Tech

Proton 8 makes Forspoken and Dead Space remake playable on Linux

Valve has published Proton 8, the latest version of its compatibility layer based on Wine and which is one of the mainstays of Linux Gaming in general and of the Steam Deck in particular. The company behind the Steam platform did not give up after the failure of the Steam Machines and continued to improve its support for Linux, which has led to the scenario we all know today.

Proton 8 does not come with groundbreaking news, which is normal if we take into account that it is a development with years behind it and that it is very consolidated, so this time there is a list of officially compatible titles that has been expanded and the correction of a notable number of bugs affecting launchers, specific games, and specific environments. The previous major version stood out for the inclusion of support for Easy Anti-Cheat, but this time we find ourselves with an episode of “more of the same, but better”. In any case, the important thing here is consistency, and there Valve has more than fulfilled.

As we have already said, one of the two main novelties is the expansion of the list of officially supported games, which are now labeled as playable. We say officially compatible because some of them may already work and in the worst case you can always fall back on Proton Glorious Eggroll, the main fork of the compatibility layer. Without further delay, we proceed to expose the list:

  • Forspoken
  • samurai maiden
  • Dead Space remake
  • Nioh 2 – The Complete Edition
  • One Piece: Pirate Warriors 4
  • Atelier Meruru, Atelier Lydie & Suelle ~The Alchemists and the Mysterious Paintings~
  • Blue Reflection
  • Atelier Rorona ~The Alchemist of Arland~ DX
  • Disney Dreamlight Valley
  • ROMANCE OF THE THREE KINGDOMS XIV
  • ToGather:Island
  • WARRIORS OROCHI 3 Ultimate Definitive Edition
  • Exceed – Gun Bullet Children
  • Gungrave GORE
  • Chex Quest HD

As for fixes, Proton 8 has Fixed a bug that caused Football Manager 2023 to crash when trying to return from player profile, a performance regression issue in Mortal Kombat X, Ray tracing in Crysis Remastered, a regression that caused Minecraft Dungeons to hang when disconnected from multiplayer and a crash caused by the 2K launcher updater. It has also brought improved full screen support for The Last Blade 2, improved Force FeedBack compatibility in BeamNG and Forza Horizon 5improved multiplayer support in Company of Heroes III, as well as improved suspend/resume functionality when running Tiny Tina’s Wonderland on the Steam Deck.

Proton is not a development that starts from scratch, but is based on Wine, the well-known reimplementation of the Windows APIs published as free software and available for Linux, macOS and other Unix and Unix-like systems. The new major version of Proton is based on Wine 8 and has been accompanied by DXVK 2.1-4, VKD3D-Proton 2.8-84, DXVK-NVAPI 0.6.2 and wine-mono 7.4.1.

Configuring Proton 8 in Steam Parameters for Linux

Configure Proton 8 in Steam Settings for Linux.

Far from what many people believe, Wine and Proton are not emulators, but rather can be defined as compatibility layers that are responsible for translating system calls from Windows to Linux. (or to another system like macOS, ChromeOS, or FreeBSD). Similar is the situation of DXVK and VKD3D-Proton. The first translates the instructions of Direct3D versions 9, 10 and 11 to Vulkan, while the second takes care of doing the same with the twelfth version of the Microsoft API. Software that runs on top of Wine/Proton doesn’t run emulated, but runs natively, so the correct term would be more like translation-based.

To check the compatibility of a game on Linux using Proton, it never hurts to take a look at its file on ProtonDB, a website where users rate their experience under the aforementioned conditions. In addition to a note, it is possible to find resources there that allow you to obtain compatibility or improve the experience, which is usually done by entering launch parameters through the Game Properties in the Steam client for Linux or in the Steam Deck.

Setting up Proton 8 in the Steam Linux client is as simple as opening Settings, going to the “Steam Play” section, checking the “Enable Steam Play for all other titles” box, and selecting Proton 8.0-1 (or version updated after a while) in the dropdown of the “Run other titles with” field. After doing these steps, you have to click on the OK button and restart the application.

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