Using a Linux based Operating System itself is quite a challenge for any person. Every simple task requires a thorough knowledge of the Terminal and the corresponding commands to install, maintain, and use features on the system. However, things become even more difficult when games come into the picture. Developers generally prefer to ignore any Operating System other than Windows, and as a result not only are there fewer games for Linux, the games which are released have various performance issues and bugs. And the patch updates are released every once in a blue moon. Hence, Valve decided to solve that problem.
Valve decided to authorise Proton support for Linux Based Operating Systems, making playing Windows games much easier for Linux gamers, unless the said gamers want to configure the game files themselves to play them. To add on top of that, a lot of games simply aren’t available for Linux or have multiplayer modes which don’t work with other platforms except for Linux. With the release of Proton, that all changes.
The latest Beta update allows Linux gamers to add an application in the form of a non-steam game and play it using the Wine compatibility layer, which produces simply better results than playing the version meant for Linux. Proton itself is a set of applications which increase the compatibility of Windows applications on Linux. It is more like an aggregate of all the apps required to run Windows games on the platform given how much better they run as compared to native variants.
While not all games run equally smoothly, and a few native ports are actually better than the proton variants, for the games which have poor or no ports at all, Proton is the way to go. And Valve has made a smart decision by allowing Steam users to access it. Valve has already whitelisted a list of titles to use with Proton, meaning that they have confirmed to be better than the ported versions. However, if gamers cannot find their game there, they can easily just enforce gameplay with Proton by ticking a simple checkbox.
While this change still doesn’t spare Linux users from the troubles of having to install and maintain the rest of the drivers and software necessary to play games, such as Graphics Card Drivers, this will allow them to play their favourite game without having to rely on the Windows ecosystem almost entirely, with the exception of a few things such as the DirectX APIs.
