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.
About the author - Liam Dawe
I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly checked on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly.
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"In addition to that, we've been supporting the development of DXVK[github.com], the Direct3D 11 implementation based on Vulkan; the nature of this support includes:
- Employing the DXVK developer in our open-source graphics group since February 2018
- Providing direct support from our open-source graphics group to fix Mesa driver issues affecting DXVK, and provide prototype implementations of brand new Vulkan features to improve DXVK functionality
- Working with our partners over at Khronos, NVIDIA, Intel and AMD to coordinate Vulkan feature and driver support"
(https://steamcommunity.com/games/221410/announcements/detail/1696055855739350561 [External Link]
My personal guess is that this a.o. correlates to:
"Shmerl: How did you manage to work around the lack of stream output like features?
YoRHa-2B: I didn't, that's kind of the point. And that's also why it might still take several months for this to go live, but it should happen eventually".
(https://www.gamingonlinux.com/forum/topic/2753/post_id=16614
Last edited by jens on 22 Aug 2018 at 6:09 pm UTC
- Employing the DXVK developer in our open-source graphics group since February 2018
- Providing direct support from our open-source graphics group to fix Mesa driver issues affecting DXVK, and provide prototype implementations of brand new Vulkan features to improve DXVK functionality
- Working with our partners over at Khronos, NVIDIA, Intel and AMD to coordinate Vulkan feature and driver support"
(https://steamcommunity.com/games/221410/announcements/detail/1696055855739350561 [External Link]
My personal guess is that this a.o. correlates to:
"Shmerl: How did you manage to work around the lack of stream output like features?
YoRHa-2B: I didn't, that's kind of the point. And that's also why it might still take several months for this to go live, but it should happen eventually".
(https://www.gamingonlinux.com/forum/topic/2753/post_id=16614
Last edited by jens on 22 Aug 2018 at 6:09 pm UTC
6 Likes
A big issue here is, does Proton really mean "Linux support" ? I don't think it does. Here's why.I think Valve are being pretty clear about that and most people here realize it behind all their excitement. The mere fact that Valve are actively investing money and developer time in Wine is thrilling to me, and them making it easier to use in the process for people who don't like to tamper with configs is icing on the cake. There is no question that this is "just Wine integrated into Steam," but Valve are also clearly putting effort into making Wine better, and by all accounts they have been making considerable progress in the past half year alone.
When you get a port to Linux, even if it's by a third party, a lot of work has been done to bring that game over to the platform... even if a D3D wrapper has been used etc (i'm not going to go into the "lazy wrapper" argument). The porter is selling you a product that is certified by them to work with Linux, and has official backing of the original developer/publisher. If something doesn't work, or breaks, there is an official support method available. It is someones job to provide help on getting it working, and to fix that if it doesnt....
Because it's an experimental feature by nature, I and many others here have already said they would continue to buy actual ports primarily. And there are those who won't buy newer Windows games even if they run well through Proton, out of principle. But easier access to games we all already owned and couldn't play without a fuss is a definite short-term win, and I feel like things are likely to be favorable to porters in the mid-term when the userbase grows and more studios become interested in having a properly supported product on Linux.
There may be rough waters ahead, but I'm optimistic for a rainbow on the other side :)
8 Likes
Comandante Ñoñardo 22 Aug 2018
I posted a tweet with a suggestion to EA and......
10 Likes
Mr. Pinsky 22 Aug 2018
OH MY GOD
0 Likes
orochi_kyo 22 Aug 2018
Where are the people who said, that valve has done nothing for linux gaming?
7 Likes
I posted a tweet with a suggestion to EA and......
I think he / she really didn't mean that. That is just a standart answer
2 Likes
enthusiast users are also able to try playing non-whitelisted games using an override switch in the Steam client
There's a couple I picked up just to help my nephew figure out how in the heck to make happen that're in my library- I know what I'll be trying this evening... X-D
0 Likes
Comandante Ñoñardo 22 Aug 2018
I posted a tweet with a suggestion to EA and......
One detects a hint of sarcasm
Yeah, but one can dream.
3 Likes
It'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.
