


-NoLauncher -NoStartupMovies
Stuttering firing weapons for the first time, same with visiting new areas and enemies spawning.
As an add-on to my last report, my shaders compiled completely, but the stuttering still remained. The more you play in a single session the less it stutters but it'll happen again if you close and re-launch the game.

Works right out of the box, dxvk solves games performance issues on windows
It's very common for people playing borderlands 2 on windows to use dxvk to improve the framerate and stability, expect 200fps or more coming from windows with the right hardware. The difference on linux is that your shaders are pre loaded so you can easily avoid initial compilation stuttering, easily a better experience than native windows. Also avoid native linux it's horribly outdated like most native ports

WINEDLLOVERRIDES="ddraw=n,b" %command% -NoLauncher -NoStartupMovies
Occasional extended periods of low frame rate after extended play, likely related to a memory leak as the game has one if I remember correctly. Closing and relaunching the game solves this issue.
The game gains a substantial boost in performance using DVXK. Important to note that Steam will attempt to install the far more inferior and outdated Linux port by default. By changing the properties to use Proton prior to installation the game will be properly installed in the windows version. Additionally the Ultra HD Texture Pack DLC (Hidden DLC added with the game) will add to some of the performance issues when using High texture settings. Medium and High have only minor differences at 1080p and using Medium is free performance in this case.

Game ran fantastically, over 100 fps consistently which is better than my w11 benchmark with very inconsistent 60s to 90s. Splashscreen was very laggy and hard to read, but aside from that the game was pretty well perfect. It ran how I have always wanted it to run.

Game runs great, HOWEVER. I first played this using the native Steam Linux Runtime, and it had some problems:
- Subtitles were very small, almost unreadable in a 27' monitor
- The snow in the intro sequence was blinding (too bright) and it was hard to go through it
- The shooting felt strange, but I don't know why
After that, I switched to GE-Proton10.3 runtime and another problem arose: I LOST MY SAVES. I forced the Steam Cloud sync because it said "out of sync", but it didn't prompt me with the usual "keep local files or cloud files". It just erased my old save. Luckily, I played for like a hour, so nothing too bad. Be careful, player!
All the above problems disappeared with GE-Proton10.3, and the game runs even more smoothly (in 2560x1440 in my old Radeon RX 480).

-NoLauncher -NoStartupMovies
Quite a few stutters when loading new areas, went away when revisiting
Not seeing many reports of stutters, but I'm not sure if it's because my Vulkan Shaders window closed itself at ~10%, but when loading new areas the FPS would drop severely, but staying in the area and/or coming back to it the FPS would be locked to the 120 I set it to.

-NoLauncher -NoStartupMovies
Mapped the X button to a back grip button for easy reloading and interacting.
I set refresh rate to 40hz in the Steam menu and set graphic settings to a mix of Medium + Low, which gave me around ~4 hours of battery life on a full charge.
Putting the system into Sleep Mode will cause the game to boot you back into the starting menu due to the system losing connection. The only way I was able to stop this from happening was to set it to "Offline" in the Network Settings ingame.
Game runs well but needs adjustments to make it well suited for portable play, in terms of use of Sleep Mode and battery life. Runs fine without tweaks, but can run better with adjustments.

-NoLauncher -NoStartupMovies
DLC, Multiplayer, and probably a bunch of other stuff is busted in the native build. Wasted a bunch of time on it before I came here, switched to proton, and it was literally instant smooth sailing.

DO NOT USE NATIVE. Save games between native and proton version are NOT compatible. You WILL get burned, in 90% of cases you can migrate them, but for the rest it won't properly count things you're already done. So if you have many hours in character or expect to have many, DO NOT USE NATIVE .
DO NOT USE NATIVE VERSION (default), make sure to FORCE Proton. Aside from native version having crash issues, the biggest problem is you will NOT get the newest DLC (Fight for Sanctuary) and migrating saves between version will NOT work if you're very far in the game, as missing newest DLC seems to confuse the game and things you've already done will be unfinished (and this is not related to obvious DLC incompatibility, this is related to other non-related quests as well.)
Save yourself the trouble, especially if you're perfectionist, and immediately switch to proton version or you WILL get burned later.

Play the steam proton version, not native linux. Consider installing open borderlands mod manager and Python SDK (willow 2 sdk).
WINEDLLOVERRIDES="ddraw=n,b" %command% -NoStartupMovies -NoLauncher
Open Borderlands Mod Manager + Python SDK + Unofficial Community Patch
Having mouse acceleration on leads to way higher ingame sensitivity when G-Sync is on. Disable mouse acceleration in your operating system.
GPU accelerated PhysX will not work, may lead to short freezes when lots of items are flying around.
Play with friends, multiplayer matchmaking is pretty much dead for leveling characters. Don't know how level cap is.

