Steam Deck: Proton 101 - What is it and how does it work? (Index Card Instruction)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 4 ส.ค. 2024
- If you own a Steam Deck, you have at the very least a passing familiarity with the term "Proton". You know it has to do with running Windows games and applications on Linux/Steam Deck. But what exactly is it? How does it do the things it does? What is a Proton Prefix? What's the difference between Steam game installs and non-Steam games?
We're going to start off from the beginning; discussing how game installs work on Windows first - then contrasting them with the Deck. This is a 101 course for everyone; we try to keep away from the more complicated layers of the process and keep it simple and relatable.
Note: The index card incorrectly notes the Vulkan video drive as "Vulcan". Live long, and prosper.
Location of Proton/Non-Steam Folders:
/home/deck/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/compatdata/{some number}
Launcher Option to give access to filesystem from Non-Steam Game: STEAM_COMPAT_MOUNTS=/run/media/mmcblkOp1/ %command%
Videos Mentioned:
"Other" - What is it? Where is it? HOW CAN I MAKE IT SMALLER??
• Steam Deck: "Other" - ...
Install and Configure Battle.net and Overwatch
• DEPRECIATED: See Descr...
Install Ubisoft Connect; Install, play and configure AC:O, FC6 and The Crew
• DEPRECIATED: See Descr...
Installing Origin + Burnout Paradise Remastered (Install, Config, Play)
• Steam Deck: Installing...
Links:
ProtonDB: www.protondb.com/
ProtonUp-QT: github.com/DavidoTek/ProtonUp-Qt
Chapters:
00:00 - Intro
00:26 - Bumper
00:29 - Overview of Windows and Game Installation
01:47 - Sample Windows Game Install
04:46 - Overview of Steam Deck, OS, Etc.
05:55 - Simulating God of War Install (Discussion on Storage)
07:10 - Where Things Change ...
07:55 - SO WHAT IS IT ALREADY?
11:31 - What about Linux Games? The Difference?
12:17 - How Non-Steam Game Installs Work / Digital Lockers / Proto Prefix
16:20 - Installing Games within Digital Lockers / Storage Stuff
17:55 - Proton Versioning
18:50 - What is GE Proton?
20:25 - Knowledge Check / Change Launcher Links?
21:40 - Applying this to Non-Locker Games
22:12 - What about piracy? Does that work?
22:50 - Copying Games From Your PC?
24:15 - Game Saves Considerations
25:02 - Little Wrap Up / Summary / Closing - เกม
Thanks so much for the education and the logical presentation. I love a little snark with my learning. Keep it up my friend!
Yeah, I really like his videos too!!!
This was so well explained, I understood almost everything without difficulties. Great video
That's fantastic!
Sir, you have a gift of describing somewhat complex subjects in a straightforward and easy to understand way.
Thank you!
My pleasure, sir.
Amazing stuff dude 👍 I already knew the basics but now I understand it all a little better.
You seem to be the only person posting aswell about shadercache & compatdata on steam deck which I originally had many questions about, so thanks so much for the extra info dude 👍
You'll definitely want to check out my latest video then sir. Thanks so much for watching
@@Darkuni I have Already watched & liked bud thank you.👍
Currently going through my shadercache & compatdata right now haha.
I have over 100 odd non steam games, I'm pretty positive I haven't deleted any games before trashing the extra files..
Any idea what the folder in compatdata is labelled 0? I'm guessing it's tied to one of the protons ?? I had a corrupted pfx next to a updated pfx right next to it with a recent time stamp?
@@Kennosuke88 I'm not 100% positive but I believe it's a system level folder. I'm not going to mess with it LOL
I LOVED IT! Thanks so much, I just got a steamdeck a couple of days ago. This video was perfect to get me started. And you were right, there were moments I may have started to drift, but you caught me :D
Amazing video for learning about Proton, thank you.
Oh my god! Thank you for this! I'm waiting for my Deck to arrive and I've been curious about how Proton works. Your script was perfect and you executed it beautifully. I completely caught on to everything you mentioned and through that, I understood the reason for many things people do to tweak stuff on Steam Deck. I think this is a must watch for anyone who wants to exit the game mode on their SD.
