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.
Last edited by Liam Dawe on 14 May 2019 at 8:17 pm UTC
###### 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
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
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.
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.
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.
Quoting: liamdaweQuoting: 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.
Yay! Yeah, things aren't overly optimized yet and turning on tessellation will cause a crash. But it's very playable. I think tessellation is still causing issues for Windows players, though? I believe tessellation is working for AMD users.
Quoting: minidouCould we expect an update to bring DXVK 1.2 soon ?Sounds like 1.2 has issues, so not currently.
Spoiler, click me
It looks like someone answered a similar comment of mine on phoronix, I'll try it out, and report back :)
Apparently, it's some game bug.
Last edited by MayeulC on 15 May 2019 at 9:51 am UTC
But what do you think: Could Valve also be planning to port games to Stadia in the future or something like that?
Comandante Ñoñardo May 15, 2019
Quoting: 1xokValve's really working hard for us. That's a real pleasure.
But what do you think: Could Valve also be planning to port games to Stadia in the future or something like that?
valve games? do you wanna play CSGO and DOTA on stadia?
Mohandevir May 15, 2019
Quoting: Horimight be useful to write an article on the current state of SteamOS and its future. what we know, what we can expect, and what are the possibilities. i, for one, am in the dark. i really don't know what's going on with it.
and i'm interested, since I plan to install it once I get a TV, so I can boot straight into that when i wanna play from the couch, without the need for a keyboard. but if there is no future for it, or it performs badly, etc, then i will have to find alternatives
It's not much, but I asked TTimo if something could be done for the in-home streaming performance issues with a SteamOS host (lots of stuttering).
The answer was:
"As far as Valve supported, I'm afraid compositor work on brewmaster isn't very high on the priorities list right now :("
Bold is on me.
Maybe something is brewing for Clockwerk, in this regard and it might also mean that they are working on it (as Clockwerk), behind closed doors? Sorry for what I just did. :)
Last edited by Mohandevir on 15 May 2019 at 2:28 pm UTC
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