-nolauncher -nostartupmovies
In main this game works with proton (AND WITH LAUNCH SETTINGS, IT'S IMPORTANT, BECAUSE CAN BE LAGS) like native (in Windows). I don't know, what i can say more. I don't know why in Linux works better, must be conversely, and it's all without a bugs and other shit.
Just for compare, FPS in BL2 on Linux systems (180-200 on high graphics settings) high than in Windows (100-120 on high graphics settings), given my hardware. I played in Full HD resolution, it's 1920 on 1080.

Smooth! out of the box.If you want to play multiplyer switch from Default to Proton in the launcher that should solve SHiFT connection issue
Couldn't play with friends on recommended (default) launcher settings, The game couldn't connect to SHiFT acount and I didn't see the starting menu "splashscreen" from the game before it launches. Switched to Proton 9.0-4 and it solved the problem. Everything works perfect! Even windows save files worked once copied from windows instal folder to linux instal folder (change the name from Save0001 to save0001 [capital "S" to "s"] and put them in the appriopriate folder)

Use Proton instead of Native. The devs left the linux/mac versions behind, and you will lose the ability to play with buddies.
-NoLauncher -NoStartupMovies
Use Proton instead of Native. The devs left the linux/mac versions behind, the game is not eh updated version(which is better in a few ways), and most importantly you will lose the ability to play with buddies.

Switched from Native to Proton.
Was able to play with my friend who invited me via steam with zero troubles!
I don't know about playing the game Natively, as the only reason I got it was to play with my friend on Windows, and hearing that multiplayer didn't work on Native, I decided to just go straight to playing with the Windows version under Linux.

only before enabling 'force the use of a specific steam play compatibility tool' the gamepad is working fine with that
Not sure why but with every launch steam starts 'processing vulkan shaders' which would then take between 10 and 25min to finish before the game actually launched
That too has not been an issue since enabling 'force the use of a specific steam play compatibility tool'
Had a few issues before using the right steam play compatibility tool. Very easy fix and no issues since.

I think the native version outdated compared Windows's version run with proton, save data dosen't work. With proton everythings work well
I've tried too Proton Experimental, and this game works very well .

Runs at 1FPS
-nostartupmovies -nolauncher
FPS is so bad, I cannot get passed the main menu.

-NoLauncher -NoStartupMovies
Native version works but I was unable to play multiplayer, switching to proton fixed this issue.

PYOPENGL_PLATFORM=nt PROTON_USE_D9VK=1 WINEDLLOVERRIDES="ddraw=n,b" __NV_PRIME_RENDER_OFFLOAD=1 __GLX_VENDOR_LIBRARY_NAME=NVIDIA %command% -NoLauncher
Physx fx only
The game doesn't recognize my GPU as a Nvidia GPU (it is) and runs Physx effects on the CPU, causing huge framerate drops if enabled (which I had to do through an ini file because again, it doesn't recognize my GPU as a Nvidia GPU)

Surprisingly well-done Linux port. Thanks, Aspyr
My Windows saves were not present, but strangely the game thought that I had save files from Borderlands 1 on my computer (I don't own that game) and gave me some cosmetics for it?
–Though PhysX didn't make the jump with me from Windows to Linux because I guess the game's version of it didn't have Linux support, which obviously makes the game unplayable. /s

DON'T USE NATIVE!!
Online multiplayer WON'T work when playing the native version. Proton Experimental works perfectly.

WINEDLLOVERRIDES="ddraw=n,b" %command% -NoLauncher -NoStartupMovies PYOPENGL_PLATFORM=nt
I've had amazing mod support with the PythonSDK and some other one from nexus running through the BLCMM.
I've enjoyed this game and played it on almost every platform. It was a life changer when I first played it on the Xbox 360. I'm glad this game works super well on linux.

For reasons unknown to me, the game does not start in the Steam versions of Proton 9. Only GE-Proton 9-11 works, but sometimes it gives an error. For this reason, I set GE-Proton 8-32. There is no such problem when running on ALT Workstation K 10.3.

-NoLauncher -NoStartupMovies
Game crashed when I alt-tabbed but it only happened once.
Ran fine, but it took FOREVER processing vulkan shaders. Online worked fine and I was able to play with my friends on Windows with no issue. Native works fine if you want to play solo, but use experimental if you want to play online. launcher wasn't working for me so I had to disable it in the launch options, but that was the only issue.

Some DLCs and whole SHIFT Codes thing are not available in native version
Enable compatibility mode and enjoy worse performance or go native and forfeit Golden Keys (and last storyline DLC). Uncool. Depots for Linux versions of all missing content do exist. Just not used. Weird.