I really appreciate the kind words. This was one of the most difficult videos to shoot and I feel it is so important for people to understand what's really going on - so they can be ready for any eventuality. Thanks so much for a great comment. Made my morning.
Thanks so much for the walkthrough. I’m new to linux and steam os so this was tremendously helpful. Look forward to viewing more of your content!
Thanks! If you like the index cards, check out the new EmuDeck video!
hey shane, great explanation of what's going on under the hood! i like that approach alot, thank you so much!
Thanks!
Extremely helpful once again. Your Steam Deck videos are an online course in itself. Thanks!
I agree, this was very helpful 👏👏👏
Fantastic guide I’m already sharing it
Thank you so much. I think Deck owners would be a lot happier if they had this information on board. And thanks a bunch for attending the live event tonight :-)
Thank you! Helped a lot.
Very helpful ! thank you so much !
So glad it was helpful!
This is a great 101 for proton.
The process was much easier to understand with the visual cards.
Awesome work and thank you for taking the time to explain the Proton process.
So glad you enjoyed it!
Amazingly helpful video and cool tattoos
Thank you and thank you! I'm going to start working on my video game/computer arm on the 8th ... Amiga, Commodore and a Zombies in Spaceland tat ....
@@Darkuni ah damn that sounds awesome. Do you have an insta? Would love to check them out when they're done
@@newMania23 I'll show them here - on the community tab. My insta is ... private.
@@Darkuni haha nah that all good, looking forward to seeing them when done. Been browsing through the rest of your videos. Awesome content man. Very helpful stuff for a linux/steamdeck noob like myself
@@newMania23 Thanks so much!!!
This was a really good overview! The part about Wine being a translation and compatibility layer, but not an emulator, is pretty spot on, and is both a translation and compatibility layer depending on what parts of wine are discussed.
Good deal. I tried to be accurate but relatable. Seems like I did okay!
Excellent video very informative. I cracked up at the wine joke
I'm glad someone caught it :) Glad you liked it.
Hey, just wanted to say thank you for taking the time to make this! Subscribed! Very helpful! I'm an old dude that's been tinkering since the DOS days, but Proton/Linux is all new. Very helpful to at least finally understand the basics of what is going on! Take care, look forward to more videos!
Glad I could be of help, my friend.
great video!
Thank you!
wonderful video. love an actually interesting AND educational video. this right here is why i come to youtube
I do what I can ... Thanks so much for watching and the comments!
thank you so much!
This was helpful. I didn't see the link on how to figure out which games were under which Proton numbered entry. I am not sure if that even matters, though; I need to get the basics down first. I also wish there was a little more about how to figure out which version of Proton to use and how to select it. I can see this is going to be a big problem for folks unless Proton figures out its compatibility.
What an eye opener… Thanks a lot for the thorough and detailed explanation!!!
Thank you!!
Excellent explanation! Thanks for sharing this.
Hi, when adding non-Steam games, which is the best Proton version to set it as default, Experimental, latest GE or latest 'vanilla' Proton? Thanks!
Thank you so much for this concise, yet simple explanation of how all this stuff works man. Thanks to you, I was able to import my Epic Games installation of Final Fantasy VII Remake over to my Steam Deck via Heroic Games Launcher, AND transfer the saves over thanks to now understanding how Proton "emulates" Windows installations. So genius. Thanks again man!
16:39 but what if we DO want to use some of our 1TB internal storage? I've seen some of your other videos, can the "STEAM_COMPACT_MOUNTS=/path/to/game" command work with the game saved to another location on your internal drive?
that was great
Sir, I thought this video was very, very well done. Yes, 25 mins seems long for a TH-cam video but people have little patience these days - thank
you for a great explanation to a SteamDeck newbie.
My brain hurts a little but this helped ao much
Right? It seems like an ocean, but it is more like ... a deep lake. Once you "see" it in real life - it suddenly makes sense; you start off snorkeling but eventually you get to be a diver.
