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Valve are now offering a chance to test a beta of the next version of Proton in their Steam Play system.

As a reminder: Steam Play is the system built into the Linux version of the Steam client to allow you to play Windows games on Linux. Compatibility varies from game to game, you can see the current titles that Valve have whitelisted in their original announcement.

You can track the changelog here. As for what Proton 3.7-4 has: support for Python 3, DXVK updated to v0.70, better keyboard focus for those on GNOME Shell, controllers hopefully no longer causing long delays on startup and more. Seems like a pretty good update and it's going to be fun to watch it progress.

Actually getting it show up is a little finicky. It didn't seem to appear until after I started a Steam Play title and then restarting Steam, so hopefully they will improve that over time too.

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101 comments
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D34VA_ Aug 26, 2018
Quoting: somebody1121I was trying to make work Killer is dead on proton by installing .net 4.5 and found with winecfg a Application settings call "NewColossus_x64.exe". To see it do WINEPREFIX=/path/to/steam/library/steamapps/compatdata/APPID/pfx/ winecfg
With any game that you may have install should work.

I found that, too. I wonder if it means we'll see more Id/Bethesda titles soon?
somebody1121 Aug 26, 2018
Quoting: aFoxNamedMorris
Quoting: somebody1121I was trying to make work Killer is dead on proton by installing .net 4.5 and found with winecfg a Application settings call "NewColossus_x64.exe". To see it do WINEPREFIX=/path/to/steam/library/steamapps/compatdata/APPID/pfx/ winecfg
With any game that you may have install should work.

I found that, too. I wonder if it means we'll see more Id/Bethesda titles soon?

Not only that, but it appears they are going to do application profiles.
GustyGhost Aug 26, 2018
Quoting: pythoneer
Quoting: ArnvidrI've been dual-booting a bit lately, and I just installed Windows from an iso downloaded directly from Microsoft, but just never registered it, and the only thing I've noticed is that I couldn't change my wallpaper. Can't see that within a game no matter what!

You're violating the software license from Microsoft by not registering your copy of windows. Its basically "stealing" (like games or movies from the internet you don't pay for). I don't know if there is a more specific term in your jurisdiction but by german law its more or less "Obtaining services by deception"(Section 265a from StGB) or breaking contracts i guess.

https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_stgb/englisch_stgb.html#p2231

Big brother Microsoft is getting something more precious than money from him anyway.
dvd Aug 26, 2018
Quoting: MayeulCInteresting find, thanks for sharing! I disagree on the second part, though. It is still be properly supported by valve, in theory. And they will probably make it a tiny bit different (like the OS logo right to SteamPlay, instead of left).
That also reminds me that platform-specific purchases might come to an end with this.

If they differentiate it it's fine for me, but if they end up using the same penguin/steam icon that other games use, there would be practically no way of telling which developers took their time to learn new toolkits and/or spent time and money to get their games ported.
MayeulC Aug 26, 2018
Quoting: jardonController issues

Interesting to read that your controller works with BP but not with games. Is your system updated? What distribution? Have you tried another one [or a Steam flatpak]? What kernel version? Have you tried both with and without the Steam Runtime? Did you disable the Steam overlay? Did you open an issue on Valve's Github? Is it a nonstandard controller?

That's all I can think of in the top of my head :)
Cyba.Cowboy Aug 26, 2018
Quoting: Arnvidr
Quoting: pythoneer
Quoting: ArnvidrI've been dual-booting a bit lately, and I just installed Windows from an iso downloaded directly from Microsoft, but just never registered it, and the only thing I've noticed is that I couldn't change my wallpaper. Can't see that within a game no matter what!

You're violating the software license from Microsoft by not registering your copy of windows. Its basically "stealing" (like games or movies from the internet you don't pay for). I don't know if there is a more specific term in your jurisdiction but by german law its more or less "Obtaining services by deception"(Section 265a from StGB) or breaking contracts i guess.

https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_stgb/englisch_stgb.html#p2231
How can I be stealing something if Microsoft offers it for download? I'm basically running a demo version, and if Microsoft wanted to limit this demo further they would have done so (and indeed they did so in the past).

This is what I am thinking... He has (seemingly) obtained this via legal/legitimate means from the Microsoft website, so I fail to see how this justifies as "stealing"...


Quoting: Comandante Ñoñardo
Quoting: Arnvidr
Quoting: pythoneer
Quoting: ArnvidrI've been dual-booting a bit lately, and I just installed Windows from an iso downloaded directly from Microsoft, but just never registered it, and the only thing I've noticed is that I couldn't change my wallpaper. Can't see that within a game no matter what!

