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Update: There's a hotfix out. It has some media foundation fixes to install properly.


Original article

There's no need to wait for Valve and CodeWeavers to update Proton for Steam Play, if you're willing to do a little bit of extra work with a custom build like Proton GE.

Proton GE is one of the unofficial builds of Proton briefly talked about in a previous article, with it just recently getting a rather big update.

Proton-4.15-GE-1 was released a few hours ago updating it to the recently released Wine 4.15. Additionally, it adds in Wine's Vkd3d for running Direct3D 12 games through Vulkan, which you can turn on using "PROTON_USE_VKD3D=1 %command%" as a launch option. There's also an update to D9VK which is on by default, use "PROTON_NO_D9VK=1 %command%" as a launch option to turn it off. On top of that there's also various gamepad updates, fsync was updated and a bunch of Media Foundation work went into it too.

It might sound a little scary using a custom build of Proton for Steam Play but installation is easy though. Close Steam, download the Proton-4.15-GE-1.tar.gz file and place the extracted contents into:

~/.steam/root/compatibilitytools.d/

For the newer Linux gamer: a folder with a dot at the start is hidden. Press CTRL + H to toggle hidden files and folders on/off.

When you re-open Steam, it will then show up as an option to force onto a game. Do so by right clicking the game in your Steam library, go to Properties and then this is at the bottom:

Easy as that.

See the full release notes and download here.

What's the benefit over using the Valve provided official Proton? Custom builds might come with fixes you need right away. Say a game is updated and breaks with the official Proton in Steam Play. You might wait weeks or a month but a custom build like Proton GE could come a lot sooner. It's possible in future, that some custom builds might even do things Valve won't or can't officially. It's just another option to get your games running directly in the Steam client on Linux.

I think it's just awesome that Valve has enabled the use of such custom tools. Just like Boxtron for DOSBox and Roberta for ScummVM, there's a lot of fun to be had.

Hat tip to Bogan.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: Proton, Steam, Update, Wine
36 Likes
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36 comments
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cprn Sep 3, 2019
Now we need Augmented Steam to show Boxter and ScummVM info on the game's Steam page as it does for Proton now. Obviously, it can't display ranking but a mere info that these compatibility tools can be used with a given title would be nice.
johndoe Sep 3, 2019
Quoting: 0ttmanIts plays great! 120-140 FPS

This game works for quite some time now.

What Torqachu surely meant is if the CINEMATICS are playing? Without them this game is pretty useless. You miss the whole story.

I've tested this too and NO, does not work for ME > still no cinematics:(


Last edited by johndoe on 3 September 2019 at 3:59 pm UTC
Torqachu Sep 3, 2019
Quoting: johndoe
Quoting: 0ttmanIts plays great! 120-140 FPS

This game works for quite some time now.

What Torqachu surely meant is if the CINEMATICS are playing? Without them this game is pretty useless. You miss the whole story.

I've tested this too and NO, does not work for ME > still no cinematics:(
Exactly.
Unfortunately for me the game does not start with 4.15-GE (try standard, open beta, disable d9vk in launch option), crash with proton 4.11.3 and start without cinematics with proton 4.2.9. :(
With workaround cinematics work on 4.2.9.


Last edited by Torqachu on 3 September 2019 at 4:20 pm UTC
0ttman Sep 3, 2019
Quoting: johndoe
Quoting: 0ttmanIts plays great! 120-140 FPS

This game works for quite some time now.

What Torqachu surely meant is if the CINEMATICS are playing? Without them this game is pretty useless. You miss the whole story.

I've tested this too and NO, does not work for ME > still no cinematics:(


You are correct. My bad I didn't realize the cinematics are missing.
It is weird that some computers work with 4.15-GE and some don't.


Last edited by 0ttman on 3 September 2019 at 5:38 pm UTC
m2mg2 Sep 3, 2019
Quoting: GuestFor me somehow d9vk does not work. I try to play Grand Theft Auto IV and it runs with DXVK. Is there a way to force use of d9vk? Something like Proton 4.11 has PROTON_USE_D9VK=1

It's because the game is defaulting to another direct X version (10 or 11). You must make the game use directX 9. I believe many games will honor the launch option -dx9
clatterfordslim Sep 4, 2019
This just blows me away, am able to play Resident Evil 2 Remake, Resident Evil 7, Shadow Of The Tomb Raider, all without glitches just superb. My Ryzen 5 2600 with just a 1050ti build is not breaking a sweat. It just goes to show, that we here in Linux are beginning to finally see the light where gaming is concerned. In all of these games I'm getting really high FPS too, the quality is superior as well. I'm so glad to see the back of Windows.


Last edited by clatterfordslim on 4 September 2019 at 7:54 am UTC
deathxxx Sep 4, 2019
Quoting: TheRiddickDoes it include FAudio that works with bethesda games?
Changelog say's this:
-FAudio with FFMpeg enabled (fixes audio/voices in multiple games)

So it will enable voices in Skyrim like games. Also compiling Faudio for yourself is so easy.
m2mg2 Sep 4, 2019
Quoting: Guest
Quoting: m2mg2
Quoting: GuestFor me somehow d9vk does not work. I try to play Grand Theft Auto IV and it runs with DXVK. Is there a way to force use of d9vk? Something like Proton 4.11 has PROTON_USE_D9VK=1

It's because the game is defaulting to another direct X version (10 or 11). You must make the game use directX 9. I believe many games will honor the launch option -dx9

Grand Theft Auto IV support only DirectX 9. When I turn on HUD I see running DXVK 1.3.2 with D3D9 mode. I could not manage to force it to use D9VK. Performance is very bad with DXVK on this game. I wonder why it does not switch to D9VK.

Anyway it's not that of a big issue as I can play with Proton 4.11-3 and PROTON_USE_D9VK=1 works well :)

I was under the impression DXVK ONLY supported DX10 and DX11... and it cannot do DX9.. and that D9VK was basically an add on (expansion) of DXVK... Are you sure it isn't some regression in that version of Proton and D9VK that makes it perform badly?
GloriousEggroll Sep 6, 2019
I've released a hotfix for this where media foundation wasnt installing properly and was hanging protonfixes. After the hotfix I tested Darksiders Warmastered Edition and the videos played correctly:

https://github.com/GloriousEggroll/proton-ge-custom/releases/tag/4.15-GE-2
mikhail Sep 6, 2019
Better to write:
QuoteClose Steam, download the Proton-4.15-GE-1.tar.gz file and place the extracted contents into:
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