Basically, it's a WINE inside Steam, so it's still not Linux.
2 Likes
Shoot, this is huge (so late to the article! :( ). I was in a daze for a while after this, just shouting randomly and saying "holy shit" over and over.
Sure hope that once I can afford a proper AMD GPU that I can play the first two Mass Effects again with it. (Screw EA otherwise, no more money for them, I'm never using Origin to only play ME3, even though I downloaded the demo years ago with my old dual-boot. :P)
At least it'll take away the problem of additional overhead running Windows Steam client through Wine to play Windows Steam games, which is definitely a good thing if your machine's specs aren't top-notch. :)
Sure hope that once I can afford a proper AMD GPU that I can play the first two Mass Effects again with it. (Screw EA otherwise, no more money for them, I'm never using Origin to only play ME3, even though I downloaded the demo years ago with my old dual-boot. :P)
At least it'll take away the problem of additional overhead running Windows Steam client through Wine to play Windows Steam games, which is definitely a good thing if your machine's specs aren't top-notch. :)
4 Likes
Well, I have one of the games in Steam's proton list, M&B With Fire and Sword. Installed it, it runs great (it already did in Wine, but I feel the lights are better now).
Let's hope this will bring more ppl to Linux, and lets keep supporting the developers that release or port games natively for our OS.
Let's hope this will bring more ppl to Linux, and lets keep supporting the developers that release or port games natively for our OS.
2 Likes
It'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.
From my point of view, a proper support is QA and fix issues on the platform you release your software. If they do it by using this wrapper or by doing a Linux binary, from users perspective will be the same.
Anyway, If I pay a Windows only game (one that the publisher don't care about Linux), I would like that some part of the money I pay goes for the people behind this big wrapper (and when I say "some part" I mean a part that the publisher would receive if the sale was from a Windows user).
2 Likes
This is convenient. I can confirm that DOOM is working great on Arch Linux with steam play.
Setting the in-game renderer to Vulkan is giving me 40-70FPS on a GTX970 at 2560x1440.
Setting the in-game renderer to Vulkan is giving me 40-70FPS on a GTX970 at 2560x1440.
1 Likes
In a positive world, where good things could happen, what may happen is all dual-booters may stay on Linux for gaming now, so more game will be registered as Linux buyers, so more games will come to Linux.
7 Likes
For people still moaning about native ports, WE'RE NOT THERE YET.
For anything that's already up on Steam and GoG for Windows-only, you can write it off, >99% chance it will never be ported. Hell, some Linux ports get delisted after their release like Banner Saga and the Penny Arcade 1&2 games. WINE is the only way we get access to those games short of a dual boot heresy, and this sure looks like it's going to be the best version of WINE for gaming. And don't expect that situation to change for at least five years.
Five years plus? I would put money on the PS5 using Vulkan, and we're going to benefit from that tremendously. Vulkan streamlines the whitelisting for Steam Play. That leads to more Windows titles that just work with Steam Play on launch day. GoG can get in on this, too, as Valve is open sourcing it all. Linux user base expands as Microsoft continues to push the smarter ones our way. We build our user base to first rival Apple, and then exceed Apple.
Ten years on AAA titles are natively ported to Windows and Linux with Apple support waning as it's userbase has finally grown tired of paying the Apple tax on hardware that they can't upgrade and so stop buying Apple computers altogether. And yes, I said TEN YEARS because that's how long this is going to take.
As someone that had a NiB Commodore 64 as a first PC, let me assure you kids, this sort of shift takes time. It's a marathon kids, and that loud bang you just heard was a STARTER pistol.
Last edited by jarhead_h on 22 Aug 2018 at 7:27 pm UTC
For anything that's already up on Steam and GoG for Windows-only, you can write it off, >99% chance it will never be ported. Hell, some Linux ports get delisted after their release like Banner Saga and the Penny Arcade 1&2 games. WINE is the only way we get access to those games short of a dual boot heresy, and this sure looks like it's going to be the best version of WINE for gaming. And don't expect that situation to change for at least five years.
