I wish they* would add the ProtonDB rating to the store pages now when you’re browsing from the Linux client (or as an account setting). The SteamOS compatibility rating just doesn’t tell the whole story.
On the steam deck I have a plugin that shows it when I open the main page for a game.
Maybe it isn’t on the storefront though, I can’t remember.
Yeah, I’ve got the same plugin, but I don’t think it shows on the store, just in the library.
I know its not the same and would be better to have it officially implemented by Steam, but meanwhile theres an extension you can use for seeing on the web browser (Chrome/Firefox)
That’s cool as well, but that doesn’t fix the store in gamemode, which is via the in-built browser in Steam. I just don’t browse the store via anything other than the app itself, or the mobile app.
Have you run into many games that don’t work on Proton? I’ve yet to encounter a single one myself, though I’m sure they exist.
Just chiming in as someone who’s relatively new to Linux gaming for anyone curious or on the fence. In the 4 months or so of being on Arch Linux, I have encountered zero games that don’t run despite playing a large variety of games.
I’m not saying they don’t exist, and I’m not saying there aren’t hiccups or bugs out there, but boy is it a lot closer to “completely seamless” than I think most people imagine.
Yeah definitely agree with this statement, with the one caveat being competitive multiplayer as anti-cheat is still such a mess. I think if Linux grows to at least 5% of gamers, we’ll start to see developers take it more seriously. As it stands, a lot of those games have the developers specifically breaking anti-cheat on Linux.
I can see that, but I will point out that even on that front I haven’t run into any issues. But here’s a quick run down of what I’ve played and/or proton said is good vs not.
Works: The Finals, Dota, CSGO, deadlock, Arc Raiders, marvel rivals, overwatch 2 (I don’t play this), rocket League (I haven’t tried on Linux but proton says it’s good), dune (haven’t played), world of tanks (haven’t tried but proton says it’s good),
Doesn’t work: Valorant, fortnite, rainbow six siege, warzone, rust (?), pubg, Apex legends, delta force.
Without running the numbers but looking at the stats page of steam, it’s probably safe to say more than 75% or more of all current players would be unaffected by moving to Linux in terms of compatibility. That’s a little unfair because CSGO does like 10 of these games in player count every day.
The non-steam games probably skew this percentage lower but still, it’s not like the multiplayer or competitive multiplayer scene is dry and vacant on Linux.
I’m almost certain Fortnite doesn’t work, Epic are really anti-Linux for some reason.
Ya sorry, I listed two groups without explaining what the groups meant.
Yeah, given there’s the occasional windows game that won’t work on a random Windows pc, it feels like we’ve already reached parity.
I’ve played a few that required some tinkering, like changing Proton’s version.
Yes, there are lots that require fucking around but usually there’s a way you can get them to work with a lot of messing around. Even then, sometimes the performance can be trash.
But ya for most popular games it’s hard to find ones that don’t work. Unless they’re using shitty anti cheat software.
Huh weird, that really doesn’t match up with my experience in the past couple years. Everything I’ve tried has Just Worked™ I guess the games I play are usually not very graphic-intensive, that might account for it.
Star Trucker has some stuttering that GE-Proton9-27 solves for me. Pacific Drive also had some crashing issues, played through that on GE-Proton9-25. It doesn’t come up heaps, but I’m glad for GE-Proton when it does.
@AwesomeLowlander @princessnorah
Secret World Legends
Catherine ClassicJust 2 examples which with default Proton have at least “issues”
Microsoft did nothing because they thought they had the upper hand, then they started pleasing investors.
Maybe that wasn’t the best idea. Anyway, I’m using Mint “Cinnamon” since Friday and it’s amazing.
Been two years since I’ve touched Windows. Microsoft isn’t needed.
Same, except seven.
You know, I hate using my work laptop. It’s so sluggish and horrible to use with Windows on. And it’s always the Microsoft software eating up the memory. Teams and edge being the worse offenders.
For server use Linux has been a better option for decades. But, windows was still pretty decent for desktop use. But Windows 10 started a bad trend and Windows 11 has made it far worse. I don’t miss it. This system is dual boot, and I’ve not booted into windows on it, since November.
My work laptop is Mac, which isn’t much better when it comes to bloated MS shit, but that’s more the corporate world. If Linux would get on board with supporting corporate overlords spying on every minute of every day, we’d have shitty Linux desktop distros at work, too.
It’s just that, for what most of us want to do on our computers all day, Microsoft doesn’t offer anything. I can browse, I can run my home, stream movies, play games, and tinker with software all arguably better on Linux. Driver support being the only really spotty thing, but OS getting better at an incredible rate. And if I really fucking hated something, I give myself fair odds of being able to make myself a fix for it.
I remember when I first started playing with Linux, must’ve been around Windows 8? 7? I was like this would be great if I had nostalgia for Windows 3.1 and fumbling around learning DOS (or technically AmigaOS in my case) for the first time, but I wanted stuff to just work better and look better.
