There seems to be some confusion brewing on what games will actually run on the Steam Deck, so let this serve as a reminder on keeping expectations in check. Here's a quick refresher of how things are right now.
Some of the confusion seems to appear from an IGN interview, where Valve developer Pierre-Loup Griffais mentioned how "we haven't really found something that we could throw at this device that it couldn't handle" that we covered before. Here's the thing though: even though the Steam Deck will ship by default with the Arch Linux based SteamOS 3, they have also been testing Windows 10 and they've been working with AMD to get it supported on Windows 11 too. So speaking from a hardware standpoint, yes it probably will work with the vast majority of games on a performance level.
For regular readers and regular Linux gamers, knowing that the Steam Deck won't run everything is a given and this won't be news but there's plenty of people out there seemingly expecting a bit too much from it. Part of the problem though is Valve's marketing too, with it repeatedly mentioning your entire Steam library. They obviously want every game to work but that's simply not going to be the reality - at least not for a while.
For people who stick with SteamOS 3 this is where it doesn't quite match up. There's a good number of native Linux games (those actually built for Linux) and for everything else there's Steam Play Proton to run Windows games. A big majority of games work on Linux already between native and Proton but there's caveats.
Currently, Proton does not work with games that have the likes of Easy Anti-Cheat and BattlEye which is used in some of the most popular online titles. When it comes to EAC and BattlEye, we do know that Valve are working on it as they said in the developer documentation FAQ that they're "working with BattlEye and EAC to get support for Proton ahead of launch".
Another issue is Microsoft Media Foundation for videos, it's something of a nuisance and they don't play in Proton either. Currently Valve appear to be re-encoding the videos into a playable format which downloads with your game when run through Proton. That's a lot of work though too, there's a lot of games on Steam.
Then there's certain DRM too. Valve's older CEG (custom executable-generation) DRM also doesn't work in Proton, and there's no doubt a few other DRM/anti-tamper solutions that also don't work with Proton. Launchers can be a problem too, with some developers using .NET / Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF). For launchers Valve recommends that developers use something cross-platform and standalone like Qt or just skip launchers completely, which would be vastly better for gamepad/controller support too.
Compatibility will improve over time though as more developers hopefully look to support it directly and as Proton continues maturing. So even if your favourite or the latest AAA doesn't work right away, it might do later. There's still plenty of time until the Steam Deck releases and Valve has opened up requests for developer kits too. Valve also stated in their Steamworks video how "our goal is for every game to work by the time we ship Steam Deck" and that "there is a lot of work that has been done that doesn't yet affect the public version of Proton" so we are expecting the situation to improve. Until we see this special Proton release though, this article sums up the current situation.
If you're looking to try out Linux gaming and you're confused with Proton, be sure to check out our guide.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
1. Anti-cheat
2. Microsoft Media Foundation video bits
3. Old DRM, particularly Valve's own CEG, and launchers
4. Games that just have problems--various odds and ends and weirdities
Of those,
1. Is plausibly going to be fixed by launch. It better be. Time is running a bit short though, so they'd better have some internal stuff happening that they're not releasing yet.
2. Depends how fast their procedure is. A quick google suggests that there are around 50,000 games currently being sold on Steam. Let's imagine that 20,000 of those have MMF clips. If they can do their thing with 100 games per day, that's 200 days to fix them all. But probably only 50 days to fix the ones more than a handful of people ever currently play. That's pretty workable. If they can only fix 10 games per day, that's not so great. Mind you I suspect this vastly overestimates the amount of MMF clips or Proton would work on far fewer games than it already does.
3. You'd think Valve can fix letting its own technology work on Proton. So like, CEG, plausibly will work by launch. But there's a cluster of other technologies here, each pretty small, and the chance they'll get them all seems slim. But it may not matter that much if it's all old stuff that few people play.
4. Obviously they're not going to be able to fix all the little corner case problems by launch. If they can clean up the popular stuff that'll probably be good enough.