Very much appreciated this, I've watched twice and feel like I can follow 90% of this perfectly and I'm not a computer person
Awesome info as usual.
New to Linux as of one year ago with a steam deck, but I'm a chronic tinkerer. Already figured out all the non steam launchers, piracy, compat mounts, moving games directly from Windows, out of necessity. But it's nice to have confirmation for all the stuff I thought I knew, and if anyone was asking me anything about the deck and proton I would happily point them to this video.
One thing that's a bit confusing for me is moving the windows games right over. A lot of my 🏴☠️games "just work" when moved over, but some don't. Maybe the installers for said games install dxvk, vcc, etc. right to the program files folder? Or maybe they don't need it? In those cases I tend to play with Bottles and it has a small chance of success at that point.
Not a super comfortable topic for me here. But the bottom line (we covered it lightly in the video) deals with redistributables. Games you "installed" on the PC, have the benefit of all of WIndows (and any support redist) already being installed. You don't get anything but the core Windows files here. If it needs ANYTHING extra to run (which is most of them; you're lucky you're getting that success rate that you are) - YOU must install it. People like to use ProtonTricks to inject, but I've found that troublesome. I'd rather have control and install it manually. Look at my Lego Pirates video. This will set you on the path.
Thank you for making this video, I just got my deck and it help out a ton.
Glad you liked it!
vary helpful loved the index cards
Amazing video thank you! So now the million dollar question: will proton in the future also be able to run adobe and ms office? If not, what’s the bottleneck? Legal?
Probably a lack of full Windows requisites. Proton probably has enough for games, but not as much for heavy duty Windows apps.
I know it's a translation layer but what does that do like what are the fundamental differences between Windows and Linux that it has to bridge? I know Linux doesn't have a C drive but is that all?
Probably a bit outside the nature of a YT comment. Think of it this way. Consider Arabic vs English. The only thing they have in common is that they are both languages. They aren't constructed the same, they don't even follow the same rules (Arabic is written right to left, right?)
Nothing about Windows and Linux are "common". It isn't like Windows XP vs Windows 11. Or even various flavors of Linux. They are literal Arabic and English - so not just the "words" have to be translated, but the structure, presentation, etc. Everything. Windows programs need Windows to run. Or it needs base windows files along with a means of translating "APIs" for things like graphics, sound, music. There are things in every windows app - like "open window". When an app asks Windows to do that? All that code is already there to do that built into Windows. On Linux? "Open Window" means nothing. So an "interpreter" is set up to say "Hey, when someone wants to open a window, make it WINDOW OPEN (Linux speak) vs OPEN WINDOW (Win Speak). This happens for everything a Windows app needs; a simple call to input from the keyboard has to be "translated".
very helpful video
great video and explanation about the proton. why do I get the warning "missing memory or missing storage" when installing the game on the sd card or m2 internal disk.and I have 300gb of free space on m2 and 200gb of free space on the sd card
Are you installing from Steam?
@@Darkuni no those are non steam games. these are repack installations
@@danijelparadzik8336 yeah I don't work with ... Repacks ...
@@Darkuni ok thanks anyway. great job with yt. keep going
@@danijelparadzik8336 check out my Lego Pirates video. That might put you in the right direction.
So question? Is proton installing windows prerequisites in each games' pfx folder over and over everytime you install a non-steam game?
Yes. Think of each proton prefix like a "virtual machine" or "sandbox". They are 100% isolated from each other - so if Game A requires Direct X and so does Game B? They both get a copy.
So I'm curious since I've never bothered to check how much space the prerequisites take up on a windows computer. Is the amount the files multiplied gonna be a concern if say you were to install a lot of non-steam games? Or are the files small enough to just pretend they were a part of the game's files?
@@TheCommentaification An "empty" proton prefix is like 230mb each. Then you add "requisites" like DX, MVC, etc. THEN you add whatever the game itself needs to put on "the C: drive" (saves, data, etc). Don't forget the 50mb to 1gb that each "third party launchers" add to real steam games. All EA games add 800mb for their disgusting launcher. UBISoft, et al the same. So even installing a game to the microSD card, your internal storage takes 230 to 1gb+ hit (plus shaders).
