A fresh May upgrade for Proton Experimental has arrived giving us a few tweaks to improve some select games. Here's what's new in the May 17th upgrade.
Valve are listing Super Bomberman R as a newly playable title, the rest are fixes:
- Fixed The Elder Scrolls Online displaying an empty/flickering launcher window.
- Improved video playback in Roboquest.
- Fixed a regression that made Portal RTX not playable.
- Fixed various memory leaks during video playback that were affecting the last Street Fighter 6 beta.
Changelog is over here. Since there's many different Proton versions it can get a bit confusing, so head on over to my beginner's guide on Steam Play and Proton for more info.
Is there something specific you're hoping Valve can improve in Proton for Steam Deck or desktop Linux? Let me know in the comments.
How to change your Proton version:
Steam Deck:
- Pick a game in your Library and head to the little cog icon on the right.
- Click Properties, then Compatibility on the left.
- Make sure the tickbox is done, then select Proton Experimental from the dropdown.
On a Linux desktop:
- Right click a game, go to Properties.
- Compatibility on the left.
- Make sure the tickbox is done, then select Proton Experimental from the dropdown.
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8 comments
Proton is improving at a nice and steady rate, always good to see.
What would be really cool is to see game developers getting a bit more involved, whether that be enabling anti-cheat support or cooperating with Valve to try and get their games working as well as possible.
What would be really cool is to see game developers getting a bit more involved, whether that be enabling anti-cheat support or cooperating with Valve to try and get their games working as well as possible.
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QuoteFixed The Elder Scrolls Online displaying an empty/flickering launcher window.I never had problems with the launcher (playing since 2021), but the installer definitely have (had) black screens, flickering etc, I think that is the fix, probably. Glad they also fixed other ESO problems.
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QuoteValve are listing Super Bomberman R as a newly playable titleAs the resident Bomberman nut and doubtless the GOL'er left most disappointed by how incredibly unstable the 2018 PC port of Super Bomberman R is (it's a terrible experience of what was originally, at its Switch-exclusive debut in 2017, a very charming game; I'm told it's just as bad on Windows, too), I'll believe that when I see it!
Valve granted the game Steam Deck Verified status in December, and it was still in a very wrecky state back then, with cutscenes constantly breaking and then repeatedly crashing the entire game. I know all the raindances to get it to behave briefly (after an hour it would start misbehaving), but the last time I played through it via Proton a couple of months ago, it was still in a mess.
Time to check it out again!
Hopefully this bodes positively for the upcoming sequel, where the Steam version appears to be the lead one, at least!
Last edited by Pengling on 19 May 2023 at 1:55 am UTC
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StoneColdSpider May 19, 2023
Quoting: PenglingAs the resident Bomberman nutI would never have guessed that if you had not said it........
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Quoting: StoneColdSpiderI would never have guessed that if you had not said it........Hahahahaha!
Did the avatar give it away, maybe...? 
I'm just in the middle of testing, and true enough it's like running something entirely different - it's not pushing my GPD Win Max 2021 fans to the point of sounding like a jet-engine anymore, and (though I haven't put the graphics back to max yet, which was always a guaranteed trigger for the aforementioned cutscene problems) the cutscene-related crashing issues haven't reared their ugly heads yet.
This very much reminds me of when I first used Proton (just a year-and-a-half ago), when it felt like magic compared to trying to run games during the earlier days of Wine, and I'm impressed all over again - I'm fairly sure it may now be running better on Linux than it reportedly does on Windows.
EDIT: Just one crash (happened when loading a cutscene, as always, and it got skipped upon reloading as is the norm with this issue) in an hour-and-a-half of testing (previously there would've been quite a lot more), and, unlike before, the problem did not persist or return when the game was restarted. Many thanks to Valve - it didn't feel like trying to balance the game on a knife-edge to keep it running, and I'm super-impressed that they finally got this notoriously-wonky port behaving itself as properly as it can under Proton!
What an absolute joy this unexpected development has been. Last edited by Pengling on 19 May 2023 at 3:38 am UTC
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hardpenguin May 19, 2023
I am still gearing up to play TES Online but from TES, I recently installed Oblivion on Steam Deck 😄
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Quoting: PenglingI was waiting to see if you'd comment on this.QuoteValve are listing Super Bomberman R as a newly playable titleAs the resident Bomberman nut
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Quoting: Purple Library GuyHahahaha!Quoting: PenglingI was waiting to see if you'd comment on this.QuoteValve are listing Super Bomberman R as a newly playable titleAs the resident Bomberman nut
Commented, and tested! I'll be in my element when we now quite-possibly-inevitably hear about Super Bomberman R 2 getting Steam Deck Verified ahead of release!
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