Proton is the Future of PC gaming. But how does it work?

[@gardiner_bryant]

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[@TremereTT]

It's not realy a "compatibility layer". proton or wine basically just provides APIs on Linux that Microsoft does provide on Windows. There is nothing being emulated, it's basically just developing the Windows C-API, the DirectX-Api &c. a second time. Thats not over head. It's just making the APIs a second time. And I have to say , while the Windows C-API is old, it's extremely well kept backwards compatible. Backwards compatible software is something that was impossible before flatpack or similar efforts. I realy think MS deserves gratitude for their housekeeping of the Windows C-Api ! It's just a pure win to have this API on Linux. Games are just apps. Why not make the same app for several systems in the same way with the same tools?

[@pcallycat9043]

@@TremereTT Backwards compatible software was quite possible before flatpack, but it did require installing multiple versions (ie, and older glibc) of a library, often outside of the package manager as those are designed to keep a system strictly current. The only software that is truly not backwards compatible on linux is anything relying on kernel functionality that no longer exists. One thing I do truly appreciate though, is the fact that even my old games work on linux, when they no longer function on windows (I can't even install kings quest on windoze these days, much less expect it to run)

[@seanabsher5577]

uhm... the NES ran on a customized MOS6502 , the gameboy ran on a customized Z80. (just to clarify)

[@TheLukemcdaniel]

A native linux game is great when it happens, but I'm perfectly content as long as nothing is done to prohibit a game from working via proton.

[@Falsechicken]

Native sounds nice and all but has anyone actually tried to run an unmaintained commercial Linux native game a few years after support has ended? Good luck with all those libs you are no longer gonna have or have the correct versions for. I just had to jump through hoops to get the Linux build of X3 working. Where as with Wine/Proton I can much more easily "package" the game up in a prefix that will run pretty much anywhere wine is without dependencies. I find this a much better solution that has preservation benefits. The Sims 2. Ever tried installing The Sims 2 and all it's expansions? Let me tell you there are a LOT of those. Takes a while but I have not had to reinstall it for years now. I just take the prefix with me with all the stuff preinstalled. Archive that onto my NAS and I have now preserved that for me pretty good xD. A lot of this can be solved with modern packaging formats like flatpaks and stuff but I think asking that too might be too much lol. I would really like to see an easy way to package up a wine prefix + the runtime and everything into an appimage like package that I can just run on any x86 machine.

[@imnotusingmyrealname4566]

@@TheLukemcdaniel Would every DRM free Windows game work?

[@TheLukemcdaniel]

@@Falsechicken there's crossover for that

[@TheLukemcdaniel]

@@imnotusingmyrealname4566 drm free is icing on the cake, yes

[@ricky_pigeon]

yeah like Rockstar who stopped me enjoying gta5 on steam deck.

[@mdexterc2894]

Made for Windows ❌ Made for Proton ✅

[@Bokto1]

The real horror for Microsoft: STANDARDIZED PUBLIC APIs

[@imnotusingmyrealname4566]

​@@Bokto1Oh riight I totally forgot those, how does all this .net and directx stuff work on Linux?

[@AstraPlanetshine]

More games working on Linux means more people will choose to Linux as a viable option. More people using Linux will mean developers will maybe, eventually, have more incentive to create native games for Linux. But before any of that happens, you have to get the numbers up, and this is how you do it, using Proton. At the very least, at the end of the day today, we can play games now, and that's pretty cool! It's certainly been cool enough to get friends and family to switch over to Linux. So I think it's been a success so far.

[@bionicseaserpent]

@@AstraPlanetshine people still won't pick Linux even if it's much more viable. Because they firmly believe windows is better even when it's clearly not the case.

[@PomuLeafEveryday]

Proton exists, why target Linux when you can remove months of porting your game. It's just unnecessary work for a small percentage of players. Just make sure your game works with Proton. Windows is still the key platform for PC players so as long as that's true, devs will target Windows.

[@mytech6779]

I want just one top grade game that is released exclusively for Linux. Something good enough to make people install a copy of the OS even if it is on a secondary machine, similar to the idea of console exclusives. (Focus on gameplay over stuff that is demanding of hardware so people can setup last season's leftover hardware as a start.) It may be a loss leader that would need a sponsor, but the long term effect would be substantial, follow a year or two later with another and momentum will grow substantially. I think GNU-Linux desktop is finally in a place to take advantage of something like this, it wouldn't have worked 5-10 years ago. The one restriction is that it should NOT be packaged for Ubuntu. Target Debian and Arch, maybe Fedora. Let the downstream distros adapt. The Most irritating part of commercial software for Linux is they don't hire anyone that understands the broader Linux ecosystem and they are a decade behind on rumors so they make stuff that absolutely can't work anywhere but Ubuntu; almost like releasing it as an APK for Android and claiming it was a Linux release.

[@PomuLeafEveryday]

@@mytech6779 That's the reason devs don't make Linux versions. Fragmentation, this is why if there is a Linux version of a corporate application they'll target Ubuntu before any other distro as it's the most well known distro. I just want Proton to keep getting better, then devs can just focus on making the games without worrying if it'll run on X platform. Most users are on Windows, why spend months porting and hiring expensive specialists when a developer can just make the game for one platform and make it run on many? Making them target niche platforms will only make the game unnecessarily more expensive to develop.

[@mytech6779]

@@PomuLeafEveryday r/whooosh!

[@bloepje]

I've been a linux gaming supporter since 1998... Bought any game with native linux support. Currently I can only run those games using proton. You can't run the windows version of these games on windows 11, but you can run them on proton. You can't run the linux version either. So in the end, the only ABI/API that survived is win32 on proton. Not on windows, on proton only.

[@johnknight9150]

Win32 has become a kind of lingua franca for software. If I want to run an old Linux package (let's say from the 2000s, for instance) then I don't even bother because the library dependencies are never going to be satisfied. I just download the win32 exe, run it through Wine, and most stuff just runs immediately. Given the focus on old games through dxvk, I'm wondering if Linux will quickly become better than Windows for old win32 software.

[@DiThi]

Native linux games do work at any point in time if they are compiled all statically. It is not the default for most compilers, though, so we got into this mess.

