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: johndoeQuoting: GuestJust really want to point out that Valve see and fund things that are very useful, and that's not to be underestimated, but I personally dislike the treatment that it's all and entirely Valve doing everything.
It's hard to understand your point of view!
My question is why did the winehq developers not take the burden to make wine an out of the box feeling?
Don't take me wrong, I know howto use wine and my few windows games I have do run well with wine from winehq.
Currently more windows games run with newest wine than proton. But this will change in the next months.
Simply click install in the Steam Client and it configures the game for you automatically is what Linux needs - not all Linux users are geeks.
Because if you want an out of the box feeling and one click install before steam there was lutris or playonlinux both work without you having to jack shit other than click. I get what your saying what valve has done will appeal to more people because its super low effort you login into steam install a game and see if it has decent enough performance to play. I do get that arguement but knowing what is happening under the hood and therefore potential fixes is more helpful to the community that shrugging your shoulders and going meh next game.
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rafaelcgs10 Aug 22, 2018
Quoting: KabouikNot sure if this has been posted, but I am 32 pages late and that is a bit much to catch up while I'm at work.
There is a community-driven list of games that run or crash with Steam Play/Proton, it is here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vQ3_odz8JzEVK80vkku-b6FsICWb45xGf4VYnzYz5cNSMVQ-5BA2WoHBGAScw96MgLj1ONA7Cx0tyGa/pubhtml#
Since the official whitelisting process can take some time, is probably more conservative, and does not show what has been tested but failed, it might be worth posting this list in the GOL article so that people know about it. There are 50k reads on the article at the moment, imagine if even a small percentage of those people were documenting about the tests they are currently doing with their game library.
While the testing from the community is not necessarily exhaustive, seeing if a game fails terribly or runs smoothly on someone else's computer would help deciding whether to download 50 GB off Steam and try.
The author of this post should put this link in the post!
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I have a question/hypathetical question feral and vp would it not make sense for valve to buy both or one because then if a developer wants a linux port and they want to use feral gabe gets all the cash from point of contract to point of sale minus development overhead which if they bought feral they would gain the rights to use their tools for the port jobs they do. This would 1 create a very skilled linux software house within valve and 2 makes valve able to make linux more attractive to develop on perhaps by lowering the cut valve takes at point at sale for linux ports.
Meh maybe to much theorising there but it is going to be interesting to see what happens regarding Feral and VP i would say aspyr but they gave up on linux ages ago so i gave up on them.
Meh maybe to much theorising there but it is going to be interesting to see what happens regarding Feral and VP i would say aspyr but they gave up on linux ages ago so i gave up on them.
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Quoting: Whitewolfe80I do get that arguement but knowing what is happening under the hood and therefore potential fixes is more helpful to the community that shrugging your shoulders and going meh next game.
I'm with you.
But I'm also pretty sure there is some kind of debug mode for proton - did not have time to look in protons bottles yet.
Also don't forget that proton is OpenSource - you can be part of it.
I think that plenty of people will send patches and write bug reports to valve.
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Quoting: johndoeQuoting: Whitewolfe80I do get that arguement but knowing what is happening under the hood and therefore potential fixes is more helpful to the community that shrugging your shoulders and going meh next game.
I'm with you.
But I'm also pretty sure there is some kind of debug mode for proton - did not have time to look in protons bottles yet.
Also don't forget that proton is OpenSource - you can be part of it.
I think that plenty of people will send patches and write bug reports to valve.
I do hope so i know the bug reporting for dxvk is live if we can make this an all out of the box experience granted its not going to happen over night but the more feedback the better. Plus since GOL confirmed with valve that a game bought and played under Proton counts as a linux sale after two weeks, who knows we may get a native version of something like cod next year.
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Been playing with this for a little over an hour, and so far I've had very good results overall. I've only really tried older games so far (smaller downloads, this just came out after all).
The not great:
The good:
The great:
Last edited by dibz on 22 August 2018 at 3:53 pm UTC
The not great:
- Crazy Taxi: Loads, but crashes after pressing start.
- Chip's Challenge 1: Does not load at all. Not surprising, I seem to recall this game requiring .Net 4+.
- Learn Japanese To Survive Hiragana Battle: No graphics, it's possible desktop settings could fix this (compositor, etc). Plays blind w/ music.
The good:
- Dead Island Definitive Edition: Plays great, mouse is slow in the main menu.
The great:
- C&C Red Alert 3: Plays perfectly.
- Duke Nukem Manhatten Project: Plays "perfectly" with nixon quotes. Takes like 30 seconds for the window to show, THEN plays perfectly. I'm not sure if it does this in windows too.
- Sam & Max Season 1 Ep 2, Situation Comedy: Plays perfectly.
Last edited by dibz on 22 August 2018 at 3:53 pm UTC
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Quoting: Alm888The biggest shot in the foot Microsoft® made was "DirectX™ 12 Windows™ 10 lock-in". :DMaybe you are too young to remember how many times Microsoft shot itself in the foot. Here's a small list...
- Windows Vista DRM
- Windows 8 metro UI
- Windows RT app incompatibility
- Windows 10 NSAtc reporting
Last edited by Ne0 on 22 August 2018 at 3:41 pm UTC
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Comandante Ñoñardo Aug 22, 2018
Quoting: Whitewolfe80I have a question/hypathetical question feral and vp would it not make sense for valve to buy both or one because then if a developer wants a linux port and they want to use feral gabe gets all the cash from point of contract to point of sale minus development overhead which if they bought feral they would gain the rights to use their tools for the port jobs they do. This would 1 create a very skilled linux software house within valve and 2 makes valve able to make linux more attractive to develop on perhaps by lowering the cut valve takes at point at sale for linux ports.
Meh maybe to much theorising there but it is going to be interesting to see what happens regarding Feral and VP i would say aspyr but they gave up on linux ages ago so i gave up on them.
Actually, is not bad the idea of Feral being acquired by Valve...
Acquiring Feral, Valve will acquire IndirectX, the most valuable asset from that company.. And will have a dedicated and qualified team for porting..
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Quoting: Ne0Quoting: Alm888The biggest shot in the foot Microsoft® made was "DirectX™ 12 Windows™ 10 lock-in". :DMaybe you are too young to remember how many times Microsoft shot itself in the foot. Here's a small list...
- Windows Vista DRM
- Windows 8 metro UI
- Windows RT app incompatibility
- Windows 10 NSAtc reporting
Eventually they will run out of feet and might shoot themselves in some more vital organs...
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