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Different55

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Joined: 2015-02-07

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Steam mixes in a little WINE

tl;dr: Run Windows games on Linux from Steam as if they were normal Linux games.

official announcement

Idk if you guys have heard but Steam for the past like year has been covertly pouring funds and dev time into making it possible to run Windows games under Linux as if they were native. They funded and mixed together WINE, DXVK, and a few of their own projects that didn't fit elsewhere into a WINE fork they're calling Proton. It means greatly enhanced compatibility and quality of life for playing Windows games on Linux. Even stuff like VR is possible through it, and achievements and other Steamworks features work 100% seamlessly.

I'm pretty hyped about it. I've been putting off picking up Skyrim again just because I'd need to install Steam again (but the Windows version this time) but now I literally just have to hit "Play" like any other game in my library. All my mods, my saves, all of it was downloaded back to my PC and I picked back up as if I never left. Gf has been able to play Clicker Hero through this new Steam Play with better performance than the swf version on Kongregate. I might put Nier: Automata on my wishlist now.

Currently only for the Beta steam client, and no love for macOS yet, although there's signs of it maybe possibly happening some day. There's a short list of officially supported games, but there's a switch that lets you ignore the whitelist and play any Windows game.

Downside is I have to wait for Steam to install VC redistributables and DirectX nonsense for some games like a Windows pleb again. Definitely didn't miss that. But my library has gone from 86% Linux support up to 100% (Maybe? Still need to test MGS V) so can't really complain.

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"Sometimes failing a leap of faith is better than inching forward"
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Emma333

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Posts: 589

Re: Steam mixes in a little WINE

Title sounded more exciting than the post

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TaskManager

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Re: Steam mixes in a little WINE

I've been curious, how big is the increase in performance (if any at all), from playing on Linux instead of Windows?

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LukeM

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Joined: 2016-06-03

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Re: Steam mixes in a little WINE

I've been curious, how big is the increase in performance (if any at all), from playing on Linux instead of Windows?

90% sure theres none (probably even a decrease) as its most likely emulating Windows things, which adds a bit of an overhead

Edit: Unless I guess Windows takes up a large proportion of your processing power in the first place, but thats only the case if you're using a really old computer (for me its around the order of 1%)

Different55

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Joined: 2015-02-07

Posts: 16,574

Re: Steam mixes in a little WINE

I've been curious, how big is the increase in performance (if any at all), from playing on Linux instead of Windows?

It just depends. People usually expect a performance hit instead of a boost, although there are a few games that run better under WINE than on Windows. Usually I think things run about the same. As far as native Linux games, usually there we're always expecting a performance hit. Linux suffers from bad Windows ports the same way Windows suffers from bad console ports. But if the game's ported well it almost always runs better on Linux. I think all of Valve's games are pretty good examples, and the Metro series.

90% sure theres none (probably even a decrease) as its most likely emulating Windows things, which adds a bit of an overhead

WINE Is Not An Emulator. I'm not a WINE expert but I think it's a translation layer, it just maps Windows calls to Linux calls.

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"Sometimes failing a leap of faith is better than inching forward"
- ShinsukeIto

LukeM

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From: England

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Posts: 3,009

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Re: Steam mixes in a little WINE

90% sure theres none (probably even a decrease) as its most likely emulating Windows things, which adds a bit of an overhead

WINE Is Not An Emulator. I'm not a WINE expert but I think it's a translation layer, it just maps Windows calls to Linux calls.

I've done some Googling, and it seems like WINE isn't an emulator because its not running a full Windows VM on top of Linux, but it seems like it still has to emulate (in the actual meaning of the word emulate) some parts of Windows which aren't compatible with their Linux counterparts. (Although I'm also no expert, so this might be wrong)

Different55

Forum Admin

Joined: 2015-02-07

Posts: 16,574

Re: Steam mixes in a little WINE

90% sure theres none (probably even a decrease) as its most likely emulating Windows things, which adds a bit of an overhead

WINE Is Not An Emulator. I'm not a WINE expert but I think it's a translation layer, it just maps Windows calls to Linux calls.

I've done some Googling, and it seems like WINE isn't an emulator because its not running a full Windows VM on top of Linux, but it seems like it still has to emulate (in the actual meaning of the word emulate) some parts of Windows which aren't compatible with their Linux counterparts. (Although I'm also no expert, so this might be wrong)

There's not always an exact 1:1 translation, but at the same time even the things that do have 1:1 equivalents will be implemented differently, they'll have different performance costs. Sometimes the WINE or Linux equivalents might be implemented in a faster way than Windows. Other times it might be more of a "holy crap please just work this time, I don't care if it's slow" implementation. Typically it seems like older stuff that's been around is faster, while newer stuff is usually just focused on compatibility. Although DXVK which translates Direct3D -> Vulkan mixes that up a little bit.

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"Sometimes failing a leap of faith is better than inching forward"
- ShinsukeIto

Freckleface

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Joined: 2015-04-02

Posts: 1,364

Re: Steam mixes in a little WINE

Sadly it doesn't work with some games as expected, but this is really good. Though with this feature, people may refrain from adding native linux support to their game, causing linux users to still be laggier.

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Different55

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Joined: 2015-02-07

Posts: 16,574

Re: Steam mixes in a little WINE

There's a reason they're starting out with a very small whitelist and hiding everything else behind a checkbox and a big "HEY THIS IS UNSUPPORTED BUT YOU CAN STILL PLAY IT" banner. I don't think this'll harm native support much. I'm kinda leaning towards the opposite direction. Proton, unlike WINE, shows up as Linux to devs. Devs that start seeing actual numbers for Linux on their Windows-only games might be a little more inclined to make a native versions in the future, or at least seek out the help of companies like Feral and Aspyr to do it for them.

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"Sometimes failing a leap of faith is better than inching forward"
- ShinsukeIto

Raphe9000

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Joined: 2015-03-16

Posts: 1,864

Re: Steam mixes in a little WINE

If only they did this before pushing the linux-based steam machines.

HeyNK

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Joined: 2017-04-07

Posts: 1,318

Re: Steam mixes in a little WINE

Linux is the future!!!