Steam’s June Client Update Brings Proton Default on Linux
Steam’s June Client Update Brings Proton Default on Linux
linuxiac.com
Steam's June Client Update Brings Proton Default on Linux
19 comments
19 comments
Steam’s June Client Update Brings Proton Default on Linux
Steam's June Client Update Brings Proton Default on Linux
I'd like native builds really, but this kinda discourages that. Then again though, with tiny market share Linux has, it's understandable devs don't support it natively. It's also good to not have to manually enable Proton everytime too.
Oh and I suppose this helps with adoption, one less hurdle for someone to jump through to just play games from their library.
While I agree, I think that getting more games on Linux is far more useful. When Linux is almost 3% very few studios will care much. If they can do a small bit of testing on Proton and maybe work around a bug or two they are far more likely to do that then make and test a native build. If this then gets Linux usage to 5, 10 or 20% that will drive more native builds.
So I agree that it somewhat reduces the incentive to release a native build. But I think that is outweighed by the benefits of making the Linux gaming experience better today which will have a greater impact on availability of native builds in the future.
Absolutely. You are right, the initial uptake is more important right now. Most of the Linux market share on Steam is the Steam Deck right now.
The native builds override the proton comparability layer from running.
A third party ported a game to Linux then stopped keeping it up to date with the Windows version. Your versions have to match for online play, so to play with your Windows buddies, you have to force it to use the latest version on proton. But guess what, the save data is separated between platforms, so you have to create your character again and lose your story progress.
The game is Borderlands 2 BTW.
Yeah, but I mean when making a decision to natively support Linux, it becomes more likely to skip it as "proton can just handle it".
So it's likely we won't see more native development until Linux desktop adoption is much much higher.
You know, as a full-time Linux user, I think I rather have game developers continue to create Windows executables.
Unlike most software, games have a tendency to be released, then supported for one or two years, and then abandoned. But meanwhile, operating systems and libraries move on.
If you have a native Linux build of a game from 10 years ago, good luck trying to run it on your modern system. With Windows builds, using Wine or Proton, you actually have better chances running games from 10 or even 20 years ago.
Meanwhile, thanks to Valve’s efforts, Windows builds have incentive to target Vulkan, they’re getting tested on Linux. That’s what we should focus on IMO, because those things make games better supported on Linux. Which platform the binary is compiled for is an implementation detail… and Win32 is actually the more stable target.
Linux is not getting exclusive builds anytime soon, in our lifetime I'd wager. So Windows builds would still exist anyway, so it would make no difference having native Linux builds, it would only be a bonus. Besides, if Linux somehow eclipses Windows to a point developers don't support Windows anymore, then I'm sure there would be compatibility layers or whatever built to run old Linux games on newer hardware too.
Steam has always had a Linux Runtime for that exact reason.