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Why is the cutscene/FMV problem in Linux gaming so difficult to fix? (lemmy.fmhy.ml)

submitted 1 year ago by HoukaiAmplifier99@lemmy.fmhy.ml to c/linux_gaming@lemmy.ml

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I see it a lot in visual novels, older PC games and PC ports of older non-PC games. It sounds so trivial on paper, like... just play the video? But I know it's not. Why though? Can we ever expect the problem to be fully solved? Right now it kinda seems like an uphill struggle, like by fixing cutscene playback in one game doesn't really seem to automatically fix it for other games, so it's not a situation where a convenient one size fits all solution works.

And I don't really get it, because if it's related to video codecs, there are only so many codecs out there, right? And then you also expect that there's probably just a few popular ones out there that'll be used for 99% of all cases, with a few odd outliers here and there perhaps.

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[–] HoukaiAmplifier99@lemmy.fmhy.ml 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Most recent example I can think of is the Mega Man ZX games in the Mega Man Zero/ZX Legacy Collection, which are PC ports of old NDS games. The cutscenes just show a white screen. Did manage to fix that thanks to someone's help on reddit (was related to mfplat and another component iirc), but there are also instances where that won't work (I tried to help someone fix a cutscene issue on an obscure visual novel, but I couldn't get that to work if my life depended on it).

Modern games do seem fairly safe though, like you said.

[–] rhys@mastodon.rhys.wtf 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

@HoukaiAmplifier99 I might have made this up, but I think I recall reading that Valve routinely licences old and weird codecs so that they can build support in Proton for some of these fringe cases.

The only time I can remember seeing it recently was in an old game off GOG called Conquest: Frontier Wars. Like others, it just showed a coloured pattern, but with that game it couldn't recover from not being able to play and would crash after.

[–] HoukaiAmplifier99@lemmy.fmhy.ml 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Interesting, I take it you don't remember the source? I might want to look into that.

[–] rhys@mastodon.rhys.wtf 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

@HoukaiAmplifier99 I don't remember my source, and I can't find anything searching around. I either made it up or it was an unsubstantiated reddit comment that stuck in my brain :)

For real instances of this problem though, look at Glorious Eggroll if you haven't already. Contains a number of additional video codecs Valve can't yet support directly.

[–] HoukaiAmplifier99@lemmy.fmhy.ml 3 points 1 year ago

Oh yeah Proton-GE is definitely my go-to usually, has fixed some stuff before, but there are still cases where it doesn't help. Idk what it does under the hood though.

[–] Lojcs@lemm.ee 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Contains a number of additional video codecs Valve can't yet support directly.

Why would valve need to support the codecs? I don't think Microsoft goes out of its way to support proprietary codecs in windows for a games to be able to decode them. What makes that necessary when running the game in proton?

[–] rhys@mastodon.rhys.wtf 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

@Lojcs Microsoft does exactly that. They licence a number of proprietary codecs for inclusion in Windows for the convenience of users.

Running under Wine, some alternative decoders can be used, but many proprietary codecs don't have freely-available decoders available. Under Proton, many free decoders can be used like Wine, but some prohibit commercial use or otherwise can't be implemented in Proton via Valve. GE-Proton manages the best of both worlds.

[–] Lojcs@lemm.ee 4 points 1 year ago

Considering that windows doesn't even have a free h.265 software decoder to use in its video app, it's hard to believe that it might support codecs obscure enough to not have open source decoders even in GE proton. Thanks for the reply tho