Steam gets built-in tools to let you run Windows games on Linux – now available in beta

August 22, 2018 Steam's Linux compatibility tools are confirmed - and now in beta.

Steam Play - Valve’s name for its cross-platform initiative - is getting a major update, with built-in tools allowing you to run Windows games on Linux. We saw the first hints of the feature last week, and today Valve has confirmed it. It’s available right now in beta, so if you want to test the compatibility features on your own Linux install you don’t have to wait. The new tools run on Proton, which is custom distribution of the widely-used Wine compatibility tool. In the most practical terms, this means you can now download and install Windows games directly from the Steam client without any further fuss. Valve is currently checking “the entire Steam catalog” and whitelisting games that run without issue, but you can turn off those guidelines and install whatever you want, too. Proton should provide enhanced performance over Wine in many cases, according to Valve. DirectX 11 and 12 implementations are now based on Vulkan, and performance in multi-threaded games “has been greatly improved compared to vanilla Wine.” You’ll also see better fullscreen and controller support with Proton. It’s also fully open source, and available on GitHub.