As we speculated previously, Valve have now officially announced their new version of 'Steam Play' for Linux gaming using a modified distribution of Wine called Proton, which is available on GitHub.
What does it do? In short: it allows you to play Windows games on Linux, directly through the Steam client as if they were a Linux game.
What many people suspected turned out to be true, DXVK development was actually funded by Valve. They actually employed the DXVK developer since February 2018. On top of that, they also helped to fund: vkd3d (Direct3D 12 implementation based on Vulkan), OpenVR and Steamworks native API bridges, wined3d performance and functionality fixes for Direct3D 9 and Direct3D 11 and more.
The amount of work that has gone into this—it's ridiculous.
Here's what they say it improves:
- Windows games with no Linux version currently available can now be installed and run directly from the Linux Steam client, complete with native Steamworks and OpenVR support.
- DirectX 11 and 12 implementations are now based on Vulkan, resulting in improved game compatibility and reduced performance impact.
- Fullscreen support has been improved: fullscreen games will be seamlessly stretched to the desired display without interfering with the native monitor resolution or requiring the use of a virtual desktop.
- Improved game controller support: games will automatically recognize all controllers supported by Steam. Expect more out-of-the-box controller compatibility than even the original version of the game.
- Performance for multi-threaded games has been greatly improved compared to vanilla Wine.
It currently has a limited set of games that are supported, but even so it's quite an impressive list that they're putting out there. Which includes DOOM, FINAL FANTASY VI, Into The Breach, NieR: Automata, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl, Star Wars: Battlefront 2 and more. They will enable many more titles as progress on it all continues.
To be clear, this is available right now. To get it, you need to be in the Steam Client Beta.
There will be drawbacks, like possible performance issues and games that rely on some DRM might likely never be supported, but even so the amount of possibilities this opens up has literally split my head open with Thor's mighty hammer.
Holy shit. Please excuse the language, but honestly, I'm physically shaking right now I don't quite know how to process this.
Update #1: I spoke to Valve earlier, about how buying Windows games to play with this system counts, they said this:
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.Hey Liam, the normal algorithm is in effect, so if at the end of the two weeks you have more playtime on Linux, it'll be a Linux sale. Proton counts as Linux.
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The comments on this article are closed.
Quoting: ShmerlQuoting: dubigrasuWhat? Of course it matters! It matters to me anyway. I have a deep respect for Feral and I'm curious in which way this it affects them.
I mean it doesn't matter in the sense that it should provide positive outcome for Linux gaming either way. Feral might need to change something, and hopefully the right way. For one I hope they'll start releasing DRM-free games.
If I where Feral I would negotiate the license sooner than today and do a same day release by using the proton wrapper (for the games where Proton works) and then release the native port with full performance and support later. That way they will not loose sales with this change while still being able to produce a proper native port later.
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Will it warn you about games not on the whitelist if you enable it for all titles? I expect to enable it for some not whitelisted games, but that doesn't mean I want it to list all windows games.
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Quoting: KetilWill it warn you about games not on the whitelist if you enable it for all titles? I expect to enable it for some not whitelisted games, but that doesn't mean I want it to list all windows games.
It won't let you install non-whitelist games unless you go to your Steam Play settings and check a box to do that. That's assuming that you've already checked the box to allow Steam to download the beta and restarted it.
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TheLinuxPleb Aug 22, 2018
Quoting: MayeulCDo you have followed Valve's recommendations for the GPU drivers? And by amdgpu, I assume you mean the kernel module, not the "-PRO" driver?
Yes. Kernel module. Did everything as posted, but added parameter 'radeon.si_support=0 amdgpu.si_support=1' to /etc/default/grub as my 7870 only has experimental support for Vulkan.
If someone has the same gpu and has got things working im all ears though.
Last edited by TheLinuxPleb on 22 August 2018 at 9:33 pm UTC
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Quoting: barottoJohn Carmack in 2013:To me, Carmack was mostly trying to justify Zenimax's decision to stop unofficial Linux builds of id games. Sure he got things right as he is a very (if not the most) talented dev, but his opinion on the subject was biased nevertheless.
"Improving Wine for Linux gaming seems like a better plan than lobbying individual game developers for native ports. Why the hate?" and "Translating from D3D to OpenGL would involve more inefficiencies, but figuring out exactly what the difficulties are and making some form of “D3D interop” extension for OpenGL to smooth it out is a lot easier than making dozens of completely refactored, high performance native ports."
He was right, after all. A bit too soon tho, that "extension for OpenGL" is today's Vulkan, that didn't exist back then. A lot of pieces had to be put in place to make it a viable solution.
On another hand you do make a great point: I immediately thought about id software when I saw the list of whitelisted games and told to myself, bringing DOOM 2016 is a way of "avenging" Linux gamers. Great job Valve.