[@robotron1236]

Same reason I can use Microsoft Office 95 on Linux and not on windows 10/11. It’s also REALLY snappy too! I’d say it’s better than OpenOffice or FreeOffice, but the file types are too old to use for anything outside of a quick word doc.

[@robotron1236]

@@johnknight9150it already is better for running old Windows software.

[@johnknight9150]

@@DiThi Now try installing an .rpm from 1998. You are in for some pain, my friend! ;-) Honestly, I hate our stubborn reliance on the repo system -- it's as if we all decided to pretend dependency hell doesn't exist and that we've never had our package manager crap out on us, leaving a knackered system. I know Flatpaks aren't perfect, but I'm so glad we've finally started adopting 3rd party packaging. I never want to troubleshoot a package repository ever again in my life.

[@Peonshoes]

The NES did not have a z80 CPU, it was based on the 6502.

[@gardiner_bryant]

I was originally going to talk about the Sega and I forgot to change the name of the CPU. I can't believe I missed that. I've been writing this script for 4 months. 🤦

[@iBolski]

I was going to say the same thing. When he was showing the assembler language code, I was like "that's 6502!" I should know. I taught myself 6502 machine language/assembler programming on my Apple ][. Man, I miss the days of Apple when they were all about being open about their tech. I had the Apple ][ redbook that mapped out all of the memory space of the Apple ][ system monitor/ROM, etc. I even later got a Z80 card as well for it and ran CP/M for awhile. I had the Orca Macro Assembler and the Aztec C compiler environment. The Apple ][ is what got me into programming and it's been my job every since I graduated with a degree in computer science. Still love it to this day.

[@SumeaBizarro]

This, not even a coder but sega thing makes sense. Tho motorola based mega drive was bigger than z80 based master system/mark3. Then again Genesis has all the same hardware and is backwards compatible

[@iBolski]

@@SumeaBizarro I never owned the MS, but I did purchase the Genesis when it came out and loved it! Owned both the OG NES and the Genesis system. I also then purchased the MS adapter so I could play MS games as well.

[@bland9876]

Sega? I thought the z80 was the processor used in the Game Boy am I wrong? Or were they used in both?​@@gardiner_bryant

[@FrickinLaserBeams]

I think there's some important information that most people miss or don't know : Proton is WINE, with Valve's patches/improvements. WINE also benefits greatly from the work others are doing to improve the compatibility layer. And WINE is an acronym for: WINE Is Not An Emulator.

[@jessephillips8319]

WINE is actually an acronym for W W W W W W W W W W W W....

[@blarghblargh]

WINE is an acronym for "The difference is academic, and most end users don't really care even a little bit. Especially people who just want to play their games". It is definitely worth pointing out that Proton is a WINE project tho and Valve didn't do it single-handedly. Though they really did push the project forward hard. And while I'm regularly harsh on giving Valve too much unqualified praise, they deserve a good amount of praise for that work.

[@FrickinLaserBeams]

@@blarghblargh Agree on all points so have an updoot. I wasn't denigrating Valve at all, by the way. I just thought it important to remember WINE as being the instigator of all this; without WINE ever happening, Proton wouldn't exist, or exist in some other form perhaps.

[@FrickinLaserBeams]

@@jessephillips8319 Self-referencing acronyms are fun ;)

[@MorbidEel]

@@blarghblargh There is also the work done by CodeWeavers

[@XaiXago]

Proton is truly a blessing and the progress needed for me to be able to switch completely to Linux. Also, I don't think we should demand anything as Linux users. At the same time, however, I hope for a future in which we no longer need Proton. In particular, for larger titles, or the most important larger engines, it should be a goal to support cross-platform standards such as Vulkan and to provide build tools that work for the different platforms with as little extra code as possible. The goal should be to develop the game in such a way that it also runs on Linux (beside Windows, XBox, etc.), rather than to port it. One more thing: I think some of the requirements for a Linux game developer are exaggerated. For example, I would like an explanation of why you need a kernel developer to release a Linux game. Does this relate to the development of anti-cheat tools? Isn't that more of a specialized discipline where even a larger developer buys tools from external sources, some of which are also available across platforms?

[@phoenixrising4995]

Unreal supports the Vulkan backend, we just need to convince developers to use it. It will probably happen as mobile platforms become more viable and don’t support directx natively. It’s kind of like how Linux got support for many USB class compliant audio interfaces working, due to Apple not allowing separate drivers to be made messing with the IOS images.

[@glueckssilben]

We need more games that use open standards like Vulkan instead of proprietary APIs like DirectX.

[@PanduPoluan]

The main issue with Vulkan is that it's a really low-level API. Something that takes only 10 instructions in OpenGL will take hundreds of instructions in Vulkan. That is why game engines target higher-level APIs such as OpenGL or DirectX, because it's just too painful otherwise.

[@glueckssilben]

@@PanduPoluan thank you very much for the insightful comment!

[@Syping]

​@@PanduPoluanunless its DX12 + Vulkan is adding lot of more stuff recently what is considered more higher level

[@blarghblargh]

@@PanduPoluan DX12 and Vulkan are comparable. DirectX11 and DirectX12 are very different beasts. Vulkan also is not that painful. It just has a steeper learning curve. Which sucks for noobs, but is just fine for people who are developing production game engines.

[@mytech6779]

Vulkan is only 8 years old while DirectX is almost 30, so there is simply some inertia. Vulkan didn't exist when a lot of currently popular games were being developed.

[@azurarobo]

11:59 - make sure to like that smash button

[@kohiek]

Proton is the only reason I considered a Steam Deck, and the Steam Deck is really making me question if I want to another version of Windows after 10.

[@destructodisk9074]

I mostly game on Mac. Steam hardware survey doesn't account for this as the survey fails to detect the hardware then using CrossOver, so the 1.29% on Steam Survey is definitely misleading, as most Mac gamers are on CrossOver or Game Porting Toolkit or Parallels (CrossOver is the biggest by far, it is essentially our SteamOS with Proton). Anyway there are a lot of us out there, and there are a lot of people on Linux and there are folks on ChromeOS. There is potentially a future of smartphone users. So yes I think rather than trying to get developers to spend money on smaller platforms of which there are many, we should be asking them to just make their games use as many common standards as possible so translation layers are more compatible. We can all benefit from this including the devs, which won't be throwing money down a pit. This can lead to a future where Linux is more dominant or Mac gaming sees more adoption, and then at that point it will make sense for developers to pursue native games on those platforms.

