Valve May Be Crafting a Way to Play Windows Steam Games on Linux

News
By Zhiye Liu
published

Users from the Linux Gaming Reddit have discovered a string of code in Steam's graphical user interface files that suggests Valve is currently working on a compatibility tool called Steam Play to enable Windows-based games to run flawlessly on the Linux operating system (OS).

In recent years, game developers started to include support for Linux in their titles. But the truth is gaming on Linux still has a long way to go. Linux gamers have turned to third-party applications, such as Wine or DOSBox, to play Windows games that lack official support for the OS. However, Valve may be about to shake things up as it is allegedly working on a proprietary compatibility tool for its popular Steam client.

The compatibility tool is purportedly named Steam Play and WILL apparently come with its own graphical user interface and settings menu. Steam Play automatically installs the necessary compatibility tools to allow Linux gamers to play titles that were designed for the Windows operating system. In addition to working without hiccups with an existing list of supported games, Steam Play features a useful function to test games from users' Steam libraries that haven't been verified with a supported compatibility tool.

There is speculation around the internet that Steam Play is nothing more than a simple wrapper function to call up Wine or DOSBox since Steam's native Linux client presently lacks the function to run emulation tools within itself. However, nothing in the code makes reference to any of the aforementioned programs, so Steam Play could be a service of its own. Either way, it's too soon to tell at this stage.

SteamDB has been tracking the compatibility tool's progress since December 2017. According to the Valve Compatibility Manifests for Beta Testing log, Valve has been working diligently on it. However, the last update was made about two months ago. Without any official word on Steam Play, its future is uncertain. 

Zhiye Liu
Zhiye Liu
RAM Reviewer and News Editor

Zhiye Liu is a Freelance News Writer at Tom’s Hardware US. Although he loves everything that’s hardware, he has a soft spot for CPUs, GPUs, and RAM.

30 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Onus
    Excellent. If I can play games on Linux, Windows (and hence all things Microsoft) will be removed from my primary system(s).
    Reply
  • excalibur1814
    Excellent. While people move to linux I'll stay on Windows as... everything runs perfectly fine.
    Reply
  • kenjitamura
    It's be kind of nice if Valve did make their own alternative to WINE for use with their platform but I highly doubt they'd be able to so easily surpass the decades long work put into it. Though I'm not sure if anything is preventing them from forking it.

    The one advantage they'd have is that WINE developers insist on making everything from scratch so that games will work well on both Mac and Linux; that's why USB support and such is a complete mess in WINE as they refuse to use Linux or Mac's existing drivers and build their own platform agnostic USB drivers.

    I feel like passthrough technology will be what is needed for playing Windows games on Linux without a noticeable performance hit. There is software that allows virtualized graphics passthrough to play Windows games natively on linux however it still requires most systems to have two graphics cards which isn't realistic if we want people to adopt it.

    That's actually kind of why I'm looking forward to Intel's discrete GPU's. Their SR-IOV implementation, GVT-g, will probably be supported by their new GPU which allows graphics pass through with only one graphics card. You will still need Windows installed, and a Windows license, however most people will never again have to boot into the Windows installation while still getting access to all of Windows gaming titles and played at near identical performance.
    Reply
  • salgado18
    21237590 said:
    It's be kind of nice if Valve did make their own alternative to WINE for use with their platform but I highly doubt they'd be able to so easily surpass the decades long work put into it. Though I'm not sure if anything is preventing them from forking it.

    The one advantage they'd have is that WINE developers insist on making everything from scratch so that games will work well on both Mac and Linux; that's why USB support and such is a complete mess in WINE as they refuse to use Linux or Mac's existing drivers and build their own platform agnostic USB drivers.

    I feel like passthrough technology will be what is needed for playing Windows games on Linux without a noticeable performance hit. There is software that allows virtualized graphics passthrough to play Windows games natively on linux however it still requires most systems to have two graphics cards which isn't realistic if we want people to adopt it.

    That's actually kind of why I'm looking forward to Intel's discrete GPU's. Their SR-IOV implementation, GVT-g, will probably be supported by their new GPU which allows graphics pass through with only one graphics card. You will still need Windows installed, and a Windows license, however most people will never again have to boot into the Windows installation while still getting access to all of Windows gaming titles and played at near identical performance.

    If I have a Windows license, why would I install Linux in the first place?
    Reply
  • kenjitamura
    21237614 said:
    If I have a Windows license, why would I install Linux in the first place?

    It's really just a matter of preference. It's the same as "If they have all the exact same PC hardware why would I pay twice the cost of a Windows PC for a PC with MacOS?"

    Linux has some things going for it. If someone becomes code savvy enough and decides there's something wrong with the underlying source code they can hack together changes and contribute to the kernel themselves; though the bar for being able to do something like that is extremely high on the knowledge side.

    It doesn't need antivirus software, has a ton of different aesthetic choices in desktop managers (elementary OS is gorgeous), and can be rewarding to be able to do some things for yourself in the bash shell.

    There's also the point that its future isn't entirely determined by a single conglomerate and there isn't automatic data collection happening in the background that can't be turned off. But that probably shouldn't be a concern to most users though it did concern Valve enough to start investing in linux.







    Reply
  • Jeff Fx
    Are we sure this isn't just a streaming system to make a Linux PC act like a Steam Link?
    Reply
  • shpankey
    Whatever or however it's done, it won't come without a penalty... and therefore, unlikely to swing many over from Windows. Great for Linux only users though!
    Reply
  • Apple Troll Master
    I feel this type of article comes out ever few years with no fruit at the end. We'll hear about this again in 2 more years. I would switch over to linux if they could get it to work as good as nvidia drivers crashing on Windows.
    Reply
  • jimmysmitty
    21237680 said:
    21237614 said:
    If I have a Windows license, why would I install Linux in the first place?

    It's really just a matter of preference. It's the same as "If they have all the exact same PC hardware why would I pay twice the cost of a Windows PC for a PC with MacOS?"

    Linux has some things going for it. If someone becomes code savvy enough and decides there's something wrong with the underlying source code they can hack together changes and contribute to the kernel themselves; though the bar for being able to do something like that is extremely high on the knowledge side.

    It doesn't need antivirus software, has a ton of different aesthetic choices in desktop managers (elementary OS is gorgeous), and can be rewarding to be able to do some things for yourself in the bash shell.

    There's also the point that its future isn't entirely determined by a single conglomerate and there isn't automatic data collection happening in the background that can't be turned off. But that probably shouldn't be a concern to most users though it did concern Valve enough to start investing in linux.







    The biggest issue with Linux is the support end. Yes there is a community built around it but there is a difference between having a community help and people who are paid professionals with the full resources and tools to help.

    If Linux can provide that same level of support instead of it being a community only support system it could be more.
    Reply
  • Apple Troll Master
    I really dislike when people assume there is no support other than community support for Linux. Free versions of Linux, yes you'll be reaching out to the community. But Red Hat Enterprise has support if not better than Windows. Also if you have an issue on Windows you're going to some form of community support, either its Office support, Steam support, Nvidia support, they're all 'community' forums and I'll tell you right now that Microsoft doesn't have the best support staff either. I don't know anyone that has called Microsoft Support for a Windows 7,8,10 issue relating to Steam/Nvidia/etc as its not their product to support. The vast majority of Windows users reach out to a community forum of a sort or google it..its funny same thing happens for Linux users. Now only if Microsoft made free OS's like Linux does.
    Reply