What does this mean in practice?

TLDR: the checkbox for “enable proton for all other titles” is forced on, and hidden.

If you already have this enabled, there’s nothing to gain from the beta client.

It means you don’t need to turn on proton for unsupported games the first time you start steam

(or alternatively you won’t be briefly confused why unsupported Windows games don’t launch on a fresh install)

I think it just means Steam always offers proton for windows games by default. Current you have to set it to all games in the options or set compatibility manually for each game.

Yeah outside of anti cheat I can’t think of a game that didn’t work. I no longer even think about compatibility when I’m buying games on steam.

Hiding it is weiird

Thanks for tldr

Why would you want to turn it off?

It just enabled proton for all games by default instead of having to manually turn the option on. Just one less thing to have to remember or do now for all games with proton.

Not me personally, but I know some linux enthusiasts are very much on only gaming linux native

Doesn’t affect Linux native titles

True. And I do see the point some make in saying they want to show demand for Linux native apps and don’t want to show demand for Windows apps (via comparability layer or VM). I think there is an option to filter Linux native games in the Steam app if I’m not mistaken.

It’s rare, thank god, but I did run in some issues with very new releases. Expedition 33 has weird graphical issues and The Alters doesn’t even start.

I think I’ve had one game in the past 4 years that was totally broken with Proton but all I had to do was switch versions. Blew me away to have a literal 1-click solution to gaming on Linux.

Yup, little penguin will show linux native, unless the compatibility is on then everything is listed