


Works out of the box with Proton 9.04-Steam
Works out of the box with Protron 9.04 on Steam. Should work on Steam Deck as well

Delete/move contents of thum folder
Some voice lines can pop at the end. Always the same ones if you review them.
Delete/Remove the contents of the thum folder located at YOURGAMELIBRARY/Fairy Fencer F Advent Dark Force/Common/MOVIE/thum . these files are the thumbnails that play when you hover over a dungeon, they cause severe performance problems, and can even sometimes crash the game. Removing them causes no issue, and this fix is recommended on windows aswell. I completed all routes without any instability after this fix.
If you'd like to use vanilla proton, there's only 1 plot relevant video, and you can play it from the game folder.

Apparently the game suffers from unstability even on Windows so these are not Proton's fault. Just be careful and act slowly while navigating on the world map. Otherwise expect a crash.
In my experience, in-game videos only worked with GE-Proton9-13. I also tried 9-11 and 9-15 but they didn't work on both of them. Kinda weird.
By the way, even launching the game can be hit or miss and you can see a crash right away after trying to launch it.

Frequent Crashes
I had to use btop frequently to kill the process. After half an hour of trying to play, I only managed to get past the main menu once, and the first time I selected a dungeon, the game already crashed, and I was forced to exit. Will this game ever be playable? I don't understand the Gold rank; any dungeon selection can potentially crash the game.

I first Tried GE-Proton9-13 but the openning Cutscenes did not have Audio. I then Switched to Proton Experimental and it did have Audio and the Game seemed to play just fine and the non Interactive(openning) Cutscenes had Audio.
It slideshow with smart access memory (SAM) disable it bios impove performance significant.
it works now perfect out of the box with GE-Proton9-11. Videos play with sound. Its flawless.

The game can work flawlessly if you willing to do the simple, mostly GUI based steps to fix the issues.
Steps I used to make the game run flawlessly
Install protontricks via your package manager if you havent already. (I use Fedora, the command is:
sudo dnf install protontricks
)export PROTON_VERSION="Proton Experimental" *this is needed for protontricks to prevent the following error:
SyntaxError: Invalid file magic number. The appinfo.vdf version might not be supported by the current version of Protontricks - please check for updates.
protontricks --gui
Select Fairy Fencer F Advent Dark Force: 524580 and click OK in the GUI window.
Choose "Select the default wineprefix" and click OK.
Choose "Run winecfg" and click OK.
In the "Wine configuration" window, go to "Graphics" tab.
Under "Window settings" section, tick "Emulate a virtual desktop".
Click "Apply", then click "OK" to exit winecfg.
Enjoy FFF:ADV without fullscreen windowing issues!
Please refer to my further details for the fixes.
The startup intro videos (yes its actually 4 videos. 3 are the companies/studio, and 1 is the game intro video) will stutter for a moment when transitioning from one to the next. Then the video will play smoothly.

crashes on the map selection screen using older proton builds. On current build screen flashes when hovering map selections.
movies are borked
No video playback.
With default Steam Proton 7 and GE versions based on it I had a lot of graphical glitches, up to and including frozen video output or just a black screen.
Switched to 5.4-GE-3 and everything works great other than a couple videos not playing which is no big deal. Other Proton verions before 7 probably work, 5.4-GE is just my default "old Proton" to use when the new one gives me issues.

MEDIA FOUNDATION WORK AROUND AND FIXES
Use Media Foundation Script to install fixes for opening video and probably for the cut scenes. Then the game will load Instructions: -Download Media Foundation script from here: https://github.com/z0z0z/mf-install -Unzip file in your Downloads Folder -Open Up terminal in Downloads/mf-install-master folder Copy and paste the the address of the folder where your game is installed, so example for my game is this: WINEPREFIX="/home/username/.steam/debian-installation/steamapps/compatdata/524580/pfx" ./mf-install.sh press enter and let the script run
after copy these files from the script folder: mf.error.dll, mferror.dll, mfplay.dll, mfreadwrite.dll, msmpeg2adec.dll, msmpeg2vdec.dll to the folder where the game is, which is 524580 copy this file onto the pfx folder: mfplat.dll from the script folder restart Steam, then play the game using PROTON GE 6.10 on Steam, Game should be able to play now

custom proton-6.5-GE-2 GloriousEggroll
The important thing to do is remove the common, CN, EN, JP folders completely outside the game's directory because there's an error on how to play the opening movie and stuffs related to videos playback i think? Game runs smooth with custom proton 6.5-GE-2, 6.5-GE-1, 5.9-GE-7-ST, 5.6-GE-2. Game does not work with custom proton 5.21-GE-1 and older versions as far as i tested and also native proton also does not work. I add the gamemoderun %command% to the launch option to all working proton version that i used btw.
Can't play the opening movie and other stuffs related to video playback i think.

