I've finally got it working! The Steam ARM beta doesn't appear to have any ARM builds of proton downloaded by default, so the use of GE-Proton here should be even better than usual!
If you don't already use the Steam ARM beta, follow the guide from 1uwn58l for installing the latest Steam ARM beta (minus their custom build of proton): https://www.reddit.com/r/AsahiLinux/comments/1uwn58l/steam_native_under_asahi/
Then, download the latest GE-Proton for aarch64 ( https://github.com/GloriousEggroll/proton-ge-custom ).
Install it either using their scripts or manually like I do:
mkdir ~/.steam/steam/compatibilitytools.d
tar -xf ~/Downloads/GE-Proton11-1-aarch64.tar.gz -C ~/.steam/steam/compatibilitytools.d/
Restart Steam if it is open already.
GE-Proton-aarch64 depends on "Steam Linux Runtime 4.0 - Arm 64" which also appears to not get downloaded by Steam by default. I had to manually install it by running this command with Steam running: muvm ~/.local/share/Steam/steamrtarm64/steam steam://install/4185400 . Steam will ask if you want to install it. Once it is finished installing, move to the next step.
For some reason, even with the new runtime installed, Steam's compat dependency checker will still fail. So to workaround that, I simply remove the dependency requirement from GE-Proton with this command:
sed -i 's#"4185400"#""#g' ~/.steam/steam/compatibilitytools.d/GE-Proton11-1-aarch64/toolmanifest.vdf
Restart Steam again, and now you should be able to use GE-Proton11-1-aarch64 like any other Steam compatibility tool! AKA: Right click on a game -> Properties -> Compatibility -> Force the use of a specific Steam Play compatibility tool, and select GE-Proton11-1-aarch64 from the drop down.
That sed command from earlier is going to need to be ran anytime a new GE-Proton is installed (on the new installs toolmanifest.vdf of course) until the dependency resolution issue is resolved.
--- Additional Edits ---
(the above post is unmodified and posted on July 16th 2026 at 9:23 PM PDT)
(this edit section was added on July 17th 2026)
Games I've tested:
Peglin => Unity Engine
Chained Together => Unreal Engine
World of Warcraft 3.3.5a => Non-Steam game but makes running with muvm (page size) and proton-arm easier.
Opus Magnum => Does not need nor uses Proton, just FEX
EzBench
Talos Principle
Deadlock
Performance investigation / Benchmarks:
I started trying to benchmark performance between Proton11, GE-Proton11, and GE-Proton11-ARM in Deadlock and Talos Principle (because they have in-game FPS tools and the Steam overlay doesn't work on my system). I found that Deadlock would crash more frequently in the non-ARM builds but that could have just been luck. Running all of this on my M2 Air, I got wild swings in FPS during all my tests and it was very difficult to tell if there was any FPS difference at all. Then I remembered EzBench exists. Using EzBench, I found that there was essentially zero difference in FPS between the 3 compatibility layers. However, looking at current draw and CPU monitors, GE-Proton 11 ARM is more efficient than both GE-Proton 11 and regular Proton 11 by a few percentage points.
So GE-Proton11-ARM wins in CPU, power usage, and stability-vibes, but all of them tie in both my own and EzBench's FPS benchmarks.
