Confused on Steam Play and Proton? Be sure to check out our guide.
We do often include affiliate links to earn us some pennies. See more here.

Continuing our monthly look over the data dumps provided by ProtonDB, the unofficial reports website for tracking how well Steam Play games run, here's the July 2019 instalment.

July was a pretty quiet month right up until the end, with Proton 4.11-1 being released. Hopefully bringing on more compatibility, although we won't really see that until next time due to the release date. It was a pretty exciting release though, with some working being done to help anti-cheat systems. Valve also updated the whitelist as well.

This time, let's start by going over the overall stats on ProtonDB for all titles. Going by their data, there's currently:

  • 1,082 - Platinum
  • 1,138 - Gold
  • 733 - Silver
  • 397 - Bronze
  • 482 - Borked (Broken)

Now a quick look at how many reports in total have been going into ProtonDB monthly as far back as the data goes:

Still getting thousands of reports, a healthy amount although nothing close to the first two months where there was a bit of a scramble as people went to report all kinds of games. Now it's more focused, with people going back and re-testing their favourites and some new releases as they come.

The more interesting measure, is the type of reports we're seeing coming in. With the majority of them continuing to be at Platinum which is impressive:

Next up, we have a list of games that have been getting the most reports. This list is basically an interesting look into what are perhaps the most popular Steam Play games and many entries aren't exactly surprising, with several titles constantly there like Grand Theft Auto V, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and Path of Exile and it's going to take some really big releases to knock some of them off:

Name Number of reports
Grand Theft Auto V 49
Warframe 37
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 35
DOOM 33
MONSTER HUNTER: WORLD 27
Path of Exile 26
Prey 26
Kingdom Come: Deliverance 25
Wolfenstein: Youngblood 23
Elite Dangerous 21
Grim Dawn 19
Fallout 4 18
The Elder Scrolls Online 16
Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice 15
Risk of Rain 2 15

Wolfenstein: Youngblood is the notable new title popping up there with 23 reports, as it was released on July 25th with a lot of excitement.

Going into the deep end, what games saw a lot of Platinum reports across July? Not only is this another interesting way to see what's popular, it's also a good way to find some safe games to try out with Steam Play.

Name Number of platinum reports
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 29
DOOM 22
Prey 17
Grim Dawn 16
Wolfenstein: Youngblood 14
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night 13
Risk of Rain 2 12
Path of Exile 11
The Elder Scrolls Online 11
Wolfenstein: The New Order 11
Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus 11
Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice 11
Deep Rock Galactic 11
NieR:Automata 10
Grand Theft Auto V 10

As for games that only started getting reports on ProtonDB during July, here's the top ten based on the number of reports being at a Platinum level.

Name Platinum
Wolfenstein: Youngblood 14
Break the G̵amè̢̢͘ 5
Love is Dead 4
Atma 3
Killsquad 3
Hot Shot Burn 3
Totally Reliable Delivery Service Beta 3
Automachef 3
7th Sector 2
Paperbark 2

A breakdown of reports by Linux distribution used:

Finally, a little insight into the CPU/GPU being used from the reports:

For those interested, the public data is stored here on GitHub. See you next month for another quick look.

We're also closing in on the first year since Steam Play released—crazy! We'll have something to say about that on the day.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: Proton, Steam, Valve
33 Likes
About the author -
author picture
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.
See more from me
The comments on this article are closed.
34 comments
Page: 1/4»
  Go to:

Shmerl Aug 5, 2019
That's a huge proportion of AMD GPUs and CPUs in those reports. Different ratio than in GOL stats.
Liam Dawe Aug 5, 2019
Quoting: ShmerlThat's a huge proportion of AMD GPUs and CPUs in those reports. Different ratio than in GOL stats.
Different set of users and its number of reports not number of users.
Leopard Aug 5, 2019
Quoting: ShmerlThat's a huge proportion of AMD GPUs and CPUs in those reports. Different ratio than in GOL stats.

That is for hw combination of reporters of that particular month.

That rise is only related to ACO buzz. They rushed to test many games with ACO and they had many things to report.
fagnerln Aug 6, 2019
Resident evil 4 is running great with d9vk, it's one of my favourite game of all time, but I need to play a little more to report it correctly, maybe when d9vk turns the default, it will be rated as platinum
I can see that a lot of people here confuse WINEDB ratings with ProtonDB ratings and that is a mistake.

Proton environment options are not a bad thing. They are there for something: To make the game work.
According to Valve staff, if a game needs a PROTON environment option for to run properly, it can be considered for to be white listed anyway.
That is why when you report a game for to be whitelisted they ask you if you used runtime environments options ...
If a whitelisted game needs a Proton environment option for to work , it will be automatically enabled during the install process.

