+1
I'm going to bump this thread, and hopefully attract the attention of someone at vMix.
For a bit of context, I'm a long-time vMix subscriber. I've also been using Windows since 1.0 [yeah, I'm old...]
I happily pay the vMix team for their work every month -- it is remarkably good and stable software. It is clear that they listen to their customer base, and add features that we actually need and want. Which is how things are supposed to work! Capitalism 101...
It is
also clear that the product is heavily intertwined with core Microsoft tech, like DirectX. So unless the vMix crew has a secret skunkworks project to refactor the software, I don't see them ditching that requirement any time soon.
HOWEVER - I humbly request that someone on the vMix team who has an interest takes the time to study Proton. And perhaps even come up with a reference implementation on a particular set of software (Fedora, Bazzite, etc) using the reference hardware you already recommend. Linux can run most or all of it just fine already, including capture card and audio interfaces. OBS has proven that.
Even if officially "unsupported" by vMix, it would be great to hear from the team about their experiences with Linux, because after 30+ years, I'm finally ready to fully abandon the Microsoft ship, as are many others. vMix is the only thing keeping me around.
In the distant past, Microsoft's quality was sometimes dubious, but you always at least felt they were
trying at some level to act in the interest of the user. Which makes sense - the majority of their revenues were focused on Windows and ancillary products. So even though they were defacto monopolists, they still had to care. A little.
The past 10 years have been a sea-change for the company. Now less than 10% of Microsoft's revenue comes from Windows. The bulk of their income is from Azure/cloud stuff and other products -- and it shows.
We all know Windows 11 is filled with telemetry [which can't be fully shut off], it constantly pings random servers including ad networks [again, can't be fully shut off], and is moving to a place where account registration is becoming mandatory. On top of this, their $260 Billion [and counting] investment in AI means they are shoving it everywhere they possibly can, even if it is unwanted by Windows users.
If you have a modern "Copilot PC" with an NPU, you are in even worse shape, because it will
run background processes constantly, using memory and computing power, whether you want them to or not. There is no simple off-switch, only way to disable this is via powershell scripts that have to be re-run every time you run windows update. This is incredibly user-hostile.
The upshot is what we all experience at some point -- instability, micro-stutters, high DPC latency, high CPU usage for no visible reason, the list goes on and on ...
You don't realize how bad this is until you try gaming on Linux, and suddenly the same hardware just works better. Peak performance is typically right around the same as Windows, but because of the lack of invisible background chicanery, 1% lows aren't as low, which makes for a smoother experience. It is a breath of fresh air once you've tried it.
I may try to get vMix running via Proton on Fedora 44 or SteamOS just to see how it goes....
