In April of this year, 343 miraculously included the easyanticheat_x64.so file which is needed to run EAC on Linux/Proton. However, as is tradition with 343, they never finished it.
They never updated their servers to check for it, so what ends up happening is EAC is stuck in this loop of continously sending requests to a server that is just ignoring it because the server hasn’t been configured for it. I guess Valve or some other Proton maintainer recognized this and added an update to Proton to timeout the requests and just get ingame. This causes a new error to show up that says “Hash catalogue not found”, which leads back to 343’s servers.
I can’t imagine this being anything more than a button press away on 343’s end.
What makes this whole thing downright infuriating is that if they didn’t include the easyanticheat_x64.so file, it would be completely reasonable. They are Microsoft’s very own homegrown studio, of course it makes sense for them to ignore Linux.
But instead they chose to do something completely unexpected and intentionally included a file which only purpose is to make matchmaking possible on Linux. They essentially confirmed Linux support by doing this, and that’s why they have to finish it or at the very least make a statement.
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it’s likely 343 devs may have added the file in anticipation of adding support for Linux, but Microsoft still operates the Servers and has final say on if it gets the greenlight. Microsoft’s higher ups are very likely doing the usual internal company politics nonsense, hoping that the request dies on the table.
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What will they argue? “Hey the playerbase thats almost fully dead wants to also play on the Steam Deck, we dont want to allow that with this free change right”?
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I just hope it get’s sorted eventually since can’t do my weekly challenges on my Steam Deck and well all I get on normal launch is a massive ‘EAC’ pop-up that blocks access to the game and not able to do anything else. I’ve also tried it with EAC turned off too but sadly all my sound vanishes.
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I have almost exclusively played Halo on my Deck since I got it in March, pretty much only campaign, Firefight and some customs with friends (since CGB requires EAC for some reason).
Today I found out (rather late) that Steam Remote Play actually works over internet, so I left my PC running and just hoped that my workplace had good enough internet to at least play some customs. It was an amazing experience and I ended up clutching a double kill for the win on a highly competetive game of Fiesta.
Streaming was great with minimal lag (didn’t believe I was actually streaming until after I was in an MM game), but I’m not always going to have 500/500 speed and as amazing as Valve’s streaming is, it still has artifacts and some packet drops. It needs to be able to play multiplayer and collect achievements on metal, streaming should only be necessary for too demanding games (which MCC certainly is not, even H2A runs at locked 60)
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Yeah, but at the same time MS has made it easier to play some games on Linux (even came out with a guide to get x-cloud to work, albeit by stealing credit from a guy who made the actual flatpak).
Then again, MS literally coined the phrase “Embrace Extend Extinguish” which was as bad as it sounds like, and it feels like they are doing that again by “Embracing” Linux with Azure, “Extending” it with WSL, and “Extinguishing” it with new proprietary security chips that’s “optional” for motherboard manufacturers.
So I don’t know, it’s logical that MS are the ones “Extinguishing” it, but this whole thing is pretty much 343 in a nutshell. Do something good, but do it half-a$$ed and never finish it until it’s already too late. And Phil Spencer praised the Deck and wanted to see more MS stuff on it (without hinting Windows).
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Try launching it on Proton version 6 or Experimental (and disabling EAC), that works great for me (for offline modes that is).
If that doesn’t work, delete the .so file.
You won’t be able to do any progression though.
Already tried launching it via proton versions and it was just buggy when not using EAC. Anyway I’d rather play the game when the game lets me keep my progression stuff. I’ve already unlocked everything in MCC as far as I’m aware except for max rank since that’s a WIP. I did try cloud gaming with MCC/Infinite but it was awful.
I just hope 343i fix the issues with the game so I don’t have to deal with streaming. I’ve got plenty of space on my Steam Deck so it’s up to 343i to put the effort in. Anyway until it’s fixed all it’s doing is encouraging me to play other Steam related games till it’s fixed. I’m more surprised 343i aren’t jumping on this because portable Halo is a cool idea for devs and gamers.