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.
Quoting: chancho_zombieso many games to download I need a new hard drive ^_^
Word.
This is a Good Thing. Yes, native ports may suffer in the short term, and that is not good. But network effects rule. If we get market share, games will in the end be routinely released natively on Linux. If we do not, they won't. It's that simple.
If quick availability of many games helps get us market share, all drawbacks are inconsequential in the end.
So. That's nice for us (if it works), but what does Valve get out of it? First, there seems to be a general vision of everything seamlessly cross-platform--Windows, MacOS, Linux, whoever else joins the party, all unified by Steam. Slightly more short term . . . does anyone else have the feeling this represents the clearing away of an obstacle to doing Steam Machines again? I see someone with a list, saying "Complaints about game availability, check."
There have been overhauls to the Steam interface lately as well. Person with a list, saying "Objections that the UI lacked polish, check."
Just maybe in a year or so, I can see Valve mounting the Steam Machine push again with all the boxes checked.
Last edited by Purple Library Guy on 22 August 2018 at 2:22 am UTC
Aug 22, 2018
Quoting: melkemindI have NieR Automata, but this game was broken on Windows [..] and not really playable without the third-party FAR modThe fullscreen bug doesn't even happen on wine, and the game has been fully playable on wine for over a year now (and for over half a year with dxvk).
Quoting: ShmerlNo visible effect from Esync on the Witcher 3 using wined3d.That's expected, Witcher 3 doesn't really have issues with high wineserver load anyway, and wined3d usually has its own bottlenecks.
Though, reading one of your earlier comments, it seems you have the wrong idea about what esync actually does. It reduces the overhead of thread synchronization primitives, it is not related to anything specific in wined3d.
Last edited by YoRHa-2B on 22 August 2018 at 2:30 am UTC
Quoting: YoRHa-2BThough, reading one of your earlier comments, it seems you have the wrong idea about what esync actually does. It reduces the overhead of thread synchronization primitives, it is not related to anything specific in wined3d.
Got it. Witcher 3 has a synchronization problem (GPU + CPU) in wined3d, but apparently esync is not about that.
By the way, will dxvk remain an independent repository? It would be nice if it could.
Last edited by Shmerl on 22 August 2018 at 2:34 am UTC
Quoting: dhellionAnd I feel like I want to take it on. I'd happily give money to Valve to help the proceedings if something like this were to happen, for the chance to see Microsoft break some teeth on Linux.Quoting: silentprocyonTL;DR... Outcome of Oracle feuding with Google is that APIs can now be copyrighted. It started with Oracle acquiring Sun, wanting to make lots of money from Java; not satisfied with just some money, they also attempted to launch their own smartphone venture that failed; after failing in the smartphone business, Oracle sought to make more money from Java by suing Google over the latter copying code from Java (which was not the case) and claimed they owned copyright of the APIs; Oracle had lost in court and appealed, then another court ruled in Oracle's favor over copyright, but ruled that Google's use is "fair use"; not happy with the "fair use" ruling and wanting $9 billion for copyright infringement, Oracle appealed again, battle is still going on in Federal court; might or might not reach Supreme Court.
This will be an epic battle.
I get that some people are worried about the future of Linux natives, but I see it as win-win. The publishers (like Bethesda) who never intended to support Linux - we can still play their games, if we want.
They can also see how many people are playing thru Proton, and if the numbers increase it may make them think twice about doing Linux natives.
Quoting: GuestI'm confused as to who this official support is going to come from, though. Has Valve contacted the game devs for these whitelisted games? Do those game devs understand that they're now supporting Linux, else they might feel the wrath of negative reviews for shoddy Linux support?
They commented on it:
QuoteQ: I'm a developer; my game got whitelisted in Steam Play; does this mean I have to support an additional platform?
No; if a game was whitelisted as a result of our testing, we've assessed the experience to be identical (save for an expected moderate performance impact). Users playing through Steam Play experiencing Linux-specific issues should be directed to Steam for support. Keep in mind users were most likely already playing your game using Wine; you just have better visibility into it now.
See other interesting questions and answers there.
Last edited by Shmerl on 22 August 2018 at 2:42 am UTC
ShoNuff!!! Aug 22, 2018
And yeah, this is pretty mind blowing.
For now I don't know if it will be great or not for GNU/Linux, but it's BIG!
I don't know if I will create a Steam account and buy some games, it's too early.
But for sure now, I will stop to hate Valve. ^_^
And I expect some news from GOG about it too.
I would say: The enemy of my enemy is my friend?
Last edited by Cyril on 22 August 2018 at 3:23 am UTC
Quoting: PatolaThought some stuff here...
1) That will inevitably require a market response from GOG, because they are rivals with steam. What will they do?
I don't think they need anything very different from what they are doing with games like Flatout 2 now. They just need to do it for more games using all these new tools. And if they as well can start contributing upstream, it would be great.
There is a community project by @Adamhm for that purpose as well.
Last edited by Shmerl on 22 August 2018 at 3:21 am UTC
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