Reddit seems to be buzzing with information from SteamDB (full credit to them for finding it) showing indications that Valve might be adding support for compatibility tools to enable you to play games on operating systems they weren't designed for, like Wine.
I won't copy all of it, but a few interesting bits do certainly stick out like the string named "Steam_Settings_Compat_Info" where the description reads "Steam Play will automatically install compatibility tools that allow you to play games from your library that were built for other operating systems.".
There's also "Steam_Settings_Compat_Advanced_Info" which reads as "You may select a compatibility tool to use with games that have not been tested or verified to work on this platform. This may not work as expected, and can cause issues with your games, including crashes and breaking save games."
Valve do also have a Valve Compatibility Manifests and Valve Compatibility Manifests for Beta Testing set of packages that show up on SteamDB.
That certainly sounds like something Wine related, perhaps with a sprinkle of something like DXVK, don't you think? However, it could even just be DOSBox, a Valve-sponsored tool or anything—we simply don't know enough at this point.
Having the ability to use tools like Wine from within the native Linux Steam client, is actually something that has been requested for a long time by quite a number of people. It could certainly make using Wine less of a hassle for Steam games. If so, it might even give developers a better idea of how many people are on different operating systems if it showed up in their statistics when someone's using such a feature.
It might even be quite a smart business move for Valve, as it might push more people to buy games that have a decent enough rating through one of these compatibility tools.
It could all end up being nothing, so take it with your usual pinch of salt. Even if it does end up being a real feature, it could be quite a long way off too. I'm only posting it because I personally found it quite interesting, I'm pretty sceptical about it for a number of reasons, but doesn't stop it being somewhat exciting too.
What are your thoughts?
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Quoting: x_wingQuoting: mylkaisnt that what vulkan should be? vulkan was made to bring games to other OS.
id software told us how easy it is to port doom to linux. maybe someone can ask feral interactive how much work it would be to port RotTR/mad max from the LINUX VULKAN version to a Windows VULKAN version. that would be very interesting
Vulkan is not a SDK, is just a graphic API. Unfortunately, porting an application to another OS is not just about the graphic API.
Don't get too exited people, it could be nothing.
of course, but all engines need to support this SDK
it is more likely that all engines suppport vulkan, because vulkan is open
and as far i know it should be easier/make less trouble porting a game from one OS to another
i mean vulkan already exists and it has proven, that it works great on linux and windows. (big) game studios just need to use it instead of DX
something new means back to the beginning
qptain Nemo Aug 15, 2018
Quoting: WJMazepasTbh i prefer to play old games on Wine than Windows 10 because they all work much better. I even need to do more fixes to work proper on Windows 10Any specific examples? I'd appreciate them for future talking points.
Quoting: ElectricPrismI am actually looking forward to playing some old windows games hassle-free -- Rock of Ages, Burnout Paradise and the Final Fantasy series that I already bought but haven't touched since I went full Linux and had no time to dick around setting them up.Burnout Paradise pretty much just works. Just tested it again in my pretty messed up main prefix and it's Gold on WineHQ. Pretty sure it should work in clean prefixes out of the box.
TheRiddick Aug 15, 2018
Allowing DXVK for example to just work on everything is asking for trouble because you need to at least proof test things first on both AMD/NVIDIA GPU's so people don't constantly get issues.
Userwithaname Aug 15, 2018
no_information_here Aug 15, 2018
Valve likes to offload its work to the customers.
I think it could actually work, even without much Dev support.
Actually this sounds more like a compatibility tool to keep old windows games running in modern microsoft OSes.
As far as I know, many people complained about microsoft's latest OS entry lack of compatibility with very old game.
Quoting: SnowdrakeActually this sounds more like a compatibility tool to keep old windows games running in modern microsoft OSes.
Valve can invest in Wine on Windows to do that. Which in turn will benefit Wine anyway.
