Proton Experimental Update Brings Performance Work, MS Flight Simulator VR Mode

Proton Experimental 5.13-20210107 is out today as the first 2021 release of this Wine downstream that powers Steam Play for running Windows games on Linux.

This is just an experimental update in the Proton 5.13 series for testing, but given that the current Proton 5.13-4 release is one month old and Wine 6.0 will be released soon, hopefully there will be the next stable update shortly for bettering the Windows gaming on Linux experience for early 2021.

With Proton Experimental 5.13-20210107 there is expanded OpenXR API support which in turn should now allow Microsoft Flight Simulator in its virtual reality (VR) mode at least work now in conjunction with AMD graphics hardware. This Proton update also now supports setting thread priorities via RTKit and Unix priorities and various game controller support improvements. Proton Experimental also carries work to reduce CPU overhead and enhance performance, various fixes around Cyberpunk 2077, memory allocator performance improvements, video support improvements, and more.

Cyberpunk 2077 changes include sound issues resolved by now handling the Spatial Audio Sound API and updated VKD3D-Proton to fix facial animations. The VKD3D-Proton update is v2.1 from mid-December.

Today's experimental Proton update for those interested can be found via GitHub.