Valve Has published Proton 9the new major version of its Wine-based compatibility layer, which makes it easier to run video games compiled for Windows on Linux and is a very important part of the Steam Deck, especially considering the commitment to Proton as the main means of running video games. has ended up displacing native games for Linux.
Proton is a veteran development that It was officially released in September 2018.. This has meant that successive releases have had less impact due to the maturation of the compatibility layer itself since support has focused, as it could not be otherwise, on the most popular games on Steam, something in which they have Both Valve and volunteers who have decided to get involved in some way contributed.
The first important novelty of Proton 9 is that NVAPI, the NVIDIA development kit API that allows direct access to the green giant’s graphics and drivers on Windows platforms, is now enabled by default for most games. This obviously does not work with the Steam Deck, but is something that is aimed at Linux desktop users who use an NVIDIA graphics card. The corporation led by Jensen Huang It is somewhat special in its support for Linuxso on many fronts it requires personalized and particular treatment to have compatibility.
For the rest, what stands out most about the new major version of the compatibility layer promoted by Valve are the games that are now officially playable with the stable branch, among which are Dinogen Online, Photography Simulator Demo, George McGeehan Gamer Hero, The Finals, TrueReporter. Mystery of Mistwood, Road to Vostok Demo, WITCH ON THE HOLY NIGHT, Lord of the Rings: Gollum, Sonic Colors: Ultimate, Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 and Yuri’s Revenge, Command & Conquer Tiberian Sun and Firestorm, Aisling and the Tavern of Elves, Snares of Ruin 2, Insanity’s Blade and Bloody Walls. These games could previously only be run with Proton Experimental.
How to enable Proton 9 from the Steam client for Linux.
Another interesting detail is that The number of cores that the following older games can see has been reduced in order to improve their performance: Far Cry 2, Far Cry 4, The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings Enhanced Edition, Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light, Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine, Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II, Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II – Chaos Rising, Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II – Retribution, Outcast – Second Contact and Prototype. In recent years it is not unlikely to come across old games that, far from improving their performance or at least maintaining it, end up making it worse on modern hardware.
Otherwise, what stands out the most are the corrections, which are mainly aimed at specific games. Proton 9 is based on Wine 9 and has brought DXVK 2.3 to translate versions 9, 10 and 11 of the Direct3D instructions to Vulkan; VKD3D-Proton 2.11.1 for the translation of Direct3D 12 instructions to Vulkan; in addition to DXVK-NVAPI 0.6.4 for NVAPI execution.
The easiest way to get Proton 9 is with the Steam client for Linux and implementing it for the Steam Deck, more specifically from the “Compatibility” section within the “Parameters” of the application. The compatibility layer can also be obtained independently with other Linux applications such as Bottles.
