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 requests to add Intel XeSS support to Valve's Proton, signalling a renewed interest in getting its mobile gaming chips up to speed on the Linux operating system.

Some of the best handheld gaming PCs right now are powered by Intel processors, namely the Intel Arc G3 Extreme. That can be found in the formidable MSI Claw 8 EX AI+. Though this is resolutely a Windows machine—Intel chips are built with Microsoft in mind, but more importantly, Valve has historically only supported AMD chips with SteamOS.

That's changing as time goes on. As spotted by Phoronix, Intel has opened pull requests for Intel XeSS support in Proton, specifically to utilise dedicated XMX cores in Intel's own GPUs for better performance.

Proton is the compatibility layer that allows games programmed for Windows to run on Linux machines, and has been crucial to the success of the Steam Deck and SteamOS as a whole. …