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.
Doom (2016): Runs well, although my oldest save game wouldn't load.
Skyrim SE: Runs fine, but there is no NPC audio.
Supreme Commander: launches to a grey window. Eventually goes to a black fullscreen, with no graphics shown and nasty audio corruption. Cannot play.
Brothers - A Tale of Two Sons: Does not launch at all. Cannot play.
Crysis 2 Maximum Edition: Some intial mucking about with resolution and windowed/fullscreen, but got it working well.
Black Squad: Fails to load BattleEye anti-cheat software. Game will not run without it. Cannot play.
Unreal Tournament 2004: Runs flawlessly.
Deus Ex Human Revolution: Runs well, but crashed on exit. Even after manually killing the processes, I had to logout to get rid of it off my screen.
STAR WARS Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast: Launches a grey window, which quickly changes to a black fullscreen before crashing and dropping back to desktop. Cannot play.
Grand Theft Auto V: Launches the "Social Club" window, but there are no buttons on it to go any further. Cannot play.
Mortal Kombat Komplete Edition: Runs fine.
Mortal Kombat XL: Good frames per second, but regular stuttering makes it difficult to time moves.
Injustice Gods Among Us Ultimate Edition: Runtime error while loading. Cannot play.
System
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NVIDIA 1080 Ti
16GB RAM
Kubuntu 18.04
Last edited by PieOrCake on 23 August 2018 at 2:25 am UTC
Quoting: GuestI think this is certainly going to make it very hard for Feral and VP to continue to offer their service on the Linux platform.
Ultimately for Linux gamers, this may be the best thing though.
Nah , dedicated Linux users were mostly buying Linux compatible games anyway and they know the difference of SteamPlay titles vs Feral , VP backed titles.
This move is mostly for newcomers. They wouldn't pay to you anyway if they keep staying on Windows. These are your possible customers.
TheRiddick Aug 22, 2018
If more gamers move to Linux then more developers are simply just going to make a native build for their game as to have better quality control, which might mean they offload the work to Feral and VP to do, officially.
Time will tell. The issue I have atm is some Linux ports of games like ARMA3 are lagged behind windows updates, and the game is heavily built around an online community!
Stupendous Man Aug 22, 2018
I most likely won't buy non-native games in the future though, it's just a little too risky. Who knows if they'll still work tomorrow?
I guess I'll be firing up Civ 4 and Skyrim this afternoon :-)
Quoting: Alm888Guess what will happen when Steam refuses to launch after the Windows™ Update? My bet they will run towards Microsoft® and Valve® with their sticks and stones and demands to "fix it back". And what happens next? Microsoft® won't budge and Valve will be unable to do anything. So, enraged gamers will switch to "Microsoft Store" (no choice, because otherwise they will have to switch to Linux and, believe me, it terrifies most of them). Gamers can hate Microsoft® however they want, but they depend on Windows™ (most of them have to do their school homework on it) and will take whatever Microsoft® throws at them.
Guess what will happen when Steam refuses to launch after the Windows update, people will run towards Microsoft and Valve with their stick and stones and demand to "fix it back", they will then google to fix the problem and then they will read proclamation from Valve that Microsoft changed API and there is nothing they can do. However, they can enjoy all their games on SteamOS or one of the many distribution, with link to installation and everything.
I will guess that many players and many devs are more invested in their games then in the underlying OS and there will be HUGE overnight switch. Most people are merely USED to Windows and don't see other alternatives as viable due to mostly cultural reasons (nerds & Linux), but they usually hate Microsoft.
TheRiddick Aug 22, 2018
But for single player games I definitely see DRM as a unneeded evil! let's face it, EVERY game gets pirated now anyway, DRM is just not effective and the ones that have been for short periods of time (months) have resulted in SHOCKING performance and hassles for legitimate players that the game tanks in sales... how retarded is that!
I can think of a few ass games that tried that :), also anything on the MS Store is likely to have HEAVY DRM!
TheRiddick Aug 22, 2018
Quoting: ColomboHowever, they can enjoy all their games on SteamOS or one of the many distribution, with link to installation and everything.However they can sometimes enjoy
Here you go!
Or somehow WINE became stable and is not breaking compatibility with games from release to release? I doubt it.
Even Valve®-branded (notice that Valve is actively erasing everything indicating Linux connection?) WINE is still WINE -- an eternal beta-version with lots of stubs and "fix-me"s and performance regressions. I think gamers will prefer quality, fresh blockbusters and "moar FPS" like they ever were.
Last edited by Alm888 on 22 August 2018 at 11:19 am UTC
Quoting: areamanplaysgameI love that this is happening.
A small gripe... it is (so far) not configurable. So when Dark Souls doesn't play the movies, I can't apply the fix I know from experience.
But my guess is with all the resources they've put into making DX11 and DX12 work, they're much more concerned with newer games going forward, which is a good thing.
You could open a bug on proton github and mention the fix.
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