What is Proton & Wine @ Linux Guide:?

Wine and Proton are called compatibility layers. Wine funny enough stands for Wine is not an Emulator. Wine allows Windows software on Linux.

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Proton is folk of Wine. It is maintained by Valve for Steam and usage for Steam's ongoing project to improve and mainstream Linux Gaming.

What do Wine & Proton do?

For Windows Software to work on Linux, Linux must be able to answer and respond to every API call from the software. Wine basically translates those API calls to Linux supported APIs that can respond back. This extra work for the software to work may cause performance degradation.

Translation of Windows API Calls:

Proton translates Windows application programming interface (API) calls into Linux-compatible Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX) calls. There's no emulation or virtualization, which makes it quite fast for running Windows applications on Linux.

Direct3D to Vulkan Translation:

A significant part of Proton's functionality is its ability to translate Direct3D API calls, which are used by Windows games, into Vulkan API calls that Linux can natively use. This is achieved through tools like DXVK for Direct3D 9, 10, and 11 and VKD3D-Proton for Direct3D 12.

Proton, Why does it exist?

Valve (Steam) since 2013 has been invested in Linux Gaming due to the ongoing "monopoly" Microsoft has over the PC Opreating System Market. Valve saw the threat that Microsoft may pose to its existance if they did not work on adding more supported platforms. They saw Linux as a unique open place for them to invest in that is not controlled by a big corperate company.

Valve then released a closed source native linux client for Steam. Dedicated teams to help improve linux gaming. Work with Nividia and AMD to improve the graphics situation Linux had. And work on other community projects to improve the Linux expirence. Valve even made their own Linux Distro and named it: SteamOS.

After the failure of Steam Machines (Steam Machines ran Linux specifically Steam OS) they saw Linux had a massive game compatibility issue. This is due to Linux only having a small market share in the Desktop OS Market. Developers will only support OSes that can provide profits to them or are easy to support. This made Valve think. It let them to make Proton. A folk of Wine to allow Windows Software to run on Linux. Valve also works on graphic translation software baked into Proton. Click Here to learn more

What issues do Wine & Proton face?

Proton & Wine faces an issue of allowing low level access (Access to the kernel) to linux machines. This issue disallows any software that requires such access to work on Linux.