Games/Software Working on Linux/Proton But Not Working on Windows 10/11

Operating Systems & Open Source Linux
1

Others here have mentioned that some older games won’t work on Windows anymore, but they do work on Linux.

Given that we can select various versions of Proton, giving us flexibility that Windows lacks, I’ve been wondering for a while now whether Linux+Proton will in effect get its own “Retro Exclusives” due to Windows breakage. Is this starting to happen, now?

So far others have mentioned:

  • Sims 3
  • Railroad Tycoon 3

Does anyone know of other confirmed cases of this happening?
I’d be interested in non-game stuff too.

2

I haven’t had any luck with pre-2.5 versions of Blender. 2.49b “runs,” but is unusable due to graphical artifacts. It runs fine in Wine.

3

Thanks for the suggestion. Not sure we can claim too much credit for that one since it’s an older version (unless it’s substantially different from the latest, and still popular). What I’m really on the lookout for is stuff that we can point to and show this is happening to old Windows software, and of course use as a selling point to trying out Linuxes.

4

For me, the original release of warcraft [123] have all worked far better on linux than windows.

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5

Dark Earth was one of the more prolific older games that stopped working on newer versions of Windows. I think Wine kind of runs it with a ton of bugs and workarounds, not sure if they ever figured out how play the second half of the game on Linux though.

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