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.
For me Vampyr just took a nose dive performance wise when Steam updated Proton to 4.2-4 today.
Quoting: F.UltraThe inclusion of DXVK 1.1.1 is kind of a bummer since it requires VK_EXT_host_query_reset without plummeting performance in some games and that is not available in any of the stable versions of Mesa yet.
For me Vampyr just took a nose dive performance wise when Steam updated Proton to 4.2-4 today.
Remember that Steam clients allows to select specific Proton versions for each game (at least this will be a solution for game that were working fine). But yeah, would be nice to be able to easily select an specific DXVK for each Proton version.
Last edited by x_wing on 15 May 2019 at 4:55 pm UTC
Quoting: F.UltraThe inclusion of DXVK 1.1.1 is kind of a bummer since it requires VK_EXT_host_query_reset without plummeting performance in some games and that is not available in any of the stable versions of Mesa yet.
For me Vampyr just took a nose dive performance wise when Steam updated Proton to 4.2-4 today.
I've decided to stay on mesa-git. For the most part it's been stable and while dxvk/d9vk etc are being developed it works best with them. Maybe when these projects mature and settle down stable will be a good option, but for right now..
QuoteAdded support for developers and Valve testing specifying default Proton configuration options for games even if they're not yet white-listedNice.
TheRiddick May 16, 2019
QuoteLooks like Timothee "TTimo" Besset (formely id Software, helped to port Rocket League to Linux - see my previous interview) is currently keeping it going.
Can you clarify what you mean by this? Is TTimo contracting to valve to maintain SteamOS? What do you mean by "looks like", github commits, tweets, something else?
Thanks.
Quoting: NodCan you clarify what you mean by this? Is TTimo contracting to valve to maintain SteamOS? What do you mean by "looks like", github commits, tweets, something else?
Answering my own question, this probably: https://steamcommunity.com/groups/steamuniverse/discussions/search/?author=10334202
Quoting: x_wingQuoting: F.UltraThe inclusion of DXVK 1.1.1 is kind of a bummer since it requires VK_EXT_host_query_reset without plummeting performance in some games and that is not available in any of the stable versions of Mesa yet.
For me Vampyr just took a nose dive performance wise when Steam updated Proton to 4.2-4 today.
Remember that Steam clients allows to select specific Proton versions for each game (at least this will be a solution for game that were working fine). But yeah, would be nice to be able to easily select an specific DXVK for each Proton version.
When Steam installed 4.2-4 it replaced 4.2-3 for me completely.
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