Is WebView2 compatible with Proton/WINE environments (e.g., Steam Deck)?

[hjunl (hjunl-dev)]

As stated in the title, is WebView2 compatible with Proton/WINE environments (e.g., Steam Deck)?

If it is compatible, I plan to bundle the WebView2 fixed version with the Windows build of my game distributed on Steam.

I would appreciate it if anyone could share any information or clues regarding this.

Thank you.

[Steven Abittan (amys94fr)]

I looked into this a while ago. It's not supported, and right now I wouldn't count on it working on the Deck.

Proton doesn't include the WebView2 runtime, so out of the box you just get "Could not find the WebView2 Runtime". Players can install it in the prefix (protontricks <appid> webview2, the verb was added to Winetricks this year) but a lot of reports on ProtonDB end with a black or white window anyway.

The bigger issue is rendering, see #5720. Under Wine the WebView draws its first frame and then never updates, because Chromium's software compositing on Windows needs WARP/DirectComposition and Wine doesn't have it. It's been reproduced with the Fixed Version too, so bundling it won't fix that part.

If you still go with the Fixed Version for Windows, heads up that from v159 you'll need to set some ACLs on the runtime folder (it's in the runtime 156 release notes). Steam just copies files so you'd have to handle that in an install script or on first launch.

For the Deck I'd go with a native Linux build if your engine can do it. The Adventure Land devs (Tauri game on Steam) went through the same thing and ended up recommending their Linux build: https://adventure.land/linux
Otherwise make sure the game still runs if the WebView fails to start.