Steam now lets you play Windows games on Linux

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xenopeek
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Steam now lets you play Windows games on Linux

Post by xenopeek »

Steam just made a big announcement that they have included support for playing Windows games on Linux: https://steamcommunity.com/games/221410 ... 5739350561. It's available from today for all Steam Client users.
UPDATE AUG 30:
With today's update to Steam Client you no longer need to opt-in to the beta. The Steam Client now includes Steam Play (what let's you play Windows games on Linux) for all users. It's only available for whitelisted games by default. If you want to (try to) play not yet whitelisted games, also do the following:
- Open the Steam > Settings menu. On the Steam Play page (select it in the left sidebar) tick the "Enable Steam Play for all titles" box.
- Steam Client needs to restart to enable this.
They're doing this with a modified Wine distribution called Proton (which is open source). It offers much improved 3D and multi-threaded performance as compared to stock Wine. The improvements have been designed and funded by Valve, in a joint development effort with CodeWeavers, over the past 2 years.

They note:
  • Windows games with no Linux version currently available can now be installed and run directly from the Linux Steam client, complete with native Steamworks and OpenVR support.
  • DirectX 11 and 12 implementations are now based on Vulkan, resulting in improved game compatibility and reduced performance impact.
  • Fullscreen support has been improved: fullscreen games will be seamlessly stretched to the desired display without interfering with the native monitor resolution or requiring the use of a virtual desktop.
  • Improved game controller support: games will automatically recognize all controllers supported by Steam. Expect more out-of-the-box controller compatibility than even the original version of the game.
  • Performance for multi-threaded games has been greatly improved compared to vanilla Wine.
The announcement includes an initial list of Windows games that they've tested. They say they will be testing their entire catalog, whitelisting games that work well and fixing issues for games that don't (though they caution games using certain technology may not be fixable). For Windows games in your Steam library that haven't been whitelisted yet, you can try them out anyway with a simple toggle.
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Topic automatically closed 6 months after creation. New replies are no longer allowed.
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gm10

Re: Steam now lets you play Windows games on Linux

Post by gm10 »

Thanks for the info Xenopeek. I'm not gaming on Linux but interesting to know.
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Pierre
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Re: Steam now lets you play Windows games on Linux

Post by Pierre »

it seems that Xenopeek is, again, ahead of the MEDIA
:lol:

it's only now-ish, that I'm finally starting to notice, any other Articles, on this:

This brings multiple improvements to the platform, including:
- Windows games with no Linux version currently available can now be installed and run directly from the Linux Steam client.
- DirectX 11 and 12 implementations are now based on Vulkan, resulting in improved game compatibility.
- Fullscreen support has been improved.
- Improved game controller support – games will automatically recognise all controllers supported by Steam.
- Performance for multi-threaded games has been improved compared to vanilla ./Wine.
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michael louwe

Re: Steam now lets you play Windows games on Linux

Post by michael louwe »

https://news.softpedia.com/news/valve-m ... 2365.shtml (Valve Makes It Easier for Linux Steam Users to Run Windows Games on Their PCs. It introduced an improved version of Steam Play. Aug 21, 2018 23:30 GMT · By Marius Nestor ·)
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ugly
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Re: Steam now lets you play Windows games on Linux

Post by ugly »

There have been a lot of rumours about this the past week or so. Very interesting news.

Gaming is one of the only reasons I still have a dual boot. I think I have about 160 games on Steam and only 50 or so run natively on Linux. Unfortunately, I have less and less time to spend on gaming, but one less reason to have to use Windows is welcome.
MintBean

Re: Steam now lets you play Windows games on Linux

Post by MintBean »

Even if you've ZERO interest in games, you should be celebrating this news.
Why? Linux adoption.

I would say the top 3 reasons people won't switch to Linux are (and not necessarily in the order listed):
1. Lack of games.
2. Lack of MS office.
3. Lack of iTunes.

With the serious weight of Valve on the case with (1), a major barrier is crumbling and with more users enticed to Linux more developers will come, whether from switching to Linux themselves or wishing to tap into the growing market, and that can only be a good thing for software availability, games and otherwise.
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Pierre
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Re: Steam now lets you play Windows games on Linux

Post by Pierre »

then there is the More Official Version:
"Yesterday, Valve announced a new feature in Steam Play that allows Windows titles to run on the Linux version of Steam using Wine."
https://www.codeweavers.com/about/blogs ... -milestone
Wine and Steam - A Major Milestone.

If there's a touch of less-than-thrilling news, it's that during the first phase of this Steam Play Beta,
- only about 27 Windows-exclusive games will be officially supported.
Now, these are titles that have been fully vetted by Valve, meaning they consider the experience to be identical to Windows.
If you're feeling more adventurous, you can simply hit an override switch and install literally any game,
- that's available only on the Steam for Windows store.
8)
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shima-pan

Re: Steam now lets you play Windows games on Linux

Post by shima-pan »

Oh man, this is cool, it seems like I really picked the perfect time to drop windows :D :D :D

Now to just get it installed, lol
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Re: Steam now lets you play Windows games on Linux

Post by xenopeek »

You can install Steam through Software Manager.

