this post was submitted on 05 Jul 2026
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Linux Gaming
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You must be misremembering things to the extreme.
Gaming in Linux was utter shit in 2005, and improvements were only crawling forward. When we checked WineHQ for compatibility the average score was bronze "unplayable".
Although the Play On Linux program helped a lot and came out in 2008, Linux gaming didn't improve much until after the Steam Client for Linux was released in 2013.
I dual booted Windows the first couple of years where Linux was my main OS, ONLY to be able to play games. After a few years I got tired of dual booting and ditched Windows completely. The result was that I gamed very little, and when I did, it was retro gaming.
Things improved a lot with DXVK, but that did no come out until 2018. Up until then you could almost only play games made with OpenGL, and even that was hit and miss.
I haven't seen any Proton propaganda, and fortunately a lot of progress on Proton goes back to Wine, so Wine is also a lot better today even without Proton.
So Proton does not deserve all the credit, a lot of work has been done before and outside Proton. But Proton does make it dead easy with the Steam client, but today it may not be necessary if you use other tools to mange the Wine configuration on a per game basis. Or if you are an enthusiast that like to do it manually.
But 21 years ago, even an expert had very little luck except with very few games.
Everyone's experience is different. It's how I remember it. -But I consulted an AI, and it agrees with you. -Thanks for the insight!