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: Cyba.CowboyBought through Steam. As I understand it, if you just have some program from elsewhere you still have to run Wine the old fashioned way. People have been speculating how one might get around that but I don't know if anyone's come up with anything.QuoteWindows 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.
So how does this work?
Is it in reference to Microsoft Windows-based games bought through Steam, or can I run any old .exe file and Steam will setup it up via WINE for me?
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Cyba.Cowboy Aug 26, 2018
Any idea when they plan to roll this out in the stable/regular version of the Steam client?
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Valve did a really clever move here to force game developers into cross platform development. Publishers will now have to make sure that their games run on all platforms Steam supports, no matter if they intend it to run there or not since the games were made available everywhere. Even though players get a notice when starting a game via proton I guess quite a few will still down vote a game that doesn't run on Linux or OSX, so the Publishers have 3 choices:
1) Do nothing and get a bad rating that affects their future sales of the game.
2) Make sure their game runs with Proton on all operating systems that Steam supports and hope that a future change in Proton doesn't break the game.
3) Do a proper cross platform port or develop future games with cross platform in mind and have control over the game's performance on Linux and OSX.
I guess the third option is the best choice.
1) Do nothing and get a bad rating that affects their future sales of the game.
2) Make sure their game runs with Proton on all operating systems that Steam supports and hope that a future change in Proton doesn't break the game.
3) Do a proper cross platform port or develop future games with cross platform in mind and have control over the game's performance on Linux and OSX.
I guess the third option is the best choice.
4 Likes, Who?
Quoting: WendigoValve did a really clever move here to force game developers into cross platform development. Publishers will now have to make sure that their games run on all platforms Steam supports, no matter if they intend it to run there or not since the games were made available everywhere. Even though players get a notice when starting a game via proton I guess quite a few will still down vote a game that doesn't run on Linux or OSX, so the Publishers have 3 choices:While proton does support macOS, steam play does not so currently you can only use proton on Linux unless you manually build it yourself. It was in their announcement.
1) Do nothing and get a bad rating that affects their future sales of the game.
2) Make sure their game runs with Proton on all operating systems that Steam supports and hope that a future change in Proton doesn't break the game.
3) Do a proper cross platform port or develop future games with cross platform in mind and have control over the game's performance on Linux and OSX.
I guess the third option is the best choice.
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Quoting: Wendigothe Publishers have 3 choices:4) Demand Valve remove their game from Steam Play, or from Steam altogether if that is not an option, so they don't have to deal with the unwanted support requests and bad press.
1) Do nothing and get a bad rating that affects their future sales of the game.
2) Make sure their game runs with Proton on all operating systems that Steam supports and hope that a future change in Proton doesn't break the game.
3) Do a proper cross platform port or develop future games with cross platform in mind and have control over the game's performance on Linux and OSX.
2 Likes, Who?
Quoting: WendigoValve did a really clever move here to force game developers into cross platform development. Publishers will now have to make sure that their games run on all platforms Steam supports, no matter if they intend it to run there or not since the games were made available everywhere. Even though players get a notice when starting a game via proton I guess quite a few will still down vote a game that doesn't run on Linux or OSX, so the Publishers have 3 choices:So you think that a good way to encourage publishers and developers to support our platform is to file nonsensical negative reviews of their products for which they do not offer any kind of Linux support?
1) Do nothing and get a bad rating that affects their future sales of the game.
2) Make sure their game runs with Proton on all operating systems that Steam supports and hope that a future change in Proton doesn't break the game.
3) Do a proper cross platform port or develop future games with cross platform in mind and have control over the game's performance on Linux and OSX.
I guess the third option is the best choice.
We already had these image issues when people jumped the gun on Witcher 2 and then proceeded to make the same mistakes again when Rust port got pulled. Being loud and obnoxious is hardly a way to make our market appealing to anyone. If I made a game and started getting negative reviews from people I am not even selling my product to, I'd frankly be pissed and I might consider not ever supporting said platform in any way, potentially even to a point of trying to detect when the game is being run on an unsupported platform in order to display a big "NOPE" message for anyone attempting it.
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Quoting: GuestI fixed the issues I was having in Witcher 3. I was using the 390.77 Nvidia drivers. I installed the 396.54 drivers and now everything looks as it should. I'm kinda thinking about playing through it again. I've been wanting to the last couple months.
Wait a bit more, until transform feedback will land into official Vulkan spec and drivers and dxvk will start using it. Then it should be perfect. I suppose it won't take long for radv and Nvidia to pick it up.
Last edited by Shmerl on 26 August 2018 at 9:57 pm UTC
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They didn't provide any ETA really. It was marked as "resolving inside Khronos" recently.
According to @YoRHa-2B who is developing dxvk and probably tested the prototype, it can take several months still.
Last edited by Shmerl on 26 August 2018 at 10:25 pm UTC
According to @YoRHa-2B who is developing dxvk and probably tested the prototype, it can take several months still.
Last edited by Shmerl on 26 August 2018 at 10:25 pm UTC
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Quoting: WendigoValve did a really clever move here to force game developers into cross platform development. Publishers will now have to make sure that their games run on all platforms Steam supports, no matter if they intend it to run there or not since the games were made available everywhere. Even though players get a notice when starting a game via proton I guess quite a few will still down vote a game that doesn't run on Linux or OSX, so the Publishers have 3 choices:
1) Do nothing and get a bad rating that affects their future sales of the game.
2) Make sure their game runs with Proton on all operating systems that Steam supports and hope that a future change in Proton doesn't break the game.
3) Do a proper cross platform port or develop future games with cross platform in mind and have control over the game's performance on Linux and OSX.
I guess the third option is the best choice.
that sounds like a dick move from valve
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I think given how many games out there, the spread of potential negative reviews of games that don't get on board with compatability would be thinned out so much as to have little impact. I wouldn't worry about that very much, and I doubt Valve has that as part of their strategy.
I do think having more accurate numbers of people actually using Linux as a gaming platform, which is bound to be quite a bit higher than what's currently being reported, will be a pretty good motivator to get companies more friendly to things like Vulkan.
I do think having more accurate numbers of people actually using Linux as a gaming platform, which is bound to be quite a bit higher than what's currently being reported, will be a pretty good motivator to get companies more friendly to things like Vulkan.
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