Last edited by Shmerl on 15 August 2018 at 6:40 am UTC
That would be great, because honestly that is my biggest beef with wine currently, having to use a special dev version with a bunch off .patch files and a hand full of extra programs to make a game potentially run, all of which inevitably messes up wine for your other games.
But I more or less expect it to just install plain wine and offer to attempt to run windows games with that, which would suck :(
Quoting: x_wingVulkan is not a SDK, is just a graphic API. Unfortunately, porting an application to another OS is not just about the graphic API.
It's not all the work, but AFAIK it's the lion's share of it. It has to be done from scratch. That's where Vulkan comes in and cannot be understated as being the key to the future.
Quoting: qptain Nemo[LONG QUOTE THAT"S COMPLETELY CORRECTEverything Nemo said. /\this guy/\.
Quoting: Guest1) SOMEONE has to support every game that runs on Linux. Valve, or the game's dev, doesn't matter, but official support is a requirement of course. There should not be a "run in Wine" or anything like that, because all gamers should be treated equally on Steam, and Linux gamers shouldn't feel like they're lesser gamers in any way. It's either supported, or it's not.
2) Valve HAS to communicate this clearly to gamers, and the way of doing that right now is with the supported platform/OS icons. Valve should simply continue this and show a Linux/SteamOS icon when a game is supported on Linux, whether it runs through Wine or a Wine bottle or native it doesn't matter, it's the support that matters.
Dude, admire the zeal, but chill. Should all gamers be treated equally on Steam? Why? We're not equal. There's lots more of them. Lots and lots and lots more. There are more Apple users than Linux users, and Apple makes technology for people that can't figure out technology. Last count has us at .5%. Not five percentage points, or a whole percentage point, but half of a percentage point. Now the number of Linux users that dual boot to game on Windows is probably half to three quarters of us because WINE is a hassle. But that makes us still less than 5% of Steam. Probably less than 3%. The fact that Valve even has a Linux storefront makes no short-term sense from a corporate financial standpoint. It's clear evidence of favoritism towards us. Linux is on Steam because Gabe Newell HATED Windows 8, and realized that so did everybody else. So he decided to start planting seeds for the day when Microsoft finally went off the rails and started pushing it's userbase around so badly that they actually jumped ship. We're almost there.
WINE, DXVK, and Lutris are miracles and gifts from the gaming gods, but they are also a chore to configure, they often don't run right, and cause performance penalties. But here's the thing, DOOM(2016) and other Vulkan rendered games run great because WINE just sends the Vulkan function calls straight to the graphics drivers. Vulkan is the future of Linux gaming because it's the future of WINE gaming. And I think that someone at Valve had that thought, and that's possibly why we have DXVK and now possibly WINE integrated into Steam. Imagine it, playing a game in WINE+DXVK and all you did was type "sudo dnf install steam" into the command line. Imagine it being that seamless. Maybe that's a pipe dream, but also maybe that's the plan.
We've been trying this FOSS thing for twenty years. It feels like we're actually going backwards now. The SteamOS push by Valve actually got us a bunch of AAA ports that we never would have gotten otherwise. We don't even get all the indie sales, and it makes way more economic sense for them to provide native Linux installs. We're even losing Linux support for titles every now and again that had it, like we did with Banner Saga.
This is a way to get rid of dual booting so that we can get accurate counts of just how many Linux gamers there are. It's also the only way to get around the fact that 80% of the titles on Steam will never have a Linux port. Ever. As for new titles, I think that actually depends more on Sony right now than Valve. If the Playstation uses Vulkan, we win. The outcome is that binary. Once a game is done in Vulkan the graphics stuff does not have to be redone for another OS. It just plugs in. Vulkan was designed to do that. That means a lot of Windows titles will come from the Playstation to Windows running Vulkan, which will run as seamlessly in WINE as DOOM and Wolfenstein do. And that's the end of Microsoft, because as soon as we don't need DirectX we don't need Windows.
That means we're free.
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