germtm.
Published
plays well out-of-the-box, although there might be slight inconveniances, like the quit game button not working.
the button for quitting the game eventually stopped working completley so i had to close the game by closing the window itself.
other slight problems were the occasional crash on startup, but it wasn't consistent enough for me to be a problem, but it was annoying nonetheless.
when changing graphics settings in-game, after the pause the entire screen gets covered with pink artifacts. solved by simply rebooting the game.
if you experience problems with the game crashing on startup, you must first obtain the Steamworks Common Redistributables {by installing another game that provides them, for example.} for whatever reason, the game does not provide the redistributables, leading to it not installing DirectX, which leads to the game crashing on startup.
after an extended period of time, the game suddenly starts to suffer from extremley choppy framerate. restarting the game helps, but one should not be annoyed by such a problem normally.
aside from the reoccuring framerate issue, the game works and plays as intended. no issues with audio, but in case one has problems with audio, they should use the launch option specified in other people's reports.
while i will always recommend playing the original version if one can do that, WME is a decent no-hassle alternative for Steam Deck/Linux players since the original version's native Linux port is reported to be riddled with issues.
Half-Life 2: Episode 3 is finally real... kinda. currently it needs Protontricks in order to satisfy the VC runtime requirement.
-DP=Windows_Performace
the game will throw an error saying it requires Visual C++ Runtime, therefore, using Protontricks is required to install the Visual C++ Redistributables.
aside from needing Protontricks to solve the Visual C++ Runtime requirement, it plays alright, even if it obviously feels raw and needs more time in the oven. but, as a byte-sized teaser, it does the job well. the launch option is presented in case if you experience performance problems.
a brilliant game that works almost perfectly OOTB. you need to use Proton GE to fix the "missing movies" issue.
Video cutscenes are desynced and seems to be behind audio.
launching the game with default Proton settings causes missing movie cutscenes, which can be fixed with using Proton GE.
audio is noticably crackly. it's more noticable with the music and dialouge. not detrimental enough to the gameplay.
runs great, although expect stutters and other nasty performance problems. cutscenes can be fixed with a simple script.
-d3d12
occasional stutters and micro-freezes. as other people stated it's due to engine's asset streaming. experiencing this even with the -d3d12 launch parameter
cutscenes appear as "missing" due to their encoding not supported by Proton. fixed by applying the following fix: https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/comments/13sog15/how_to_fix_cinematics_for_warhammer_40000_boltgun/
aside from occasional performance issues, it's a great experience through and through.
the lobby area seemed to have some significant framerate drops. the rest of the areas were fine.
a great game that plays well OOTB, however it has the aformentioned performance issue in the lobby area. no idea if this problem is specific to the Proton version i used or is it a general issue affecting most users. it is not that significant of a problem, though, since the lobby is mainly used to interact with a terminal and the bulk of the gameplay is spent outside that lobby.