[@vogonp4287]

I wish that Proton ran on Windows, so I could run some of my old Windows games that don't run on modern Windows.

[@NGSForsaken]

"Natural Selection 2" btw. is a great case study. They went all the way to a native linux build and at some point reverted to supporting linux via proton for the exact reasons you mentioned.

[@Yarkhan]

7:07 liking the smash button for the algorithm.

[@MegaManNeo]

I fully agree with you and given that Valve also aims to port Proton to ARM, everyone outside the Windows cosmos might benefit from it long term. Be it Linux, macOS, Android, iDevice OS or what have you. Companies that actively block Proton from working harm us more than they do good, but given how much money OEMs still make by listening to Microsoft and Jensen, I could very well see them going for similar routes. No seriously, even for Windows itself Wine/Proton is a good thing as we have seen with Intel ARC which barely ran any game initially until Intel went for the DXVK route.

[@DiThi]

Wine is not an emulator, but it has many, MANY things that are emulated. That doesn't mean it's slow, of course, it's emulation of features that barely have an impact in performance. In some cases it even has _better_ performance under this emulation because there are some bottlenecks that may no longer be there. For example, some syscalls may be emulated with fewer calls (or none), and disk operations may be faster because the underlying file system is just better. DX11 was THE reason of the performance and compatibility problems with Wine because there was no clean way to translate it to OpenGL. While Vulkan has the common denominator features for all higher level APIs, as well as being super similar to DX12.

[@johnknight9150]

When Proton first came out I actually saw people saying "This will discourage people from making native Linux ports, so I'm against this." 🤦 I personally love the fact that I'm running a Windows game on a system it wasn't designed for -- it's subversive. And people are missing out on the bigger picture: Proton is slowly becoming a drop-in replacement for Windows. Don't forget, Proton can be used for more than just games. You can run any app you like through it, including regular Windows desktop apps. The NES uses a 6502, the rival Sega Master System had a Z80. :-P

[@GrzesiekJedenastka]

Why would you use Proton, a Wine fork for Steam, to run desktop software rather than just Wine?

[@johnknight9150]

@@GrzesiekJedenastka You can use both. :-) They're optimised a bit differently, so if it doesn't work in one, it might work in the other.

[@PanduPoluan]

​​@@GrzesiekJedenastkaProton is more like Wine + many other goodness. It's a superset of Wine, so to speak. It does contain a forked version of Wine, but Valve has been a good open source contributor to the upstream Wine as well.

[@Syping]

​@@GrzesiekJedenastkaAny application which uses graphics APIs will run better on Proton than stock Wine (majority of times)

[@jshowao]

The problem is that it does discourage building native linux apps. Proton often doesnt work flawlessly. I would encourage native linux games if you actually cared about the viability of the platform. I absolutely hate that people are encouraging depending on a kludge then just making a native linux port.

[@MadNekUA]

Best bet for developers is to not block linux intentionally. With everything else community will come up itself.

[@seansretroverse9082]

Let's not also forget that Valve themselves recommended to game developers to NOT make native Linux ports when Steam Deck was originally announced, and instead rely on Proton for these exact reasons. Also, I have found that for some games, the native Linux build is simply not updated when the Windows version is patched. Some games have broken functionality in their Linux ports (for instance Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy), and often times cloud saves do not work between Windows and native Linux ports (i.e. Blasphemous). For both of these examples going into their Steam settings and forcing Proton (and by extension making Steam install the Windows port instead of the Linux one) actually solves both of these issues. The Windows ports are updated and patched more frequently, and are generally more stable, leading to a better user experience under Proton than native Linux builds. I can foresee perhaps a future where PC ports, as well as console ports could be written for platform agnostic APIs, and the games themselves just run as a containerized application in Windows, Linux, Mac or consoles. It seems to me like we are not too far off from that point even now.

[@computernerd8157]

Valve want us tied to their eco systems that why, no other reason. I rather build a native build for Linux and one for Windows, ect, but if I was to take valves advise then I would only build for Windows and If it happenes to work with proton then it does. This is why I do not agree with the video. Yes we are a tiny miniority but I am still not going to support this future.

[@eldaria]

Fun thing is that, some Windows games will work on current Linux versions, but not on Current Windows versions since proton only translates into an API it can translate to any older windows edition that was once translated.

[@phoenixrising4995]

I think the bigger question than why not support Linux builds should be, why not use Vulkan instead of directx and build to proton for maximum performance? Unreal supports Vulkan and most devs can poop out a binary pretty easy. ID tech engines are Vulkan or OpenGL based as well. That’s what Linux gamers should be pushing. Also, it would make it easier for devs to port to mobile later on if they do choose.

[@Fender178]

I have seen games where they both had a native Linux and Windows versions and the Linux version would lag behind the Windows version in terms of DLC and other in game content and the devs ended up ditching the Linux version in the end.

[@majorgnu]

What is Arma 3?

[@marcinsznn]

Nice that valve created proton, it made gaming easier to come into in Linux. Unfortunately some companies is aggressively including some features which are not compatible with Linux (e. g. Kernel level anticheat) and some games has broken compatibility (e.g. EA Sports wrc) or rockstar introduced easy anticheat which is compatible with Linux but rockstar broken something and don't want to fix it. Hope that MS would get third party things away from kernel. Crowd strike should be a lesson for MS.

[@Artimidorus]

I'd say less a lesson for Microsoft and more a lesson for everyone. First, people shouldn't have accepted Crowd Control just pushing software updates without internal testing, and everyone should have realized Kendall l kernel level security is dangerous. It never should have gotten here.

[@Vitis-n2v]

​@@Artimidorusyou probably haven't followed the crowd strike case till the end because their patch not being tested was an early misconception. They did test the patch and it worked however Microsoft pushed their update to some component at the same time which broke the crowdstrike patch

[@bogganalseryd2324]

@@marcinsznn it's based on wine so it's a community effort in the end, but they've added some great stuff

[@lvl.99slime28]

I’ve never seen such a complex variety of systems explained so intuitively and simply. Great job!

[@lewisholmes9526]

Hey Gardiner, Big fan of everything Proton has done for Linux and completely with you on that. I did watch a video the other day from The Linux Experiment. Nick mentioned about how Microsoft could potentially block Proton or make changes to render it useless if they decided to. Never thought about it like that or even if they could but would love to hear your thoughts on it.

