Request to add Lutris/DXVK redirections for Linux users

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Hi Blizzard developers. I have been a long time Blizzard fan and also a contributor to Vulkan API, Mesa drivers and other Linux components.

People on Linux are able to play all Blizzard titles on Linux using Lutris with better performance than on Windows.

  1. Things to understand how this works and clearing misconceptions
  • It is not an emulator, Lutris uses components like DXVK DXVK github that converts DirectX 9,10,11 calls to Vulkan which Linux can understand. and uses its custom builds to covert windows syscalls to Linux. Vulkan is a graphics API used even in Windows in Games like Rainbow Six siege, Red Dead redemption 2 and performance benchmarks are really great ! I personally get 300 FPS (high settings) in Overwatch on my 5700xt card on my Linux machine.
  1. Redirection -
  • I do understand Blizzard QA team and others can’t answer to questions when they are not creating a port themselves. However redirecting stuff to lutris download page to get Battle net installed, Issues can be redirected to Lutris/DXVK developers which will be really great so that it can be reported upstream on their github. This will also result issues to be reported in right hands rather than to the Blizzard Developers.
  1. Improving Documentation -
  • Blizzard has great Documentation and I can help improving that. For example Running a Pathping - Blizzard Support to test pingpath can be easily run on linux with a ping command for example ping 24.105.30.129 There are other parts of the documentation on Blizzard’s website that I won’t cover here.
  1. Benefits to Blizzard -
  • I do understand that despite great performance / great polished experience since years now blizzard can’t support these efforts officially as they are still not native, but this will result in clearing misconceptions, stop spam regarding support requests, will result issues to land at the right place rather than in the Blizzard forums, providing better install redirection to Linux users.
  1. Legitimacy

-Lutris is a Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) project and is available in official repositories of most of the major Linux Distros. It was even granted an Epic Mega Grant by Epic Games in 2019.

-DXVK project has been sponsored by Valve and Valve also uses it in their official proton builds Valve proton

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Would be good have linux support

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I’ve owned a RTX 3060, RX 6600 XT, RX 580, and Intel UHD 630, and probably since 2015 to 2023 I’ve never seen first-hand a Blizzard game (D2R, SC2, WoW, D3) run better on various Linux distros than Windows. I’m not convinced any modern (DX9+) game can run better under Linux than a properly-configured Windows OS, and if it’s DXVK doing the benefit then that’s even easier to also use on Windows by dropping some DLLs in the game folder.

Lutris relies on regular users to write install scripts, and the scripts I’ve seen pull-in resources from GitHub and other sources. Blizzard has no way to vet this, and most users certainly aren’t checking install scripts. I suppose Blizzard could provide their own official Lutris install scripts, but that implies their official support for Lutris which they can’t control.

I personally find Lutris a worse option as it relies on outside sources (the contributed scripts) and allows obscurity too-easily (most people don’t check scripts, they just run them). Most (if not all) Blizzard games work fine from a basic Wine or Staging install, and that has higher trust coming from either your distro or Wine directly. Basic instructions to create isolated prefixes and run the Bnet client would be easy, and the mainstream distros worth using already pull-in DXVK from their own repos (no need to get an archive from GitHub). This is how I prefer to run games as I like pulling in as few 3rd-party resources as possible! Or rather I don’t like blind-trusting resources and don’t care to manually vet them, when possible :stuck_out_tongue:

If anything, putting games on Steam is the best option as of late as Steam is trustworthy (when it comes to security and Proton development), and running games through Proton takes no effort. Plus Blizzard already has experience with Steam with D4 and OW2. Everyone using Lutris likely also has Steam.