Happy birthday, Proton!
While I appreciate the efforts Valve puts into improving WINE/Proton, lets not forget that they are standing on the shoulders of giants and gaming with WINE was not that bad before the integration in Steam either.
Yeah, that’s not necessarily the case. Did it kind of work? Sure, if you knew what you were doing. Was it at all the seamless experience that Proton is now? No.
Gaming with Wine was decidedly far worse before Valve started pumping money into it. Back before Proton was officially announced, there was a silent acceleration in Wine compatibility, getting better a rate we weren’t used to, and it’s in large part due to Valve partnering with CodeWeavers.
I think the point isn’t to say Valve’s help isn’t appreciated, but to give a little reminder to share some gratefulness with the amazing people developing Wine before Valve got involved as well. It was and is an impressive piece of software in its own right. :)
That doesn’t mean Valve wasn’t a complete game changer. The fact that they managed to make a handheld Linux gaming device popular among gamers rather than just open source fanatics is impressive as hell, and we’re all better off.
Oh of course, but I was particularly addressing “gaming with WINE was not that bad before the integration in Steam either”, because it really wasn’t great, as important and foundational as it was.
I mean, enthusiasts made it work. Compared to nothing, it’s a hell of a lot better. PlayOnLinux was also popular.
I guess it depends on what you mean by “that bad”. It has certainly gotten a lot better, nobody is denying that.
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What? I’ve exclusively used Linux since 2006 and gaming outside of retro emulation was absolute trash until proton. Of course WINE and code weavers were doing great work but it was overly complicated to use and the compatibility was abysmal.
I am on Linux even longer than you and native Linux gaming was not trash at all, it worked great, just the selection of games was very small (edit: before Steam was even a thing on Linux). WINE was always a bit hit or miss, but once you got something working, it was usually ok. Sure Proton made it more convenient, but it was more of an gradual improvement than the quantum leap some people claim it to be.
The quantum leap for linux gaming was that one guy who wanted to make nier automata work and developed dxvk.
I would probably agree to that more than for Proton, but the truth is also that DXVK’s further development was largely funded by Valve.
Going from a miniscule library of games that could work (I remember Linux Steam back before Proton having almost nothing of note) to opening up something pretty close to the entire Windows library and running Linux on Valve/Steam’s own handheld console for their games is indeed a quantum leap. That’s what Proton has done for Linux gaming. It may have gotten there eventually just with Wine and community contributions, but it would have taken possibly quite a few years longer to get there without Proton.
I think that is very subjective to the types of games you are interested in. For me Steam before Proton had so many native (indie) games that I literally couldn’t find the time to play all of those I was interested in.
So you agree that your interpretation was very subjective, and many people didn’t have the ease that you had?
No, because going from thousands of games to play to even more that you will never have the time to play is not a quantum leap.
If you had said Proton/DXVK made it finally possible to play a few triple A games I would have agreed. Still not a quantum leap though.
Please don’t spread misinformation Valve does not put in effort, they paid people to make Proton, it’s the community that makes the code NOT VALVE. A simple github chart can tell you everything.
They directly hired people to work on it… how else would you describe “putting efforts into” when a company does it?
That’s great and all, but the Wine devs deserve much more credit. Proton is just like the icing on top.
You’re massively simplifying it. Proton is a lot more than just “icing” on the top.
For those who don’t know such as myself, care to give more detail?
Before Proton there were many projects that were helping run windows games and apps on Linux. Many of these were massive undertakings:
Wine (translate windows API calls to Linux API calls) - over 5 million lines of code that can do some really impressive things, including help old windows apps run in modern Windows!
Wine tricks (automates the installation of many Window app dependencies)
Crossover and their work on wine & wine bottles (a mini windows drive environment for each program)
Loki’s early work on SDL to simplify sound and input for Linux and other *nix targets.
Mono (open source implementation of . Net a library used by a fair amount of windows apps (also includes Moonlight - the open source implementation of MS Silver light)
DXVK a impressive and efficient Direct X 10 & 11 to Vulcan translation layer (later incorporated D9VK - Direct X 9 to Vulcan) which also helps older games run better in Windows in addition to adding compatibility for Linux
And many other pieces I’m forgetting now, make up Proton. Valve did an awesome thing in packaging all the community developed components, put some of those devs on their payroll, and even paid Crossover to work on the project that ultimately became Proton.
Now with Proton, what would require lots of individual steps and separate downloads (setup a separate wine environment for each application, add dependencies, install DXVK, install needed open source frameworks, add any registry tweaks needed, etc) is now
maficallyautomatically handled behind the scenes in one step by one tool by just installing a Windows game on Linux via Steam (though Proton can work without Steam as well).Since all the work is open sourced, the community is able to have their own version of Proton with newer fixes and components that Valve could not distribute themselves due to licensing: Glorious Eggroll.
