Intel Works to Enable XeSS XMX Acceleration Through Proton on Linux

Intel is working to improve XeSS support on Linux with patches that aim to enable hardware-accelerated upscaling through Valve’s Proton compatibility layer.

The proposed changes would let supported Intel Arc GPUs use their dedicated XMX (Xe Matrix Extensions) engines when running Windows games on Linux. This could improve XeSS upscaling performance, though the source describes the changes as proposed and does not report measured results.

According to Phoronix, Intel engineer Damian Tomczak submitted four interconnected pull requests targeting Proton, Wine, VKD3D-Proton, and DXVK. Together, the changes address a limitation that has kept XeSS from fully using Intel’s dedicated AI acceleration hardware in this setup.

The work is aimed at running Windows games on Linux through Proton. The source does not give a release date or say when the proposed changes might become available.