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HN · GamingCurated

Valve releases Proton for Steam Play

Summary

Valve extends Steam Play with Proton so that many Windows games run directly on Linux via Wine and additional free components. Valve announced Proton in August 2018. Proton is developed publicly on GitHub.

Ideas

  • Proton combines Wine with patches adapted for games.
  • DXVK translates Direct3D calls into Vulkan.
  • Steam manages the runtime, launching and versions for users.
  • An initial whitelist marked games tested by Valve.

Insights

  • Integration into an existing platform lowers the barrier for a compatibility layer.
  • Game compatibility depends as much on graphics drivers as on application code.
  • Funded upstream work can accelerate an entire free ecosystem.

Facts

  • The first beta supported a limited whitelist.

Recommendations

  • Update Vulkan drivers before troubleshooting individual games.
  • Document working Proton versions and launch options.

References

Read the original article

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HN · 2021

Proton brings around 7,000 Windows games to Linux

Boiling Steam analyses ProtonDB again and describes the growth in playable titles thanks to progress in Proton, Wine, DXVK and drivers. The analysis cited about 7,000 working Windows games. At the time Proton had been available for about two and a half years.

HN · 2020

Proton reaches around 6,000 Windows games

Boiling Steam analyses ProtonDB and shows how Wine, DXVK, Mesa and Valve together greatly broaden what can be played on Linux. The analysis cited about 6,000 working games. The underlying data came from ProtonDB.

HN · 2020

ProtonDB makes Linux playability traceable

ProtonDB collects structured reports on Windows games under Proton and links compatibility with concrete hardware and software versions. ProtonDB is a community-maintained project. The database focuses on Steam games under Proton.