With more titles out and planned to release that will use DirectX 12, the VKD3D-Proton translation layer is another essential bit of open source tech and a new release is out now.

The what: paired up with the Wine and Steam Play Proton translation layers, VKD3D-Proton will translate Direct3D 12 to Vulkan and hopefully allow you to run some more advanced Windows-only games and apps on Linux. VKD3D-Proton is the Valve fork of the original project from the Wine developers, with a priority on performance and game compatibility.

Today VKD3D-Proton 2.1 went up which mentions that The Division should work (which they missed from the 2.0 release notes), Assassin's Creed Valhalla should also now work but it needs NVIDIA GPUs due to features lacking on AMD for now, and also the big one being Cyberpunk 2077 which is why it works in the latest Proton release .

In regards to Cyberpunk 2077 with VKD3D-Proton and Steam Play Proton, they mention in the release notes that this is mainly for AMD as NVIDIA drivers are missing the VK_VALVE_mutable_descriptor_type extension which accidentally works around some fatal bugs within the game itself. Cyberpunk 2077 does work on NVIDIA GPUs but it will randomly hang and issues are likely to change over time since it's a new game, with a lot of bugs.

This release also has various other fixes for the likes of Horizon Zero Dawn and DIRT 5, there's multiple performance improvements, and other misc improvements.

See it on GitHub .

The Wine compatibility layer is closing in on a big new release, with the second Release Candidate now available for testing on Wine 6.0.

Since they're attempting to fix up major and annoying issues for the 6.0 release, no big new features are being pulled in. Instead, they use this time just for bug fixing. With that in mind this release notes a total of 40 bugs marked off the very long list, some newly fixed and some fixed a while ago that got fresh testing.

Bugs fixed include issues solved for: Sacred Gold Edition, Bethesda Launcher, Commandos 2 - HD Remaster, LEGO Rock Raiders, Resident Evil Revelations 2, Battle.net App, Sid Meier's Civilization III and the list goes on.

Find the release notes here .

Going by how it usually runs, we're likely to see the final Wine 6.0 release in mid to late January 2021.

Taking a moment to appreciate how far Wine has come allowing so many Windows-only applications and games to run, it is pretty amazing. Lots of people working on it now too, with plenty of them being paid to do it. Enabling people to get what they want done and played on Linux without needing Windows, it's a nice thought.

Two bits of major news to cover for the Steam Play Proton compatibility layer, with some exciting major changes coming in with updates. Don't know what Steam Play Proton is? Go take a look at our dedicated page .

Firstly, if you have an AMD GPU and you don't mind grabbing the latest development code for the Mesa graphics drivers - Cyberpunk 2077 should actually work on Linux with the new Proton 5.13-4 release. Valve developer Pierre-Loup Griffais mentioned that CD PROJEKT RED allowed them some early testing time to get the work done for both vkd3d (the Direct3D 12 to Vulkan layer) and radv (the AMD Mesa Vulkan driver). As an NVIDIA GPU owner, this makes me quite jealous as it seems my only other current choice on Linux is Stadia or GeForce NOW (unofficially - until later in 2021 ).

Additionally, there's now also a new Proton Experimental branch available which has the start of major architectural changes to Wine. This brings with it a plan to reduce CPU overhead and improve performance in scenarios related to input and windowing. Seems Proton Experimental is an additional version of Proton, so you would install it along side the other versions currently available for this compatibility tool.

You can find the Proton changelog here .

Valve and CodeWeavers have rolled out another smaller update to the Steam Play Proton compatibility layer.

Continuing to clean up the issues left from the big 5.13 release that now uses the newer container runtime, Proton 5.13-3 brings with it (hopefully) fixed controller hotplugging. Something I am sure many users will appreciate as that can be a nuisance when it doesn't work needing you to restart games.

Additionally they say that Yakuza: Like A Dragon, Soulcalibur 6, Lords of the Fallen, and Hammerting are now playable. That doesn't mean that don't still have issues though.

On top of that this release pulls in an update to the Direct3D to Vulkan translation layer DXVK with v1.7.3 and also FAudio 20.12 as well. Aside from that here's the bug fixes:

• Fix sound in Warframe and Ghostrunner.
• Fix flickering graphics in Serious Sam 4.
• Fix networking failures in Call of Duty: World War II.
• Fix Age of Empires II HD crash in multiplayer lobbies.
• Fix Paradox games launchers.

See the full changelog for Proton on GitHub . You can also follow our dedicated section .

The Wine compatibility layer for running Windows applications on Linux and other systems has a new development release up, the first Release Candidate for Wine 6.0.

Marking the beginning of a code freeze period, where the Wine team will now be focusing on stability rather than chucking in new features to make Wine 6.0 as good as it can be.

The highlights of Wine 6.0 RC1 are as follows:

• Gecko engine update.
• WindowsCodecs and QCap libraries converted to PE.
• Faster font initialization at process start.
• Support for named pipes with empty names.

Also noted are 53 bugs fixed. Some are really old that are getting a second look to confirm they've been fixed, others are quite fresh that were only fixed recently. These include issues marked as solved for: Battlefield 1, 4 and V, Foundation, Burnout Paradise, The Rockstar Game Launcher, Mod Organizer 2, World of Tanks, SWTOR and plenty more.

See the release notes here .