[@SireDragonChester]

I just wish Valve would release steam os for desktop pc before EOL windows 10. Then once steam os is out and I Predict many ppl with ditch windows and switch steam os for gaming then hopefully devs and studios will start Jump on board and use steam os as minimum standard for games, along with windows. Then devs would start support steam os and vulkan/proton. Imo we need see steam os come out before EOL of windows 10.. Both Nintendo and Sony are using custom Linux os for there consoles. I wouldn’t doubt if most of Sony 1st Party games are mostly coded in Linux. So to port them over to Linux pc shouldn’t be that hard. But ms is the bully and they have strangle HOLD/Choke hold on pc market by forcing BLOATED windows and bloated dx 11/12 down the comsumers and gamers/devs throats. Most devs do not even Know about Vulkan, and they assume their only option is dx11/12 and old OpenGL that almost nobody use anymore thanks ms to bullying OpenGL out of the market. I also swear this why ms is grabbing up so many studios. To slow down devs from using vulkan or Discovering the Vulkan is better. ID software was fully moving Vulkan. api. Now ms owns them. Will they be forced to use DX 12? I hope we see steam os for desktop pc soon. Even if they charge $10+ for it. Rather pay and have better os then bloated windows 11. Would never move to window 11.

[@deadeye1982a]

The problem with native Linux Games is, that the market share is very low. For developers, it's easier to target Windows and support other OS via Proton (Wine).

[@PanduPoluan]

Since the games I play all have no anti cheat, I'm 100% certain that by next year Proton will be able to run every single game that I play. And that will be the time I migrate wholly to Linux, leaving Windows 10.

[@stolenlaptop]

Why wait do it now. Free your mind

[@Bokto1]

So many tried to make a posix-like standard for win32, its fitting that Gabe left Microsoft and succeed at this

[@peterjansen4826]

It is not really about Proton, Proton just uses wine and dxvk. wine comes from an external company, dxvk is a fusion of d9vk and dxvk, these were projects which were started by teens to just play their particular game(s), at first, then eventually it got pretty complicated and Valve offered to hire them and put extra developers on it to support these guys. Both dxvk and wine translate functions from Windows (in the case of wine dll=>so) to functions which we have on Linux (so and Vulkan) so that we get the same output for the same inputs. Proton just uses these tools and adds to that some scripting to make sure that everything is intalled what you need (like C# libraries) and that certain files are created, because some games need additional files on your winedrive (an example is The Witcher2, it won't start without certain files in your 'Windows' user-Documents path. Simple enough for Valve, the tricky part is to work it out for thousands of games, that took a lot of time.

[@Alex_whatever]

I wouldn't say "Proton uses WINE" I would say, "Proton IS WINE" because it is Valve's fork of WINE. As in, they are the same thing but with Valve's tweaks and additions mixed in. When you install Steam on Linux, you do not need to also install WINE separately nor is one a dependency of the other. Edit: Also, Proton-GE is also WINE but with Valve's AND GloriousEggroll's tweaks and additions.

[@peterjansen4826]

@@Alex_whatever Fair point but it also uses dxvk and has some additional scriptiing, right? It is more like Lutris in that sense but with Valve's fork from wine and dxvk all contained in one directory (name it a container if you like). I tried out Proton-GE multiple times when I was not happy with the result from the regular version, for me so far it never made a difference. However, in general (I have played Deadlock though) I play older games (I wait for a lower baseprice, good discount and all DLC's included), for newer games it probably makes more difference.

[@flamingscar5263]

Proton is significantly better for 1 key reason, collaboration A perfect compatible layer has 0 issues not found on windows, this means if a game on linux has issues not found on windows, it can be fixed within proton itself or the game itself This means not only can the devs fix issues, but Valve and the Linux community can to With Linux native builds, it's solely in the devs to fix issues, and why would we choose that option? Linux is entirely built on the idea of working together

[@RemyDelaCruz]

Earlier versions of Windows were based on DOS. But after Windows NT that changed.

[@mytech6779]

Up to 3.1 windows was just a simple GUI on top of DOS. I mean you booted to DOS then launched windows with a manual DOS command. 95-98 and Millenium were extentions of the DOS base, 2000 and XP used the NT kernel. vista and later evolved fromn that but there were some major attempts at new directions within MS that never made it as far as an alpha product (mostly bad project timing and resourses being pulled).

[@stexes007]

Nice Video this is very informative for everyone who's got some ambition to make the switch to Linux. I've already made a comment somewhere on reddit about the topic and IMO just let devs make games for windows by default. I don't care if on Linux we are going to use compatibility layers forever. It just works perfectly in so many cases. Portproton and UMU is there for us to make use of Proton outside of Steam. it's quite a ride with Linux with a power user mindset, but for any normal user getting windows games to launch so easily with Proton is outstanding and just tells the long tale of how easy Linux Gaming is. ex.: SH2 Remake just came out. I'm on Mint 22 so I don't even have the latest Nvidia driver. I didn't even think about if it's going to run. Turns out it runs perfectly. but it has to be said NOTHING is perfect Linux Gaming still has it's short comings and might not be for everyone to thinker around when something just doesn't work OOB. So while Linux has it's own set of issues and is not always perfect, neither is Windows.

[@edison3571]

As a Linux user, I hope developers start to get on board with gaming. Proton and Steam have made great strides in Linux gaming and it is greatly appreciated by Linux users. I hope there is a day when I will not have to check for compatibility before I purchase a game.

[@alexstone691]

Im guessing in future arm or riscv, whstever the next architecture is, is gonna just be easily ported to using proton

[@Onihikage]

Valve is in fact working on an ARM version of Proton right now, likely related to successors for the Deck and/or Index. However, I expect that will be much closer to an emulator, with the requisite performance hit, because ARM and x86 are entirely different hardware architectures. And if they're going that far, integrating an Android emulator directly into Steam, meant for playing Android games, probably isn't a stretch.

[@NFvidoJagg2]

Proton is in effect Xwayland of pc gaming.

[@phoenixrising4995]

Well It’s looking like Proton 10 might be native Wayland. No xwayland and be will be built against sdl3

[@NFvidoJagg2]

@@phoenixrising4995 What I'm referring to is that proton is the stop gap measure to get everyone onboard. But because of the path of least resistance. There is a danger of becoming the go to default.

