Comment by GeekyBear
3 months ago
Proton is just a fork of Wine that also translates from Microsoft's DirectX graphics API to the native graphics API of Linux (Vulcan) so you can run Windows games on Linux.
The new thing Proton is adding is translation from x86 to ARM.
Macs already have Wine, an x86 to ARM translation layer (Rosetta), and an Apple provided translation layer from Microsoft's DirectX to the Mac's native Metal graphics API (D3DMetal) which is integrated into upstream Wine.
I mentioned elsewhere — Right now, using Wine/Crossover is a hassle. Wanting "Proton on Mac" isn't about that specific fork of Wine, it's shorthand for wanting the user experience that Valve gives you on Linux.