The Vulkan-to-DirectX 12 translation tool used in Valve's Proton has reached version 3.0, marking one of the tool's largest updates yet. The VKD3D-Proton project's GitHub page highlights a plethora of upgrades for version 3.0, including FSR 4 support, Anti-lag support, and a rewrite to the DXBC shader backend. Linux users can expect future iterations of Proton to come with VKD3D-Proton version 3.0 shortly.
FSR4 integration is one of the big highlights for this update. Specifically, the devs have implemented AGS WMMA intrinsics via VK_KHR_cooperative_matrix and VK_KHR_shader_float8, enabling FSR 4 compatibility. Not only is FSR 4 supported on RDNA 4 GPUs and newer, but there is also a fallback mode that uses int8 and float16 to make it work on older GPUs (similar to previous FSR 4 mods we've already seen).
The only caveats with this alternate version are that it reportedly runs substantially slower than the native implementation designed for RDNA 4 (and newer) GPUs. It also won't be coming to "official" versions of Proton; the only way to run it is to build the emulation path from the source code with the official flags.
Regardless, Linux gamers now get FSR 4 support when running DirectX 12-based Windows games through Proton. FSR beats DLSS in this area, as DLSS 4 is not natively supported by Proton yet.
Version 3.0 also adds a rewrite of the DXBC shader backend for the translation tool. This reportedly fixes a ton of issues the legacy vkd3d-shader path suffered from, and allows some previously broken games to run in Proton. The DXBC shader backend rewrite also means the DXVK and VKD3D-Proton translation tools share the same DXBC front end, making it easier to work with each tool's underlying code. (As a refresher, DXVK translates DX8 to DX11 code to Vulkan, while VKD3D-Proton only translates DX12 to Vulkan.)
Another cool addition implemented in this latest update is experimental support for Work Graphs. This technology is very new and can significantly enhance the efficiency of a game's 3D rendering pipeline, depending on how work graphs are implemented. For example, AMD engineers were able to drop the required VRAM capacity of 3D-rendered trees from 38 GB to just 52 KB (yes, kilobytes) with the help of work graphs.
Proton can now emulate work graphs in DirectX 12 games, but it is experimental. Hilariously, the patch notes state emulation work graphs can "massively outperform" native driver performance in many scenarios the devs have tested.
There are dozens of additional fixes and workarounds for games in the patch notes. Proton continues to get updates after updates, making Linux gaming faster, smoother, and more reliable when running Windows-based games in Linux. Proton is developed and maintained by Valve and is the compatibility layer used by SteamOS, the Steam Deck, and the Steam Machine.
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