Intel bringing faster upscaler to Valve's Proton - XMX accelerated XeSS could come to SteamOS in boost to future Intel-powered handheld gaming PCs

Intel has opened pull requests to incorporate Intel XeSS support into Valve's Proton, indicating a renewed focus on optimizing its mobile gaming chips for the Linux operating system. Notable handheld gaming PCs currently on the market feature Intel processors, such as the Intel Arc G3 Extreme found in the MSI Claw 8 EX AI+. Traditionally, Valve has only supported AMD chips with SteamOS, but this is evolving.

A recent Phoronix report highlights that Intel has initiated pull requests to enable Intel XeSS support within Proton, specifically leveraging dedicated XMX cores in Intel's GPUs for improved performance. XeSS is Intel's upscaling technology, offering two methods: DP4a for broad GPU vendor compatibility or XMX on Intel's own GPUs, with the latter being more desirable.

Intel engineer Damian Tomczak explains in the request that the XMX option involves incorporating a built-in libxess.dll that forwards XeSS D3D12 calls to the Linux XeSS library (libxess.so), enabling XeSS to utilize XMX (the swift upscaler) under Proton instead of the slower backup route. D3D12 objects are converted to Vulkan via vkd3d-proton's interop interface.

The goal is for Proton and SteamOS to soon support Windows-based handheld gaming PCs on the Linux platform without any hiccups or performance reductions. Valve has recently enhanced compatibility with AMD and Intel's latest platforms in recent SteamOS updates, and broader SteamOS support extends to standalone Steam Machines as well.