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.
Final Fantasy VI worked like a charm.
Final Fantasy X unfortunately not (yet ^_^)
Can't wait to further test the damn out of Proton.
Final Fantasy X unfortunately not (yet ^_^)
Can't wait to further test the damn out of Proton.
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Quoting: oldeschoolQuoting: mirooh well, I am really not that happy as most people.
from now on I'm really afraid that too many publishers will use this as an excuse not to provide native linux builds in case it runs "well enough" with proton/wine.
since this is now to be built-in, most people will not have to understand what wine even is, they will take the running binary for granted. hence what is to expect is less performance and continuous direct x instead of opengl or vulkan
this would totally be acceptable for older/legacy titles, but I really think too many will jump on that train that it runs with proton and that there is no need to compile it for linux.
we'll see.
Looks likes this is happening a bunch of people have been requesting a Linux port of City of Brass; the developer finally replied with a link to the announcement of Steam Play.
Well, I replied asking for Vulkan support, then :D
Should not be *that* complicated, improves experience on all platforms, and makes baby steps towards a Linux port? WIN-WIN-WIN!
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Quoting: F.UltraQuoting: ShmerlQuoting: dubigrasuWhat? Of course it matters! It matters to me anyway. I have a deep respect for Feral and I'm curious in which way this it affects them.
I mean it doesn't matter in the sense that it should provide positive outcome for Linux gaming either way. Feral might need to change something, and hopefully the right way. For one I hope they'll start releasing DRM-free games.
If I where Feral I would negotiate the license sooner than today and do a same day release by using the proton wrapper (for the games where Proton works) and then release the native port with full performance and support later. That way they will not loose sales with this change while still being able to produce a proper native port later.
Havent Feral in the past stated that once they have announced a port is coming from them, we are free to buy it from Steam even when the Linux build is not yet released. I would guess that Feral would simply need to either amend their contracts to include that they get a % of profits from purchases before their native port goes live of those that are listed as Linux purchasors using proton. Or it could be that their existing contract already handles this position already.
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This was the best news since steam client releasing eight years ago. I'm so happy!!!
Now it's important that linux gamers percentage grows, so that big brands will begin having interest to porting games to linux natively. My first wish is Arma4.
Now it's important that linux gamers percentage grows, so that big brands will begin having interest to porting games to linux natively. My first wish is Arma4.
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Quoting: bradgyQuoting: NonjuffoHave you tested RS2014 with Proton? That title is a serious mess of uplay, hardware dongles and ... Denuvo? WTH? Pretty sure that DRM wasn't there in 2014. Maybe that is the "remastering" they did later.
I haven't yet no, and I haven't played it under Wine for a while, although the last time was post the Remaster, which suggests if Ubi have shoehorned UPlay and Denuvo in, it's happened recently. Really hope that's not the case, as it worked well under Wine before, and I was hoping the integration into Steam/Big Picture would mean a lot easier set up under Linux in the future. I'll test and report back when I can.
Thanks. I think UPlay has always been there in some form, so that shouldn't be a problem. Could be that it interacts with the actual program only if it already exists on the system, otherwise it just logs in to the account inside the game.
Due to it's unique nature, this is the only Windows "game" I'd really like to get back. Not enough to overcome my laziness to install and mess with WINE though. Well, not just WINE, but a whole VM with PCI passthrough. Is this Proton thing contained within Steam or a specific game, and not visible to the wider system so I could run say notepad.exe? Something in system wide WINE availability just rubs me the wrong way.
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Quoting: GuestI understand that you're referring to people's comments. I'm arguing that you're inferring things that people aren't actually saying.Quoting: Smoke39Quoting: GuestActually....wine was already in pretty good shape without funding from Valve. Gallium-nine never had backing and was in excellent shape, though has fallen by the wayside it seems.This article is specifically about Valve integrating wine into steam, and about their funding of DXVK. People are praising them for these specific things. The notion that anyone's giving them credit for anything else seems to be something you're cynically reading into things yourself.
But this is really my point: people are praising for Valve for....good business choices?
I've never said their contributions are useless though - far from it. And their contributions help outside of themselves at the end of the day. I 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.
That notion is from people's comments, not the article.
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Nevertheless Aug 23, 2018
Quoting: MayeulCQuoting: KetilWill it warn you about games not on the whitelist if you enable it for all titles? I expect to enable it for some not whitelisted games, but that doesn't mean I want it to list all windows games.Yes, it will. You get a message when you first run them. Though I'm not sure if you get it with "whitelisted" games :)
Quoting: NeverthelessQuoting: TcheyIt's a great new for players, but i'm concerned about NATIVE Linux games. Too many, i think today, will use this instead of going the road to a proper Linux build.
