Linux just gained another .13% usage, while Windows lost .23. Another win for Linux

I don’t think I’ve seen anyone run Steam through Wine. What would be the reasons for that?

Sickday
link
fedilink
121d

I haven’t used it in a while, but last time I tried Lutris there were many games that relied on the Steam on Wine runner.

It used to be common and useful. I did this even after Valve shipped a native Linux TF2 as at the beginning the Wine method gave better results on my hardware. But that time has long passed as Valve has integrated Wine (Proton) and in almost all cases the Linux native builds will outperform Wine (and Steam will let you use the Windows version via Proton if you want even if there is a native Linux build).

So while I suspect that there are still a few people doing this out of momentum, habit or reading old tutorials I am not aware of any good reasons to do this anymore.

But why would you run steam under wine? The games themselves make sense, but steam not so much.

Semperverus
link
fedilink
222d

There used to be a time when Steam for Linux didn’t exist.

  1. Launching Steam games outside of Steam can be very difficult. Some games outright won’t allow it.
  2. Steam provides native libraries such as the overlay, networking and matchmaking tools, achievements… You need to have Windows versions of these which wouldn’t be distributed by default in the Linux version of Steam.
  3. In the past Steam just didn’t run under Linux, so you had no other option.
TipRing
link
fedilink
122d

deleted by creator

Oh, does it allow you on Linux to download all games with the native client? On the Mac that doesn’t work, so then I run it through Wine.

On Linux you can run native version of Steam, which then uses Wine (actually Proton, which is based on Wine) for running games. So Steam is not wrapped within Wine, but the games are (if needed/enabled)

There is an option in settings to allow trying all games. By default it only allows it for tested and verified games. But it is a simple checkbox then you can download and run any Windows game.

Steam on Linux has it’s own version of wine(proton) built in.

So you can launch Windows games through the Linux native Steam client.

does it allow you on Linux to download all games with the native client?

yes, and then you run them using Proton, Valve’s tool based on Wine, specially made for doing exactly that.

Create a post

Gaming on the GNU/Linux operating system.

Recommended news sources:

Related chat:

Related Communities:

Please be nice to other members. Anyone not being nice will be banned. Keep it fun, respectful and just be awesome to each other.

  • 0 users online
  • 18 users / day
  • 139 users / week
  • 381 users / month
  • 1.43K users / 6 months
  • 1 subscriber
  • 910 Posts
  • 9.68K Comments
  • Modlog