Steam and your game library

What it is

Steam is already on WolOS. You open it like any other app, sign in with your Steam account, and your library is there: the games you bought on Windows are the same games here. Most of them were made for Windows. Steam runs those through its own compatibility tool (ProtonThe part of Steam that runs Windows games on WolOS.): a translator that sits between a Windows game and WolOS, so the game believes it is on Windows. Think of it as a travel adapter for a plug: the game does not change, the socket does.

Why

Steam's compatibility tool is where the work to make Windows games run happens, every week, for thousands of titles. So WolOS does not add a second layer of its own on top. What WolOS adds is the part that usually goes wrong around Steam: before Steam starts, WolOS checks that the pieces Steam needs are in place (the 32-bit graphics files, the graphics driverThe part of the system that knows how to talk to one kind of device, such as a graphics card or a printer., the matching NVIDIA files) and, when one is missing, tells you in one sentence what to do. You do not read a guide before you can play.

How

1. Open Steam. Press Super+Space for Search, type steam and press Return, or click Steam in the StoreThe App Store on the desktop: apps picked for you, Kits and plugins, each installed with one click. under Play. You see Steam in Search as an Application. In the Store it sits in the Play list with the line Thousands of games, one library.

   

2. Wait for the first start. The first time, Steam downloads the rest of itself. You see a notification: Getting Steam ready. Steam downloads itself the first time you open it. It opens when it's ready. Keep the computer online; this happens once.
3. Sign in with your Steam account, as you would on Windows. You see your library.
4. Install a game from your library and press Play. A game made for Windows runs through the compatibility tool without anything to set. If a Windows game has no Install button, open Steam's Settings > Compatibility and turn on running other titles with the compatibility tool.

Games from outside Steam

A Windows program you downloaded yourself, such as a .exe installer from a game shop, opens with a double-click. WolOS gives each program its own folder of Windows settings, so one program cannot break another. For many such games at once, the Gaming moduleAn optional set of tools for one kind of work (development, creative work, gaming, AI) that you add or remove in Settings > Modules. adds a games launcher and an on-screen frame-rate counter; see Modules.

On a screen with high resolution

On a sharp laptop screen Steam would look half size. When you start Steam from the Dock, Search or the Store, WolOS tells Steam how large your screen's scale is, so its text is readable.

A worked example

Alice installs Steam from the Store, opens it and waits for the "Getting Steam ready" notification to finish. She signs in with the account she has had for years, finds a game she bought on Windows, clicks Install and then Play. It runs, and she never changed a setting.

If something goes wrong

Related

Playing full screen · When a game will not start · Games (reference) · Modules