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A small update landed last night for Proton Experimental with a main aim of helping the recent God of War release, which has been running quite nicely already. ICYMI: there was another update to Proton Experimental recently that solved a number of problems like Sea of Thieves voice chat.

The only change we know of for the January 14 release of Proton Experimental is an update to the DXVK version used, which added in some new options that are turned on by default in DXVK's configuration to help the performance in God of War even more. On top of that, it also makes it easier to use NVIDIA DLSS as it disabled DXVK's NVAPI hack for God of War. Now all you need to do for God of War is add this launch option to enable DLSS: PROTON_ENABLE_NVAPI=1 %command%

You can buy God of War on Humble Store and Steam.

See the Proton Experimental changelog to see all the current differences to the normal Proton releases. This update is not currently noted in the actual changelog at time of writing.

Need to know how to actually use Proton Experimental? Here's a simple HOWTO (as it's not complicated!). Make sure it's installed by searching for it in your Steam Library, then select it from the Compatibility menu in the Properties section of a game. See our quick video below:

For an explainer in text form:

  1. Search for Proton Experimental and install if not already.
  2. Right click any game on Steam and go to Properties.
  3. Select the Compatibility menu on the right side.
  4. Ensure the "Force the use of a specific Steam Play compatibility tool" is ticked.
  5. From the dropdown box that appears select Proton Experimental.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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8 comments

melkemind Jan 15, 2022
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So far I'm loving it. The very first time I started it, performance was really low, not sure why. I restarted it, and it worked well. With DLSS, it's excellent.
StalePopcorn Jan 15, 2022
Quoting: melkemindSo far I'm loving it. The very first time I started it, performance was really low, not sure why. I restarted it, and it worked well. With DLSS, it's excellent.
Similar here. Went to play again today and it was playing super smooth. Enabled FSR Ultra setting, stayed smooth, looked more beautiful.
STiAT Jan 16, 2022
On my PC it runs somewhat fin with async option on.

Of course it had to build a shader cache to get rid of stuttering, but it really got better over time by that.

I am actually not yet that excited, story telling is rather weak at the point where I am at.
STiAT Jan 16, 2022
Quoting: GuestThat was a quick update from the Proton team. :)
Certainly skilled developers at DXVK who know what they're doing. Profiling a game recognizing the pitfalls for them is as easy as it comes. I think Valve to hire those skilled people did us as people playing games on Linux really well, and I thank them for that, and ofc the developers for their hard work.

I've worked with those developers in the past, especially on D9VK before Joshua went to work for Valve, doing API captures to help solving issues - and it probably was the smoothest experience I ever had reporting issues in an open source project.

I actually only once had a run-in with Philip in a bug report, and it was constructive and solution-focused as it possibly could get.

Valve seems to have skilled and enthusiastic developers on their hand there. Even with the ground work laid, I hope they don't loose them, with all their passion for what they're doing they're an asset.
BlackBloodRum Jan 16, 2022
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Oh dammit. I bought a windows game.

May the gods of tux forgive me for my sin.

Edit: Oh.. no.. sony plan to bring Uncharted to PC too:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1659420/?snr=1_5_9__205

If this works on tux too.. it may not be good for my wallet....


Last edited by BlackBloodRum on 16 January 2022 at 12:08 pm UTC
BielFPs Jan 17, 2022
It's really refreshing to see a famous AAA game ruining day 1 on proton without AC or an shady DRM causing problems.
BlackBloodRum Jan 17, 2022
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Quoting: Guest
Quoting: BlackBloodRumOh dammit. I bought a windows game.

May the gods of tux forgive me for my sin.

Edit: Oh.. no.. sony plan to bring Uncharted to PC too:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1659420/?snr=1_5_9__205

If this works on tux too.. it may not be good for my wallet....

sorry the gods of tux don't forgive you. now as a punishment you need to install Gentoo on 10 pentium 1 laptops. Also you need to pray 50 Hail Linus, (here it is in case you don't remember it):
Spoiler, click me

Our Linus, who art in Finland. Slackware be thy name.

Thy Fedora come, thy 2.6.1 done. On earth as it is in Debian.

Give us this day our twice yearly Ubuntu. And forgive Mozilla for it's shoddy Linux Firefox build. For we forgive those updates that break our drivers. And lead us not into Steve Jobs, but deliver us also from Bill Gates.

For thine is the Red Hat, and the awesome hardware optimization. For ever and ever:

Sudo.
Installing Gentoo on those old laptops sounds like fun (I have installed gentoo before ) but I wonder how many of them would die from overheating?
sarmad Jan 17, 2022
Very nice. It's been running pretty much flawlessly on my machine already and already very fluid. I'll give this a try, maybe DLSS can keep my GPU a bit cooler.
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