NVIDIA and Valve announce DLSS coming to Linux via Proton starting with Vulkan titles this month

NVIDIA's Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) is a technology that renders games at a lower resolution and uses the AI capabilities of the tensor cores on RTX GPUs to upscale the frames with almost no perceivable loss in visual quality. NVIDIA is now bringing DLSS goodness to Linux users via Proton. For those not in the know, Proton is Valve's tool that is integrated with Steam to provide a seamless experience for Linux users to play popular Microsoft Windows games.

According to NVIDIA,

[NVIDIA, Valve, and] the Linux gaming community are collaborating to bring NVIDIA DLSS to Proton - Linux gamers will be able to use the dedicated AI cores on GeForce RTX GPUs to boost frame rates for their favorite Windows Games running on the Linux operating system."

There's not much information about how DLSS would work with Proton. It is possible that we may see the first implementation in a beta version of the Linux Steam client before being part of the public release. However, NVIDIA did say that Linux gamers won't have to wait long for DLSS and that support for Vulkan titles is "coming this month" followed by DirectX support "coming in the fall".

With AMD taking an open source approach towards implementing its own upscaling technology dubbed FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR), it is only imperative that NVIDIA too takes a cross-platform approach to its technologies. For starters, NVIDIA is offering easy DLSS 2.0 implementation in Unreal Engine 4 via a plugin and there are also rumors that the upcoming Nintendo Switch will likely feature DLSS.

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