eugeniosegala/MAKO render-v4.5.0

MAKO Renderer v4.5.0

on GitHub

Looking for Decky integration? Download the latest MAKO Decky release.

What's new in MAKO Renderer v4.5.0

Release codename: Maelstrom

“The fleet braced for the wave. Then the wave opened its jaws.”

Captain Matteo Veyr, Chronicles of the Last Fleet

Maelstrom adds experimental HDR, AC/battery profiles, display-aware Adaptive targets, custom shaders and native Steam Remote Play, with new Steam Overlay controls and further pacing, recovery and Flatpak improvements.

• Experimental HDR: HDR10/PQ and linear scRGB now work with Scaling, Frame Generation and Shaders through Gamescope, on external HDR displays. HDR Quality offers Quality, Balanced and Performance (default), trading precision and motion detail for speed while preserving output resolution. See HDR setup.

• Window-mode stability: Scaling, Frame Generation and HDR share swapchain retirement and resize recovery. Returning from native display resolution retains a proven output size, and HDR Quality updates the internal HDR resize live with Scaling off.

• AC and battery profiles: Save separate Frame Generation, Scaling and performance settings for battery and AC power. The Renderer switches automatically during play, without keeping the configuration app open. Charging selects AC settings; normal live/restart rules apply.

• Match Display Refresh Rate: Adaptive can follow Gamescope's refresh rate while preserving a manual fallback target. Targets and caps track refresh and live mode changes. Turn matching off to edit the target; Fixed mode keeps its selected multiplier.

• Custom shader controls: Combine compatible ReShade .fx files with bundled effects in one ordered list. Selection, ordering and deletion apply live while Shaders is active; Refresh reloads edited files and dependencies. Failed edits keep the previous chain running. Flatpak games need access to the files and dependencies.

• Use MAKO without Lossless Scaling: MAKO Renderer runs MAKO Scaler and Shaders without it. All profile controls remain editable; only Frame Generation and LS1 require Lossless Scaling.

• Reusable profiles in both editors: Create a named profile without a running game in Qt or MAKO Decky. Qt now copies the selected profile, including both power sets and custom shaders, saves the selection, protects Default, and reports invalid names or failed saves.

• Native Steam Remote Play: Enable native Steam streaming on the receiving x86_64 Linux device. Streams follow your selected profile, including Shaders, Scaling, Frame Generation and AC/battery settings, under normal live/restart rules. Steam-client restoration is shared with MAKO Decky. Requires system Python 3.11 or newer; stream quality and latency still need qualification.

• Consistent precision controls: Allow FP16 controls LSFG and MAKO Scaler colour arithmetic, including Ultra Performance. Turning it off selects FP32; LS1 Quality and Performance always use FP32. Shader effects retain their own precision behavior.

• Lossless Scaling model compatibility: Supported DirectX-based beta model layouts can run through the FP32 path. Standard builds report unavailable native FP16 explicitly; separately selected experimental source builds can convert supported FP32 models, with game image quality still unqualified. The default public Lossless Scaling branch remains recommended.

• Disable Steam Overlay (Restart): New global launcher control, enabled by default. May reduce stutter; disables Steam's in-game overlay and FPS counter and may affect Steam Input. Gaming Mode menus and performance overlay remain available.

• Adaptive stability: Steam menu returns preserve multiplier retry cooldowns. Failed Smooth Cadence reductions retain their retry delay through stalls and menu returns. Adaptive rechecks the real-frame cost after higher-multiplier pacing takes effect and steps back when extra output does not justify the loss. Native-only recovery sampling releases the automatic base cap briefly, then restores the cap and generated workload before checking recovery.

• Frame pacing and recovery: Capped Fractional output retains its spacing, while eligible capped Fixed and below-refresh Adaptive output batches use the existing cap interval to avoid burst submissions. Ordered output retains GPU readiness time. Gamescope WSI respects application presentation waits, and the private scaling bridge negotiates compatible completion pacing. Retired Gamescope scaling swapchains now request recreation; retirement keeps native fallback responsive, and timing feedback stays bounded. Scaling and HDR preserve games’ presentation-wait support while adapting output timing to compositor feedback.

• Launcher profile matching: Ubisoft Connect, CD Projekt RED, Rockstar helpers and EA app processes stay outside game activation and capture. Launcher aliases cannot select another game's profile; child games remain eligible.

• Steam menus in non-Steam games: Better shortcut and Heroic/UMU recognition lets Steam and Quick Access menus pause generated frames on supported Game Mode launches, across Fixed and Adaptive modes.

• Flatpak support: Runtime extensions now include Freedesktop 26.08 alongside 23.08–25.08. Standalone games can use VRR On/Off overrides through the host helper during Frame Generation, without broader sandbox permissions. Requires Gamescope and a VRR-capable display; MAKO Decky starts discovery automatically.

• Shaders with Frame Generation: The bundled vkBasalt reduces per-frame CPU work while preserving ReShade settings. Effect GPU cost still scales with the multiplier. Native and Flatpak packages align Renderer and vkBasalt with the updated Vulkan build baseline.

• Correct Steam launch options: The configuration app uses the installed launcher path, including /usr/bin/mako-launch for Arch packages.

