[Feature request] Add a loading screen when running Proton stubs

[rshamsnejad]

I just tried to switch a game to a Proton GE version that wasn't already present on my system, so after a restart of Steam and launching the game, naturally the stub script launched to download the package.

I know this because I'm a contributor to the project, but to a regular user, it just looks like the game doesn't launch at all, because it only displays the Steam loading animation (three vertical bars).

I suggest to display a simple "Downloading and configuring Proton XXX, please wait..." screen during this operation, much like the password prompt of the Chimera web app.

I'm recording this here, because I'm not sure if I'll find the time to get into contributing this feature.

[alkazar]

While I agree the experience is not great, it matches the experience when installing regular Proton other than we can't show a notification once the Proton GE download is completed.

It definitely does not result in hanging on the loading bars animation, that is likely due to something with the specific game taking a long time to load.

The Proton GE download happens while the Big Picture screen shows "Preparing to launch ...".

[alkazar]

While I think it is "good enough" for now, I think ideally it would:

• show a progress bar of the download
• show an error and exit if there is no internet available or the download fails for whatever reason
• not look dissimilar from the Steam interface (perhaps we wait for the new gamepad UI)

[rshamsnejad]

It definitely does not result in hanging on the loading bars animation, that is likely due to something with the specific game taking a long time to load.

There's something fishy going on then, because after the first launch, the loading bars animation is much shorter

[alkazar]

There's something fishy going on then, because after the first launch, the loading bars animation is much shorter

I recently found out we are both right. What I describe seems to happen when using a Steam game and what you describe happens when you are using a non-Steam game.