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| Image from steamdeck.com |
The gaming community was taken by surprise when Valve Corporation, the creator of Steam and Dota 2, announced new gaming hardware - the Steam Deck. It is a handheld gaming console (actually a PC, more on this later) that looks really very promising and is here to take on the Nintendo Switch and other competitors like the Aya Neo and OneXPlayer.
Dubbed the "Real Switch Pro" by fans, it's a fascinating piece of hardware that lets you play popular games with console-level graphics on the go or on docked mode. There were rumors of this product months back, but it turns out this thing is actually real with the release date scheduled for December this year.
While reading through the FAQs, I came across a feature that is not getting the attention it's supposed to get. This feature has the potential to change the way you play PC games.
Proton with Anti-Cheat support
The Steam Deck actually uses a Linux-based OS - Steam OS 3.0 that is based on Arch Linux (Arch users, rejoice!) - and not Windows. As the Steam Deck is a PC, as mentioned above, one can even install Windows by replacing SteamOS at the cost of some proprietary software tools. A large library of games made for Windows can be played on Linux something called Proton that is a customized version of Wine. Wine is a software tool that serves as a compatibility layer and helps run many Windows apps, particularly games, on Linux. This means a game made for Windows doesn't have to be ported to or released on Linux separately. This is the same exact way hardcore Linux users are playing games like GTA 5, Rocket League, Control, The Witcher 3, and more on their Linux computers, without even touching Windows. But there are many games, especially online multiplayer games, that contain certain anti-cheat software which makes these games unplayable on Linux.
Valve is trying to solve this and currently working with EAC and BattlEye to get support for Proton. If they succeed, Linux gamers will be the happiest group of humans on Earth and Windows gamers can easily transition to gaming on Linux. Linux-based OSs are free and fast and this means that you won't have to worry about a Windows license and antivirus programs.
The Steam Deck, along with this feature and aggressive pricing (starting at $399, which is cheaper than most modest gaming PCs), is sure to attract many PC gamers. Get ready to switch to Linux!
Hope you like my blog post. What are your views?
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