Cap'nBFG
Published
PROTON_USE_D9VK=1 %command%
Framerates were unstable after turning off vsync. Setting PROTON_USE_D9VK helped. I also ended up editing the config file manually to change the framerate smoothing settings.
Using vsync at 60Hz worked fine, but getting it to work properly at 144Hz required some manual tweaks. This is pretty common on old UE games. I ended up turning off vsync in game, then exited and set the following settings manually inside the config file:
steamapps/compatdata/8980/pfx/drive_c/users/steamuser/Documents/my games/borderlands/WillowGame/Config/WillowEngine.ini
bSmoothFrameRate=TRUE
MinSmoothedFrameRate=140
MaxSmoothedFrameRate=160
Now my framerate is stable within the specified range, usually towards the higher end. I also tried disabling smoothing or setting both range values to 0. This resulted in very high framerates (in the 300-500 range). That will unnecessarily heat your GPU though since it is rendering a lot of unused frames (anything greater than the monitor rate is wasted effort). I'd recommend to just set a realistic range around your desired sync rate.
PULSE_LATENCY_MSEC=60 %command%
Turned out to be a hardware issue. RAM not stable with XMP.
I set the pulse latency variable pre-emptively based on other users' suggestions, never tried the game without it. Video playback issues reported by others seem to be resolved now. Initially I had issues with the game crashing every 30min or so, but Prime95 torture test revealed this to be a memory stability issue with XMP enabled. Reverting to the JEDEC memory profile in the BIOS solved the issue. The game ran perfectly after that.
Awful framerates, but playable
Framerates in the game were very unstable, as high as 200fps and as low as 30fps. Changing graphic quality preset to low and resolution to 1280x720 did not help at all, so I just played at 1920x1080 with all settings maxed. I searched a lot online but found no solutions; it seems to be a common issue and may be related to custom environmental lighting effects implement by the game developer. Performance was just as bad using Proton 7.0-6, so I stuck with the native Linux version instead.
The game is playable with unstable framerates only because it is a slow-paced puzzle game. If this were just about any other genre of game I would consider it unplayable.
Set "t.maxfps 150" from in-game console to override the stock 60fps limit.
The game worked fine out of the box, but I'm used to 144Hz, so the stock frame limit felt laggy for me. Press the ~ key in game to open the console and then enter "t.maxfps 150" to increase the limit. Steam overlay FPS counter will show the framerate gradually incease to your new limit. You can set whatever value you want for this, but it seemed to work best if I set a value slightly higher than the monitor refresh rate. This setting only seemed to work properly if I did it from the main menu screen immediately after launching the game, prior to loading a level. Has to be set manually every time you launch the game.