Using the right custom Proton it runs well, minus missing cinematics and some controller issues
5.21-GE-1 GloriousEggroll
This has been a real proton version Goldilocks situation. 5.21-GE-1 (https://github.com/GloriousEggroll/proton-ge-custom/releases/tag/5.21-GE-1) is the only one that has worked (more or less) flawlessly for me. Let me break down what I gathered from testing different versions:
- Default Proton versions crash before the title screen.
- Proton-GE 6.4+ (6.5-GE-2 is the latest as of writing) uses a new Media Foundation implementation which does not work with this game. Gets stuck on a black screen before title screen.
- 6.1-GE-2 starts up and gets into the game. Dialog boxes work fine, but about a minute into being able to move your character the game freezes and leaves a zombie process that can be quite bothersome to kill.
- 5.9-GE-8-ST is mostly playable, but it crashed when I used a certain new ability for the first time.
- 5-21-GE-1 has run with no crashed or gamebreaking issues so far. The intro cinematic doesn't play but all around a smooth experience.
There is some controller weirdness here. When using a bluetooth controller (Nintendo Switch Pro Controller, if that matters) it could suddenly disconnect and would not automatically reconnect. Even though the controller would show up in options it would also refuse to let me choose it for minutes at a time. After switching to USB it has worked without issue. I've also ran into an issue where I accidentally enabled the bluetooth controller and the game would freeze until I disconnected both controllers and reconnected.
GE 21 Proton
it works with the Proton-5.9-GE-7-ST(the latest to date) with a custom kernel focused on gaming if that helps
it is a bit slow to start but it is not a problem at all after all we are on linux

press launch, starts preparing to launch, steam launch page then says synchronising cloud but then closes without launching
happens with proton 5.0-9 and and 5.9-GE-5-ST


Proton-5.1-GE-1 GloriousEggroll
GloriousEggroll's custom proton: https://github.com/GloriousEggroll/proton-ge-custom/releases/download/5.1-GE-1/Proton-5.1-GE-1.tar.gz
The startup video will not play.

Installing the mf-install work around via ( https://github.com/z0z0z/mf-install ) is all that is needed to get the game running. While it won't play the video files yet, it does allow you to skip them without crashing the game and without the need to move the videos files from the install folder. I imagine one of the mfplat DLLs available might get the videos working, but someone would have to try them all out until they find a working one.
Minor colour bleed on the screen edges in fullscreen.
Game does not start.

the wmv incompatibility persists, other than that, the game runs flawlessly

Game wold work fine if not for the .wmv playback problems. Move the folders Common, CN, EN, JP to outside the games's directory. Then the game will run fine, albeit with no video cutscenes. (PS: disabling esync or enabling/disabling D3d11 did nothing or made it worse, keep the default configs on proton and you should be fine )


Error Box: "Unable to use custom presenter" due to being unable to playback .wmv videos. To make game at least playable create a new folder and move video folders: Common, CN, EN, JP inside the new folder. This lets you avoid and skip most .wmv videos. However, two key visual-to-wmv transition scenes from the prologue (prison, inn) may still crash. For these scenes use skip event (with L2 / Z) to bypass the scene and continue with the game. While the 3d graphics, 2d visuals, exploration, battles, and sound seem to run well. Bronzish-silver because of .wmv crashing.


Game hangs on black window. No sound.
Not Tested with a SSD By Default: Black Window Using WineD3D11: Black Window with some glitches from my desktop (duplicated down bar) Disabling D3D11: Fail to execute (No Window, Close Process immediately) Disabling ESync: Fail to execute (No Window, Close Process immediately)


Game won't start. No visual indicators of a launch.