[@gardiner_bryant]

If people don't understand Proton, there's a high probably they have no idea what Wayland (or X) is. Haha

[@phoenixrising4995]

@@gardiner_bryant they won’t care, it’s not that developers don’t know how, it’s more about reducing expenses. Why maintain 2 build when you can maintain 1. This is why Vulkan needs more of a push instead of Linux native builds.

[@NFvidoJagg2]

@@gardiner_bryant This is true. However I couldn't, not see the parallels between the two.

[@GutoGerbase]

Hey, thanks for posting this video; very insightful and interesting

[@thebard328]

What an excellent video! It's so well explained. Concerning the native ports, it's more nuances than that. Steam survey report more Linux uses than Mac OS. But there are many games with a MacOS version but not a Linux versions like Baldur's Gate 3. And MacOS is, like Linux, very different from Windows. It's not only a matter of users, but image. MacOS is Apple, people want to support Apple because Apple has a good image while Linux is still perceived as a weird thing not meant for gaming. In addition, games with a native version tend to have a better Proton support. A game that is designed to be cross platform generally don't use uncommon Windows API so there are more chance that it is supported by Proton. Proton is not windows, it's still a new target developers have to actively support by having a dedicated QA chain. Of course it is much simpler than having to make a Linux port, but it still deserve some attention, like one of the many different versions of Windows

[@mytech6779]

I want just one top grade game that is released exclusively for Linux. Something good enough to attract people to the OS, similar to the idea of console exclusives. It may be a loss leader but the long term effect would be substantial, follow a year or two later with another and momentum will grow. The one restriction is that it should NOT be packaged for Ubuntu. Target Debian and Arch, maybe Fedora. Let the downstream distros adapt. The Most irritating part of commercial software for Linux is they don't hire anyone that understands the broader Linux ecosystem and they are a decade behind on rumors so they make stuff that absolutely can't work anywhere but Ubuntu; almost like releasing it as an APK for Android and claiming it was a Linux release.

[@FedJimSmith]

but still, Windows being synonomous as "PC" platform sucks so much. But I guess proton compatibility is far more preferrable than switching to (or even dual-booting) Windows

[@mytech6779]

I get pedantic and act obtuse whenever somebody ignorantly refers to windows as "PC", and ask if they are running the macintosh operating system on their personal computer. (I would say something like Tandy or Commador but most have never heard those brand names.)

[@mateoconk]

One of your best videos yet.

[@NGSForsaken]

I think the best solution would be a common runtime (like steam kind of provides already) that is supported on all operating systems. But we all know how well industries like adopting a universal standard :/

[@keit99]

Yup it would just be Yet another Standard that only 5 peiple or so use 😂

[@chriswinters-ca]

I use to be one of these people, then I thought about it for more than 3 seconds and realized that any native Linux build of any game would require some ongoing maintenance to keep up with library updates, even if that maintenance is minimal. Valve tried remedying this by offering a static set of "steam" libraries developers could use instead of the distro's system libraries, but even these would need to be updated and only a handful of officially supported distros could expect reasonable performance. Proton, on the other hand, requires almost no involvement on the part of the game developer. They can build for Windows and, as long as they set a few build flags properly, Proton takes care of the rest. In addition, Proton is distro agnostic. It runs pretty much the same on Arch Linux as it does on Ubuntu as it does on Fedora as it does on... etc. You get the point. I used to think native Linux builds or bust. Now, however, Proton gets the job done and exceeds my expectations in the vast majority of cases. Valve truly has become the best thing to happen to Linux since the birth of Linus Torvalds.

[@OutLanderUSN]

I have a buddy who believes that native Linux builds are the only possible solution. When it comes up again I'm going to bring up everything I've seen in this video and the comments.

[@TeoUSN]

I was hesitant to switch over to Linux, because I was incorrectly thinking as to how difficult it would be, and a massive learning curve. I switched to Linux Mint, and while I see some issues gaming on it, nothing is game breaking, and I don't notice any difference in performance. The fact that some devs will actively block gamers on any system that isn't Windows is aggravating, and makes it sound like they are in Microsoft's pocket. If you are willing to put a little bit of effort into it, you get a better performing, more secure system.

[@NoX-512]

Excellent video, Bryant!

[@KyleLoiselle]

Fantastic video Gardiner! Loved all the effort in the visuals, it really shines through!

[@eternia-reginleif]

The problem with compatibility layer is, it is kinda tricky to run online game with anti cheat software.

[@zoox3732]

This is caused by a complete denial of compatibility from the anti-cheat system itself, not from some difficulty in translating the instructions. When you eliminate the need for compatibility layer, like with emulation, often the anti-cheat will /still/ disallow you from playing. "Why," you may ask? Idk... But many anti-cheats /do/ allow compatibility layers like Wine because of how noisy the Linux community can be, it's just that that support is disabled for undisclosed security reasons for games like Fortnite (Tim Sweeney is my favorite example) or that other popular one that I forgot

[@chaddesrosiers1107]

That is because games are allowing game companies to hook into their kernels. Gamers need to start rejecting companies and games that insist on this unsafe practice. More gamers need to refuse to play games with these types of anti cheat. Frankly you can't be sure the companies making those games or the companies making the anti cheat components aren't browsing your drives or worse. Its interesting that basically all the anti cheat companies that use these methods are founded/staffed by Ex Black hat types. If a game wants kernel level access... don't play it.

[@elbuglione]

The best Online games of today have a Native Linux support. Indeed.. everyone is talking about the next big online title: Deadlock

[@lophilip]

diablo 4 anticheat works with proton!

[@blarghblargh]

sure, but what good games use those? last one I can think of was doom eternal, and they got rid of it if I recall

[@martinh4982]

Nice summary. I'm not sure how a compatibility layer can become a baseline, however. It's not something you program to, it's something that translates code you've programmed for.

[@gardiner_bryant]

I mean Windows is going to die and Linux will become the standard OS. But game devs won't end up learning Linux.

