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Hard to understate how much Proton has changed the trajectory of Linux. I remember when the Wine folks were mad at DXVK because it didn’t do it “the Wine way”- the results speak for themselves in this case. I’m not sure if Valve did it all just to make a buck and secure their game market position against Microsoft, but I’d like to think they had selfless intentions too. To this day I buy all my games from Steam just to show some support for their Linux efforts - I really hope Valve never turns into something terrible.
(I’d also like to throw some shade towards the ‘elitist’ Linux users who kept saying “video games are for children we don’t need them on Linux” for years before DXVK got rolling. That sort of attitude is a good way to make sure Linux never catches on.)
It really is true! Proton has fundamentally shifted how Linux can be used, and now with the Deck it’s reaching people it never would have reached before. I’m sure Valve did it for their own benefit, but some of it was born out of a need for survival too. This all started because Valve saw the trend of Windows moving towards only having the Windows store be the source for software, and Valve started planning. It was an extremely smart move on their part, cause now Valve has positioned themselves to re-unlock a category of gaming hardware that only had Nintendo competing in it viably up until now.
And yes, the “purists” are the same ones who complain about Wayland, Systemd, etc. The things that have brought Linux to where it is now, and why it’s used by as many as it is. They should just be ignored, tbh.
I’ll be sure they’re great, when they become able to count to 3
SteamOS 3 😏
Oh my… god…. LINUX IS THE CHOSEN ONE
Heh, it really truly was. They chose the best “3” to reach! xD
Proton is so good and has gotten incredibly mature. It’s the reason why I switched over to Linux full time, really. Haven’t looked back! :3
Remember when Microsoft was considering turning Windows into a walled garden like iOS, forcing Steam to play by Microsoft’s rules?
And then Steam was like, “We’ll branch off into our own thing… With blackjack and hookers!”
And here we are?
I was reading a thread on the Beehaw gaming community and was honestly surprised at the number of people who basically said that any Steam Deck alternarive that used Windows wasn’t worth buying. Valve is frighteningly close to actually disrupting Microsoft’s monopoly.
I recently added my Windows Steam libtary to Linux, and was surprised at how Baulder’s gate just mostly… Worked. I’ve been running on the rule of thumb that 3D games don’t run through wine, so it’s a shock that a modern game with all the bells and whistles just runs fine and with mostly parity with Windows.
The only reason I’ve not switched back to Linux for gaming is because for some reason I’m getting quite bad microstuttering with X11+Cinnamon which I’ve not been able to track down…
I’m kind of curious where you got the notion that wine couldn’t play 3d games? I can only imagine it coming from wine not having good DirectX11 support for a time until DXVK.
Yep, it’s from back in the day before Proton, where Dx10 support was spotty at best. I know it probably wasn’t as simple as “3D = broken, 2D = fine”, but I think generally 3D games tended to use more exotic Dx10 features.
Proton is one of the best things ever, I’ve tried many games and pretty much all of them worked without any major issues. A few of them I had to reconfigure settings but the majority of them just worked.
Without proton my gaming experience would be much more limited (a lot of the games I play do have Linux versions, but not all of them, especially Journey and RainWorld).
It feels like it was yesterday, and forever ago at the same time. Super cool though, Proton has changed so much about how I use Linux. As a gamer it literally made me able to make the switch full time that I’d been trying to make for years.
Linux seems more game friendly than macOS
Proton is such an excellent win! In my expereince with the steam deck, theres only a small handful of games that have problems but even then, those are games that I kind of forgot about.
I can’t wait to see how well it gets better over time. One step closer to me switching to linux full time on desktop! If only it wasnt for a few proprietary software that i need for work i would have switched over yesterday!
Yeah, same for me. Basically, just a few games with anti-cheat (or poorly implemented anti-cheat) are the only issue for me. Most other things can be made to work, even if there can be some jank involved. But even then, 70-80% of games “just work” and it’s amazing.
I’ve been using Linux exclusively for 4+ years now, it’s amazing whenever you can achieve it. You could consider dual-booting for your system, or running windows in a VM if the software you need isn’t something that requires a ton of horsepower.
Right?? Honeslty Linux for gaming is so good right now.
The idea of using VM has been on my mind for Linux! I’ll have to consider it especially since my desktop is a workstation powerhouse, it’ll easily run a Windows VM no problem. I have at least been using Linux full time in my laptop for a while now! It just works so well especially as a laptop os.
Thank you so so much CodeWeavers and Khronos Group and AMD and Intel and Valve
I can actually see that mythical future - the year of the Linux Desktop
:)
Been using Mint exclusively on my gaming rig for over a year, and I haven’t looked back. I mostly play small indie games, so nothing taxing, but even so Proton has been a godsend.
Actually it’s probably been longer than a year. I have Windows dual booted on that machine but I never upgraded it past 7. Oh well.