Five years plus? I would put money on the PS5 using Vulkan, and we're going to benefit from that tremendously. Vulkan streamlines the whitelisting for Steam Play. That leads to more Windows titles that just work with Steam Play on launch day. GoG can get in on this, too, as Valve is open sourcing it all. Linux user base expands as Microsoft continues to push the smarter ones our way. We build our user base to first rival Apple, and then exceed Apple.
Ten years on AAA titles are natively ported to Windows and Linux with Apple support waning as it's userbase has finally grown tired of paying the Apple tax on hardware that they can't upgrade and so stop buying Apple computers altogether. And yes, I said TEN YEARS because that's how long this is going to take.
As someone that had a NiB Commodore 64 as a first PC, let me assure you kids, this sort of shift takes time. It's a marathon kids, and that loud bang you just heard was a STARTER pistol.
Last edited by jarhead_h on 22 Aug 2018 at 7:27 pm UTC
12 Likes
I 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).
I'm sure we just have different ideas of what "playable" means. I used the FAR mod to improve performance and unlock the framerate, not just fix ultrawide screen problems. I just tried it with Proton, and it was locking to 30 fps. There's probably a way to get it to work. I just don't know what it is.
0 Likes
TheLinuxPleb 22 Aug 2018
7870. All games crash with amdgpu. :(
No Vulkan for me then.
No Vulkan for me then.
0 Likes
walther von stolzing 22 Aug 2018
Oh and while it's nice and all to have DOOM II, Ultimate DOOM and Quake on that list, some great source ports already natively support linux, presumably to use a source port this way would involve using a windows version of said source port.. But what would be the point in that? :p
To be honest, it seems to me that including those titles in the list has no point other than making it look a little longer.
I'd like to think that a Linux user interested in playing DOOM (or Quake) would probably know that there's 'stuff' (chocolate-doom, the shareware levels for both DOOM & Quake 2, freedoom) in the core repos of pretty much every distro.
Though, then again, I might be overestimating the extent to which 'the average buyer' has a clue as to why it's better to play on source ports as opposed to dosbox.
0 Likes
Oh and while it's nice and all to have DOOM II, Ultimate DOOM and Quake on that list, some great source ports already natively support linux, presumably to use a source port this way would involve using a windows version of said source port.. But what would be the point in that? :p
To be honest, it seems to me that including those titles in the list has no point other than making it look a little longer.
I'd like to think that a Linux user interested in playing DOOM....
Actually, that DOOM is Doom(2016). DOOM II is the original. From what I can tell, I'm not really certain that Valve planned to release this yet, but that when word broke out they just kinda bit the bullet knowing that the games list isn't exactly impressive, yet. Steam itself didn't run right at launch back in 2004 to the point where I was sure it would fail, but here we are and it's our most important weapon to liberate people from Microsoft. Give them a little time and i think that list will grow and grow and grow.
Just random testing of my available titles I revealed one working perfectly and all others either not starting at all(most common) or starting with serious issues.
I fired up the original FEAR. It just ran. All the graphics setting worked. Kind of comically, I fired up RWBY: Grim Eclipse and it all worked until I started a level and no character models displayed. I could see Pyrra's sword and shield but not her or any grim. Far Cry 2 booted and ran with Minecraft-like trees until I turned up the graphics settings and it crashed and wouldn't run after that. Plus it hung up during the uninstall a couple of times. Was going to try Alan Wake this morning but when I woke and turned on the system and tried to run Steam, I got this :
Running Steam on fedora 28 64-bit
STEAM_RUNTIME is enabled automatically
Pins up-to-date!
ERROR: ld.so: object '/usr/$LIB/libgpg-error.so' from LD_PRELOAD cannot be preloaded (cannot open shared object file): ignored.
ERROR: ld.so: object '/usr/lib64/libjemalloc.so.2' from LD_PRELOAD cannot be preloaded (wrong ELF class: ELFCLASS64): ignored.
Please note, there was a Breakpad install exception and about twenty more lines of errors before I reinstalled a few libraries. I tried to install World of Warships and clearing it out might have caused this. Not sure.
3 Likes
Have 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.
0 Likes
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