cageymaru
Fully [H]
- Joined
- Apr 10, 2003
- Messages
- 22,548
The Linux PC gaming community received a nice surprise with the release of the latest Steam Beta client. Steam Play now works on non-Steam game shortcuts which allows Linux PC gamers to use Proton to play games from other services. For example, the author of the article was able to get a copy of The Witcher 3 from GOG to work with Proton.
The second part of the update allows native Linux games to run under Proton. This allows abandoned native Linux games to run under Vulkan and Linux users can now connect with Windows users in multiplayer! For example, running Company of Heroes 2 under Steam Play allows Linux users to play with Windows users whereas the native Linux client didn't allow this. Of course since this is a beta, there are bugs to work out. The biggest bug noted so far is that some games have issues detecting and using game controllers. Good job Valve!
Forcing Proton for native games that don't work properly or are unsupported for any reason is a great alternative. Proton keeps evolving so you are likely to get more and more performance out of it as time goes, and that will benefit all games, the old like the new. The added bonus is that it will unveil how poorly ports are usually done when you can just install in parallel the Windows version and demonstrate it runs better than the "native" one... There are still games like Rise of the Tomb Raider where Feral's port performs actually better than Proton, so Proton is not a one size fits all solution, but by far and large we have had more badly optimized ports than the contrary.
The second part of the update allows native Linux games to run under Proton. This allows abandoned native Linux games to run under Vulkan and Linux users can now connect with Windows users in multiplayer! For example, running Company of Heroes 2 under Steam Play allows Linux users to play with Windows users whereas the native Linux client didn't allow this. Of course since this is a beta, there are bugs to work out. The biggest bug noted so far is that some games have issues detecting and using game controllers. Good job Valve!
Forcing Proton for native games that don't work properly or are unsupported for any reason is a great alternative. Proton keeps evolving so you are likely to get more and more performance out of it as time goes, and that will benefit all games, the old like the new. The added bonus is that it will unveil how poorly ports are usually done when you can just install in parallel the Windows version and demonstrate it runs better than the "native" one... There are still games like Rise of the Tomb Raider where Feral's port performs actually better than Proton, so Proton is not a one size fits all solution, but by far and large we have had more badly optimized ports than the contrary.