It’s been a while i did not write a post, and it’s not for lack of subjects to write about but let me blame a recent lack of time. This is about to go better, and I thought I would first share with you my latest “calculations” about the state of Proton’s compatibility on Linux. This uses ProtonDB of course, and this relies on a sample of games that are tested every month - not always the same games (while games like GTAV or Witcher 3 do get reports every month anyway). The beauty of samples is that they can be taken as usually representative of their larger population. And even if there’s a chance of bias in such samples, it’s highly unlikely that the direction of the bias would change over time since most ProtonDB contributors remain active over time. Without further due, here’s the current state until the end of June 2019:

It’s been 2 months in a row that Proton shows steady progress not just on making games run flawlessly (Platinum ratings) but also reducing the number of “borked” games by a large margin. We are now almost to the point where 75% games can actually “run” (Silver and up) and be played on Linux using Proton.

I don’t think we will ever reach 100% compatibility, since there are some hard problems like anti-cheat or DRM systems that would prevent Proton to operate, but if we even get to 10 or 15% of games that do not run on Proton it would be a major milestone.

And you know what?

It’s in sight.

Give it another 8 to 12 months and I would bet we get there.