Ya that's a lot of extra stuff to add on top of the actual game, some things probably necessary and some things probably not. Whatever the case I have no control on what developers use on their games so ill just pretend the game file size is that big. Thank you so much for the lesson, I'm just learning linux after getting a steam deck and this video was super helpful.
@@TheCommentaification There are some tricks and nonsense you can do in some cases to minimize the overhead - especially using third party lockers by sharing the "base" proton folder with other games. Check out Part 2 of GOG Installer.
This is amazing information. Thank you. I am curious if you have any advice on getting the GOG Dosbox games to work on the Steam Deck. I have been trying for 3 weeks with no luck. Maybe a video demonstrating the process of modifying the dosbox commands to pick the dosbox linux equivalent? The Heroic Games Launcher doesn't seem to work for these games.
When you use gog to launch dos games via proton it also runs dosbox thru proton which dosbox is already available as native for Linux and thus Steam Deck. You should effectively only get the game files from gog and use them with the native Dosbox version for SteamDeck
@@rusty9060 I found that the only way to get it to work is to put the dosbox configuration files in the same directory as the executable. Ironically the Linux versions of the Gog games don't work due to lack of certain libraries (libcaca, libslang, libsncurses, etc). The WINE/Proton fails to help with running a lot of older Windows games (Panzer General 2, Empire Earth, Interstate 76, etc). I am limited in my Linux knowledge but hopefully my playtesting leads to more knowledgeable people being able to fix these issues.
Great! So whats proton?
On windows I need to install c++, dx etc. once. Can I do the same on the deck so all new games could run if they dont had those programs.
Every single game has to have its own proton folder its own copy of prerequisites. So no there's no way to just do a one-time install.
I am the 20th like, dropped for this video...Pretty cool. Thanks
Do proton create multiple C drive for multiple version of proton? Or do all Proton version share 1 emulated C drive?
Every time you add a new steam game with a proton compatibility layer it creates its own folder it's own fake c drive and all that good stuff. Nobody shares anything. If it helps? Think of them is virtual machine - all isolated from each other.
@@Darkuni So I installed 2 PC games (gog setup.exe) on my PC, then copy the game folders over to Steam Deck. And because of the missing VSredis and DirectX library, the 2 games obviously don't run with latest GE-Proton.
Then using Lutris, I installed the VSredis and DirectX exe with latest GE-Proton.
After that, both games ran and another new game I copied over also ran (sometimes they crash in game but that probably compatibility issue not related to missing library)
So my question is where did Proton install VS Redis and DirextX to so that the games could see and use them if they are not shared? Are they shared library in anyway?
@@qui11 I'm afraid I don't use Lutris. Did you see my GOG Lego Pirates install video? I cover redistributable installs
I guess this all works because the underlying CPU architectures are the same. I had no idea proton reused the Windows files.
Thanks!
My favourite wine is spelt with an H
That was great! Proton for Dummies 😂 Very informative because I had no clue what Proton was!
I am so glad it helped you!
can you do this for bottles as flatpack install and how to integrate into steam and also how to try other runners in comparison to the steam forced compatibility 🤪
I'm trying to avoid Lutris and Bottles as much as possible...
Thanks to valve, windows gets some competition finally. Curious how the landscape will evolve.
Also still love your enthusiasm after all these years 😀
Thank you my friend!
Always maybe but probably not… best comment ever…
I don't get it. I thought pirated games are made into stand-alone programs that doesn't need installation and don't require any additional libraries because everything is included in the repack. Sort of like how flatpaks work, from what I understand.
Not going to speak of piracy really here. Suffice to say, some "packs" contain what you need - some don't. Some may include - but you're on your own to install. That's about as much as I'll talk about it on YT.
the mmcblk0p1 is a zero not an "O" (oh) in your video description
This should be stickied on Reddit sub for steam deck
Dude is in love with the sound of his own voice omg
Should I have used sign language?