[@elbuglione]

you have to understand this: Linux offer better performance in games... but devs dont know how to "develop for Linux" (is not that hard... but they are just "not good"). Proton offers a perfect solution "out of the box" who don't demand big compromises of resources and mach (even surpases) the mediocre results of natives Windows games. This is good enough for users to stop using that crappy OS (sadly get worse day by day) and switching 100% to Linux. In a future (interesting not far), competition will push devs to reach the best performance ... and everyone here knows Linux offers that

[@martinh4982]

@@elbuglione And yet most Devs don't seem to have a problem releasing games for FreeBSD, albeit Sony's fork of it. Makes me think it's more of a case of whatever middleware they're using not targeting Linux. But given there are so many Linux distros, I wonder if it's possible to make the games work on each and every one of them.

[@elbuglione]

@@martinh4982 yes, they has....indeed in PS3 era, SONY has a major problem to reach devs. Nowadays, devs only port on Playstation because its has a second biggest platform in the world. the problem of "distro choice" is problem close to been resolved... we have to wait what will do VALVe with full release of SteamOS or will make a mayor flip to ArchLinux.

[@phoenixrising4995]

You could convince people to use Vulkan instead of Direct X and the translation is effectively native and you get a perfectly working Windows build.

[@danfg7215]

Talos Principle 2 developers stated they offer no support for Linux, and the game runs perfectly with Proton. I played the whole game including DLC, amazing performance, zero complaints here.

[@russjr08]

This is such a fantastic breakdown of how Proton and WINE work! My job is in technical support so I'm used to breaking down concepts into a more digestible format, but this was certainly better than if I'd tried to explain how Proton works. I will definitely be saving this video for when I come across someone who wants to know more about Proton (or has a misunderstanding of how it works, such as the examples from the beginning of your video) - my only regret is that I don't have too many people in my circles who are interested in this stuff (but I do have some friends who'll let me go on about it anyways because they know it makes me happy 😅).

[@mariofanl1ve]

Well you learn something new everyday. I thought I knew what a compatibility layer is, but apparently I did not. All I knew was that it wasn't emulation.

[@vladislavkaras491]

Great explanation! Thank you!

[@niluss6]

What you describe is a good goal, to have a layer above the os where everything runs on top of it. Much like what java runtime is, as an example. But, as it is, Proton is still a workaround. There is just a lot of dependencies in play. It depends on what instructions is in windows. It depends in what instructions on linux. The experience also depends on the experience in linux, and the drivers on linux. It is a catchup game. There's really a lot of breaking points. It all goes back to needing good actual linux support/experience. And by the time linux support is good, you wouldn't even need Proton.

[@SolarPoweredPerson]

Thank you for this video! Coming more from the business/consumer side of tech, this answered a lot of questions that I've had for a while. It's not often a video gets a rewatch, but this will be one. Liked, subbed, and soon to be: a dudelings player.

[@crazymonkeyVII]

Thank you for spending some time on this. I fully agree with you. I game exclusively on Linux, and my old gaming rig is competing with (and sometimes exceeding) the performance of my friend's much beefier gaming rig. I find that most games that work, work as well or better than on Windows. The anti-cheat thingy is extremely annoying (but not of huge significance for me). I accept having to use Proton, but no Tux no bucks!

[@TheCalifornianeskimo]

Yo your homestar runner at the beginning there was pretty damned good

[@mytech6779]

brrrackak dakcka dacka dak dak brring! Gunna answer some emails...

[@sherrilltechnology]

Man just a great video thanks so much!!!!

[@Eagledelta3]

So, what you're saying is that Proton is an API..... that is what it's doing. It's an API for running windows games on Linux. Which by definition all APIs are "Native". Proton IS Native.

[@paulothx138]

Thanks for explaining what proton is for common folk.

[@elHosed]

I love Proton and Wine. Every native Linux build I've tried on Steam doesn't work, but I can run every old game I own on Proton. Stuff that even Windows latest won't run. Usually it's because OSS doesn't really preserve backwards compatibility of libraries or those libraries aren't distributed natively anymore. Keep in mind that linux has always taken the idea that your software is all OSS and therefore can just be recompiled to your current machine configurations. That's the reason behind projects like Flatpak, Snap, and AppImages. A commercial project is never going to OSS their code for Linux support. Without Wine/Proton I would have seriously considered going to Win10 and Win11 to preserve my 600+ games library. Instead I upgraded to Linux even on my home machines (migrated years ago for my business machines) and have walked away completely from Windows and MS in general.

[@Dinu5346]

Great explanation! ❤

[@nexusanphans3813]

Hey, at least I'm just demanding, not enforcing or anything. What is the point of being a customer if I am not allowed to demand something? Customer demanding is one thing, the developers actually deciding on it is another. It's not a rude thing for a customer to ask for what they want in a product.

[@asphalt2554]

7:06 Like that smash button

[@Jelly2003]

I agree that Proton is great, and really isn’t an emulator, and really has been a boon for Linux gaming. Proton could position itself as a target set of APIs for building an operating system agnostic games, however there would be no way that Microsoft (or Apple) would care less about keeping their feature set and APIs proton compatible. As you mentioned we already have huge hurdles with kernel level anti-cheat (which honestly should be outright banned anyway). My concern with Proton is that it makes Linux gaming into a house of cards ready to come tumbling down if something were to happen to Proton. All it would take would be MS implementing a feature in a new revision of Direct X that Proton can’t handle (perhaps that might be legal hurdle, or some kind of fundamental technology that Linux can't use). But yeah, you’re dead right that there isn’t really any other way right now, with user base, developer familiarity, and the challenges of targeting Linux. Good video overall I did learn a little. That said, I also want to be a little nit picky about a couple of things that bothered me: 1) The NES uses the “Ricoh 2A03” CPU a 6502 variant, not the Z80, you really should have researched that better considering how long you spent talking about it. 2) Windows is no longer based on DOS and there hasn’t been a DOS based Windows in 24 years. Modern Windows is based on the NT kernel, which is also OLD, released in 1993, however, Linux is also OLD, released in 1991. Both kernels have been modernised over time.

[@mskiptr]

Frankly, since games are usually proprietary anyway, it doesn't matter really whether they are speaking win32 or X11. (Native Wayland ones could have some advantages tho…)

[@gruntaxeman3740]

Game developers are just incompetent. It isn't big effort to set up new build chain to build and test native binaries. Higher level API found from game engines and libraries is anyway identical on every platform. Game developers don't write any code against Win32 or X11.

