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Valve have announced the release of Steam Play Proton 4.11, this is a pretty exciting one and it's pretty huge overall.

Firstly, it was re-based on top of Wine 4.11. So it brings thousands of improvements over, considering that's quite a version bump. Additionally, 154 patches from Proton were upstreamed directly to Wine!

The next exciting bit is that Valve are now funding D9VK (and have been since June according to developer Joshua Ashton), along with shipping it in Proton as part of this update. This Vulkan-based Direct3D 9 renderer is still experimental, so it's not enabled by default as you need to use the "PROTON_USE_D9VK" setting.

Additionally DXVK was updated to 1.3, your current display refresh rate is now actually reported to games, there's more fixes to window management and mouse cursor focus, VR users rejoice as there's support for the latest OpenVR SDKs, FAudio was updated to 19.07, GameMaker titles got a fix for networking and there's a joystick input lag fix and rumble support for certain games.

Possibly just as exciting, is that a bunch of Wine "modules" are now built as Windows PE files instead of Linux libraries. Eventually, this will help some DRM and anti-cheat systems as work progresses on it. Fantastic to see work on that being done!

Is that all? Oh no—there's more.

When Valve identified issues with multi-threaded games as Proton development was being ramped up, CodeWeavers worked on developing the "esync" patchset to address it. It worked well but it came with multiple issues. As Valve said it needed a "special setup" and can cause "file descriptor exhaustion problems in event-hungry applications", they also think it "results in extraneous spinning in the kernel". So, they're working on what they're calling fsync and suggesting changes to accommodate it in the Linux Kernel.

Valve also showed off some proof-of-concept glibc patches, to expose the Kernel patches as part of the pthread library to get it all working. They said that if it's all accepted, "we would achieve efficiency gains by adopting it in native massively-threaded applications such as Steam and the Source 2 engine". You can read more about all that work in this Steam forum post and fsync testing instructions here.

As always, the Proton changelog for Steam Play can be found here.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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Comandante Ñoñardo Jul 31, 2019
Finally Still Life 2 can be played on Linux via PROTON 4.11-1 and d9vk...
Dunc Jul 31, 2019
Quoting: GuestAnyone tried Fallout New Vegas with this new version of Proton?
Just did. :)

It works, with some weird graphical artifacts; a sort of shadowing across the screen. Initially I thought it might be an HDR bug - it almost looks as if tonemapping is being applied to the wrong viewpoint - but I switched it off, and I'd be willing to bet that's it's actually one of the mods I've installed. I haven't tried vanilla yet.

If it isn't then you're probably best sticking to an older Proton. Otherwise, it seems fine.
Thormack Jul 31, 2019
Anyone tried Skyrim and Skyrim SE to see if the sound issues are fixed?
(And other minor issues like event triggers).
kuhpunkt Jul 31, 2019
Quoting: ThormackAnyone tried Skyrim and Skyrim SE to see if the sound issues are fixed?
(And other minor issues like event triggers).

That will take a while.
mrdeathjr Jul 31, 2019
Quoting: Comandante ÑoñardoVsync doesn't work on Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood, but the game itself works out of the box.

maybe can use this setting in your dxvk.conf file

d3d9.presentInterval = 1

in my case put vsync in all games tested

^_^
STiAT Jul 31, 2019
Funding D9VK was a logical step considering the progress done, and DXVK devs actually participating already hinted to an increased involvement / checking project viability. I'm happy for Josh, not knowing about contract details I hope he finishes his education and has this as a summer job.

I'm sure that guy will make his way, which ever path he chooses, but finishing education certainly wouldn't hurt. Very skilled youth with a lot of passion.

He deserves it. More than that, I appreciate the work he does, and I appreciate Valve for recognizing that his work is worth funding. We all knew that for quite some time. I hope they understand his age and keep a balance with his education and work.

Thanks Josh first of all, incredible things you've done, can't thank you enough, and thanks Valve for recognizing and funding.
Shmerl Aug 1, 2019
Quoting: EikeSo we can declare Game Over on native Linux gaming besides "retro-inspired"?

Probably less so Feral based, more so studios doing their own thing. Because expertise in Vulkan development is going to increase going forward (thanks in part to Stadia).
jarhead_h Aug 1, 2019
At this point I genuinely cannot understand why there would be any Linux gamers left who aren't on Steam. Don't talk to me about DRM, because Valve has done more for Linux's future this past year I think than any other company I can name. They are using resources on us cannot be justified with the current userbase and I believe that deserves reciprocity. I'm not saying you have to re-buy your GOG library over on Steam, but you should really start buying stuff there if you aren't already.

You keep saying that you want to reward developers that support Linux, well I'd say that Valve counts.
Shmerl Aug 1, 2019
Quoting: jarhead_hAt this point I genuinely cannot understand why there would be any Linux gamers left who aren't on Steam. Don't talk to me about DRM, because Valve has done more for Linux's future this past year I think than any other company I can name.

One doesn't really excuse the other. I.e. I surely support what Valve does for Linux gaming, but I don't support DRM. If you want to help FOSS projects, you can contribute to them. Either with code, or bug reports and testing. Valve does it not because they need financial incentive for FOSS contributions (like some developers using Patreon and other crowdfunding for that). They are doing it because it suits them, and it's good. Many companies contribute to FOSS because FOSS actually makes sense. And kudos to Valve for doing so.

And regarding DRM - it's not actually hard for Valve to start offering DRM-free options, like other stores do. They just don't see it as important.


Last edited by Shmerl on 1 August 2019 at 1:30 am UTC
Murdered Soul Suspect in DX11 still crash when entering the cemetery.



In DX9 mode, the game works perfect with d9vk... and with 60fps, unlike the dx11 mode that is capped at 30fps.
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