Not Just Proton: Getting to Know Valve's New SteamOS Compatibility Layers
Freeman writes:
Since the release of the Steam Deck, Valve fans have gotten very familiar with the idea of the Proton compatibility layer that allows games written for Windows to run capably on the Linux-based SteamOS (though Valve's efforts in this realm date back further than that). To get more games running on the SteamOS-powered Steam Frame, though, Valve is relying on two additional compatibility layers that are new to the Steam architecture.
The first, FEX, is Valve's port of fex-emu, an open source project that emulates x86 processor instructions on an Arm chipset.
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While Proton was based on the pre-existing Wine conversion tool, Valve engineer Pierre-Loup Griffais told The Verge last year that the company has been funding Fex lead developer Ryan Houdek since the project was just a prototype.
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The second new compatibility layer hitting Steam is Lepton, an expansion of the pre-existing Waydroid project focused on getting standard Android APKs to run on SteamOS through a software container. This layer is especially necessary for the Steam Frame, since many of the standalone VR titles players will be running on the device were originally designed for the Android-based Quest headsets.
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VR.org dug through Steam metadata this month and found that 52 of the first 120 "Great on Frame" games run on the Steam Frame as Android executables translated via Lepton. That includes the first trio of Steam games listed on the storefront without any Windows, Mac, or Linux builds (note the lack of desktop system requirements on the store pages).
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