[@mytech6779]

@@gruntaxeman3740 But engine devs do.

[@richardmenz3257]

Also making everything for windows, Linux, or Mac just keeps us in the same place but building for proton if more is come out they can be supported. So building for proton is more future proof then anything else as well.

[@blast_processing6577]

In light of the N64 decompilation/recompilation work that's been done, would it be possible to create tools to decompile games (and applications) for specific operating systems -- such as Windows XP or OS X Lion, etc. -- and recompile them for x86-64 or ARM Linux? With another shift in the dominant CPU architecture on the horizon, it seems like decompilation/recompilation would be ideal, especially considering it gives more flexibility for tweaking/modding the code or even just using (or combining) parts of it.

[@vitorsilveira02]

Such a nice video!

[@SunevDNA]

Loved that homestar runner voice

[@marble_wraith]

Rather then linux only games, i'd prefer if we had a company / platform which supported the scenario of preservation beyond supported lifetime... the antithesis of Nintendo if you will. So for example it could state in the license terms: When purchasing any title for this platform from a vendor you agree to a limited license agreement to not modify or redistribute source (with whatever provisions for DLC's). The license period can be undefined at the time of purchase ie. up to the game studio to announce its expiration, ideally when the game itself isn't going to receive any more "official support". After the license period has expired the conditions also expire ie. people can create 3rd party workarounds / services to keep these (now legacy) games running as intended to be experienced by the original developers. This also covers emulation and enhancements to a degree (texture packs, etc.)

[@lugaidster]

What I think we should be able to ask or request is making game devs target peoton as a base rather than windows. That way their releases are tested directly on proton8

[@joshuathomasbird]

in order to use the map you need to use a map; thats *at least* an extra pointer lookup.

[@zoox3732]

The performance impact is so incredibly negligible when you think about the logic that went behind the system deciding to make the call (if blah then check arguments for validity and maybe CALL with 1 -> all Wine has to do is see CALL and do MYCALL with 1). Besides, more heavy systems like the rendering system are not only boosted by Vulkan, but the lookups in question are put into the CPU/GPU's memory (as they do on every OS), negating that already negligible performance cost

[@thegreengator71]

Thanks for the explanation.

[@Zeptic1]

Thank you for this video, it was incredibly helpful.

[@SOF006]

I subscribed to you because of this video, thank you

[@joshuathomasbird]

homestarrunner is that your???

[@gardiner_bryant]

Great jeorb

[@05Matz]

If people didn't use features specific to an OS, and used their game engine's cross-platform features correctly (present on ALL popular modern game engines other than niche/internal stuff), building for Linux would be as easy as checking an additional box in their editor. However, most studios have gotten themselves into technical debt, with plugins, frameworks, and other existing code that is built specifically for Windows, making the cross-platform game engine they started out with Windows-only again. I frankly am extremely annoyed that you shame people for asking for native builds -- I think it's premature to ask for them NOW, but I want first-class native builds too -- I just know that it will take time (likely decades) for the industry to transition to the point where all studios are both using platform-independent engines (most indies already do, having limited choices outside the typical Unity/Unreal/Godot trifecta, which AFAIK DO all offer first-class Linux support) and, more critically, are using those engines in a platform-independent way without Windows-specific plugins or legacy code.

[@Xankill3r]

I've been playing a lot of games on my Linux machine including many that have very few reports on ProtonDB - or at least very few recent reports. In my experience Proton is definitely the way to go with quite a few old native builds now broken either partially or completely. There are games that work overall but certain input methods are not longer functional, games that just refuse to launch, etc. I work in the games industry and I don't know if people outside the industry realize this or not but basically no one wants to support games for a decade or more unless they are making decent revenue over that period. And also not everyone is in a state to be able to provide that sort of support since companies can and do go bankrupt fairly regularly. Perhaps a GOG like entity focused on Linux (maybe GOG themselves?) could solve this problem of compatibility of older titles. But unless that happens native builds are definitely good in the few years following a launch but will end up becoming very quickly outdated as time goes on.

[@OkraPlutonium]

Loved this video!

[@meltymooncakes]

honestly i kinda agree, for example i play vrchat and you have to compile avatars and worlds for 3 different platforms all seperately, if they added linux support it wouldnt fix anything and everyone would still just use proton

[@peterjansen4826]

It should be emphaszed (to avoid misunderstandings) that the regular user can also directly interface with both the kernel and the hardware by using systemcalls (kernel) and for example assembly (CPU). Practically speaking most regular users don't do that because it is much easier to just use API's and systemlibraries, let those do the heavy lifting but if you want to explore how it all works then you want to play with that. Withn emulation you simulate the hartdware in software, your real hardware has to do a lot of extra work to pretend to run on that simulated hardware. You can't understand this without studying some CPU-architecture. wine and dxvk simply translate instructions from one set of libraries to another. For example, the instruction could be to solve a quadratic equation, on both Linux and Windows we have functions avaialble which will do that for us, wine could then simply figure out which functions on Linux should be used to get the same result as what Windows does. That is pretty easy to understand for anybody who has learned a tiny bit of programming.

[@sam_64]

The NES did NOT use a zilog z80. It used a ricoh 2a03, which is actually based on the mos 6502.

[@gardiner_bryant]

Yes. I'm aware of that. Originally I wrote the script to talk about the Sega Master System and then changed it to talk about the NES instead and forgot to change the professor.

[@UnlockedANDunleashed]

Share the video? I'm gonna archive it bro this is really good

[@ZebofZebYT]

With Java and OpenJDK, I only needed to make 1 change for my Linux window system to correctly setup my window. Idk if that is universal across Linux(I have Mint).

[@Goodmanperson55]

The better long term plan is for a slow switch-over where it isn't Linux that needs a compat layer, but it's gonna be Windows that needs a compat layer for Linux

[@gruntaxeman3740]

No need to. Game engines have the layer and they take care lower level. Game developers just fail to do basics.

[@ravagingwolverine]

I learned a few things here, though not which CPU was in the NES🤪 !! I've always been a "good enough is good enough" kind of guy when it comes to Linux gaming, so while I have often preferred having native versions, Proton/WINE compatibility was never a deal breaker. It's interesting to hear that there are other benefits to it as well. I've often viewed it as a positive thing, and a good path forward for Linux gaming overall. It's just a matter of WINE and Proton reaching a point of high reliability. It's very good in a lot of ways already, but I still encounter some issues. But having to use compatibility layers is less of an obstacle for me then it used to be as far as picking games to play. Things have gotten good enough that I assume they will work, and if they don't, I'll come back to that game in the future and hope for improvements.

