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Nearly 90% of Windows Games now run on GNU/Linux
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Tom's Hardware ☛ Nearly 90% of Windows Games now run on Linux, latest data shows — as Windows 10 dies, gaming on Linux is more viable than ever
The viability of Linux as a gaming platform has come on leaps and bounds in recent years due to the sterling work of WINE and Proton developers, among others, and interest in hardware like the Steam Deck. However, the most recent stats from ProtonDB (via Boiling Steam) highlight that we are edging towards a magnificent milestone. The latest distilled data shows that almost 90% of Windows games now run on Linux.
Having nine in ten Windows games accessible in a new Linux install is quite an achievement. The milestone comes as we see computer users flocking to other platforms during the transition from the Windows 10 to 11 eras. Of course, the underlying data isn’t quite so simple as the headline stat. There are different degrees of compatibility gamers must consider when checking if their favorite Windows games work on Linux distros like Mint, Zorin, Bazzite, or even SteamOS.
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Almost 90% of Windows Games Run on Linux, Notes Report
Linux gaming has quietly reached a new inflection point. A recent Boiling Steam summary of crowd-sourced ProtonDB compatibility reports shows that about 89.7% of Windows titles now at least launch on Linux systems. The numbers are spread into a few categories. Games rated "Platinum," meaning they install, run, and save on Linux without requiring user intervention, made up 42% of new releases tracked in October, up from 29% the previous year. At the same time the share of titles that refuse to launch, the so-called "Borked" cohort, has fallen to roughly 3.8%, a group that still includes deliberate blocks such as March of Giants, which explicitly detects Wine and Proton and exits to the desktop.
The most persistent obstacles are not obscure indies but anti-cheat middleware and contractual choices. Easy Anti-Cheat, BattlEye, and similar systems remain the primary gatekeepers for online multiplayer, and enabling them on Linux is often more a negotiation than a mere technical flip of a switch. When a studio approves Steam Deck support, desktop Linux compatibility frequently follows within a single build cycle, suggesting the code paths are already unified and only sign-off is pending.
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TechSpot ☛ Nine out of ten Windows games can now run on Linux, data shows
Compatibility between gaming applications and Linux operating systems keeps improving. According to recent statistics, most players can now expect to run the majority of their gaming sessions on an open source operating system. Only a few stubborn exceptions are still resisting this new reality.
Aggregated data from the Linux community highlights the significant progress made in gaming on Linux. Compatibility between titles originally designed for Windows and the wider free and open source ecosystem (FOSS) built on the Linux kernel is now at an all time high, although the pace of improvement has slowed.
Update
One more:
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9 in 10 Windows games are running on Linux
New data shows that the number of Windows games that either run perfectly or work with minimal tweaks on Linux is rising. The number of games that do not launch at all is at an all-time low.
Gaming on Linux has been a challenge for many reasons over the years, with one of the biggest challenges being that most commercial computer games are developed for Windows. That means a whole umbrella of discomforts, such as a lack of graphics driver support on Linux or Windows-specific APIs that Linux does not have. At least not by default.
However, now the situation is getting better.