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Nevertheless Aug 22, 2018
Quoting: InverseTelecineI'm really, really happy about this! Please hear me out
For the past year or so the future of Linux gaming has looked very bleak. After Steam Machines failed to take off, then the Nintendo Switch started to be "the place" for indy games, and finally Linux seemed to be bottoming out in the Steam user surveys (just because of new Chinese windows users, but still it was not a good sign). After all that, I was honestly surprised about how many game releases we still got, but still, the "onward and upward" momentum was lost. We were holding steady at best, but were not gaining ground anymore. I thought a decline was inevitable. This could turn that around. This could be some hope for us.
It is true that this may discourage native development to some extent, so it might not be perfect, but let's be honest; we should be more worried about the future of Linux gaming, not the future of "perfect" Linux gaming. This could be what gives Linux gaming a future, and I will be happy for any future for Linux gaming.
To me it looks like Valve truely have multiplatform development and releases in mind. They clearly want Vulkan as THE api for it. They help to develop ways to port code from Vulkan to other APIs like MoltenVK. This will help Linux gaming in several ways, and I think you're right, it might even save it. People won't install Linux if not most of the games they want to play work on it. Developers will keep doing what they have to do, beeing responsible for their busynesses and employees and only invest into platform versions they think will be worthwile. They also will develop their games with tools that make the most sense to them.
Valves initiatives help on all those fronts. When the Windows 7 support dies maybe a few percent of the users won't just sigh and install Windows 10, maybe they will come to places like GOL for help and orientation, and maybe they will install Linux instead, and that will be acknoledged by developers.
OpenGL is dying. DX11 for now gets enough data to the GPU via its one driver thread, but not for long. Soon it'll have to be DX12 or Vulkan. From this time forward Linux will be as fast as Windows, native or Proton.
Every Linux user playing any game that works on Linux will be shown and know as Linux user. It might lead to more native games in the long run. And maybe a Win32/Vulkan game is quasi Linux native by then.
Last edited by Nevertheless on 22 August 2018 at 9:40 pm UTC
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Quoting: GuestIf it makes people feel better I can point out really great things Valve have done (mostly around Vulkan tooling and drivers). But I have to ask: if wine didn't exist, if dxvk didn't exist, would Valve have tried to create either?
You can ask the same thing about Linux and choosing it for their projects like SteamOS. Would they create their own OS to avoid Windows? That's the benefit of FOSS. You can use existing work and contribute back.
Quoting: GuestAnyway, Valve does this for Valve. Not for GNU/Linux. I hope people realise this. And yeah, Valve can be congratulated for investing things that help out, but the way I see it, the victory is not from Valve. It's from wine developers. From doitsujin and all who contributed to dxvk (which, yes, has some partial help from Valve). It's from open source tools that make this possible, it's from open source drivers that make this possible, it's from Khronos for the amazing work they've been doing on Vulkan. It's from Lutris showing that this is indeed possible. That's where my praise is.
That's why I don't feel the need to rave on about Valve - I'm too busy praising all the foundational and open source work that hey're building on. Valve have simply picked the best solution, and I do congratulate them on bankrolling things and helping improve that solution. It's just....hmm....to me, and I stress "to me", ranting about Valve ignores all the hard work that is being built upon, and I've never liked that.
So I just like to comment to make people aware of how awesome wine can be, how awesome open development is, and how great it is that GNU/Linux makes all this even possible.
Sure, it's all by those developers. But Valve funded them and without that funding, progress would have been a lot slower, no doubt about it. So Valve deserve credit for contributing to FOSS projects instead of their own walled garden / silo.
Do they have selfish motives? Likely, they aren't doing it just for charity. But result is still positive. A lot of progress in Linux itself is driven by major for profit companies who use that very progress for their own benefit. That doesn't make their contributions useless.
Last edited by Shmerl on 22 August 2018 at 9:59 pm UTC
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Nevertheless Aug 22, 2018
Quoting: TcheyIt's a great new for players, but i'm concerned about NATIVE Linux games. Too many, i think today, will use this instead of going the road to a proper Linux build.
Basically, it's a WINE inside Steam, so it's still not Linux.
Suppose you're playing a Vulkan game on your Linux box. Performance is great, everything works. The dev knows your gaming on Linux. Do you care if the game is ELF or Win32?
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Quoting: KetilWill it warn you about games not on the whitelist if you enable it for all titles? I expect to enable it for some not whitelisted games, but that doesn't mean I want it to list all windows games.Yes, it will. You get a message when you first run them. Though I'm not sure if you get it with "whitelisted" games :)
Quoting: NeverthelessQuoting: TcheyIt's a great new for players, but i'm concerned about NATIVE Linux games. Too many, i think today, will use this instead of going the road to a proper Linux build.
Basically, it's a WINE inside Steam, so it's still not Linux.
Suppose you're playing a Vulkan game on your Linux box. Performance is great, everything works. The dev knows your gaming on Linux. Do you care if the game is ELF or Win32?
Technically, ELF or PE; or Linux or Win32, but do not mix in the API and the executable format (you could very well have a PE-encoded Linux binary; technically you have ELF32 and ELF64 as well, IIRC UEFI executable are in the Portable Executable format as well). Sorry for nitpicking.
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