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.
Comandante Ñoñardo Aug 1, 2019
Quoting: ShmerlAnd 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.
Just for information – it is possible to publish a DRM-free game on Steam. For example, Space Rangers HD: A War Apart (a very good game, by the way) is DRM-free, as stated in a special notification - “Incorporates 3rd-party DRM: DRM Free!”. Even if this option is not well-advertised, it is still possible…
Quoting: GuestQuoting: ShmerlBecause expertise in Vulkan development is going to increase going forward (thanks in part to Stadia).
Why would "expertise in Vulkan development" increase? The whole point of Proton, from a developer's pov, is that you do not need to move away from DirectX to support another platform...
The announcement of Proton had the plea to developers to use
Last edited by Eike on 1 August 2019 at 11:25 am UTC
Quoting: GuestQuoting: EikeThe announcement of Proton had the plea to developers to use Proton...
I don't understand what this means.
Sorry. :-D
Will fix the post.
Last edited by Eike on 1 August 2019 at 12:01 pm UTC
SteamPlay Compatibility tools
Tool
Display Name
AppID / DepotID
Size
proton_411
Proton 4.11-1
1113280 / 1113281
693.00 MiB
proton_42
Proton 4.2-9
1054830 / 1054831
401.00 MiB
proton_316
Proton 3.16-9
961940 / 961941
395.00 MiB
proton_37
Proton 3.7-8
858280 / 858281
371.00 MiB
-> https://steamdb.info/app/891390/info/
A minor increase von 37 to 316 and to 42 (in total about 8%.
But from 42 to 411 a big jump of 72%!
Last edited by KuJo on 1 August 2019 at 12:42 pm UTC
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.I'm no fan of DRM, but here's the thing: I've been gaming for (well) over 30 years, and there isn't a single game I've ever bought in all that time which I can't play any more because of DRM. Not one. I've even lost manuals from the days of enter-a-word-from-the-manual DRM, and I've just gone online and downloaded a cracked version. (With absolutely no moral qualms whatsoever. I bought the game.)
It always gets cracked. Every time. That's really my main problem with it, in fact: it causes inconvenience to legitimate players, and it doesn't work. In that light, although I'm not trying to defend it, Steam's DRM is less objectionable than most since it's virtually invisible when you play.
What does bother me is always-online and cloud saving. I tried to play GTAV offline on my XBox 360 a few weeks ago, and it turns out a) I can't load my old saves, and b) I can't save my progress from a new game. I've got a physical copy, and it still runs. But there's no point in playing it. That's way more worrying than snake-oil DRM.
Quoting: TriasJust for information – it is possible to publish a DRM-free game on Steam. For example, Space Rangers HD: A War Apart (a very good game, by the way) is DRM-free, as stated in a special notification - “Incorporates 3rd-party DRM: DRM Free!”. Even if this option is not well-advertised, it is still possible…
In practical terms, what Valve could do to improve the situation:
1. Start offering standalone downloads for games as an option (like GOG, Humble and itch.io do).
2. Clarify / fix up their TOS, to allow DRM-free scenarios without any ambiguity.
That would go already a long way, even if not as far as fully DRM-free store like GOG.
Last edited by Shmerl on 1 August 2019 at 3:13 pm UTC
Aug 1, 2019
- Burnout Paradise (most of the time perfect 60 FPS)
- Dragon's Dogma (30 - 60 FPS, I barely had 10 FPS in some areas)
- Call Of Pripyat (over 100 FPS in open areas, 30 in some indoor areas)
Quoting: DuncQuoting: 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.I'm no fan of DRM, but here's the thing: I've been gaming for (well) over 30 years....
Same.
Quoting: DuncWhat does bother me is always-online and cloud saving. I tried to play GTAV offline on my XBox 360 a few weeks ago, and it turns out a) I can't load my old saves, and b) I can't save my progress from a new game. I've got a physical copy, and it still runs. But there's no point in playing it. That's way more worrying than snake-oil DRM.
This does not apply to Steam because of Steam's Offline mode. The thing we have to worry about is Valve going out of business. Steam is only fifteen years old, or already fifteen years old depending on how you want to look at it.
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