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.
Quoting: skinnyrafTo celebrate, I bought Hellblade at 50% only to face a "DX11 level 10 required" error on a supposedly Platinum title...
Strange, I have 8 solid hours from start to finish on 4.2-3. Just tested with 4.2-4 to be sure that didn't break it for me and it still works but due to it being an Unreal4 game it suffers the DXVK 1.1.1 slowdowns since I'm not on mesa-git (with 4.2-3 I have very high framerate and nu stuttering while 4.2-4 was unplayable since it was hit even worse than Vampyr).
I hope you get it to work because it's on hell of an amazing game (headphones are a must!).
Quoting: lejimsterQuoting: 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..
Do you compile yourself? I used to be on the Padoka unstable PPA but was burned for far too many times when his scripts released some binaries when others failed which lead to weeks without X on some occasions.
One could have hoped that DXVK would have kept the old code path when it detects that the necessary extension is not found and then remove that code path altogether once it's been in mesa stable for some time but I guess that it was too cumbersome.
Last edited by F.Ultra on 16 May 2019 at 4:39 pm UTC
Comandante Ñoñardo May 16, 2019
Quoting: Comandante ÑoñardoNow that Denuvo was removed from RAGE 2, is the game playable via PROTON?
The game was playable the same day of the release (this proton patch made the trick). Seems that Denuvo wasn't a problem.
Last edited by x_wing on 17 May 2019 at 3:32 am UTC
Quoting: F.UltraQuoting: lejimsterQuoting: 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..
Do you compile yourself? I used to be on the Padoka unstable PPA but was burned for far too many times when his scripts released some binaries when others failed which lead to weeks without X on some occasions.
One could have hoped that DXVK would have kept the old code path when it detects that the necessary extension is not found and then remove that code path altogether once it's been in mesa stable for some time but I guess that it was too cumbersome.
I use Arch, there are mesa-git in the AUR that would allow me to compile it easily. But I prefer to use the unofficial mesa-git repo that is very well maintained.
I have had the odd niggling issues in the past with the development builds, but not for at least a year.. Atleast that I remember. If I ever do run into issues... Thats what the downgrade tool is for, I just revert back to an earlier working version.
Comandante Ñoñardo May 24, 2019
Quote4.2-5:
Update DXVK to 1.2.1.
Support for new Steam networking APIs. Should fix some newer titles, including A Hat in Time.
Many controller layout fixes. Should fix controller layout in many Unity-based titles, including Subnautica, and some Ubisoft titles.
Quoting: lejimsterQuoting: F.UltraQuoting: lejimsterQuoting: 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..
Do you compile yourself? I used to be on the Padoka unstable PPA but was burned for far too many times when his scripts released some binaries when others failed which lead to weeks without X on some occasions.
One could have hoped that DXVK would have kept the old code path when it detects that the necessary extension is not found and then remove that code path altogether once it's been in mesa stable for some time but I guess that it was too cumbersome.
I use Arch, there are mesa-git in the AUR that would allow me to compile it easily. But I prefer to use the unofficial mesa-git repo that is very well maintained.
I have had the odd niggling issues in the past with the development builds, but not for at least a year.. Atleast that I remember. If I ever do run into issues... Thats what the downgrade tool is for, I just revert back to an earlier working version.
Padoka Stable release Mesa 19.1.0 today but it actually made things far worse. Vampyr now freezes every second frame and Wolfenstein II refuses to launch due to some Vulkan init that fails, hope mesa will fix those regressions soon...
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