Last Friday, we discussed reports of Steam having secretly made some updates regarding Steam Play, and hints that it could be linked to allowing for those on Linux to run Windows-only games. As of August 21st, Steam has put out a press release announcing the new beta. Multiple games that don't have an official Linux release can now easily be installed from the Steam client, allowing for easy access to the compatible games, listed below.

• Beat Saber
  
• Bejeweled 2 Deluxe
  
• Doki Doki Literature Club!
  
• DOOM
  
• DOOM II: Hell on Earth
  
• DOOM VFR
  
• Fallout Shelter
  
• FATE
  
• FINAL FANTASY VI
  
• Geometry Dash
  
• Google Earth VR
  
• Into The Breach
  
• Magic: The Gathering - Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012
  
• Magic: The Gathering - Duels of the Planeswalkers 2013
  
• Mount & Blade
  
• Mount & Blade: With Fire & Sword
  
• NieR: Automata
  
• PAYDAY: The Heist
  
• QUAKE
  
• S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl
  
• Star Wars: Battlefront 2
  
• Tekken 7
  
• The Last Remnant
  
• Tropico 4
  
• Ultimate Doom
  
• Warhammer® 40,000: Dawn of War® - Dark Crusade
  
• Warhammer® 40,000: Dawn of War® - Soulstorm

Games that originally relied on DirectX will now run through Vulkan, instead. These titles function by running a modified version of WINE, which Valve has dubbed "Proton". For those interested, you can see it on GitHub, where the code has been made open source.

Proton is a tool distribution based on a modified version of Wine. The included improvements to Wine have been designed and funded by Valve, in a joint development effort with CodeWeavers. Here are some examples of what we've been working on together since 2016:

• vkd3d[source.winehq.org], the Direct3D 12 implementation based on Vulkan
  
• The OpenVR and Steamworks native API bridges
  
• Many wined3d performance and functionality fixes for Direct3D 9 and Direct3D 11
  
• Overhauled fullscreen and gamepad support
  
• The "esync[github.com]" patchset, for multi-threaded performance improvements

Valve stated that they hope this newly made progress helps developers eventually bring their future titles to Linux, while also assisting them in making the process easier. Though official compatibility is listed only for the above games at this time, you can try to run it with any Steam game, to varying results. According to the Steam post, most games should work, eventually, barring those with excessive DRM or anti-cheat systems.

Source

 

[lordelan]

The license required them to release the source code.

I'm aware of that (while TX ignores that).

 

[Deleted User]

snip

 

[linuxares]

Come out my Linux brethren! Today we march!

 

[sarkwalvein]

Valve is a big company, they can't break the law as easily and get away with it.

Sure, but that doesn't change the fact that they put time and money to create a game improved branch of wine and made it public.
For their benefit, and for the benefit of whoever that want's to use it or re branch it.
Pure free software style, rms would be proud /s

 

[linuxares]

The license required them to release the source code.

And they have.

https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton

 

[Deleted User]

snip

 

[Deleted User]

This is really good to hear. Hopefully, the list of officially supported games for Proton will only continue to increase.

 

[linuxares]

So what I was getting at was that they probably wouldn't have done it if they weren't forced to, but now that I think about it they probably would have. If Proton really is significantly better than regular Wine (I wouldn't know because it's not working for me) then I could see there being tons of forks made by fans, each to fix their favorite game.


rms would be disappointed because it required proprietary Nvidia drivers.

And that's really good! If people fork it and improve proton, the devs of Proton can then take their code and implement it. It's a win-win! Even Wine can benefit from this, everyone is a winner here and especially the Linux community.

 

[sarkwalvein]

rms would be disappointed because it requires proprietary Nvidia drivers.

that's the reason of the /s, rms would be disappointed about 1000 things, like steam using this to "perpetuate its limiting platform that sells drm protected software", etc., etc.
nothing is enough for rms tbh.

 

[Deleted User]

that's the reason of the /s, rms would be disappointed about 1000 things, like steam using this to "perpetuate it's limiting platform that sells drm protected software", etc., etc.
nothing is enough for rms tbh.

Heck, I don't think Stallman even plays video games at all, considering that 99% of all titles are closed-source and proprietary, even when they are released without DRM.

