It’s what turned me into a Steam user. Still feels like a moral failing using non-free software, but it sure is fun.
It’s what set me free to move to Linux for good! It’s such a relief to not be affected by all the bullshit Microsoft brings to the world with Windows 11+.
Valve’s contributions to Wine can be used without using Steam’s DRM-based client such as in applications like Bottles and Lutris. However, we should call on Valve to release the steam client API to the public and to only distribute DRM free games (like GOG).
Dang, five years already? Wow!
We can’t forget about the many other open-source projects like Doitsujin’s DXVK, Joshua 🐸 Ashton’s D9VK, the Wine Project, Play-on-linux, Lutris, GloriousEggroll’s patches… many of which preceded Proton and helped Proton to develop and get where it is today.
This is why i started using linux 4 years ago, without Proton probably wouldn’t consider using it… Thanks valve!
I hear this story quite a lot. “Proton is what allowed me to switch” and yet people are still moaning at me for focusing on Proton and Valve and not Wine directly for the article lol
I’d say the best contribution is they managed to build a mainstream commercial service on top of all of this!
This is the best summary I could come up with:
A lot of the early porting work that came along was slowly dying off since the Steam Machines didn’t provide the boost Valve and Linux gamers were hoping for.
Side-note: John Carmack (id Software / Oculus VR / Keen Technologies) even thought Wine was the solution back in 2013.
Valve has funded a lot of extra work though to get things like DXVK and VKD3D-Proton for the translation from Direct3D to Vulkan into a state where performance can be really great!
Games like Deep Rock Galactic, God of War, Death Stranding, Baldur’s Gate 3, Brotato, Beat Saber and so on.
You get the idea, there’s a truly ridiculous selection of games available and at times it’s a little paralysing scrolling through my Steam Library deciding what to play — a delightfully annoying problem to have huh?
Valve produce updates to Proton constantly to improve compatibility, with over 300 revisions to the main changelog (although some a minor text corrections) it’s clear to see how much work goes into it.
The original article contains 1,145 words, the summary contains 169 words. Saved 85%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
So glad the Steam Deck has been an awesome powerhouse in giving valve reason to continue this push.
5 years already? Shit, I’m old.
I actually had some hair when it first released lol
TIL Valve started and maintains Proton…
Not to belittle their work, but the majority of stuff that made up proton wasn’t theirs back then (basically wine+dxvk did the heavy lifting). They owned up to it in the end, paying driver developers and hiring dxvk authors and if I’m not mistaken also fund some wine work. A rather successful open source story but they aren’t the initial driving force.
Dang I thought proton was older than that. I remember playing No Man’s Sky on Linux around the time it was released on pc. I don’t remember running a pirated copy of NMS just so I could make it run on wine but maybe I was. (you used to have to do that whether you owned the game or not if you wanted to play on Linux).
Proton is a fork of Wine which is much much older than that
