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Now that the huge release of Steam Play Proton 7.0-1 is out, work begins again on Proton Experimental as it pulls in all the latest changes for you to play with. What is Proton? It's a compatibility layer designed to run Windows games from Steam on Linux. See more about it in our full guide.

As of Proton Experimental updated on February 18, here's what's changed:

  • All changes from Proton 7.0-1.
  • Fix STAR WARS: Squadrons displaying warning about outdated drivers.
  • Fix Dead Cells hanging on launch.
  • Fix Devil May Cry 5 and Capcom Arcade Stadium crashing when scrolling through videos too quickly.
  • Fix Uplay / Ubisoft Connect reliably failing to update with fsync enabled.
  • Fix GTA V randomly crashing on certain window managers.
  • Fix Teardown randomly crashing.
  • Fix Melty Blood: Type Lumina hanging on the intro video.
  • Fix Arma 3 launcher.
  • Update file distribution method to save disk space.
  • Update dxvk to include the latest development work.
  • Update vkd3d-proton to include the latest development work.

See the Proton Experimental changelog to see all the current differences to the 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:

For an explainer in text form:

  1. Search for Proton Experimental and install if not already.
  2. Right click any game on Steam and go to Properties.
  3. Select the Compatibility menu on the right side.
  4. Ensure the "Force the use of a specific Steam Play compatibility tool" is ticked.
  5. From the dropdown box that appears select Proton Experimental.
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Eike 10 years Feb 19, 2022
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Quoting: STiAT
Quoting: CatKiller
Quoting: TheBardMost games runs better on proton than natively.
[citation needed]

Note that there are 9,612 native games on Steam today, so you need to show that at least 4,807 of them work better through Proton on all hardware.

I think he meant the native ports. And he is right there. I have had better experience with a number of games using Proton than using the native port.

... and so does CatKiller. If you say "most" of the native ported games work better on Proton, you at least need to have tested with a majority of them.
STiAT Feb 19, 2022
Quoting: Eike
Quoting: STiAT
Quoting: CatKiller
Quoting: TheBardMost games runs better on proton than natively.
[citation needed]

Note that there are 9,612 native games on Steam today, so you need to show that at least 4,807 of them work better through Proton on all hardware.

I think he meant the native ports. And he is right there. I have had better experience with a number of games using Proton than using the native port.

... and so does CatKiller. If you say "most" of the native ported games work better on Proton, you at least need to have tested with a majority of them.

Holy crap, there are 9k native games? The number just seemed too high so I expected this to be a misunderstanding. My bad.

Though, for my library at least it's true, I basically play all native titles with Proton because they work better that way (cities skylines, poe, tyranny, valheim, the witcher 2, ...)

What I can say is that most feral ports work nicely (thinking on mad max and others there), as do native Valve games (where some do use native dxvk but at least no proton), most based on unity (which are a lot) or have their own native ports don't work very well natively.
Philadelphus Feb 19, 2022
Huh, I've never thought to try Cities: Skylines with Proton, since it already runs perfectly fine natively on my computer. Maybe I should do a comparison. 🤔

Edit: I was going to test it, but switching to Proton doesn't bring your saved games along, so I didn't have a city in progress for a fair comparison. I did note that the Windows launcher lacks the "Continue" button found on the native launcher, interestingly.


Last edited by Philadelphus on 19 February 2022 at 8:25 pm UTC
STiAT Feb 19, 2022
Quoting: PhiladelphusHuh, I've never thought to try Cities: Skylines with Proton, since it already runs perfectly fine natively on my computer. Maybe I should do a comparison. 🤔

I get stutters and hangs if the city grows too big in the native version (that said, I built a version of Vienna, which isn't that small). Had it on AMD and NVidia, and it takes more on the GPU in the native one than using DXVK for me.

Granted, it runs well enough in native, the occasional stutter or short hang can be lived with since it's not game where this matters, but it's better in Proton, at least that's what I experience.


Last edited by STiAT on 19 February 2022 at 8:28 pm UTC
Adrianodl Feb 20, 2022
Unfortunately RE5 and Catherine does not work out of the box with this new version of proton. RE5 has a little complicated tutorial, but Catherine don't play it's cutscenes videos at all.
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