What I'm thinking is that some of the posts are a bit too pessimistic. Sure, I don't see Valve getting all games working on Proton by launch. But what we're ignoring is the vast gulf between the sales of Cyberpunk 2077 and the sales of Shovelware 0.8. There are masses of games on Steam that hardly anyone ever bought, or which are old and not one of the relatively few considered classics, that hardly anyone ever plays any more. Even games that are in their Indie way solid little successes, or were that three years ago, are nonexistent in terms of market share. It is plausible that 90% of people could find all the games they want to play on a Steam Deck work perfectly even if Valve fixed less than the top half of games on Steam, especially since a whole lot of games do already just work.
Bottom line: If they have anti-cheat nailed and do the videos for a lot of games including all the most popular and squash a good amount of general bugs, particularly in top-tier games, most people may not notice a problem even if technically there are still a lot of games that don't work well in Proton.
Last edited by Purple Library Guy on 8 September 2021 at 4:59 pm UTC
I won't bet that every single game will work flawlessly on day one, but Valve seems to have confidence that their steamOS will handle mostly every important game.
Pierre Griffais was not the only one stating, that the whole library will be playable, which you can see at another IGN video about the deck:
https://youtu.be/hJoUs0pM4GU?t=34
Additionally we know that Valve has a different fork of Proton which has not been published yet and James Ramey also stated in the podcast, that CrossOver was not involved in the development of the deck.
We will have to wait until SteamOS is released and I really, really hope that this will be done before the deck is shipping.
Mohandevir Sep 8, 2021
https://www.pcgamer.com/if-the-steam-deck-doesnt-run-your-entire-library-at-launch-valve-sees-that-as-a-bug/
Quoting: MohandevirSeems Boiling Steam's Ramey interview is making the buzz...Seriously..?
https://www.pcgamer.com/if-the-steam-deck-doesnt-run-your-entire-library-at-launch-valve-sees-that-as-a-bug/
Last edited by Linuxwarper on 8 September 2021 at 7:51 pm UTC
Mohandevir Sep 8, 2021
Quoting: LinuxwarperI believe Valve will achieve a level of compatibility to make most of people's library playable, assuming anti-cheat support comes. They don't have to reach 100%, but the percentage treshold that is acceptable at launch. With developers entering the fray, Proton compatibility will accelerate much faster in 2022 than it has the years before. Media spreading FUD about compatibility isn't helping.
Quoting: MohandevirSeems Boiling Steam's Ramey interview is making the buzz...Seriously..?
https://www.pcgamer.com/if-the-steam-deck-doesnt-run-your-entire-library-at-launch-valve-sees-that-as-a-bug/
I just meant that PCGamer felt the need to correct Ramey's opinion... Making the buzz is probably exagerated, but it had echoes at PCGamer:
QuoteThat's not what Griffais was referring to though. When we interviewed the Steam Deck developers last month, and asked how Proton was shaping up, they were still very much of the idea that it should just all work come launch.
Quoting: LinuxwarperI believe Valve will achieve a level of compatibility to make most of people's library playable, assuming anti-cheat support comes. They don't have to reach 100%, but the percentage treshold that is acceptable at launch. With developers entering the fray, Proton compatibility will accelerate much faster in 2022 than it has the years before. Media spreading FUD about compatibility isn't helping.Yeah, I think I mentioned this before, but it will be interesting to follow media reports. Going by ProtonDB* 82% of games tested work. That's pretty good. But if you focus on the top ten, only 50% work. Is the glass half full or half empty?
Most of the top ten games with problems are most likely issues with AC/DRM so hopefully more will work on launch day, but for most users and reviewers the success of the Deck might come down to how well it runs one particular game.
Interesting times ahead!
* Not the most reliable metric, I know.
Quoting: MohandevirOk. If I get it right, the module could be installed with the Steam runtime(?) for the specific game? I mean included into the game's specific "container system" that Valve is starting to implement?
If Valve solves the AC problem with a kernel module (we don't know), this would be effective for all containers. The Valve Soldier containers with the Steam runtime are based on Linux Namespaces and thus all share the same host system kernel.
It is also possible that Valve solves this in a completely different way. We just don't know. But I don't see why they shouldn't be able to solve it.
