For PC gamers, and especially Steam Deck owners, tweaking is part of the fun. We're all familiar with the endless quest to squeeze every last frame out of our hardware. On Windows, one of the most popular tools in a tweaker's arsenal has been Lossless Scaling, an application that can inject frame generation into almost any game to boost performance. It's a fantastic bit of software, but with one major catch: it's Windows-exclusive. However, it seems that bit is about to change.

As reported by GamingOnLinux (via SteamDeckHQ), thanks to the impressive work of a developer known as PancakeTAS, Lossless Scaling is coming to Linux, even if not in its entirety. As part of the new project called “lsfg-vk”, Lossless Scaling's Frame Generation is being ported to Linux and, by extension, to the Steam Deck.

PancakeTAS has chronicled the gruelling process of getting the feature up and running, which involves using the well-known DXVK translation layer to intercept the DirectX 11 processes of Lossless Scaling and convert them to the Vulkan API that Linux supports. It's a clever workaround for a long-standing problem.

For those adventurous enough to try it now, the developer has provided instructions on the project's GitHub page. Be warned that it's not a simple one-click install just yet, as it requires running a few commands to install the necessary components and also requires you to own Lossless Scaling on Steam. Once the setup is complete, enabling it is as simple as adding “ENABLE_LSFG=1 %command%” to a game's launch options.

While the potential here is huge, there are some caveats. Frame generation is most effective in GPU-bound scenarios; it can't do much for games that are bottlenecked by the CPU, which is often the case for struggling titles on the Steam Deck. Furthermore, the lsfg-vk project is in its very early days, so you should expect bugs and potential issues as development continues.

KitGuru says: Do you play games on a Linux-based system? Will you try Lossless Scaling FG as it is, or wait for a more stable version before doing so?

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