The Proton Experimental branch was updated yesterday. All changes from the stable branch 8.0-3 have been included which now makes a bunch of games playable: The Lord of the Rings: Gollum, Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath HD, CHAOS CODE -NEW SIGN OF CATSTROPHE-, Arthurian Legends, STAR WARS Knights of the Old Republic II, Songs for a Hero - Definitive Edition, EverQuest 2, Soulworker, Welcome to Princeland. There are a TON of fixes this update brings including fixing the issue where the Battle.net launcher keeps trying to update itself! (YAY!) Read below for all the fixes and improvements.

Available in Proton Experimental (as of 2023/09/07):

Note: Proton Experimental requires a GPU that supports Vulkan 1.3.

• All changes from Proton 8.0-3.
• Now playable: The Lord of the Rings: Gollum, Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath HD, CHAOS CODE -NEW SIGN OF CATSTROPHE-, Arthurian Legends, STAR WARS Knights of the Old Republic II, Songs for a Hero - Definitive Edition, EverQuest 2, Soulworker, Welcome to Princeland.
• Fixed not being able to interact with minimum requirements prompt in Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition.
• Fixed videos in Empyrion - Galactic Survival and Sword Art Online: Integral Factor not working on certain setups.
• Improved video playback in THE KING OF FIGHTERS XV.
• Fixed a few Proton 8.0 regressions:
  • Witcher 3 is able to switch between windowed and fullscreen correctly on XFCE again.
  • Echo (751320) works again on Steam Deck.
  • Makai Kingdom: Reclaimed and Rebound is playable again.
  • Have a Nice Death no longer crashes on launch.
  • Using re4_tweaks no longer breaks mouse support in Resident Evil 4 (2005).
  • Debug console in Scrap Mechanic is no longer broken.
• Fixed Ship of Fools crashing when another player joins online session.
• Fixed Rainbow Six Extraction not working on the Steam Deck.
• Fixed EA Desktop having a blank log-in window after its recent update.
• Improved cutscene FPS in Immortals of Aveum.
• Fixed Judgment causing GPU driver crashes at certain locations.
• Fixed Meet Your Maker and possibly other Unreal Engine 5.1 games crashing displaying a winevulkan assertion.
• Fixed Remnant 2 causing random GPU hangs.
• Re-enabled NVAPI for Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart after a recent game bugfix.
• Fixed games crashing when dragging files / images over a game window.
• Fixed Proton Experimental regression: WHITE ALBUM: Memories like Falling Snow and Forza Horizon 4 are playable again.
• Fixed Street Fighter 6 causing GPU hangs.
• Fixed Garry's Mod not working on certain systems with very long Steam Library paths.
• Fixed Baldur's Gate 3 launcher sometimes displaying dxdiag error dialog.
• Fixed Locoland not allowing to select resolution on Steam Deck in desktop mode.
• Fixed Age of Empires IV crashing when locale is set to Traditional/Simplified Chinese.
• Fixed a race condition that caused controller hotplug not work in some rare cases.
• Fixed some Unreal Engine 4 games (e.g. Stray, System Shock (2023), Dead By Daylight and Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun) crashing with Intel GPUs.
• Fixed Age of Wonders 4's Paradox Launcher not working on Nvidia GPUs.
• Fixed Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation DirectX 12 mode not working.
• Improved video playback in Sea of Thieves and Romancelvania.
• Fixed Ubisoft Connect not working after its recent update.
• Fixed Street Fighter 6 claiming that Proton players are always connected via wired interface.
• Fixed Dark Souls II, Aura: Fate of the Ages and Train Simulator not working on certain setups using very long library paths.
• Fixed recent experimental regression which made turning camera in Star Wars: The Old Republic on XWayland buggy.
• Fixed Final Fantasy XIII having broken input after main window loses focus.
• Enabled nvapi for many more games: Atomic Heart, Baldur's Gate 3, Demonologist, Icarus, Layers of Fear, Severed Steel, Showgunners, Strayed Lights, Voidtrain, Warhammer 40,000: Darktide, Alone in the Dark, Desordre, Doge Simulator, Lord of the Rings: Gollum, Portal Prelude RTX, Remnant 2, Sherlock, Holmes: The Awakened, Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Trepang2.
• Fixed Battle.net always trying to update itself.
• Fixed Aura: Fate of the Ages missing some audio cues.
• Fixed keyboard input registering with a delay and getting stuck in Wild Hearts.
• Fixed Escape from Monkey Island getting minimized on a mouse click.
• Fixed Overwatch 2 stopping to register controller inputs after an online match has started.
• Implemented English speech recognition for Phasmophobia.
• Fixed Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition failing to launch after a recent game update.
• Fixed Microsoft Flight Simulator crashing in accessibility settings.
• Fixed an issue with EA Desktop sometimes not launching after an update.
• Fixed The Witcher 3 showing the task bar after Alt+Tab on xfce with certain resolutions.
• Fixed Dwarf Fortress SDL2 beta crashing on launch.
• Fixed periodic stuttering in Street Fighter 6 when playing without internet for a longer time.
• Fixed flipped videos in Secret of Mana and other titles.
• Fixed cutscenes freezing in Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night.
• Fixed audio controls and spatialization in VRChat with AVPro.
• Updated file distribution method to save disk space.
• Updated dxvk to include the latest development work.
• Updated vkd3d-proton to include the latest development work.