• Diagnostics and profiling: Opt-in reports add process/GPU health, scoped MAKO memory accounting and frame-phase timings, retaining earlier startup and state context beside recent logs. Scaling reports relate requested timing to compositor feedback; mako-cli benchmark --profile adds CPU submission/wait and GPU preprocessing/output timings, including HDR10 colour-conversion timings.

• Shorter guides: Setup, configuration, Flatpak, Remote Play, troubleshooting and video instructions are more concise. Advanced TOML and environment settings have a separate reference.

• German configuration app: A complete German interface with automatic locale detection. Thanks to Hu2ki3 for PR #77.

• Russian configuration app: A complete Russian interface, extending rosakodu and the Decky Loader Russia community’s contribution in PR #83 to Qt.

🎮 In-game considerations

Every game, renderer, and display setup behaves differently. Compare Fixed Frame Generation, Adaptive Frame Generation, and scaling-only operation one setting at a time. If Frame Generation, Scaling, or Shaders do not work, test Fullscreen, Borderless Fullscreen, and Windowed; none is universally best. For Scaling, also test in-game resolutions and verify that the input is smaller than the display. Changing display mode can change GPU cost. Restart after changing a setting labelled (Restart). Flow Scale and Lighter FG Model normally apply live and may cause one brief hitch while MAKO replaces their private resources.

• Adaptive target behaviour: Adaptive varies the generated-frame count toward an average target. It cannot reduce a native frame rate already above that target, and the result still depends on the selected multiplier plus available GPU and compositor capacity.
• Quality and latency tuning: Higher multipliers and lower real-frame rates can increase ghosting and input latency. Smooth Cadence may improve motion consistency while reducing responsiveness, so compare the available choices per game.

Installation

Choose the right download

GitHub's automatically generated Source code ZIP and tarball contain source code, not ready-to-run MAKO Renderer packages. SteamOS users who want the managed plugin workflow should use the separate MAKO Decky release.

Host archive

Download MAKO-Renderer-v4.5.0-linux.tar.xz, extract it into a new folder, then use the included graphical installer:

1. Double-click Install MAKO Renderer.
2. Choose Execute if your file manager asks.
3. Confirm the installation. The wizard verifies the package, installs it under ~/.local, safely updates existing files, preserves profiles, and opens the configuration UI.

To remove it later, open Uninstall MAKO Renderer from the application menu. The wizard removes MAKO-owned files and keeps your profiles unless you explicitly choose to remove them.

The host archive includes 64-bit and 32-bit Vulkan layers; the CLI and Qt UI are 64-bit.

Reopen the configuration UI after installation:

• Application menu: On Steam Deck or Steam Machine, switch to Desktop Mode, open the bottom-left Application Launcher, search for MAKO Renderer Configuration, and click the MAKO-logo app icon.
• Terminal: Run ~/.local/bin/mako-ui from Konsole or another terminal. Do not run it with sudo.

Configure the profile in the UI or ~/.config/mako-render/conf.toml. Select the licensed DLL path when using Frame Generation or LS1 scaling, then use ~/.local/bin/mako-launch %command% for a direct Steam launch.

Arch Linux package

Download mako-renderer-bin-4.5.0-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst and leave it unextracted. Open a terminal in the folder containing the downloaded file, then install the verified system-wide package with:

sudo pacman -U ./mako-renderer-bin-4.5.0-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst

The ./ prefix refers to the terminal's current folder; this command does not download the package. If you saved the file elsewhere, use its full path instead. If pacman reports could not find or read package, check the path and exact filename, or download the package again if it is missing.

The package installs MAKO Renderer under /usr, preserves profiles under ~/.config/mako-render, and does not touch MAKO Decky's user-local Renderer under ~/.local. Use either the system package or the user-local installation as the active owner for a user; see the Arch package guide for coexistence details.

After installation, open MAKO Renderer Configuration from the application menu or run mako-ui, create a game profile, and use /usr/bin/mako-launch %command% as that native Steam or Proton game's launch option. Installing the package alone does not activate MAKO globally.

Flatpak runtime extensions

Download and extract MAKO-Renderer-v4.5.0-flatpaks.tar.xz. It contains one self-contained MAKO extension for each supported Flatpak runtime. Install the extension matching the application runtime, for example:

flatpak install --user org.freedesktop.Platform.VulkanLayer.makorender-24.08.flatpak

Updating an existing MAKO Renderer installation

1. Quit every game or application currently using MAKO Renderer.
2. For a user-local installation, download the newer host archive, extract it into a new folder, and run Install MAKO Renderer again. For the Arch package, download the newer .pkg.tar.zst and run sudo pacman -U on it.
3. If you use Flatpak applications, download the matching Flatpak archive and reinstall the extension for each runtime you use.
4. Restart the game. Revalidate the configuration with mako-cli validate if you changed the DLL path or profiles.

Keep the previous archives until the new version has been tested with your games.

Before you play

• Test MAKO per game. Start with Frame Generation and Scaling disabled, then enable one path at a time before combining them.
• If you use Frame Generation or LS1 scaling, confirm the detected Lossless.dll path before launching. Leaving it blank permits normal discovery. MAKO Scaler does not need it.
• Do not combine MAKO with another frame-generation or scaling Vulkan wrapper for the same game.