Basically, it's a WINE inside Steam, so it's still not Linux.
Suppose you're playing a Vulkan game on your Linux box. Performance is great, everything works. The dev knows your gaming on Linux. Do you care if the game is ELF or Win32?
Technically, ELF or PE; or Linux or Win32, but do not mix in the API and the executable format (you could very well have a PE-encoded Linux binary; technically you have ELF32 and ELF64 as well, IIRC UEFI executable are in the Portable Executable format as well). Sorry for nitpicking.
Oh I'm so very sorry! :-P ;-)
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lucifertdark Aug 23, 2018
I've just tried Doom3, video after tweaking the cfg is perfect, audio is a no go, I know it's early days but it's looking very promising if Valve can iron out the problems.
Torchlight runs but with no sound whatsoever.
Last edited by lucifertdark on 23 August 2018 at 9:35 am UTC
Torchlight runs but with no sound whatsoever.
Last edited by lucifertdark on 23 August 2018 at 9:35 am UTC
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I don't really have the time to deep dive these comments on this right now, so I'll just leave some comments on this and the first few pages of comments and a few questions here.
Finally! This is something I've wanted as part of Linux Steam quite often since it first dropped. I have no real issue setting things up to game using Wine, but it has never been optimal due to limits on my free time.
On the "but it's going to potentially hurt native support" comments, consider the fact that this counts the game as a Linux purchase if you buy those non-native games and run them through the builtin Proton. It doesn't help what's already out nor near future upcoming titles (potentially nothing will for a long time or possibly ever) but as the publishers and indie devs will now have a report of hard numbers of their Linux users from Valve, that'll be another potential piece of ammunition to use in the fight to get more native releases and in the fight to eliminate intrusive DRM.
On that front, if you're boycotting non-native releases I understand, but I hope you are actually taking the time to make the publisher/dev aware of that fact for every game you'd buy but for it not being native since that is statistically the only way such boycotts actually do any good in convincing them to release more native ports. That's been a big sticking point around the people intending to boycott Guardians of the Galaxy 3 or all future MCU films over James Gunn's firing, and it's no less true here.
I really want more details of how they're handling things under the hood here. Considering how many tricks and tweaks some games require (or historically have) to get running well under Wine and how many are mutually incompatible with one another, are individual games being essentially run under their own prefix or is everything under a single monolithic prefix? If the former, how easy is it to adjust the prefix compared to standard Wine? What about titles that don't run or don't run correctly unless you change the Windows version?
Last edited by vlademir1 on 23 August 2018 at 9:54 am UTC
Finally! This is something I've wanted as part of Linux Steam quite often since it first dropped. I have no real issue setting things up to game using Wine, but it has never been optimal due to limits on my free time.
On the "but it's going to potentially hurt native support" comments, consider the fact that this counts the game as a Linux purchase if you buy those non-native games and run them through the builtin Proton. It doesn't help what's already out nor near future upcoming titles (potentially nothing will for a long time or possibly ever) but as the publishers and indie devs will now have a report of hard numbers of their Linux users from Valve, that'll be another potential piece of ammunition to use in the fight to get more native releases and in the fight to eliminate intrusive DRM.
On that front, if you're boycotting non-native releases I understand, but I hope you are actually taking the time to make the publisher/dev aware of that fact for every game you'd buy but for it not being native since that is statistically the only way such boycotts actually do any good in convincing them to release more native ports. That's been a big sticking point around the people intending to boycott Guardians of the Galaxy 3 or all future MCU films over James Gunn's firing, and it's no less true here.
I really want more details of how they're handling things under the hood here. Considering how many tricks and tweaks some games require (or historically have) to get running well under Wine and how many are mutually incompatible with one another, are individual games being essentially run under their own prefix or is everything under a single monolithic prefix? If the former, how easy is it to adjust the prefix compared to standard Wine? What about titles that don't run or don't run correctly unless you change the Windows version?
Last edited by vlademir1 on 23 August 2018 at 9:54 am UTC
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I'm liking this. There appears to be a common problem with sound. I can't get all the sound on mass effect 1 other than the intro swoosh sounds. Skyrim works lovely other than the standard freeze on quit which we are used too. No mans sky works great. Interestingly when I switch to 4k resolution on Ubuntu then run it I get a black screen with sound. Anyone getting sound but no video try out 1080p. Exciting. I deleted the wine install. If it keeps working well the windows partition is on borrowed time.
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