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Valve and CodeWeavers have released another fresh Proton Experimental build for testing upcoming features of the Proton compatibility layer for Linux gaming with Steam Play.

As the headline says, DLSS is coming to Proton! This was announced by NVIDIA only recently, which is quite exciting! Nice to see Proton itself already preparing everything needed, with a new NVIDIA driver (470) coming sometime soon.

Proton Experimental for June 2, 2021 pulls in these changes:

  • Improved GPU device selection.
  • Optionally support Nvidia's NVAPI GPU support library. It is disabled by default and can be enabled with `PROTON_ENABLE_NVAPI=1`.
  • Prepare for Nvidia's upcoming DLSS support.
  • Update to recent DXVK and vkd3d-proton.
  • Better support for Xbox controllers in some Unity games.
  • Fix Splitgate: Arena Warfare hangs and multiplayer performance issues.

If you're not clear on what Proton and Steam Play are, be sure to check out our constantly updated dedicated page. It's a special compatibility layer for running Windows games and apps from Steam on Linux. Proton Experimental gets new features and fixes first before they roll out into normal Proton releases.

Need to know how to actually use Proton Experimental? Here's a simple HOWTO (as it's not complicated!). Make sure it's installed by searching for it in your Steam Library, then select it from the Compatibility menu in the Properties section of a game. See our quick video below:

The full Proton and Proton Experimental changelog can be seen on GitHub.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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9 comments

3zekiel Jun 3, 2021
Btw, do we have any news on when 470 series is coming ? I am quite hyped now.
MrAnon57 Jun 3, 2021
So hyped, this is a feature I was missing, now I'll actually have a reason to stick with Nvidia, hopefully amds version of dlss isn't as bad as it looks
CatKiller Jun 3, 2021
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Quoting: 3zekielBtw, do we have any news on when 470 series is coming ? I am quite hyped now.
The DLSS-in-Proton needs 470, since that includes the dll to be dropped into the Wine prefix, and they said that that was happening this month, so sometime this month. Roughly.
CatKiller Jun 3, 2021
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I think this might bump me onto the Experimental branch. The only game I really use Proton for at the moment is No Man's Sky and - because I use overlays to cap the framerate to compensate for the game's lumpy frame timing - I'd stuck with 5.10 rather than the containerised versions. NMS is getting DLSS, 470 gets DLSS that Wine can use, and Proton Experimental starts using it. Should be interesting to try.
1xok Jun 3, 2021
It's really amazing the progress that's being made and how quickly it's happening now.
rustybroomhandle Jun 3, 2021
Quoting: 1xokIt's really amazing the progress that's being made and how quickly it's happening now.

Still a lot of work to do before Valve's new hardware launches though. And while a lot of the focus is on getting working support for features like MediaFoundation, DLSS, AntiCheat etc. there's a lot of work on per game compatibility type stuff that's missing.

For example, Mass Effect Legendary Edition works with fixes applied to the latest Glorious Eggroll release, but official Proton still does not have these. There are also other examples.
InhaleOblivion Jun 4, 2021
Excellent *rubs hands*
KuJo Jun 4, 2021
Interesting. I played Red Dead Redemption 2 in multiplayer with the Proton Experimental until the day before yesterday.

Yesterday there was the update for it. Was downloaded directly when I wanted to start the game. After the update, the game quit with an error message in the Rockstar Launcher. After clicking away the error message, the launcher continued to run endlessly without launching the game.

I then set it to version 6.3.4. And with that the game starts again flawlessly. I then played yesterday for a good 3-4 hours without problems.

It is interesting because the changelog under version 6.3.4 says the following:

QuoteFix recent 2K Games launcher update

And under the Experimental version it says this:

QuoteAll changes from Proton 6.3-4.

Well. But still really cool that RDR2 can now be started directly from Steam without problems.


Last edited by KuJo on 4 June 2021 at 10:08 am UTC
rezzafri Jun 5, 2021
I tried dxvk-nvapi under wine on Fenyx Rising, the in game performance HUD shows correct version of nvidia driver... nice
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