vengador42
Published
Demo mostly worked flawlessly with maybe a few frame rate drops on occasion
Looked like Z-fighting or similar, mostly at a distance; might be the demo itself rather than Proton/etc
Works great
Crashed with a shader error on the very first launch, but I used Proton 5.13-6 I think it was for the second launch, which worked fine, so I switched back to the default, which I suspect is probably the Proton 9.0-3 I currently have set for "Run other titles with" (i.e. what the first launch used), and it also worked fine.
Other than the first launch issue, everything seems as I would expect. The controls are a little wierd, but that seems like it might fit the "style"/type of the games made by the Sokpop Collective.
Hangs at signing into Steam (well-before-release-or-early-access version)
The developer already knew the game wouldn't work in Proton before he gave me a key to tinker with; I'm reporting here so there's a least something about this game for others who might be interested. I'll hopefully remember to add a new update once I either figure out how to get it to work or the developer makes some changes that cause it to start working. The game appears to be using Electron, so I assume things will be much better once something is sorted out for the Steam sign-on step.
Other than the patch needed to get into the game, the game seems to work fine given its pre-early-access playtesting state of development.
To get the game to launch, edit .../steamapps/common/Cividle/resources/app/compiled/index.js:
find the "backgroundThrottling: false' line; add a ',' character to the end of it and then add two lines below it:
contextIsolation: false,
nodeIntegration: true
The game appears to currently, at least run with the Fluxbox WM, only like to run in a fullscreen window. Resizing truncates things and it does not currently support graphics options for other modes of fullscreen.
Other than the server being unreachable for a time, there were no issues; the multiplayer aspects of the game involve trading with other players and chat and appear to work fine. The server reachability issue could be explained by the game still being in pre-early-access playtesting.
The game is under heavy development (updates roughly daily if not more often), so the need to tinker may be resolved in the future, one way or another (dev's other game, Industry Idle, natively supports Linux).
Works well once Proton 9.0-3 selected
I got an error about connecting to/authenticating with Steam (or something like that) on two separate startup attempts until I manually selected using Proton 9.0-3. I don't know if that's because a version Valve selected to support this title didn't work or if my old "Run other titles with:" setting of Proton 7.0-6 had issues.
Other than odd start, seems to work fine
I didn't test completely, but had to Alt-Enter to get the window 'unconfused'; started full screen and a blank window, but was only blank window after I finished closing other windows; I didn't retry Alt-Enter for fullscreen after before ending the quick testing session.
Other than the strange state of blank window over full screen at start, that was after getting an error basically seeming to say there was no savegame found, which was an odd error given that I had not previously launched in Proton before.
Unlike the "noise" I got for sound on the native version, the Windows version's audio seemed as would be expected.
Works fine in the default full screen mode
Automatically started full screen. Alt-Tab switches to windowed mode, but that resulting window is too small and game didn't scale down to fit.
Plays fine with "mouse" (hold Steam button, etc.) or touch screen input, but not with controller controls
Plays fine with "mouse" (hold Steam button, etc.) or with double-tap touch screen (once to locate mouse cursor, second to "click")
Plays great full screen, switching to windowed mode not available via Alt-Tab at first, but plays fine windowed too
Started fullscreen, did not switch to windows mode with Alt-Tab until had already done so via the on-screen options once.
EA could maybe get an easy win on Steam Deck by improving Origin/launcher. Windows users could benefit from such fixes too.
Like my previous report and as Dydeyo says in their report, the problems are all in the launcher with hangs and crashes. Once one sucessfully "defeats" the launcher bosses, one can play the game; running quite well and stable. "Connecting to Origin ...", restarting a crashed Origin (without reporting to maybe speed up things a bit), restarting Origin to link accounts when prompted, closing Origin when prompted for login when you know your Origin account is already linked with Steam, or CANCEL/STOPping and clicking PLAY again are all part of that battle.
On my 12 core multi-threaded CPU, EALink.exe reaching about 300% CPU usage in "top" for more than a second or two, or no visible change in launcher progress after a minute or two, seemed to always indicate that CANCEL/STOP is needed (Note: EALink.exe is not running when the game has successfully started).
First launch: 17 minutes of fighting the launcher bosses; Second or Third launch: 9 minutes of fighting the launcher bosses
Once you defeat the launcher bosses in an attempted play session, you should be fine. The game seems to run quite well once one gets it loaded. If the Origin.exe/EALink.exe/launcher issues were fixed/gone, I think this game could easily have a Platinum rating or at least close to it.
I believe a typical gamer would enjoy playing this game on Linux as I've played it, assuming patience battling the "launcher" bosses.
It seems that getting far enough in the install to actually run the game is a battle: first you must beat the EALink.exe boss, then maybe the Origin.exe boss, then you might be able to launch the game itself.
When installing Origin, I unchecked all boxes but the I-think-it-was-license box that is required at the bottom of the window before continuing with the install. Making it to "Connecting to Origin..." is a good sign of progress in the battle to play, but may not indicate a successful fight against the Origin.exe boss.
In my experience, at least with the other NFS games I bought on sale recently, that once one has successfully battled through the bosses to play the game, and played the game once, future battles to play are much easier.
