Another new update for Regata OS 23 Honeycomb was released last Friday (15), update 23.0.15, which brings more important improvements and corrections to further improve the user experience. And one of the most important parts of the changes is the KDE Plasma 5.27.8 graphical environment.
Furthermore, what also arrives with Regata OS 23.0.15 is the Linux Kernel 6.5, which guarantees support for new hardware and technologies, such as the AMD P-State driver activated by default instead of the CPUFreq driver for Zen CPUs 2 and newer AMD Ryzen processors. This can provide performance/energy efficiency gains.
To keep you up to date with all the news that arrives with the new Regata OS update, we will cover the main highlights in this article. Check out!
The main highlights of KDE Plasma 5.27.8
Among the main changes in Plasma 5.27.8 are improvements in monitoring NVIDIA GPUs on multi-GPU systems with Plasma System Monitor and a fix for the Night Color feature, which will now be correctly disabled after the system returns from sleep during times when the feature is scheduled to turn off automatically.
For multi-monitor setups, a workaround has been added to an issue that could cause the Plasma desktop to freeze or slow down when frequently changing monitor arrangements, and there are improvements to screen capture with the Spectacle app in session X11 Plasma (Xorg).
There are also some improvements to the Wayland session: the new version of KDE Plasma fixes the Alt+Tab functionality, which should no longer invert when switching between windows when “Caps Lock” is activated; and the KWin window manager and composer should no longer crash when the user clicks on a window decoration popup.
For more details on all the changes coming with Plasma 5.27.8, be sure to check out the official launch announcement.
For new technologies, Linux Kernel 6.5
To further improve support with new hardware, Regata OS now brings Linux Kernel 6.5 under the hood. Among the highlights, we can mention the initial support for USB4 v2, initial enablement for the Intel Barlow Ridge controller and there are improvements in support for sensors on more recent ASRock and ASUS desktop motherboard models.
Additionally, AMD FreeSync Video is now enabled by default, the MIDI 2.0 driver is supported, the EXT4 file system got faster parallel direct I/O subscriptions, some performance issues with Btrfs were fixed, and there are a variety of fixes and improvements to the Paragon NTFS3 driver.
The Linux Kernel 6.5 also supports vibration with newer Microsoft Xbox controllers. Until then, vibration support only worked for Xbox “Model 1700” controllers with firmware prior to 2021. However, now the functionality should also work with more recent firmware.
This means that vibration support can now work with controllers like the Xbox Wireless Controller Model 1914 (Xbox Series S/Xbox Series X) and Microsoft Elite Series 2 (Model 1797). Vibration should work when using Bluetooth or USB connections.
Finally, the sound issues involving the ASUS ROG Ally have also been fixed and there is now overclocking support for AMD Radeon RX 7000 GPUs. For more technical details about the Linux Kernel 6.5, be sure to check out this very complete article from the Phoronix website.
More under-the-hood updates for Game Access
Those of you running your games on Regata OS with Game Access will certainly be happy to know that DXVK has been updated to the latest version, 2.3, to ensure that more games that make use of the Direct3D 9/10/11 API perform better. , as it allows you to run them on Vulkan.
Among the games that benefit from DXVK 2.3 are Train Simulator Classic, A Total War Saga: TROY, Far Cry 2, Halo Online, Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris, RaceRoom Racing Experience, Spider Man: Shattered Dimensions, Test Drive Unlimited 2, The Sims 2, Titanfall and Tomb Raider Anniversary.
The DXVK 2.3 also brings support for the Vulkan extension VK_KHR_present_wait, which when supported – and with the game running with vsync activated – there is the possibility of reducing input latency for some games. For more technical details, be sure to check out the official release notes.
On the other hand, VKD3D-Proton 2.10 guarantees support for games that make use of the Direct3D 12 API, running them over the Vulkan graphics API. Among the highlights is support for using NVIDIA's NV_memory_decompression extension to implement Microsoft DirectStorage's GPU-accelerated GDeflate compression support. There is also a replacement shader-based implementation that works for the RADV driver – the open source Vulkan driver for AMD GPUs.
In addition, there is also support for Shader Model 6.7, support for several new Vulkan extensions, various performance improvements and fixes for a variety of game issues, including Halo Infinite, Street Fighter 6, Resident Evil 2, Resident Evil 4 and Starfield. The technical details can be found in official release announcement of VKD3D-Proton 2.10 .
The Regata OS also has several other smaller updates under the hood, such as the Mesa 23.1.7 graphics library, which has fixes specific to Forza Horizon 5, Overwatch 2, Dead by Daylight, and Cyberpunk 2077, as well as graphics cards. video AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT and AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX.
How to update to the Regata OS 23.0.15
You can update to the Regata OS 23.0.15 right now through Regata OS Update. You can find the application icon in the system tray, as soon as the desktop loads when you turn on the computer, at which point the system should search for an update.
You can also find it in the apps menu, going to the system category and then Regata OS Update – or simply search for the app using the search box in the apps menu.
After the Regata OS Update app searches for updates, click the “Update all” button to ensure that you will get all updates, including applications and system updates.
