Earlier this week valve released two big news, of which one of them is the liberation of the new version of your Proton project, reaching its version 4.11-8 and the other news is that I launch a beta test on Steam for Linux, which supports the namespace. This with the purpose to allow games to run in additional isolation mode from the main system.
The isolated launch function is available for all games that come in the form of native Linux builds. In addition to isolating system components, user data is also separated (instead of / Home, the directory «~ / .var / app / com.steampowered.App [AppId]").
Plus additional protection against crashes and vulnerabilities in game apps, isolated boot mode simplifies compatibility with different distributions and organize the release of old games in new distributions whose system environment does not support the libraries required to run the game.
Also it is possible to use containers to solve the inverse problem of using new runtime in games, including new library versions, without compromising compatibility with other supported LTS distributions.
This isolation mode can be enabled andn the dialog box of the game properties in the section «Steam Linux Runtime / Force the use of a specific Steam Play compatibility tool«.
About the new version of Proton 4.11-8
Regarding the release of the new version of Proton 4.11-8, which is based on the Wine project and aims to guarantee the launch of Linux-based game applications created for Windows and presented in the Steam directory.
We can find the following enhancements, such as the integration of the vkd3d package, which provides an implementation of Direct3D 12, working through the translation of Vulkan API calls.
Besides that worked to reduce disk space consumption by Proton package and to reduce the size of downloaded updates.
Meanwhile received some improvements related to the work of Rockstar Launcher and Grand Theft Auto 5, just like him improved support for game controllers in the games Farming Simulator 19 and Resident Evil 2.
It is also noted that the build system was updated with which a new build target 'redist' has been added to the makefile, which facilitates the redistribution of Proton builds between users, in addition to the mounting process is significantly more Quick.
Of the other changes that stand out In the announcement of this new version, we can find:
- Discontinued delivery of Wine and other library assembly options with debugging symbols enabled. For debugging purposes, there is a separate Proton "debug" tag available in the Steam client,
- Fixed mouse issues in Arma 3 game.
- The ability to run the game «DmC: Devil May Cry».
- The DXVK layer (DXGI, Direct3D 10 and Direct3D 11 implementation on top of the Vulkan API) has been updated to branch 1.4.4.
- The D9VK layer (Direct3D 9 implementation over Vulkan API) has been updated to experimental version 0.30.
- FAudio components with DirectX sound library implementation (XAudio2, X3DAudio, XAPO and XACT3 API) have been updated to version 19.11.
- The wine-mono components that allow you to run many XNA games and games on the Unreal Engine 3 have been updated to version 4.9.4.
How to activate Proton on Steam?
For this They should open the Steam client and click on Steam in the upper left corner and then Settings.
In the "Account" section you will find the option to register for the beta version. Doing this and accepting will close the Steam client and download the beta version (a new installation).
At the end and after accessing their account, they return to the same route to verify that they are already using Proton.
I think that to activate the use of Proton you have to go to the Steam Play option and from there choose which version by default will affect all non-native Linux games (or applications). It seems to me that it is not necessary to go to the beta version of the portal to do so. It is, however, for the use of containers.
In addition, in each game, within «Properties» you can force a specific Proton version.