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.
Some you may have missed, popular articles from the last month:
The comments on this article are closed.
Quoting: Alm888See, those two things are not equivalent insults. Because, like, Valve is on our side (more or less), while Microsoft is our enemy (not more or less, but quite specifically). So, "might as well be employee of our ally" is different from "might as well be employee of our enemy".Quoting: GuestYou might as well be a Microsoft employee at this point...And, considering how you are propagating this Proton™ thing, you may be Valve®'s employee… :S:
This is perhaps only tangentially relevant, but if you don't (want to) grasp that basic point, I don't trust what else you have to say on the topic.
4 Likes, Who?
So far, I've played Doom (doesn't seem to save, however), Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed (I like quirky racing games, sue me. Can't seem to load the configuration tool), Star Wars: Battlefront 2 (no issues) and No Man's Sky (no issues), all at acceptable frame rates and graphics settings. Pretty sweet.
My system - Linux Mint 18.3 64 bit, Cinnamon 3.6.7, Kernel 4.15.0-32, Intel Core i7 - 7800x & 3.50GZ x 6, 16 Gib Mem, Geforce GTX 1070, 8Gib.
My system - Linux Mint 18.3 64 bit, Cinnamon 3.6.7, Kernel 4.15.0-32, Intel Core i7 - 7800x & 3.50GZ x 6, 16 Gib Mem, Geforce GTX 1070, 8Gib.
1 Likes, Who?
Quoting: GuestUntil the Linux/SteamOS icon is shown on a game, it has no official Linux support, you have no guarantee it will run, and you have no right to post negative reviews when it doesn't.
You'll still have a right to a refund on Steam, provided it's within 2 hours of game time; which should be enough time to test most games.
3 Likes, Who?
I just gave Doom a try tonight, and got a black screen. (Nvidia 326.24 driver) I fixed this by adding this as a launch options: +r_renderAPI 1
Right click on the Doom game on the steam client, -> properties -> set launch options and paste in the above.
That option forces Doom into Vulkan graphics mode.
Worked here, FYI.
Right click on the Doom game on the steam client, -> properties -> set launch options and paste in the above.
That option forces Doom into Vulkan graphics mode.
Worked here, FYI.
2 Likes, Who?
Quoting: GuestSo now that I've had time to think about this news more, I thought I'd try add more discussion points.Uh, I think they did make dxvk. Didn't the main DXVK guy just turn out to have been paid by Valve all along? Your general point is taken though. Most of the software this relies on (like Linux itself) is a community effort and we owe, and have owed all along, our thanks to the hardworking members of that community.
Disclaimer: I personally find it odd that people are praising Valve so much here. Valve didn't make wine. Or dxvk. Or actually any of the tools that make this possible. They're just packaging it into Steam.
QuoteAnyway, so the first point for me is that nothing here couldn't be done before, and wasn't already being done before. Wine could already be used, and what whitelisted games I have already ran completely fine anyway on a vanilla wine with no extra patches. Furthermore, some games that run on that vanilla wine don't run with Steam Play, likely because the latter is based off an older version of wine - and this I consider a "con" of Steam Play. It's not very likely to get updates in a hurry, and a lot of games benefit from those updates.That's not so great. But this is after all a beta, and they do seem to be paying people to make improvements. I expect it to get a bit more solid before they move this to main Steam from beta Steam. I don't get the impression that it's based on a very old version--Wine-related development is just moving at such lightspeed right now that the bleeding edge is significantly ahead of even quite recent stuff.
QuoteAs a "pro", this does package everything nicely into Steam and avoids a lot of hassle for people who just want to push a button. I'm really not the target audience for this - I run gentoo, I like bleeding edge, I like customisation.You may not be the target audience for this, but I don't think that's relevant. The point is that the target audience for this is a lot bigger than the audience of people like you--and, the audience of people like you are mostly already using Linux anyway. People are stoked about this because there is a perception that it is tactically significant in the struggle to increase Linux desktop/gaming market share, and similarly a perception that in the longer term if we want games we need that market share. I'm a fan of this as a tactical move helpful to Linux adoption. Of course it may not work, plenty of moves to promote Linux use have failed in the past. But it's a good shot, and seems likely not to be an isolated one. It also at the same time promotes Vulkan, and IMO increased Vulkan use is good for, well, every platform that isn't Windows--even MacOS, whether they want to realize it or not.
