As of proton 9.0 the environmental variable is now PROTON_FORCE_NVAPI=1
https://github.com/jp7677/dxvk-nvapi?tab=readme-ov-file#steam-play--proton
As of proton 9.0 the environmental variable is now PROTON_FORCE_NVAPI=1
https://github.com/jp7677/dxvk-nvapi?tab=readme-ov-file#steam-play--proton
Plasma 6 is currently in beta, so it really isn’t meant to be used for anything other than testing. I have it installed on arch, and honestly it’s good enough for my use with wayland, but you will definitely will run into issues. I also use Nvidia, though, so I’d probably have more issues than you will.
Overall, I only recommend it right now if you can roll back or if it isn’t that big of a deal if your install breaks.
The IP address that a request is coming from can absolutely cause captchas to be triggered. If the host is seeing a lot of bot activity from your IP, it’ll do that. That and blacklisting is why Mullvad rotates IPs.
PIA and Mullvad should have equal speeds because they both have 10gbps servers and wireguard. Both PIA and Mullvad use ram-only servers exclusively. As for search engine captchas, I never get them with Mullvad. The main issue with PIA is that they were bought by a questionable company that previously developed adware. You can read about that here. Personally, I would never use a privacy tool that is owned by an ad company, even if they claim to have changed. I used them up until the acquisition, then switched and have been extremely happy with Mullvad.
I had the exact same issue as you in Apex Legends, and I was able to find a workaround. Basically, nvidia reflex didn’t work with dx11 (DXVK) at all, but forcing the game into dx12 (VKD3D) mode worked without issue.
To enable, you just need to set this in your launch options.
%command% -anticheat_settings=SettingsDX12.json
Also, you may need to set the nvapi environmental variable, but I’m pretty sure nvapi is already enabled in proton for Apex Legends.
I recommend using proton experimental as it uses an up-to-date version of dxvk-nvapi