If you use PROTON 4.11-1 and you need to enable "PROTON_USE_D9VK=1 %command% for to run a game perfectly from beginning to end, you have a Proton Platinum game and you can report it.

Proton options are valid for to whitelist a game.
Game options like "-nointro" or "-dx9" are not valid for to whitelist a game.

Proton Gold is when you have to edit some game file or manually run winetricks for to install this or that library for to run the game without issues. PROTON GOLD games will never be whitelisted.

Remember that We are doing PROTON tests and that includes the use of PROTON environments options.

I see that most people here think that this about game tests on Linux via PROTON and that is a common error.

Believe it or not, We are not doing game tests...
PROTON DB reports and Valve github reports (and even reports made on this site) are not about games. They are about PROTON.

The question here is not "Can I play this game on Linux via PROTON?".
The right question is "Can this version of PROTON run this game? NO? Yes? How well? with or without environment options? which one?

PROTON 4.11-1 and D9Vk will give us a lot of new PROTON PLATINUM reports.
Linas Aug 6, 2019
View PC info
  • Supporter Plus
Quoting: Comandante ÑoñardoProton Gold is when you have to edit some game file or manually run winetricks for to install this or that library for to run the game without issues.
Is there an official definition of what criteria needs to be matched for a game to be rated silver and bronze?
Eike Aug 6, 2019
View PC info
  • Supporter Plus
Quoting: LinasIs there an official definition of what criteria needs to be matched for a game to be rated silver and bronze?

Click on "Show rating definitions" on protondb page to read:

QuoteRating Definitions
Platinum:Runs perfectly out of the box
Gold:Runs perfectly after tweaks
Silver:Runs with minor issues, but generally is playable
Bronze:Runs, but often crashes or has issues preventing from playing comfortably
Borked:Either won't start or is crucially unplayable

So, BTW and IMHO, having to set environment variables would be gold, not platinum.
TheSHEEEP Aug 6, 2019
View PC info
  • Supporter Plus
Quoting: Comandante ÑoñardoIf you use PROTON 4.11-1 and you need to enable "PROTON_USE_D9VK=1 %command% for to run a game perfectly from beginning to end, you have a Proton Platinum game and you can report it.

Proton options are valid for to whitelist a game.
Game options like "-nointro" or "-dx9" are not valid for to whitelist a game.

Proton Gold is when you have to edit some game file or manually run winetricks for to install this or that library for to run the game without issues. PROTON GOLD games will never be whitelisted.

Remember that We are doing PROTON tests and that includes the use of PROTON environments options.

I see that most people here think that this about game tests on Linux via PROTON and that is a common error.
I'm sorry, but what I see here is gigantic disconnect between what a developer thinks should be done and what people actually want and need.
Nobody goes to ProtonDB to check how well Proton runs. People go there to check how well they will be able to run X via Steam Play (and I guess there is also 1-2% or so using Proton without Steam...).
ProtonDB is not for developers, it is for users, though I'm not arguing it wouldn't also be valuable resource for devs. Github is for developers.

And for that information, Platinum = just works out of the box, I don't have to do anything. Gold = works once you do X.
For that purpose, it is entirely irrelevant if what you have to do is a Proton option or a game option or edit some config files. It either runs perfectly without doing anything, or it runs perfectly after doing something. At least as far as users are concerned, which should always be the goal of tool development.

I get that whitelisting isn't really possible if something needs to be changed about the game itself, but that is something to be discussed in Github Proton/Valve issues, not something ProtonDB should be decisive in.

And if all that is required to run a game via Proton on Steam is to set some Proton option, then that Proton option should simply be set by default when running the game -> thus, the user has to do nothing and the game "just works" -> Platinum. All other cases -> Gold or worse.


Last edited by TheSHEEEP on 6 August 2019 at 8:27 am UTC
Ehvis Aug 6, 2019
View PC info
  • Supporter Plus
Quoting: EikeSo, BTW and IMHO, having to set environment variables would be gold, not platinum.

Something not all submitters appear to honour. I see a lot of platinum reports that still mention a specific setting. So I expect the realistic number of platinums to be lower in favour of gold.
Avehicle7887 Aug 6, 2019
Something to point out with ProtonDB is that even if a game is reported as Borked, these are to be taken with a grain of salt. Some reports mention a specific game may run with plain wine, while some others are so old they don't reflect current status.
While you're here, please consider supporting GamingOnLinux on:

Reward Tiers: Patreon. Plain Donations: PayPal.

This ensures all of our main content remains totally free for everyone! Patreon supporters can also remove all adverts and sponsors! Supporting us helps bring good, fresh content. Without your continued support, we simply could not continue!

You can find even more ways to support us on this dedicated page any time. If you already are, thank you!
The comments on this article are closed.