There were many attempts in the past to make an all-in-one tool to handle setting up wine and other compatibility tools (Lutris, Transgaming, PlayOnLinux, etc). So Valve wasn’t necessarily the first, they just offered a well put together, funded, and easy to use implementation.
On top this Valve has put a lot of work in optimizing gaming on Linux and they worked on getting studios to enable their anti-cheat on Linux to get previously unplayable titles to work.
I think a lot of people are misunderstanding what Proton actually brought to Linux gaming.
I had been running Linux exclusively for some moths in 2013-2014, and trying to get games to work on Linux felt like this : Wine is likely able to run it if you can found the right configuration, but good luck with that. I think the only game I managed to run without issues was Civilization 4, so I rolled back on Windows some time later.
Of course, Valve contributed to Wine, and projects like dxvk and others are major achievements (if a team effort), but that’s not their main contribution. Valve understood that gamers may be somewhat more tech-litterate than other people, but that making games work on Linux should be easy. And that’s what Proton was made for.
Nowadays, most games I buy on Steam work out of the box. I sometimes forget to check protondb before buying a games, and I rarely had an issue. Even if in 2018 you had to tinker a bit, you rarely needed more than to choose the correct Proton version (big up to Glorious Eggroll).
I think it’s symptomatic of the situation of the Linux Desktop : technically, it’s where it needs to be. But there is still a gap in accessibility and easiness. Tinkering is nice, but you should not have to do it to have something that works.
Not only that but they helped reach critical mass to drive adoption, and used their dominance in the industry to push studios to work with us, instead of against us.
I would not be using linux (at least not exclusively) if it weren’t for proton. Many thanks 🙏
Valve is the only corporation I will unapologetically simp for. It’s amazing how far Linux gaming has come in the past few years, especially now that the developers of stuff like EAC are finally making their shit compatible.
I feel like attributing this to Valve is really disrespectful to the folks who developed wine for decades (and more recently also Vulkan). The real game changer is Vulkan, which made Linux graphics to be competitive with DirectX. (OpenGL interfaces to DirectX was simply not competitive)
The kickoff meeting for Vulkan was hosted by Valve. Like everything it’s not only Valve, but they had their fingers in this too. Valve is just one of the companies/groups that is pushing linux ports and vulkan support.
Valve is mostly moving interests of big game companies with steam machines and steam deck. Steam machines flopped, but initially they made companies consider ports. The success of steam deck will likely result into them paying more attention to not break wine/proton.
I feel like attributing this to Valve
What exactly do you mean by “this”? The post is about the 5 year anniversary of Proton. Also, why do you consider crediting the developers of Wine disrespectful? I just can’t follow.
Of course Proton wouldn’t have been possible without all the many years of work that went into the Wine project in the first place, and everyone who contributed to Wine should be applauded for their effort. Valve has funded a lot of extra work though to get things like DXVK and VKD3D-Proton for the translation from Direct3D to Vulkan into a state where performance can be really great! Valve also funds work on Linux graphics drivers, Linux kernel work and the list goes on.
It’s a collaborative effort. The Wine and Vulkan projects have all done a lot and deserved credit for doing massive, amazing things. But for Linux gaming specifically, Proton has absolutely changed the landscape, and if Valve continues down this path, will make Linux an ever better gaming platform. So I don’t think it’s unfair to say thanks to Valve.
Not only have they sunk significant resource into making Linux gaming more viable, they’ve released Proton under BSD and seriously pushed developers to make Linux-compatible binaries. If Linux continues it’s slow upward trend in popularity, Valve will be in large part to thank.
You’re right. So many people to thank here. One thing you cannot deny is that Valve is one of few companies that loves gaming on Linux and it deserves a huge credit.
One thing you cannot deny is that Valve is one of few companies that loves gaming on Linux
Valve is a corporation, what they really “love” is money. All their Linux strategy is simply future-proofing. They know that if gaming kept being restricted to Windows, they could have been destroyed overnight by Microsoft, especially since MS start betting hard on gaming and built their own Steam competitor.
and it deserves a huge credit.
Well, they certainly do. I, for one, am grateful, since I’ve been using Linux for over 20 years. But I know they’re in for the money, and that’s ok.
Valve does not love gaming, they refuse to listen to TF2 fans, they never build games, they brought out studios, criminal cases, Antitrust lawsuit and branding loyal fanbase that keeps defending Valve awful actions in gaming. This is not love, this is toxic community and a toxic company aiming to be profitable at all cost.
what is vulkan
still dont understand, eli5 please?
Arthur Morgan voice (while running through Proton): Thank you.
what
I wont spoiler you if you didnt play RDR2 yet
i have, what does this have to di wuth rdr2
Thank you Valve for consistently making gaming easier even in my silly little operating systema