The Proton compatibility layer used with Steam Play on Linux has a brand new release out with Proton 5.13-2. This release follows on from some Release Candidate builds earlier this week, to clean up some issues after the big initial Proton 5.13-1 release that went up in the middle of October.

Need more info on Steam Play and Proton? Check out our dedicated area for it.

Here's what's changed in the Proton 5.13-2 release:

• Updated vkd3d-proton to version 2.0 , which improves Direct3D 12 support.
• Fixed Risk of Rain 2 multiplayer lobbies.
• Fixed Killer Instinct crash when battle ends.
• Fixed Assetto Corsa Competizione and Summer Funland in VR mode.
• Fixed games not launching in Uplay Connect, and Origin crashing when updating.
• Fixed mouse cursor in Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord.
• Fixed SpellForce crash on launch on some systems.
• Fixed very long load times in Warhammer 40k: Inquisitor - Martyr.
• Atelier Ryza: Ever Darkness & the Secret Hideout is playable again.
• Fixed Healer's Quest and Coloring Game 2 on AMD.
• Scaled resolution now functional for Middle Earth: Shadow of War.
• Restore behavior of horizontal scrolling input from previous Proton versions.
• Proton log directory can now be configured with PROTON_LOG_DIR.

Full changelog can be seen here .

While Valve, CodeWeavers and Collabora all work together through contracts to make things better there's still a number of known issues right now including:

• Controller hot-plugging doesn't work
• System-wide Vulkan layers like MangoHUD or vkBasalt don't work
• Using a custom per-game driver (like with VK_ICD_FILENAMES or LIBGL_DRIVERS_PATH) doesn't work
• User hooks like LD_PRELOAD (like for MangoHUD OpenGL) don't work

The hackers working away on the Wine compatibility layer for running Windows games and apps on Linux tagged a new development release with Wine 5.21.

In terms of new highlighted features, here's what they said is new:

• GDI32 library converted to PE.
• More fixes for windowless RichEdit.
• A number of timezone updates.

Small when just looking at that, but as always that only shows off one side of it. They also noted 24 bugs fixed across the likes of: Fallout 76, Microsoft Flight Simulator, Mu Online, Path of Exile, League of Legends, GOG Galaxy and more.

One other fix tagged as of this release was also quite interesting, with developer Georg Lehmann implementing support for VK_EXT_debug_marker. This newly hooked up extension support with Wine should hopefully allow people working on it to do a little extra debugging, with the likes of DXVK and Wine.

You can find the Wine 5.21 release announcement here .

Additionally, Wine Staging 5.21 is also now available which is the area where lots of extra patches are available across various areas but not yet ready to be pulled into Wine proper.

Supporting newer and more advanced Windows games like Control and Death Stranding, the Direct3D 12 to Vulkan layer vkd3d-proton has a 2.0 release. This is the Valve-sponsored fork of the original vkd3d project from the Wine team, with this having a pure focus on working with the Proton compatibility layer for Steam Play .

Today a new release of vkd3d-proton went up tagged by DXVK creator Philip Rebohle, who mentioned that it should now work with these titles along with having D3D12 Feature Level 12.0 and Shader Model 6.0 (DXIL) support:

• Control
• Death Stranding
• Devil May Cry 5
• Ghostrunner
• Horizon Zero Dawn
• Metro Exodus
• Monster Hunter World
• Resident Evil 2 / 3

Find the release announcement here .

You're going to need the most up to date drivers possible to use it fully. For AMD that means Mesa's RADV driver, which according to the readme the current recommendation is for drivers right from the current Git development. For NVIDIA you want at least driver version 455.26.01.

Valve has released Proton 5.13-1 for testing, this compatibility layer for Steam Play brings with it many advancements for getting more Windows games working on Linux.

This is the first proper public release of Proton since 5.0-9 back in June, while they also had 5.0-10 left in testing back in July so no doubt this will be very exciting for fans of Proton. If you're not clear on what Proton and Steam Play are, be sure to check out our constantly updated dedicated page .

Before getting started, be aware this comes with a known issue with controllers / gamepads where hotplugging is currently broken in some titles. Apart from that, it sounds like a huge release including lots of new playable titles like Red Dead Redemption 2, Horizon Zero Dawn, DEATH STRANDING, Sea of Thieves, Age of Empires III, Call of Duty: WWII, Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and others.

Even more came with it though, there's better Steam client integration to fix Call of Duty titles, Spelunky 2, Torchlight III, Path of Exile and RPG Maker MZ. Video Playback is a big one, a constant nuisance for Proton and that's been worked on also with improved support for older video libraries and work continues on newer video libraries. Additionally titles like Halo 3, Beyond: Two Souls and Tomb Raider 2 should see better audio playback.

They also upgraded the Direct3D 9/10/10 to Vulkan layer DXVK to 1.7.2, FAudio to 20.10, pulled in the latest Direct3D 12 to Vulkan code from vkd3d-proton and they're even now building it against the next generation of the Steam Linux Runtime too.

The version of Wine that Proton is based upon, as the version suggests, has also been bumped up to Wine 5.13 and they said at least 256 of their changes from Proton 5.0 have either been up-streamed or they're just not needed.

Full changelog can be found here . You may need to manually install it in Steam, it will show up as Proton 5.13 in the Tools section in your Steam Library. You can then select to force it onto games individually to test with by right clicking on a game, going to Properties and then the Steam Play section at the bottom: