A look at how Steam Play is doing, based on the ProtonDB reports from July

That's a huge proportion of AMD GPUs and CPUs in those reports. Different ratio than in GOL stats.

That'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.

That'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.

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.

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.

Is there an official definition of what criteria needs to be matched for a game to be rated silver and bronze?

Is 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:

Rating 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.

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.

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

So, 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.

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.

Not every contributor reads the score guidelines on ProtonDB and there is definitely a bias toward platinum there (games that works but with a hack, games that works but no cutscenes or no multiplayer, or occasional glitches/crash and such).

The platinum score is definitely a little bit inflated right now. Since now the development is going on so fast it can't be helped, but when proton leaves beta it would be useful to have a redacted list of scores so that reviewers filter out the noise.

So, 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.

Yeah. I see Age of Empires II regularly gets a bunch of platinum ratings, despite the fact that I needed to delete a launcher file and rename the game executable to get it to run, making it a solid gold. (It's possible this has changed since I got it working several months ago, but even back then people were rating it platinum.)

I get that sometimes it can be difficult to figure out the exact rating for a particular game, but in this case it's easy: if you have to do anything other than "click Play" to get a game to run, it's not platinum. :) And that's not a disparagement of the game or Proton or anything, as some people seem to think it is; what we need are accurate reports, not ones made through rose-colored glasses. Windows users switching to Linux because they read all their games were literally "click'n'play" are not going to be pleased to find out that's not actually the case.

Yeah. I see Age of Empires II regularly gets a bunch of platinum ratings, despite the fact that I needed to delete a launcher file and rename the game executable to get it to run, making it a solid gold. (It's possible this has changed since I got it working several months ago, but even back then people were rating it platinum.)

Are you sure that's necessary? I remember having to do that in Wine a few years back, but in Proton, at least the latest version, it just worked, including the launcher.

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.

IMO it doesn't make sense for Gold to include every possible change needed from user. There's a big difference between changing installing/adding files to run the game and adding a Launch option like NO_D3D11 ESYNC FSYNC or USE_D9VK. There should be another rating like Titanium or something which is just for Environment Variables/arguments/Launch options. It would also be great if there were two ratings, one for how the game runs, another for performance compared to native.

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.

Funny enough, the opposite is also true. There are games that are still listed as working (silver or so) but are actually completely broken since a later update (due to adding EAC for instance).

I recently submitted Empyrion as borked on Proton 4.11, however it works fine (minus EAC) on proton 4.2.

Also I'd like to say Risen3 works quite well with PROTON_USE_D9VK=1 %command%, even reshade functions! (bit of cache skipping going on tho)


Last edited by TheRiddick on 6 August 2019 at 10:58 am UTC

I've also noticed allot of people rating the game based on it's performance, they always note how it runs around 50fps and if you disable anti-aliasing etc you get 60fps. And based on that they give a game Gold rating instead of Platinum.


Last edited by BOYSSSSS on 6 August 2019 at 11:05 am UTC

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.

IMO it doesn't make sense for Gold to include every possible change needed from user. There's a big difference between changing installing/adding files to run the game and adding a Launch option like NO_D3D11 ESYNC FSYNC or USE_D9VK. There should be another rating like Titanium or something which is just for Environment Variables/arguments/Launch options. It would also be great if there were two ratings, one for how the game runs, another for performance compared to native.

The ratings sure aren't perfect.
Introducing more rating woulds likely lead to even more confusion and unclear ratings, though.

What could work is to split the single rating into multiple parts without subjective judgements required.
Only yes/no questions (+ the Proton version & system info & comment, of course), leaving no room for uncertainty.
1. Does this game run perfectly for you?
2. Did you have to to enable Proton flags?
3. Did you have to run the game with non-Proton parameters?
4. Did you have to take other steps to make the game run?

Of course you can't have too many of these, but going away from anything requiring people to give an unclear score sounds like an improvement to me.


Last edited by TheSHEEEP on 6 August 2019 at 11:32 am UTC

You could have 3 Ratings,

1) Game works how well from scale 1 to 10 (10 being as good as or better then windows)
2) Workarounds needed (section provides fields for people to define steps taken)
3) Borked, doesn't work.

That seems good enough to me.

There's another thing. I see people give lower ratings for games because they had to do something because of a game specific bug. I think the ratings are for proton specific bugs, not game specific and it doesn't make sense to give a lower rating for something that a Windows user also has to do.