 

[AbyssalMonkey]

Am I the only one thinking that for an initial release that this is kind of pitiful? All I see are a bunch of small games. You have 3 large titles that will bring people in: Nier, Doom, and MTG. Then they display relatively poor showings from 2005 and 2006 like Fate, Bejeweled, and WH40k. I realize this could be a proof of concept showing rather than an advertising pitch which will likely come with SteamBox 2.0, but it feels extremely lackluster.

Only time will tell, and this can only be good for the Linux community who can then in turn easier integrate these changes into base Wine (unless I'm misunderstanding how things work, which is probable). If not, Valve becoming a de facto leader in Linux/Wine repo could end in a bad way.

 

[Rahkeesh]

I'm...really not sure what you're saying here. Of course you have to allow permission for every single app you install. It's like that on apple, windows (today...not in a decade), android and at least on the linux distributions I've used. It's only standard safety procedure: rather be more cautious when installing programs (making it harder for malicious programs to install in the background) than being too lacking about it and end up with bug manifestations like the average Joe has on windows xp.

If its an unsigned developer you have to go to the security panel and explicitly allow that developer, after the program fails to run. Its not as simple as typing in an admin password to a prompt as it was in all other cases. There used to be an option box to allow unsigned devs with an admin prompt but it's been eliminated.

The doom thinking of microsoft attempting to seize control over every program on their OS at this point is as stupid as a paper company trying to control what people are writing on their product: the very means of that freedom is what sells the product in the first place. The moment microsoft decides that "homebrew" is no longer allowed on windows, the best they can hope for is companies not upgrading or bailing out of windows. More likely, they'll get multiple sues for that practice (again: a lot of companies adopted windows because it allowed their programmers to write programs to fit their specific needs. As such, they are reliying on their "homebrew" program to work their business).

There are plenty of companies where 95% of employees use nothing but Office and the backend IT stuff can continue to be a more open and pricey windows server.

Companies also love Apple tablets and they can still put their "homebrew" on there and MS would surely have similar systems for Windows S. Its really only a pain for individuals/small businesses that won't pay the developer fee. And of course anyone trying to distribute their homebrew to randos on the internet.

 

[Kioku]

Am I the only one thinking that for an initial release that this is kind of pitiful? All I see are a bunch of small games. You have 3 large titles that will bring people in: Nier, Doom, and MTG. Then they display relatively poor showings from 2005 and 2006 like Fate, Bejeweled, and WH40k. I realize this could be a proof of concept showing rather than an advertising pitch which will likely come with SteamBox 2.0, but it feels extremely lackluster.

Only time will tell, and this can only be good for the Linux community who can then in turn easier integrate these changes into base Wine (unless I'm misunderstanding how things work, which is probable). If not, Valve becoming a de facto leader in Linux/Wine repo could end in a bad way.

Is that Doom (2016)? :o

 

[Deleted User]

yay
time to start playing all those games i got with the free stuff that i havent been able to play

 

[GensokyoIceFairy]

another post bites the dust

 

[netovsk]

Stopped using linux a few years ago when oracle dropped java support for it.

But hey, this must be good news, even if for 1% users.

 

[Captain_N]

Valve, paving the way for the Steam Machine 2nd failure edition. (I hope they don't go too creative on the gamepad this time)

This. Steam could just run windows on a steam machine... Oh wait that's what a pc is. Thats why steam machines failed. They are just pcs. the same can be said about xbone and ps4 but they are not technically the same even though they use x86 arch. All in all the true pc platform is not a closed drm machine.

 

[Song of storms]

This. Steam could just run windows on a steam machine... Oh wait that's what a pc is. Thats why steam machines failed. They are just pcs. the same can be said about xbone and ps4 but they are not technically the same even though they use x86 arch. All in all the true pc platform is not a closed drm machine.

They could've teamed up with Microsoft and make them release a Windows Gaming Edition (like Windows Media Center Edition) that worked like a normal Steam console but with compatibility with all the games that already work on Windows and and an UI designed specifically for consoles.

 

[Captain_N]

They could've teamed up with Microsoft and make them release a Windows Gaming Edition (like Windows Media Center Edition) that worked like a normal Steam console but with compatibility with all the games that already work on Windows and and an UI designed specifically for consoles.

Yeah they could have. But im guessing they dont want to pay loyalties. They also could make the consumer pay for a regular copy of windows 10. The same way dell or hp does when they pre-install windows. its part of the price.

 

[Arecaidian Fox]

Guess I have no excuse to not try Lunix now XD (mostly, lol).