Now you can play whitelisted Windows games on Linux. They note on the official instructions you should ensure you're using the latest graphics card drivers. If you experience issues I suggest to consider their instructions for that: https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton ... PREREQS.md. Mind those instructions are compatible with Linux Mint 19 only. Proceed at your own risk! At the very least ensure you have a recent snapshot in Timeshift so you can easily roll back installation of the graphics card drivers if they cause issues on your system.

If you want to (try to) play not yet whitelisted games, also do the following:
- Open the Steam > Settings menu. On the Steam Play page (select it in the left sidebar) tick the "Enable Steam Play for all titles" box.
- Steam Client needs to restart to enable this. This will be quick.

Games in your library that can be played with Steam Play will have a note "Runs on this computer with Steam Play" to the right of their Install/Play button. (This note is only shown on whitelisted games, unless you have enabled Steam Play for all titles.)
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whm1974
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Re: Steam now lets you play Windows games on Linux

Post by whm1974 »

Yes this is good news, now I can play some of the games I have been missing out on once this gets out of beta.
GHOST1

Re: Steam now lets you play Windows games on Linux

Post by GHOST1 »

watched DASgeek on youtube talk about this i was excited to read about it but to see a video i was all in he played the latest doom game looks to be playing very well this is a big step for linux and dare i say a game changer this gives me more reason to use linux full time still dual boot for a couple of games on windows 10 and that alone has started to become a mess last two updates for me hand me throughing my Hands up i'm pretty much done using it for both general use and gaming i have one game through steam unrealtornument:black edition working pretty well nothing serious wrong as far as game play you may need to make adjustments in settings but stuttered a bit at first but it worked out just make sure you update your video driver, your kernel as well


specs of my rig:
AMD RYZEN 5 1600
gigabyte AB350-GAMING3
8GB RAM BALLISTIX
EVGA 1050 TI 4GB

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gN3vaiY ... L&index=27
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Re: Steam now lets you play Windows games on Linux

Post by whm1974 »

So which games have you guys been trying out?
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Re: Steam now lets you play Windows games on Linux

Post by xenopeek »

I tried Avadon 2, a RPG game from Spiderweb Software. It works flawlessly (it's not whitelisted yet, so you need to enable Steam Play for all titles). I've played the first Avadon game from them which had been ported to Linux by another company. The rest of Spiderweb Software's RPG games have not been ported and I recall they've said in the past their games should work on Wine.
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Re: Steam now lets you play Windows games on Linux

Post by skomo »

Hi guys, i'm very happy for this news!

I tried a bunch of games on my (cheap) linux laptop. AMD.6110 APU with R2 graphics and 4gigs of single channel ram.

Spintires works! (i wasn't able to boot it in wine)
Oblivion has improved framerate, it wasn't really playable in wine with my pc.
Fallout new vegas is like Oblivion: better performance.

Obscure- Won't start (doesn't start in wine too).

Probably it's time to look for a more powerful notebook now.... I love gaming on linux!
Current Machine ==> Matebook D13 2020 Linux Mint 20 5.8.0-29-generic
Ryzen 5 3500U with Vega 8 graphics

Previous Machine ==> Linux Mint 19.3 5.3.0-26-generic
AMD E2-6110 with R2 graphics (i loved it!)
lazarus

Re: Steam now lets you play Windows games on Linux

Post by lazarus »

A handy compatibility list

Dunno how current it is.
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xenopeek
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Re: Steam now lets you play Windows games on Linux

Post by xenopeek »

They have a website which lets you search easily; press Ctrl+F and start typing to search for game you're interested in: https://spcr.netlify.com/

Over a thousand games reported as fully compatible already!
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Re: Steam now lets you play Windows games on Linux

Post by gibbs1984 »

On the video I watched he says you need as a minimum the nvidia 396.51 drivers, I'm only running 390.48 which I assume is the latest one in Mint.

I've looked on the nvidia website and the latest version is 390.87.

So where did they get 396.51 drivers from?

I only have Call of Duty: Black Ops as a Windows only game but that doesn't even open, probably because I'm using an old driver?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wb9RupIkhQ8

https://www.nvidia.co.uk/Download/drive ... 7432/en-uk
Last edited by gibbs1984 on Tue Aug 28, 2018 5:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Linux Mint 20.3 (Cinnamon) 64bit.
gibbs1984
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Re: Steam now lets you play Windows games on Linux

Post by gibbs1984 »

Just as I post that I look at Xenopeek's netlify link and it looks to be a known issue :D

Keeping the game installed incase there's a fix soon, do we know how often they're fixing these issues as I assume there's thousands of games that need little fixes?
Linux Mint 20.3 (Cinnamon) 64bit.
MintBean

Re: Steam now lets you play Windows games on Linux

Post by MintBean »

Cheers Xeno. Anecdotals I'm reading around the bazaars are reporting very high compatibility rates. This is a fantastic advancement for Linux.
GHOST1

Re: Steam now lets you play Windows games on Linux

Post by GHOST1 »

whm1974 wrote: Sun Aug 26, 2018 6:54 pm So which games have you guys been trying out?
unreal tournament 3:black edition at first it was working well then the first steam beta update hit then i noticed a skip here and there the second update i got my first two crashes no big deal its a beta but now after the last update its playing much better no crashes minor skip but once or twice but other then that it plays very well just remember to update to the latest drivers and update the kernel
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