I can't say for sure that a stock Proton install won't work; I've battled the "launcher" bosses so much (for about an hour) going through various different Proton versions and such, and killing stuck EALink.exe and Origin.exe bosses, that I may have missed a winning combo in my impatience to make progress in those battles.
EA could maybe get an easy win on Steam Deck by improving Origin/launcher. Windows users could benefit from such fixes too.
Like my previous report and as Dydeyo says in their report, the problems are all in the launcher with hangs and crashes. Once one sucessfully "defeats" the launcher bosses, one can play the game. "Connecting to Origin ...", restarting a crashed Origin (without reporting to maybe speed up things a bit), restarting Origin to link accounts when prompted, closing Origin when prompted for login when you know your Origin account is already linked with Steam, or CANCEL/STOPping and clicking PLAY again are all part of that battle.
On my 12 core multi-threaded CPU, EALink.exe reaching about 300% CPU usage in "top" for more than a second or two, or no visible change in launcher progress after a minute or two, seemed to always indicate that CANCEL/STOP is needed (Note: EALink.exe is not running when the game has successfully started).
Once you defeat the launcher bosses in an attempted play session, you should be fine. The game seems to run quite well once one gets it loaded. Unfortunately, that can take 5-15 minutes or more in my experience.
Unfortunately, my attempts to launch with my Proton-7.3-GE-1 prefix a second time didn't seem to work. Proton 7.0-2 was tried, but with no apparent success. Proton Experiental has launched for me twice now, so it looks like the best bet for me for this particular NFS game at the moment.
Tried playing a game with my SO via Remote Play Together; invite and join worked, but their screen appeared to be flickering between my view and what I assume would have been their view; they generally couldn't interact with the game. Not having tried this other than with these Steam Decks, I'm not sure what's normal and what isn't; i.e. I don't know how it would normally work: at least in this game, it appears that Remote Play Together is only ever a Shared/Split Screen PVP or Co-Op, but at least based on my experience it was trying to do Shared and Split screen at the same time: I don't know how much of that is the game, how much is Proton, etc, and how much is Remote Play Togher.
Everything (single player) seems to work well except for my Remote Play Together experience, which so far has been my only multiplayer experience.
Single player works out of the box
See my Steam Deck report for my experience there
Single player for Beta 1 Demo worked mostly fine; multiplayer matchmaking issue might be because of limited demo interest/implementation
Alt-Tab to switch back after another window stole focus or after using Alt-Tab to switch to another window seems hit or miss in the Beta 1 Demo
Reaction-lights based qualifying for free race seemed to hang when I didn't understand what was expected of me, the player; that could be because its the Beta 1 Demo though.
Join Random Race was greyed out and nobody joined a created race, but that could be because it's a Beta 1 Demo.
No response from keyboard/mouse input after initial "Start" screen
Of the little I saw, everything seemed to work but the input from keyboard/mouse and thus the game was unplayable
Significant bugs? In the game itself, no; in what is apparently the new EA App, definitely yes. After the first install and launch of EA App appeared to hang, I switched from the default Proton to Proton Next, but I've no idea if that is required and only did so based on a recent report of EA App problems on Need For Speed Heat, switching to the newly available Proton Next instead of Proton Experimental.
Battling what I assume is the EA App varies from the game just loads after some weird, empty what-I-assume-are-launcher screens to manually force quitting processes with what might have been a crash or two in between. Once the game loads, it seems to work fine.
Slow start, but runs well after replacing the compatdata prefix
Unlike my previous report, the I appear to be able to reliably load the game without any shenanigans with the EA App now that I've tried to play it again some months later.
This was achieved after making a backup copy (just in case and also so I could restore my user profile and saved game from its Documents directory tree) and then deleting my compatdata prefix; once it was recreated by restarting the game in Steam, I closed the game and then copied my user profile and saved game from the backup.
It appears that EA App has been updated and gamingonlinux.com reported that Proton 7.0-6, which I'm currently using, contained fixes for EA App, which seems to be a good combo; hopefully EA App will stay stable on Proton now.
(I had trouble getting the fresh compatdata prefix to work until I found that I had incompletely force quitted EA App processes aft my first attempt to run the game without any changes from last time earlier that day when EA App upgrade failed/before fresh prefix.)
Significant Bugs: only the one-time need to workaround EA App upgrade issues if the game was previously installed.
Recent improvements appear to have pretty much solved the only issue, the launcher, so now after a compatdata prefix refresh (if the game was previously installed), there's just a bit of waiting (a few minutes?) for the EA App to do it's thing before the game itself starts.
The few minutes of the game intro I played, up to where I could move freely, worked fine after the protontricks item was completed
Used:
> protontricks 427680 icodecs
and installed only the Indeo 3.2 codec per https://www.protondb.com/app/61500#lDZL6DkbSC
Alt-Enter successfully switches between Fullscreen and window, but after fullscreen the first time, returning to a window had lost the window manager's title bar, etc until game restart
Few minutes playing I did, until moving freely, worked fine after the protontricks item was completed, when using the DirectX 8 version
protontricks 427680 icodecs
and installed only the Indeo 3.2 codec per https://www.protondb.com/app/61500#lDZL6DkbSC
I saw consistent flicker except when I launched the DirectX 8 version
Fullscreen vs windowed could only be selected pre-launch by using the Launch Configuration Tool launch option (in-game options only allow adjusting sound levels)
