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posted by janrinok on Thursday August 16 2018, @05:44PM   Printer-friendly
from the wine-on-steroids? dept.

Submitted via IRC for Fnord666

Valve appears to be working on a set of "compatibility tools," called Steam Play, that would allow at least some Windows-based titles to run on Linux-based SteamOS systems.

Yesterday, Reddit users noticed that Steam's GUI files (as captured by SteamDB's Steam Tracker) include a hidden section with unused text related to the unannounced Steam Play system. According to that text, "Steam Play will automatically install compatibility tools that allow you to play games from your library that were built for other operating systems."

Other unused text in the that GUI file suggests Steam Play will offer official compatibility with "supported tiles" while also letting users test compatibility for "games in your library that have not been verified with a supported compatibility tool." That latter use comes with a warning that "this may not work as expected, and can cause issues with your games, including crashes and breaking save games."

Tools that let users run Windows apps in Linux are nothing new; Wine has existed for decades, after all. But an "official" Steam-based compatibility tool, with the resources and backing of Valve behind it, could have a huge impact on the Linux development space that could reach well beyond games. Assuming it worked for a wide range of titles, the Steam Play system could also help ameliorate one of SteamOS' biggest failings—namely, the relative lack of compatible games when compared to Windows.

With all that said, some caution is warranted before getting too excited about these possibilities. For one, we don't know what specific form Steam Play will take. Valve could simply be preparing a wrapper that lets users run existing emulation tools like Wine and DOSBox on top of SteamOS without actively advancing the state of that emulation directly.

Source: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2018/08/valve-seems-to-be-working-on-tools-to-get-windows-games-running-on-linux/


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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by urza9814 on Thursday August 16 2018, @08:08PM (3 children)

    by urza9814 (3954) on Thursday August 16 2018, @08:08PM (#722464) Journal

    Firstly, we're talking about games, here—you know, fullscreen stuff that is entirely under the control of the game maker. We're not talking about the latest trash Windows GUI elements; that's what Microsoft employees spend their time doing: Reinventing GUIs.

    It's under the control of the game maker, but the game maker is not always under the control of Valve. They might choose to use Microsoft-exclusive technologies in that game, such as Direct X. You have heard of Direct X, right? One of the many things Microsoft employees are doing other than "reinventing GUIs".

    Windows is famous for its backwards compatibility

    Oh my god I almost fell out of my chair I was laughing so hard when I read that. Are you joking, or do you just not really know what "backwards compatibility" means? I've got dozens of Windows games that now run better on a fresh install of Linux than they do on Windows. Win98 software won't even run on XP usually, and trying on anything later than that is beyond hopeless unless the original devs release a patch themselves. And don't even bring up "compatibility mode", as I've tried that hundreds of times and never seen it make any difference at all (other than breaking things even more). Windows is "backwards compatible" only in the sense that that's a bullet point the marketing department uses to try to sell it. And that's one of the things with compatibility layers like Wine -- they DO work very well for the old stuff. The stuff that Windows won't even run anymore. They've caught up on those releases, and they work great, and even the bugs are replicated well enough to run the applications that are depending on them. It's the brand new games that rely on brand new features that don't work yet, because the devs haven't had time to reverse-engineer it all.

    Why is it so difficult to get game makers to use a cross-platform API?

    Plenty of game developers do. But plenty of others won't even consider using any technology that doesn't have a Microsoft logo on it. And it definitely doesn't help if they're planning an X-Box release, for example, as using Microsoft technologies is likely going to make that port a lot easier. And that's the problem that these kinds of compatibility layers are trying to solve. It's the games that are coded only for Direct X for example that cause problems. The games coded for OpenGL usually either have a native Linux version already or are pretty easy to support with compatibility layers like Wine.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 16 2018, @08:23PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 16 2018, @08:23PM (#722477)

    You've just been hoist by your own petard.

    • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 16 2018, @11:16PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 16 2018, @11:16PM (#722589)

      lol, wow. Are you autistic?

    • (Score: 2) by urza9814 on Friday August 17 2018, @01:45PM

      by urza9814 (3954) on Friday August 17 2018, @01:45PM (#722792) Journal

      I never claimed it couldn't. What's your point?