From PC Mag: Valve wants as many gamers as possible able to play titles from the Steam store, which is why for the past eight years buying a Steam game meant getting Windows, Mac, and Linux versions if they were available. This is called Steam Play, and it just received a major overhaul to open up thousands more games to Linux.
Linux users typically lose out when it comes to gaming as the vast majority of titles are developed for the most popular platform, which has always been Windows. A Linux version provided by the developer is a bonus, but now the lack of a Linux version doesn't stop it being played on a Linux gaming rig thanks to Valve.
In a post on Steam, Valve announced a new version of Steam Play that includes a modified version of Wine called Proton. Wine is a compatibility layer used on Linux to run Windows applications. Valve took Wine, supported it, and integrated it into Steam as Proton. The end result being Windows-only games can now be played on Linux using Proton.
Valve also added support for the Vulkan graphics API, which allows for improved DirectX 11 and 12 game compatibility on Linux as well as a reduced impact on game performance. Fullscreen support has also been enhanced, as has controller support and multi-threaded game performance when playing on the alternative OS.
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