Playing Windows games through Steam

[NickStone]

I have a copy of Silent Hunter III for Windows running through Steam on Windows 8.1.

I would like to be able to play this game on MX and having looked at the wine-hq website I discovered that others have been able to play it through Steam. What I would like to know is can I play the game through the Linux edition of Steam or have I got to install the Windows edition through Wine in order to play Windows games on Linux / GNU?

[metreo]

You just install the native Steam Linux application using 32bit mode and the client will install the drivers needed to run the game each time you install and run each title.

[PPC]

@NickStone: like metreo said- install Steam for Linux, and make sure that "Proton" is active in Steam's menu...

P.

[NickStone]

After all these years I always thought that you can only play Windows games through Steam on a Windows OS. That means I've been making do with Windows 8.1 for years and I didn't need to.

Right that's it, Windows 8.1 is going to be replaced with MX this weekend.

Thanks you guys for putting me straight.

[Sparky]

I didn't know this either. I'm not much of a gamer, but my son is, and he only uses Win10 for games. Time for MX to grow in the family.

[Eadwine Rose]

Will it work with Skyrim on MX 64 bits though?

I need to find some time to install on a different drive and just try this out lol

[alexjack]

There are 1000s of windows games that work great under Proton/Steam. It works seamlessly in many cases appearing to be just a Linux native game.

Check out Protondb to get an idea of how well your game should run, e.g. Silent Hunter III is rated as 'platinum':

https://www.protondb.com/search?q=Silent%20Hunter%20III

As stated above, if the game is Proton certified/whitelisted by Steam, then you don't have to do anything special (unlike when it was in beta and you had to opt into the beta programme to run any game in Proton). It will just install and run from Steam as if it's native. If it's not certified by Steam, it may still work fine, but you need to go into the Steam settings and check the option to run non-certified games under a user selected version of Proton. I've got a few non-certified (e.g. Doom 3) running this way and have had no bugs at all.

I'm currently playing "Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl" in 1080p resolution and everything on max, and it's great. Apparently less buggy than when it launched on Windows XP!

There is no 64 bit version of the Steam client AFAIK. It runs fine on 64 bit MX installed from MXPI.

[Sparky]

How do you activate Proton on the Linux side? Does it have to be 32 bit Steam?

[alexjack]

After all these years I always thought that you can only play Windows games through Steam on a Windows OS. That means I've been making do with Windows 8.1 for years and I didn't need to.

Right that's it, Windows 8.1 is going to be replaced with MX this weekend.

Thanks you guys for putting me straight.

It's been a thing for a couple of years now. It's a massive step change for gaming on Linux.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proton_(software)

[alexjack]

How do you activate Proton on the Linux side? Does it have to be 32 bit Steam?

There is only 32 bit Steam. Installing on a 64 bit system installs multi-arch to run the 32 bit Steam client.

You don't have to do anything extra to activate Proton. Just install Steam, then install a game. If it's the game is not Linux native, but is whitelisted by Steam to run under Proton, it will just install and work using Proton.

It's wine made easy for mortals.