Steam
Steam runs natively on Linux. You can probably just install it from your App store.
Usually you want to use Steam (Runtime). Only use Steam (native) if you know why you want to use it.
Enable Steam Play for all games
In order to run games that are not explicitly whitelisted by Valve, go to Steam -> Settings -> Steam Play and check "Enable Steam Play for all other titles" and then select "Proton Experimental" in the drop down menu.
If something doesn't work, check out Proton-GE.
ProtonUp-Qt
You can use ProtonUp-Qt to make the installation and update process of Proton-GE simple:
- 1. Download the ProtonUp-Qt AppImage
- 2. Mark the AppImage as executable
- 3. Double-click the AppImage to run ProtonUp-Qt
Alternatively, you can install it from Flathub.
Launch Options
You may find something like -screen-width 1280 -screen-height 720 -screen-fullscreen 0 on protondb. These are launch options.
To use them, you right click on the game, and in the general tab, there is a field called launch options. You paste them (for example %command% -screen-height 1920 -screen-width 1080 -screen-fullscreen) in there.
%command% is the command to start the game. Some launch options go before this command (for example gamemoderun or mangohud), and some go behind it (flags that are passed to the game itself, typically stuff that starts with a -).
Steam Tinker Launch
Steam Tinker Launch is a swiss army knife tool that allows easy customization of multiple options for Steam games.
It includes helpers for custom commands, Vortex, Mod Organizer 2, Proton GE, Proton/DXVK/wine options, winetricks, ReShade + easy selection for shaders, FSR, debugging, side-by-side VR automation, SteamGridDB, SpecialK, Proton KillSwitch, Gamescope, GameMode, and more. You can find a more comprehensive list of features in the wiki (dropdownlist on the right).