[@MikeGaruccio]

From a Linux gamers perspective native builds are cool, but, it’s almost better for a developer to put the resources that would be required for one into ensuring proton compatibility since that work ends up benefiting every game, not just theirs.

[@Catamount1412]

Relying on Wine (and derivatives) not only keeps developers to what they're familiar with, but also just avoids needless duplication of work. I've noticed a number of games that are just better-maintained in their Windows builds. Borderlands 2, for instance, has been updated on the Windows side subtly over time. There's even stuff announcing BL4 there now. The nature Linux version is wildly deprecated by comparison. It's missing basic features like fullscreen window mode, and it hasn't been updated in so long that things are just broken, like I found the certificate relied on for connecting to the shift code server wasn't even present on my system, wasn't installed by the game, and wasn't otherwise readily obtainable - something I was only able to easily find out because that certificate was a problem on the Linux client for as long as the game existed (the game would look in the wrong folder on many distros). Devs don't necessarily have the bandwidth to maintain two versions of a game, especially when one might run differently across different variations of the OS. Linux versions aren't just less familiar - they're likely inherently harder to maintain and support across all the slightly different operating environments that have everything from slightly-different folder structures to having to contend with both X11 and Wayland and their respective interactions with different GPU vendors, and troubleshoot problems that might arise in any of those variations of a desktop Linux system. I think ALL software should, if not aiming for a native Linux client, at least specifically aim for a Wine-compatible client, and in many cases that's going to be the ideal approach even over native.

[@dielectric_boogaloo]

IT JUST WORKS

[@ewomer100]

Native would be nice, but the overhead cost from developing multiple platforms lowers your chances of getting a port. Proton opens up the possibility of playing games on Linux that we normally couldn't. The point we need to get to is where developers actively support games on Proton.

[@Burgo361]

Proton works fine and means we don't have to convince every dev to care about linux and works on old games seems like a win for everybody to me

[@SteelHorseRider74]

This is one of the best (the best?) video describing the whole situation. Imho the whole world would be a better one if Game Studios would concentrate on such ONE layer of abstraction rather than many - I'm used to play on Linux since it was possible (somewhere in the 90's) and must say without such layer of abstraction like Proton (and assuming it stays well backwards compatible), it is quite impossible to play old games on actual distros, well, because of "reasons" - same with old Win games btw =) so I second that, developing for such things like proton will be a good decision for the future of gaming

[@Rmonta990]

thanks mate

[@ricky_pigeon]

If your game works through Proton then soon Android users will be playing Windows games through Steam too. At least if you go by the rumours/leaks that Proton will be working on ARM too. I'm not trying to be a fanboy of any system, i'm just pointing out as someone who owns a Steam Deck and does not care as long as it works. If i was a Dev, that's what i'd probably think too.

[@nonetrix3066]

Is Vulkan really faster than DirectX? They seem about on par tbh, I think games that support both it's similar story

[@rayjaymor8754]

I get the desire for "native Linux" support with games. But we need to accept the reality that this is pretty much never going to happen. Windows isn't going anywhere short-term; and based on market size, game development companies will focus on MacOS *long* before Linux ever becomes a focus. Proton making it super easy to get games from Windows to Linux is absolutely the best middle-ground we can hope for short-term. It's a great way to fix the chicken & egg scenario we have. As more people use Proton to get games working on Linux, game dev companies see more people using Linux and then start developing for them.

[@lavender188]

reminds me of that one time a year(?) ago I tried to play Dusk on my steam deck. the controls werent working and i looked it up. apparently the fix was to just run the windows version thru proton instead of the native linux version. i did that and everything just worked perfectly fine. proton goated.

[@Dunestorm333]

Windows being based on DOS isn't entirely true. Windows NT is a very different system to DOS, it has an entirely different kernel and may as well be a different OS all together. Although Windows 2000 and 98 look very similar on the surface, underneath they are entirely different. NT had to provide a compatibility layer to DOS early on for user adoption; so stuff like the drive letters and filesystem structure were made the same for compatibility’s sake. In any case though, modern UNIX-like systems are still vastly better designed than Windows NT 🙂

[@bloepje]

The biggest problem is that there are bugs in the games which only make the game crash on Linux. And hence another application specific bug workaround is added to wine. But that is what makes wine better than windows.

[@_M_643]

If the game has been made for Windows, then crashing on Linux is not an application specific bug. Wine making a specific workaround for it is compatibility.

[@davidrenton]

Wine and Windows are not comparable Wine is a drink , made from Grapes Windows are a hole usually in a wall , with glass most of the time, to allow light in and out Wine is better than Windows to get Drunk., but Wine is useless to see what is outside. oh wait you talking about Software, fair enough

[@PanduPoluan]

An extra pointer lookup is just several CPU cycles. With 1 GHz clock speed, that's in the order of nanoseconds, not even microseconds, much less milliseconds. Basically it's so negligible it won't affect performance.

[@blarghblargh]

Pretty good video. "Vulkan is usually far more performant than DirectX in like-for-like calls" There's a can of worms inside that statement. That may be somewhat true for DX11. But DX12 is another beast entirely, and is kinda-sorta at the same level as Vulkan. At least, that's my understanding. I have used DX11 (and OGL) and I'm learning Vulkan now. But I haven't used DX12 yet. Some other reasons game devs might avoid bothering with Linux is that Linux isn't a single distribution, and getting games to work cross-distro requires weird (steam specific) container shims in your build system, that just aren't required to build for Windows. And (as mentioned in the video) while the user base is double the % they used to be, they still aren't going to bring enough revenue to justify the engineering cost and ongoing maintenance and bug-fixing. And proton is already working darn well, now. The main developers of a game have to basically love Linux and primarily focus on it. The market share doesn't really justify the focus on its own. If your game runs well on Linux and doesn't run well on Windows, your game is gonna bomb hard. So most devs will suck it up and develop on Windows, because then they can dogfood their game for years on the platform the vast majority of their players will be using.