Does steam os play windows games?

[ThetaX55]

Just wondering since there are more windows games. And i have some to. or is it just Linux?

[Air]

Only if you install Wine(of which, I'm personally not sure how it works on SteamOS).
Though, Wine is actually rather hit-and-miss with games; some games work, some don't, and some play but have performance issues. Though, I believe that older games should work fine.

But, yeah, If you want to play your full game library currently, your best bet is to use Windows.

[Weasle_Soup]

When I tried Wine it actually worked alot better than I thought it would. There are applications on linux (e.g PlayOnLinux) that provide an easy way to use Wine. As for downloading games not compatible with Linux, there should be a guide as to how to do that. Your best bet is to look up everything online if you *really* want to play your windows games on Linux. I personally prefer to dual boot Linux and windows as Wine is essentialy DirectX emulation and I always prefer a "native" experience.

TL;DR Wine works pretty well (not perfect), and there are plenty of resources to use it; though I prefer to dual boot.

[CoderMonkey]

No Windows games will not run natively on SteamOS(SteamOS is running on Linux)
I'm hoping on a few game companies doing some ports, and game companies releasing new games with SteamOS/Linux.

- Wine will install and work fine, it will however be hit miss depending on the game and how much time you willing to play with it to get working. I have seem some games install and play with little effort and work better than on windows, though they are few and far between.

[WanzerStrum]

These are the only games you'll be able to run on SteamOS.

http://store.steampowered.com/browse/linux/

[Jmaeson]

Well... In home streaming is in beta and is comming soon, so hang in there.

[Jmaeson]

in the mean time you can play minecraft for linux :D

[Nuvoselic]

Nope. You can't play any steam's windows games on current version of Steam OS. (Perhaps you could play them in the future version of steam OS ?)

[XÆЯO_Vince]

Originally posted by G3nji™:

Nope. You can't play any steam's windows games on current version of Steam OS. (Perhaps you could play them in the future version of steam OS ?)

That is not quite correct.

With a combination of Wine / PlayOnLinux or CrossOver Office (both tested and work on SteamOS) and In-Home Streaming, SteamOS / Linux machines will be able to natively run or remotely access virtually all Windows and MacOS X applications and games.

The real desire, however, is for SteamOS / Linux to establish its own true native AAA game and software catalog. This is especially important when comparing Steam Machines to the Xbox One and Playstation 4, which are it's real competition.

[Movian]

So to sumarise (and add a little information) Steam OS can't NATIVLY play windows only games.

If you install additional packages such as WINE you can emulate the windows features needed to run the game on the machine.

Alternativly you can also use in home streaming (I believe they just sent out another wave of beta e-mails). I have been using this myself for a couple weeks and it works EXCEDINGLY well. Ihave my gaming rig in my office and my work laptop (with intel card) in my living room on my TV and can play every game I have tried so far (Bioshock, Assasins Creed, Rougue Legacy, Batman Arkahm city) over streaming.

working out some kinks with the streaming in SteamOS (Resolutions) but thats why its a Beta.

So the answer is a Not nativly but there are other ways to do it.

[nekkron99]

Movian, that's exactly how I'm doing it. I have my gaming rig in my "office" and streaming to my MBP in the living room. There are a few hickups hear and there, but they are getting ironed out so fast, I have complete faith it will be super stable by the time everything is official

[Vic Banana]

No, SteamOS will not run windows games natively, but hopefully the wider availability of Linux in the home will encourage Linux ports of popular games.

[RighteousNixon]

Wow, this is all news to me. I just assumed, wrongfully of course, that you would be able to access your entire Steam library through a Steam Box. I thought that was the whole point of the machine. This just changes everything for me and just makes absolutely zero sense. Why would Valve choose to use Linux when 95% of all the games on Steam are Windows based? Am I the only one that finds that incredibly odd? Wow, this is just a huge bummer as I was really looking forward to buying a Steam Box. I am not spending another 600-1000 dollars only to have to use Wine or some other emulator to be able to play my games natively. I just dont get it and just have zero interest in Steam Box now.

[XÆЯO_Vince]

Originally posted by RighteousNixon:

Wow, this is all news to me. I just assumed, wrongfully of course, that you would be able to access your entire Steam library through a Steam Box. I thought that was the whole point of the machine. This just changes everything for me and just makes absolutely zero sense. Why would Valve choose to use Linux when 95% of all the games on Steam are Windows based? Am I the only one that finds that incredibly odd? Wow, this is just a huge bummer as I was really looking forward to buying a Steam Box. I am not spending another 600-1000 dollars only to have to use Wine or some other emulator to be able to play my games natively. I just dont get it and just have zero interest in Steam Box now.

This is why Valve is developing In-Home Streaming, where you can use your already existing Windows PC as a game server then just stream your games to your SteamOS Steam Machine over your home network.

Most of the 3rd party Steam Machines will come with an option to have Windows pre-installed alongside SteamOS, if you're willing to pay a little extra. You can also just build your own Steam Machine and put whatever you want in and on it. A Steam Machine is nothing more than a general gaming PC designed to fit next to your HDTV in a slim form-factor case, so the term "Steam Machine" can really refer to any small PC with a game controller.

I think SteamOS is more a result of Gabe Newell's distaste of Windows 8 and how Microsoft is attempting to encourage centralization of software distribution on Windows with the Windows Store. SteamOS is Valve's attempt to create a more open platform that it hopes to have more control over than Windows or OS X. As a Linux user, I can appreciate SteamOS but it will be interesting to see how Valve plans to make SteamOS appealing to general gamers who don't care about operating systems and just want to play their games, especially considering that Valve isn't planning any SteamOS exclusives.

[Zoot]

Originally posted by RighteousNixon:

Wow, this is all news to me. I just assumed, wrongfully of course, that you would be able to access your entire Steam library through a Steam Box. I thought that was the whole point of the machine. This just changes everything for me and just makes absolutely zero sense. Why would Valve choose to use Linux when 95% of all the games on Steam are Windows based? Am I the only one that finds that incredibly odd? Wow, this is just a huge bummer as I was really looking forward to buying a Steam Box. I am not spending another 600-1000 dollars only to have to use Wine or some other emulator to be able to play my games natively. I just dont get it and just have zero interest in Steam Box now.

For the same reason that PlayStation and Wii doesn't run Windows.

[XÆЯO_Vince]

Originally posted by Zoot:

For the same reason that PlayStation and Wii doesn't run Windows.

Well it was actually possible to run Windows on the PS3 back before Sony removed the OtherOS feature from the firmware.

You first had to install a PPC flavor of GNU/Linux, such as Yellow Dog Linux then you could use the Qemu processor emulator app to install and run Windows XP via on-the-fly PPC to x86 machine instruction translation.

It wasn't useful because it ran impossibly slow but it could be done lol.