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Two bits of Valve news to cover tonight: SteamOS gains a new beta version and it looks like Steam Play Proton will be getting an update soon.

Let's start with SteamOS, Valve's own-brand Linux distribution, mainly aimed at living-room console-style boxes for a large screen experience. It's still going and the 2.190 beta version is now out for those who've chosen to live on the edge with the brewmaster_beta. It's not a big one, with it including mainly security updates and firmware-nonfree updates. Looks like Timothee "TTimo" Besset (formely id Software, helped to port Rocket League to Linux - see my previous interview) is currently keeping it going.

SteamOS 2.189 was also pushed out for everyone on April 18th, which included mesa 18.3.4, nvidia-graphics-drivers 415.27 and more security updates.

As for Steam Play Proton, it looks like the 4.2 series is getting another version, going by SteamDB it's having some internal testing. Not surprising though, with the last Steam Play update being nearly a month old now. With today's release of Rage 2 on Steam not currently working with Steam Play, a Valve developer did say "there's a build that fixes it in the pipeline" so hopefully it will be out by the end of the week.

Update (only a few minutes later): Well, that Steam Play update came sooner than expected. Steam Play Proton 4.2-4 is out! The changes included in this are:

  • Fix crash on launch for RAGE 2. (requires Mesa development builds on AMD)
  • Update DXVK to v1.1.1.
  • Improve Vulkan support for the new No Man's Sky Vulkan build.
  • Better icons in some window managers.
  • Fix occasional stuck Wine process when upgrading Proton version.
  • Fix controller detection for Yakuza Kiwami and Telltale games.
  • Fix terrain generation in Space Engineers.
  • Fix for Flower failing to launch.

It's also not currently noted, but Proton also updates to "FAudio 19.05 and now uses the official X3DAudio/XAPOFX libraries for 64-bit games by default" according to Ethan Lee on Twitter.

For those interested, Proton's build system was also updated and it now supports libvirt/qemu in addition to Vagrant's VirtualBox. This was mentioned in a later commit on the GitHub.

The changelog for Steam Play can be found here as usual. Top work from Valve and CodeWeavers.

Hat tip to mphuZ. Note: The article title and content was updated since Steam Play was updated soon after publishing.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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Liam Dawe May 14, 2019
Note: Article title and content was updated to reflect Proton being out minutes later - hah, nice one Valve/CodeWeavers.


Last edited by Liam Dawe on 14 May 2019 at 8:17 pm UTC
Xpander May 14, 2019
Available in Proton 4.2:
###### 4.2-4:
* Fix crash on launch for RAGE 2. (requires Mesa development builds on AMD)
* Update DXVK to v1.1.1.
* Improve Vulkan support for the new No Man's Sky Vulkan build.
* Better icons in some window managers.
* Fix occasional stuck Wine process when upgrading Proton version.
* Fix controller detection for Yakuza Kiwami and Telltale games.
* Fix terrain generation in Space Engineers.
* Fix for Flower failing to launch.


Last edited by Xpander on 14 May 2019 at 8:16 pm UTC
Liam Dawe May 14, 2019
Tested No Man's Sky again on their Vulkan beta with this version of Proton and yeah it runs...like garbage on my 980ti. This is with everything as low as it can go or turned off, ouch :(

Doh, was messing around with drivers hunting down an issue, forgot to restart that one time...

No Man's Sky has indeed improved dramatically, still not amazing but it's back closer to the levels of the stable OpenGL build now and playable :)


Last edited by Liam Dawe on 14 May 2019 at 9:16 pm UTC
Brisse May 14, 2019
Wow, RAGE 2 was released like just now and it's already getting Proton fixes? That's pretty impressive.
Liam Dawe May 14, 2019
Added a note from Ethan.
garpu May 14, 2019
@liamdawe, which drivers are you using? I get crap performance with the 418 ones, but good performance with it with the 430 drivers.
poke86 May 14, 2019
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QuoteFix controller detection for [...] Telltale games.

Yay! Tales from the Borderlands works with the controller now!

I had to set "Steam input Per-Game Setting" to "Forced off" to get it to actually register button presses.
Liam Dawe May 14, 2019
Quoting: garpu@liamdawe, which drivers are you using? I get crap performance with the 418 ones, but good performance with it with the 430 drivers.
Yeah my bad, post edited.
scaine May 14, 2019
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Quoting: liamdaweAdded a note from Ethan.

Dude, c'mon! First there's a new SteamOS, THEN there's an update to Steam Play and THEN Ethan Lee has baked all this audio lovliness in.

There's ONE like button. I can like an article ONCE. And then it's liked.

That's hardly fair.
EzyRhino May 14, 2019
Update fixed Rage 2 for me, works great now.
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