But Linux has caught up in every way except corporate bloat, and I love it for every day use. I have an SSD with my old windows installation laying around gathering dust. Thought I’d need it for emergencies. Haven’t had an emergency it would help with — ever.
I think baseline Linux is much less CPU and memory intensive (that is before you start running your own user stuff).
If I just leave normal apps running in the background I rarely hear my fans spin up on Linux. But on Windows, I can just boot it, login and then randomly the fans spin up and CPU usage in double digits. Why?
I would agree probably if we ran teams on Linux it would be a resource hog. But you know for work I setup MS SQL server on Linux, and you know even though so far as I can tell they’re doing more work on Linux to run it there, it seems to run faster and take less resources on Linux. That is subjective though, since I cannot tell if the usage level on the Linux SQL is comparable to the windows one. But from my limited uses it’s definitely lower.
If you start with the OS eating your memory and cycles, there’s less for the bloatware you have on a corporate machine to burn.
Mint is love. Mint is life.
I like Mint xfce, if it only had Wayland support.
The big break through will be when you get many more devices that you can just buy that have steam os.
NO FUCKING WONDER!
I was messing around with a new fedora install last night and when I clicked the “Linux compatible “ button nothing changed and I could not figure out why. Everything was just able to be installed. This is great!
Nice. Saves a step.
Now I wish there were a way to force Proton games to run in Gamescope. I usually add it as a launch option because it makes some games play nicer with the window manager.
I know it can be done with steamtinkerlaunch, but that is still kind of a workaround.
I wonder if it will default to Proton-GE or smth, if you install it before you open steam?
You set the version in compatibility options (per Steam, not per game).
Unless they changed something, it won’t automatically update GE-Proton though like it does Proton Experimental.
I mean, you can* absolutely also set it per game. I only switch over to GE-Proton if there’s an issue with a specific game.
Oh ok, thank you.
Oh. Well, no duh.
Did they ever explain why this wasn’t on by default before? Was there a practical reason for it at all? It’s one of those things you do once and never think about again, but it’s weird that you even had to.
I guess maybe they thought that having some games try to launch and fail by default would look bad? They’ve recently added compatibility ratings to non-SteamOS Linux systems, so maybe that’s the difference now? Still a weirdly annoying choice originally, though.
It was because Proton was still very new relatively speaking, the understanding being that it’s potentially fussy and buggy enough that only people with an understanding they’re running via a compatibility layer should use it to e.g. reduce game refunds.
I actually really liked the choice. Hopefully we can still at least turn SteamPlay off if we want to, and SteamPlay games are clearly labeled as such vs. native Linux versions.
As far as I understand it the option remain on the menu, they just changed the default.
I would have been less annoyed at the default being off if the client asked you if you want to switch it on when you click on a non-native game. They instead have the toggle hidden away in their already cluttered and annoying Settings menu, at least on the desktop version.
Likewise, I think the answer to your issue would be to just give you a warning splash screen when booting under Proton the first time. That’s fairly established UX language on Steam, they do the same when you hit the controller compatibility layer for the first time and when you try to play games with small UI elements on handheld.
Its probly still buggy as fuk. I gave up on it.
Bro is on that proton 1.0 build still
Thoughts and prayers
It hasn’t been “buggy as fuk” for at least half a decade. Why are you spreading misinformation?
I struggled with Steam on Linux to undo enabling Proton on a Linux-native game. I wiped a machine to go back to just the native setting. Still didn’t work. Tried hacking the metadata in Steam. Didn’t work. Could not disable Proton.
I get it that everyone is thrilled about this. I’m not.Steam automatically uses the native version if one is available, unless you override the compatibility tool to be Proton instead of the Linux runtime on a per-game basis. Nothing changed in that regard.
It was bugged. Did not work as you say. Its been at least a year. Pissed me right the fuk off tho. I’m done w/steam on linux for now.
Right click the game, click settings, click “compatibility” and choose “Linux Runtime” from the drop down.
If it is not a Linux native game, it will not be an option.
I never encountered that, but Steam can get weirdly stuck on a Proton update or setting if you start manually messing with its library folders. For as much as people like their contributions to the ecosystem it’s still a private, for-profit storefront and they’re not particularly keen on you fiddling with it or in supporting you when/if you do.
That said, I haven’t had that issue. In theory Proton shouldn’t mess with your native software regardless of your options setting being on or off. Presumably even with it defaulted to on if you switch it off manually things would go back to showing all non-native software as “unavailable” again, right?
No. The slider did not turn off. I hacked the metadata to turn it off. That didn’t work either. Annoying as hell.
Yeah, that sucks. I’ve had it get stuck trying to update Proton for a game that no longer existed on an external drive. Steam definitely isn’t as “works every time out of the box” as people around here like to claim, and its reliance on reproducing itself to its last state, even if that state is broken, can be super annoying.
But hey, I still think having access to all the games it can run in your system should be the default, even if it warns you when you are doing so under Proton.
Right. I’m just being cranky because it irritated me. Steam is an outstanding tool. When I had my issues, the linux version was probably less developed.
