Tumbleweed, Packman codecs, and gaming via Steam (native)

[Strayson]

Good day.

I am new to Opensuse.

I am aware that Opensuse Tumbleweed does not have the propietary multimedia codecs on their main repo. Everyone tells me i need to install them via the third party repo from packman. I heard these codecs may be needed to play some specific video games. I despise using third party native repos, especially packman as they likely bring conflicts and issues, so I would like to avoid having to resort to that if at all possible.

For this, I thought using heroic/steam/lutris through flatpak would be best as it comes pre-installed with all dependencies, competely isolated from the base system.

However, in the case of Steam and gaming, I have to make an exception and install the native rpm package for my own personal reasons.
This would theoretically put me in a position where I require those codecs if I were to encounter a game that needs them for loading cutscenes or similar. The question is, how critical and how wide spread is this requirement in modern games? Can i go without them at all?

Have you ever encountered needing these propietary codecs for gaming?
Are they a hard dependency for plaiyng modern games via proton?
If I choose not to download those codecs, what sorts of limitations should I expect?
Will I not be able to load the game at all, or simply cut scenes won’t work?

I know tumbleweed repo allows me to install the H264 codec, and that is pretty much it. Not sure if that would be enough for gaming use cases?

Many thanks in advance.

[hui]

Steam does not depend or need at all on any of these codecs.

[aoleks]

I’m not sure steam depends on the codecs you’re talking about, however my setup, which I use for gaming on a regular basis, is as follows:

native steam with manual protonGE
native mangohud
codecs from packman_essentials

• first, steam runs like a charm, the same it did on windows. no limitations, no performance issues.

• second, I can play any game I want (alien isolation, rdr2, cstrike2, commandos, tomb raider, the last of us part I/II, metro exodus etc.) with no issues, no hickups. what’s more, using protonGE, I can even inject FSR 4.1 in games that support it, works a charm.

• third, I’ve never any issues/conflicts with codecs. all codecs are installed/maintained from packman essentials and I made sure that stays like that. opensuse tumbleweed takes care of the rest of the system, something you can easily achieve.

no need for non-native steam, no need for other apps, no need for gamemode.