Can I Play Steam Games on Both Windows and Linux from the Same Drive?

Technically, you can play games stored on the same drive, but practically, it's a bit of a headache. I wouldn't recommend it unless you're comfortable with tinkering and familiar with how Wine and file systems work. It's usually better to keep your game libraries separate for each OS to avoid complications. SSDs are pretty cheap these days; consider getting a dedicated one for Linux games instead!

I once had a working setup with a shared NTFS partition for Steam between Windows and Linux, but things got messy sometimes. If you’re keen on dual-booting, I would recommend using separate partitions or drives for your games to avoid any compatibility issues in the long run.

It's actually possible to use an NTFS partition for your Steam library that both Windows and Linux can access, but you need to mount it correctly. However, be careful—NTFS can be problematic in Linux at times. There are guides out there that can help you set this up without too much hassle, but you'll need to know a bit about handling filesystems!

Most likely, you won't get smooth sailing with it. When using Proton for Linux, some game files need to be updated for Linux, so you'd end up doing extra work switching back and forth between operating systems. Of course, many games run fine on Linux, but you'll find some that won't—it really depends on the titles you plan to play.

In my experience, you can share an NTFS formatted drive, but it may turn into a hassle. Sometimes games would work on one OS but not the other, leading to reinstalling issues. If you can, just stick to running games natively on Linux with a separate partition for simplicity.