1d ago

Changing Proton version for performance?

Do you ever change proton version of games if they run for performance reasons, or do you just stick to the default config?

For example, let's say a game is about a year old, so it would run on an early proton 9. Might changing to GE 10-8 improve performance and battery runtime / FPS?

I started thinking about this when I gave a shot to Wuthering Waves. It runs out of the box, but GPU is a little bit less under pressure with GE 10-8.

What's your take?

7 comments

Change proton versions for compatibility, not performance
- I never notice a performance difference. Just that (for whatever reason) some versions are more stable with certain games

I put everything on Proton Experimental all the time, and only change to an older proton or GE if I'm having a specific compatibility issue.

Default unless it seems broken or protondb recommends otherwise

Some versions can have an occasional boost or regression in performance, but if you’re going to swap, it’s for compatibility

I have in a few very specific cases, though I'm not sure whether you'd define that as performance or compatibility. Also, the versions I use in those situations are so old that significant differences between them could be reasonably expected. Nowadays we're at a point where there probably won't be a noticeable difference.
Normally I just use the latest GE, in part out of a misguided superstition that newer may equal faster. If issues (usually video codec-related) crop up I test with a handful of older GE versions (7-55, 8-25, and 9-2) that I've found to be "magic bullets" of sorts for common issues I've run into due to regressions that exist in later builds.
No harm in doing your own testing though. Well, unless it's a Denuvo'ed game since you can potentially max out your activation allocations from swapping Proton versions.

I mean if you really want to sure. But at that point just start looking into enabling various tweaks manually yourself.

7 comments