Steam Beta finally enables Proton on Linux fully, making Linux gaming simpler
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Yeah, when I made the switch, I checked a bunch of the games I played the most for steam deck compatibility and thought I had to give up on some of them, only to find that they were still fine because my desktop is much more powerful than the steam deck. Plus it has a keyboard; if a game requires a keyboard, it hurts the steam deck compatability score (how much depends on if it's required for playing the game at all or just needed every now and then to enter some text).
So treat "steam deck supported" as "works on linux" and "steam deck unsupported" as "maybe works on linux".
I think the better indicator of not supported at all on Linux is the "3rd party kernel anticheat" marker in the store, though I tend to avoid games with that anyways, so I can't really say for sure.
I usually just check protondb. It‘ll tell you everything you need to know
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So if I turn on the global setting, does it mean it will run native linux games with proton as well? I'm mostly playing rimworld and project zomboid, which have native Linux builds.
Proton is only for running Win32 binaries
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From a gaming perspective: Get a new drive (NVMe/whatever your OS is on), drop Nobara on it, be done, have the option to switch back without a hassle if you need it for some special tasks or games.
And after 6 months find out that you never actually did that so delete windows/migrate it into a VM and enjoy the extra game drive you won.
That's at least what worked for 90% of my friends meanwhile.
The only person I know who routinely uses windows is myself- and I only do so,because I need certain MS Office stuff that I need for work. (And no,libre or Softmaker,etc. are sadly not a replacement for that. )
And after 6 months find out that you never actually did that so delete windows/migrate it into a VM and enjoy the extra game drive you won.
This is where I am at. As of last week I banned Windows to the deeps of a vm and went all in on Linux (Mint, in this case). Dual bootet for a couple of months but since I never used Windows outside of a vm anyway...
Havnt had a single issue with games so far, besides some very minor hick ups that were resolved easily. Than again, im lucky that the game so play have been supported so far.
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I see, fair enough then.
Yeah. This and CAD software sadly are the last things windows is really needed for me,sadly.
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Integrating ProtonDB into the steam client would be a nice.
I tend to do my Steam shopping in the browser and I use the ProtonDB-Peek userscript. This gives a ProtonDB status badge in the right column under the review links.
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From a gaming perspective: Get a new drive (NVMe/whatever your OS is on), drop Nobara on it, be done, have the option to switch back without a hassle if you need it for some special tasks or games.
And after 6 months find out that you never actually did that so delete windows/migrate it into a VM and enjoy the extra game drive you won.
That's at least what worked for 90% of my friends meanwhile.
The only person I know who routinely uses windows is myself- and I only do so,because I need certain MS Office stuff that I need for work. (And no,libre or Softmaker,etc. are sadly not a replacement for that. )
After my experience with nobara blowing up after a major update I'd probably go for bazzite instead
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Integrating ProtonDB into the steam client would be a nice.
On steam deck there's a decky add-on to do that
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Proton is only for running Win32 binaries
I know, I was asking about which version will Steam decide for when I have the global setting on.
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Probably so, there are a few native Linux builds on Steam that don't have feature parity or segregate multiplayer for silly reasons. (Total War: Warhammer III for example uses an entirely different method to generate random numbers in the native Linux build so you need to use proton to play with 'friends' on Windows)
It doesn't, as far as I could tell. I enabled the global option, and now I can just install and run windows only games without having to manually force the compatibility layer. Meanwhile, the Linux native games work just as intended.
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No. To use the Windows build you need to specifically request it in the game's properties
Yup, just tested it with rimworld. Thanks!
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On steam deck there's a decky add-on to do that
We need decky for desktop steam.
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Bro, I'm so fucking close to removing Microsoft from my life
I'm a few months into Linux Mint on my gaming PC and love it; 99% of my games work. The only one that doesn't so far is FiveM but that's because the devs appear to be very anti-linux unless you're hosting a server.
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After my experience with nobara blowing up after a major update I'd probably go for bazzite instead
Bazzite is amazing, best distro I've used. It works perfectly as a gaming focused distro. I've been rocking it for a year now without issue.
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The title is a bit click-baity.
Steam had a setting where it would only run Proton on games on which it had been verified to work. Some people would inadvertently flip this setting off. Now the setting is gone, so they can't accidentally do this.
It was the other way around. The default was to run proton-enabled games, but not random titles, unless you enabled proton for everything via the toggle ("enable for all titles") which was off by default.
Now it's on by default and the switch is gone, so it's can't inadvertently be switched off.
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I tend to do my Steam shopping in the browser and I use the ProtonDB-Peek userscript. This gives a ProtonDB status badge in the right column under the review links.
Apparently, this is a browser extension (well, a script for a browser extension), so it works when you browse the Steam catalog through your web browser, but not through their client. Or did I miss anything?
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Outside of a handful of multiplayer games pretty much any game will work under proton, new or old. Stalker 2 worked out the box on release day, early awkward 3D games like Gothic runs just fine, and your early point and click games will likely run just fine. Out of my 460 games*, only EA WRC doesn't work because they introduced kernel level anti cheat after release.
*Edit: Just to clarify i haven't tested all my games, but I have played a good number of them. Also another game that doesn't run is Ground Control 2, but that doesn't work on Windows since about 7 or 10, so it doesn't count! ^^
This isn't really true. At least on the steam deck. Of the 156 games I have in my library, 52 of the are "great on deck". Id say twenty of the other ones work great anyways.
I don't play multiplayer games, but the one I do have are in the works great category. The vast majority are single player games. (Just checked, i have 15 games that not compatible at all)
Definitely double check your games before making the switch.
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This isn't really true. At least on the steam deck. Of the 156 games I have in my library, 52 of the are "great on deck". Id say twenty of the other ones work great anyways.
I don't play multiplayer games, but the one I do have are in the works great category. The vast majority are single player games. (Just checked, i have 15 games that not compatible at all)
Definitely double check your games before making the switch.
A lot of the "unsupported" or "unknown" games also work fine. Some may require switching to a specific Proton version (check protondb.com), but many work fine.
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i mostly quit videogames in order to do this. it's nice to think that maybe I'll get some more of them back
I was ready to do that back when I switched, but still found games to play. Back then, Steam hadn't yet come to Linux (I didn't even have an account), so it was mostly random indies (back when Humble Bundle was baller) and some FOSS games. I played a bunch of Minecraft and Factorio as well. Then Steam came and brought a few more games, then Proton came and I've been back buying a ton of games.
Switching to Linux is so much easier these days with the incredible game support.
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We need decky for desktop steam.
Can you not install it? There's really not much difference between a Steam Deck and a Linux desktop.
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Apparently, this is a browser extension (well, a script for a browser extension), so it works when you browse the Steam catalog through your web browser, but not through their client. Or did I miss anything?
That's exactly what they said:
I tend to do my Steam shopping in the browser