In a way it makes sense because as I understand it Proton emulates what Windows does natively but I‘ll wait until the new SteamOS drops with the Steam Machine. Valve seems dedicated to establish Linux as a true competitor to Windows and they‘re succeeding update by update. Other distros are benefiting tremendously from it already. Bazzite and CachyOS beat out Windows regularly in comparison tests already and they will only become more powerful with time.
Proton isn’t emulating Windows, it implements Windows APIs on Linux. The code still executes natively on the CPU.
While true, there are things similar to emulation penalties. See the need for ntsync. Imitating Windows sync semantics in user space was expensive.
Similarly, saw a breakdown of why dx12 games suck under linux with Nvidia, which is fairly similar concerns, with work underway to make it easier to implement things that resemble Windows behavior. In principle once done it might even outperform windows at it’s own game.
And just to further illustrate this, Proton is essentially a fork of Wine… Wine Is Not an Emulator.