You're violating the software license from Microsoft by not registering your copy of windows. Its basically "stealing" (like games or movies from the internet you don't pay for). I don't know if there is a more specific term in your jurisdiction but by german law its more or less "Obtaining services by deception"(Section 265a from StGB) or breaking contracts i guess.

https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_stgb/englisch_stgb.html#p2231
How can I be stealing something if Microsoft offers it for download? I'm basically running a demo version, and if Microsoft wanted to limit this demo further they would have done so (and indeed they did so in the past).

I have two machines: This with Ubuntu 16.04.5 and another with a LEGIT Windows 7 pro OEM. When You install Windows 7, with a Legit key (The COA sticker)You have 30 for to activate it, you can reset the trial period three more times with a console as admin and type:
slmgr -rearm
This trial time is ideal for to try the hardware properly, because once you activate win7 OEM licence, it become tied to the hardware.

Once the trial period is ended, If you don't activate it, Win 7 will not lock, it will continue working with the annoying nag screen, even when you are gaming...

Okay, that's confusing as f#%k.

It's things like that which make me glad I don't use Microsoft Windows-based operating systems...


Last edited by Cyba.Cowboy on 26 August 2018 at 10:11 pm UTC
jarhead_h Aug 26, 2018
Quoting: dvd
Quoting: MayeulCInteresting find, thanks for sharing! I disagree on the second part, though. It is still be properly supported by valve, in theory. And they will probably make it a tiny bit different (like the OS logo right to SteamPlay, instead of left).
That also reminds me that platform-specific purchases might come to an end with this.

If they differentiate it it's fine for me, but if they end up using the same penguin/steam icon that other games use, there would be practically no way of telling which developers took their time to learn new toolkits and/or spent time and money to get their games ported.

I really doubt that Valve is going to just declare everything all Linux now. For one, if I were Valve, I would want to brag a little that this is all working because of the resources that Valve committed to it working, and maintaining visible differentiation really helps accomplish that. The set up they have in the current beta maintains the differentiation just fine, and forces the user to the use to restart Steam twice, once to enable beta use, and once to enable non-whitelist titles. Then there's even a bunch of extra notifications that the game is available only via SteamPlay and may not even run. I think that Valve is well aware of the FOSS sensibilities, and won't be stepping on any of our toes.

Once this is out of beta they will probably maintain the warnings if for no other reason than to make sure that everybody understands that this game is running because of Proton. Eventually should this move bear fruit and build our userbase, I could see a public shaming campaign against those devs that rely on Proton for Linux compatibility. But for now, I think "Linux friendly" where the dev uses Vulkan for painless Proton compatibility should be something we encourage.
leillo1975 Aug 27, 2018
Quoting: chancho_zombie
Quoting: leillo1975
Quoting: chancho_zombieSleeping Dogs works for me with the beta.

The game don't work to me....

maybe it's a driver problem, I'm using Mesa drivers 18.2 rc4.

weird, someone else also reported this game running on NVIDIA 396.54 driver, 4.18 kernel.

I use 4.15 Ubuntu 18.04 kernel.... perhaps this is the problem
tuubi Aug 27, 2018
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Quoting: leillo1975
Quoting: chancho_zombie
Quoting: leillo1975
Quoting: chancho_zombieSleeping Dogs works for me with the beta.

The game don't work to me....

maybe it's a driver problem, I'm using Mesa drivers 18.2 rc4.

weird, someone else also reported this game running on NVIDIA 396.54 driver, 4.18 kernel.

I use 4.15 Ubuntu 18.04 kernel.... perhaps this is the problem
Take a look at ukuu if you want an easy way to test a more recent kernel on Ubuntu.
leillo1975 Aug 27, 2018
Quoting: tuubi
Quoting: leillo1975
Quoting: chancho_zombie
Quoting: leillo1975
Quoting: chancho_zombieSleeping Dogs works for me with the beta.

The game don't work to me....

maybe it's a driver problem, I'm using Mesa drivers 18.2 rc4.

weird, someone else also reported this game running on NVIDIA 396.54 driver, 4.18 kernel.

I use 4.15 Ubuntu 18.04 kernel.... perhaps this is the problem
Take a look at ukuu if you want an easy way to test a more recent kernel on Ubuntu.

Tested with 4.18.5, and this is not the problem, the game persists in don't work
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