If it goes in the direction of TPM, it will probably only work with Steam Decks. At least for now. Whether normal Linux clients will also be allowed to participate at some point could vary from publisher to publisher.
But I think it's impossible that the publishers lock Valve out. They will work with them. Just like with Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo.
And the Media Foundation will either be reimplemented or licensed from Microsoft. For reasons of antitrust law, certainly at reasonable conditions.
Quoting: MohandevirI just meant that PCGamer felt the need to correct Ramey's opinion... Making the buzz is probably exagerated, but it had echoes at PCGamer:That's not what I am reacting to. Ramney said Pierre's statement was that Deck can handle almost any game from a hardware pov. Meaning that Proton (software side) isn't necessarily going to run 100% of your Steam library, which is such a ambiguous statement as it spreads FUD around Proton's compatibility..and we know it's really good, and going to be much better by time Deck launches.
Then PC gamer is combining an answer they got from Lawrence Yang when asking a question and combining that answer with what they got from podcast with Ramney to make a headline as if it's a direct statement from Valve. Valve never said "If Deck doesn't run your entire library we see it as a bug". PC gamer combined statements from two places into one! They are glancing over actual statements from Valve which is that Proton works with tons games and that they are working diligently towards making 100% of games compatible. Not a promise but a goal.
Quoting: whizseYeah, I think I mentioned this before, but it will be interesting to follow media reports. Going by ProtonDB* 82% of games tested work. That's pretty good. But if you focus on the top ten, only 50% work. Is the glass half full or half empty?It's not reliable, and Deck hasn't even launched and media is using ProtonDB as if it's accurate. It's not accurate. Deck has the same motherboard, CPU, PSU, ram etc across all SKUs. ProtonDB gets reports (and the reports can be faulty) from PC gamers with varying hardware and software. I think it's safe to derive that if a game's compatibility is silver on ProtonDB, it will likely be gold or better for Deck (with heavy work Valve is putting towards it). This is another thing that's glanced over, where ProtonDB is treated as if it's accurate for Deck's compatibility. It's not. And when they report on compatibility they barely mention actual issues, which Valve has made clear is anti cheat among others. Not a single word about anti cheat in that PC gamer article, and as we all know anti cheat is a huge compatibility blocker.
Most of the top ten games with problems are most likely issues with AC/DRM so hopefully more will work on launch day, but for most users and reviewers the success of the Deck might come down to how well it runs one particular game.
Interesting times ahead!
* Not the most reliable metric, I know.
Last edited by Linuxwarper on 8 September 2021 at 8:53 pm UTC
Quoting: MohandevirOk. If I get it right, the module could be installed with the Steam runtime(?) for the specific game? I mean included into the game's specific "container system" that Valve is starting to implement?Legally yes
But then the AC won't work because it requires high level access on the system (windows on this case) and because you're running inside a container, it can't escalate outside of it so will fail to execute.
So you have two possible ways
1 - Explicitly install the AC software by the users, with root access so the AC software can verify if you're not using any malicious software (and do everything else he wants because of the root permissions)
2 - The game you've asked to install will also ask to install the AC software as some kind of dependency (similar of what it does on windows), and you also have to conceive root access. It also would need the game to detect you're using a linux system and install a specific AC version for linux, because AC software for linux and windows are naturally different, due to the way they work.
What Valve can't do is bundle together with the blob of steam application, in this case they would have to do some kind of "blob inside the blob" and would be a risk for them (legal and practical) because they don't own the AC software in question.
Quoting: Purple Library GuyA quick google suggests that there are around 50,000 gamesThat's an interesting tidbit.
There's about 5000 (open and closed) game specific issues on the Proton bug tracker, and around 20 000 game reports on ProtonDB. So half the games on Steam have never been put through the ringer?
On a similar note, I have never seen anything that suggests that Valve themselves are doing any sort of large scale testing. Given that they likely sit on the worlds largest repository of Windows apps they could do regression testing on a VERY large scale. What fun that project would be to work on!
Patreon
PayPal
See more from me