QuoteAnother "con" however, is that something like this already exists! Lutris, for example. And many games really only work properly with different wine versions, different overrides, that sort of thing. Wine can be a bit of a temperamental beast, and needs coaxing to get it running sometimes, which Lutris handles far better (and doesn't need Steam to do it). appdb.winehq.org already has what I consider a "whitelist" - a community run lit of games that work nicely. Maybe there are plans for something similar here - it's still early days to know what the longer term plans are for Steam Play.Doesn't need Steam to do it . . . no, you don't get it. Look, I'm not the target audience for this either, because I don't really have any non-Linux games and I have too many Linux games owned or wishlisted to ever really worry about the titles I can't get natively on Linux. But I'm a lot closer. Here's the thing: My games are on Steam. I'm going to be using it anyway. Having to fiddle with Lutris, much less vanilla Wine and different Wine versions and go find some whitelist half-ass maintained by some community I've never heard of and on and on when all I want is to relax and play a game . . . not interested. If I can buy a game and run it on Steam just like with any other game, I'm there--or I would be if I wanted any Windows games.
QuoteOn the matter of support, I personally would prefer eON over wine.What's eON?
QuoteTo end on a "pro", the real news for me is apparent financial backing for some development effort. The wording makes me think that's what most of the effort from Valve really is (other than Steam packaging): financial backing, so if Valve employees are doing a lot more then I do apologise! This means that hopefully development will generically improve on things like dxvk and vkd3d, which helps the wine experience in general, for everybody, not just Steam users.I for one would be far less approving if they were doing some kind of sequestering thing where they made their own private fork or whatever and weren't passing changes upstream. But they seem to be acting pretty responsible about it and like good open source citizens.
7 Likes, Who?
NovenTheHero Aug 23, 2018
Haha, cool I just launched Call of Duty Advanced Warfare to see if it works. Flawless.
1 Likes, Who?
Quoting: Alm888If the US were the only significant venue that existed, you might be right. Valve would sue in the EU. And China, probably. The EU courts have a LOT more teeth with respect to this kind of anticompetitive behaviour, and would right now probably gleefully nuke MS just as a side amuse-bouche to the trade war.Quoting: stretch611Consumers are more likely to be ignorant of the lawsuit…Precisely!
Quoting: stretch611…and even if they know about it they are more than likely to side with Valve…Guess 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.
2 Likes, Who?
Quoting: mirowell I am not pessimistic about this, surely it will do lots and lots of good.That is a point, actually one of the most solid "con" points I've seen. Something like this happened with the Steam Machines only it was about bad ports.
I am just afraid that too many people will blame "linux" for the less performance and more bugs, not understanding that this is not a native build, that there is dx->vulkan translation and .dll emulation aka at least one additional layer which makes things slower and more buggy.
3 Likes, Who?
Quoting: GuestI just find it odd how people are so willing to give credit to Valve for things that others have done instead. Give credit to both, I say.
No argument here, that's exactly what I did, thanked both developers and Valve who helped that effort.
Last edited by Shmerl on 23 August 2018 at 3:47 am UTC
1 Likes, Who?
Quoting: Purple Library GuyQuoting: Alm888If the US were the only significant venue that existed, you might be right. Valve would sue in the EU. And China, probably. The EU courts have a LOT more teeth with respect to this kind of anticompetitive behaviour, and would right now probably gleefully nuke MS just as a side amuse-bouche to the trade war.Quoting: stretch611Consumers are more likely to be ignorant of the lawsuit…Precisely!
Quoting: stretch611…and even if they know about it they are more than likely to side with Valve…Guess 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.
Here's my thoughts - if Valve thought that Microsoft actually had a legal case that Valve couldn't handle, GabeN wouldn't have ordered real money dropped on it, for going on two years now, and currently looking to continue indefinitely. I promise you that Valve's legal people have already looked at this and cleared it.
Second, I don't think that Linux will ever overtake Windows. Never have. But I'm of the opinion that it never has to. It only has to get big enough to be a viable escape route for the select few that decide to go the more difficult route. We have a GOOD chance of overtaking Apple now. I really think we do. It will take a decade, but it will happen. Linux only has to be the second biggest and we still get the AAA titles, the creative suites, Fusion360, etc. We'll be large enough to be catered to like the Apple cult. That's all we need.
Last edited by jarhead_h on 23 August 2018 at 3:52 am UTC
6 Likes, Who?
Patreon
PayPal
See more from me