lighting looks definitely better on the top one.
Looks like the bottom one is the top one with the outer layer of posters ripped off, interesting
Looks like draw-order to me. One is rendering overlapping decals front-to-back, the other back-to-front.
Think you could be right
This is a slightly dodgy comparison - a native linux version versus a windows version run through Proton?
Bearing in mind Valve make Proton they may have done zero optimisation or work to ensure the Windows version and Proton work together. It’s possible settings need tweaking in Proton to make the game run optimally, but given there is a Linux native version of the game it’s unlikely anyone is going to have spent time doing that.
So the windows version may not be running optimally at the moment in Proton and may not get there as people aren’t going to be motivated to optimise settings.
The Windows version seems to have better HDR and some differences in textures in this shot. Performance-wise it runs great. I think this might be a case of the opposite, Valve not bothering to get all the changes they did with the 20th anniversary update to work on Linux.
They’re not rendering the same source textures. The posters on the wall are completely different.
Is it the same copy of the game on different executables, or are these different editions?
The exact same game. The only difference is whether I’ve chosen Force Compatibility > Proton 9 or not. I uninstall before switching compatibility and reinstall, because the Linux version doesn’t come with the Windows binaries and vice versa.
I think beyond the binaries and therefore renderer used, there might indeed be differences in the assets. The posters are obviously different textures as you said.
I haven’t looked in a while, but I thought the assets and binaries are separate, and it’s possible to switch binaries.
The posters in the Linux version are also in the windows version. The windows version has extra layers of posters on top, the Linux version just has that base layer.
Or that’s how it looks to me at least.
Looks like the Z-order is flipped between the two versions
Ha, yeah.
Oh yeah. Trying to get Black Mesa - which is a HL2 mod that became a game in its own right - to look right on a modern Linux PC has been less than fun. Textures, lighting and shadows are messed up in many places, basically breaking the flashlight most of the time. The game is 99% there, but that other 1% is impossible to ignore. The game plays fine… when you can see.
Kind of glad I got the game on sale.
But anyway, yes I’m kind of surprised that the textures seem to be different in the two screenshots. The lighting is necessarily different because HDR isn’t well supported (if it is at all) on Linux, but I would have thought that keeping the textures in line would be something Valve would be able to do.
Old games don’t use “HDR” the same way we use it today. In old games, enabling HDR makes the lighting calculations in the game engine have infinite range which will then be mapped onto SDR colorspace, which is all software and very much supported in Linux.
If anything the screenshots show a gamma calibration issue. From my experience on Linux native Team Fortress 2, the in-game gamma slider does not do anything.
@palordrolap@fedia.io
A great, short explanation of the different meanings of HDR is up to minute 1:40 in the video below.
What makes you say the windows version is better? The lighting looks more accurate in the top one to me.
It looks like it’s got HDR whereas the Linux one does not. But even if we say it’s a matter of pref and you like the Linux one, it’s still surprising how different they look. I’d expect them to look identical or close to.
It just looks brighter to the point it could be different gamma settings.
There is a bigger brightness range in the top screenshot the bottom looks washed out.
Could be. The gamma setting is the same across both instances - 1.6. But it’s possible that the two instances render that differently.