WINEDLLOVERRIDES="ddraw=n,b" prime-run %command% -NoStartupMovies -NoLauncher
Installed a few QoL mods (BL2 Fix, Better Spawn and Travels, Loot Collector, QuickLoad) needed to use WINEDLLOVERRIDES="ddraw=n,b" to install PythonSDK as instructed by the install guide.
Had a few issues when installing mods, to resolve this issue I installed the native Linux version first, then clicked on the check box for "Force the use of a specific Steam Play compatibility tool" making sure the proton version selected is Proton Experimental (GE-Proton9-13 crashes on main menu).
If you don't want to mod, then you can use ProtonGE. If you just want to play single player, the native linux version works well, however you can't play multiplayer with Windows Users.

Thoroughly booked. Menu is frozen and unresponsive.
Tried GE, Proton Stable, and Proton Experimental, all with no luck. Also tried a few launch options configurations. All had the same result.
Game starts and plays the splash screens, but as soon as the menu starts up, and prompts me to sign in, it becomes completely non-repsonsive. Can't click or use any buttons. If I tab away, the game becomes a black screen.

It's Borderlands 2. I'm pretty sure it runs on a toaster nowadays, but here's a few essential battery saving tips.
-nolauncher -nostartupmovies
First, I'm not a big fan of how the Deck defaults the trackpacks to function as the d-pad and right stick respectively, so I disabled them here. Then, I mapped the d-pad to the back buttons. You change weapons a lot in this game and since you can't comfortably run and swap weapons with the d-pad (as you would on an Xbox controller, for example), it helps to have those buttons mapped to something you can access more easily.
For the love of all that's holy, lock the FPS to 30. I know the Deck can handle smooth 22-62, 60, and perhaps higher, but the device will heat up and die fairly quickly if you set the FPS this high. I gained about 2 whole hours of battery life by locking the FPS to 30, turning on 'allow tearing,' setting the TDP limit to 10 Watts, and locking the GPU clock to 800. I was at over 75% when I made these changes. The battery forecast was for about 2h. And then it jumped to FIVE! I knew I had to change something when I had to charge my Deck three times a day in the span of three or four days, all of which I spent playing BL2 non-stop. I usually only need to charge the Deck once or twice a day even when I have it on from the moment I get up to bedtime, so this change was crucial.
Icon preview for pick ups is quite difficult to read regardless of the UI scaling option. Not a big problem, but worth noting.
BL2 often skips a beat when the game's saving. This is normal and happens on PC as well, but thought I should point it out for any newcomers who don't have much experience with it on beefier hardware.
Multiplayer was fine, by the way.

Using native linux support causes SHiFT to not be contactable, only fixed by forcing it to run in proton
Game is stuttery, not unplayable at lower graphics settings
If you only want to play solo, no tinkering is required

%command% -NoStartupMovies -NoLauncher
Did not try native because I had Windows save files to transfer.
After install, game crashes on startup with Failed to create the D3D9 device
. Fix is to temporarily remove -NoLauncher
from the startup command and then pick a working resolution in the launcher.
Game takes a LONG time to process Vulkan shader on launch, but I saw no performance issue from skipping this.
Only tested briefly and didn't try multiplayer.

The native version is out of date. In order to play online, you must use proton.
If you are moving from windows to linux. your saves won't work on the native version. use proton to fix this.
Can't play online with native version. use proton to fix this.
Both native and windows versions are playable on linux but the native version is not up to date.

The linux native version is out of date. Force a proton build of your choice and play the windows version instead.
-tcp
Out of the box, when hosting a multiplayer session (even over LAN), the connected players would stutter around on my screen. They'd also complain of inconsistencies with interacting with objects and would occasionally stutter step around on their own client. Not a performance / fps related issue, it all has to do with the networking aspects of the game.
Setting -tcp as a launch argument switches the game from using UDP to TCP, which significantly improved playability for players connecting to me. Depending on your networking conditions, this may or may not be required. Played through the game from beginning to end on normal and didn't encounter any linux specific issues. Please be advised that the linux native version is out of date and cannot crossplay with windows users. Force proton as a compatibility tool to grab the windows version, it has the final patch for the game and lets you play online with other windows/linux via proton users.

-nostartupmovies -nolauncher
"Native" does not work, must force use of compatability tool. Can just be the lateest proton.

-nolauncher
Add the no launcher command if it doesn't work for you. I wasn't able to interact with it so I disabled it.
Could not play multiplayer with the native version. Forcing proton, the game works perfectly

To play online make sure to force steam to use Proton rather than the Native version of the game. For some reason online multiplayer won't connect when using Native version.
Use GE-Proton or any recent version of Proton.