That Cat from Stranger Things
Published
Unfortunately, the more recent versions of Proton are not suitable for longer let's plays (longplays) of this game.
Later versions of D9VK included in DXVK tend to crash after a while playing. The crashes are more immediate with "Precache Shaders" turned on.
The PhysXGpuHeapSize=128 fix listed in an earlier report instantly causes crashes with Precache Shaders turned on. Turning shader caching in the game (not in DXVK) off causes D9VK to crash at a later point.
5.0-4 did not fix anything regarding random freezing. Tested both on Nvidia and Mesa ACO RX 580 and both occasionally froze and crashed if the game was played for long enough. Heavy memory usage levels accelerated the timeframe until crashes.
Proton 5.13 did not improve stability for longplays.
Controller hot plug seems to be not working properly on my USB 3.1 Gen 2 ports of my X570 motherboard.
Unfortunately, like Proton 5.0, Proton 5.13 still suffers random DXVK crashes the longer you play.
Proton 5.9-GE-7-ST GloriousEggroll
Using TSC as a clocksource is mandatory. Switching to HPET causes performance to degrade to as low as 25% of TSC's performance.
This game requires TSC clocksource and will perform far worse if the clocksource is set to HPET. If your processor does not support TSC, use the "acpi_pm" clocksource which is less affected by performance loss. (use "clocksource=tsc" as a kernel boot argument to ensure TSC is used)
GloriousEggroll Media Foundation patches crash the game on Ubuntu 20.04.1
Custom Proton GloriousEggroll 5.9 and 5.21 instantly crash when run on Ubuntu 20.04.1. A error is shown and the game instantly crashes, sometimes completely crashing the graphics driver. GloriousEggroll 5.8 mysteriously does work on 20.04.1.
Custom Proton GloriousEggroll Proton 6.0-GE-1
Crash on exit, crash on intro cinematic after starting a new game (use skip intro feature to bypass crash)
"clearcpuid=514" Grub boot argument crashes the game, is incompatible with Media Foundation patches.
The "clearcpuid=514" fix for Ryzen 3000 CPUs detailed here: https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/2927 breaks the Media Foundation patches with the current default 5.4 kernel for Ubuntu 20.04.1. Test system was a Ryzen 5800X and was able to consistently get the game to crash with that Grub argument in place.
GloriousEggroll Proton GE 6.15-2
YUV conversion for Media Foundation MP4 playback is incorrect. Maps black as purple.
mf-install is still superior to Proton GE for now. Do not expect further bugfixes for this game in Proton GE.
GloriousEggroll Proton GE 6.20-1
Intro splash video has incorrect YUV conversion and no audio, rest of the videos seem fine.
Unable to play story video past "Chapter 1" starting new game
General instability with Media Foundation implementation
Completely works OOTB. Detects multiple controllers as well.
Crash 1 and 3 are fully playable from beginning to end. Crash 2 cannot be 100% completed due to a bug.
The level "Un-Bearable" cannot be 100% completed, since the bear does not break the wooden platforms to reveal the secret area. Any report of it working is purely RNG. It is completely random the chance of the platforms breaking using Proton. Windows does not have this problem.
Aside from minor graphical glitches, plays just as well as Proton 4.11
Regression: Ripper Roo boss fight in Crash 2 has exploding vertices in Ripper Roo's hair when he hits the Nitro box. Previous versions did not have this artifact.
"Un-Bearable" is still broken. It's been broken since the first working version of Proton with this game. If you successfully got the bear to break the wooden platforms, it's purely RNG. It's not RNG on Windows.
Just wish "Un-Bearable" could be fixed so that I don't have to make a GPU Passthrough VM to 100% Crash 2.
The game is based off of Unity. Graphics, controller input, and the rest of the game works perfectly OOTB on Proton.
Use stock clocks for your GPU. If you own a factory OC GPU, downclock it to stock clocks to avoid some crashes.
Factory overclocked GPUs will throw Vulkan errors serious enough to crash the driver completely. Also changing between controller input and Keyboard and Mouse also risks a Vulkan driver crash upon exiting. DO NOT use resolution scaling in game as that is guaranteed to crash the graphics driver. Try to run the game as the first use of Vulkan from a fresh boot to prevent most crashes.
Use Proton's "fshack" fullscreen resolutions to do resolution scaling. DO NOT use the game's internal resolution scaler. You are guaranteed to crash if you use the game's resolution scaler. Stability cannot be guaranteed if you launch the game as the second Vulkan instance since boot. (for instance, you already ran a DXVK or Vulkan game before you run Detroit)
Make sure to turn off hyperthreading on CPUs above 8 cores.
CPUs with more than 8 cores hyperthreaded (16 threads) will get a significant performance regression. My 12 core 24 thread 10920X (which would be the same as a 3900X or 5900X) had considerable lag with hyperthreading on. Turning off hyperthreading finally got the game to a playable framerate.
Owners of the 3900X, 3950X, 5900X, 5950X and Threadripper (AMD) or Skylake-X or 10900K (Intel) may run into a severe performance degradation above 8 cores hyperthreaded via Proton. To solve, turn off hyperthreading or turn off cores/CCDs to regain playable performance.
Using Proton is the only way to enable Custom Music and VR modes.
Remember to alt-tab out for the missing Media Foundation cinematics. Has a few minor audio hiccups but is playable.
Some audio samples were too loud, like no post-fx was applied and lacked panning.
This game has fullscreen issues where the resolution is interpreted as the available desktop, not the resolution of the monitor. Requires switching between windowed and fullscreen a few times. This also messed up G-sync and Freesync.
A complete Media Foundation implementation is required to play the level intro cinematics. None of the current implementations were able to get the .m4v videos to play. Game freezes when the cinematic cannot be played. Esync off is also required.
The AVX instruction requirement is actually a valid one, considering I got a rock solid 60fps on my Ryzen 3600X but only 31fps on the Intel 4960X overclocked. This game requires a modern AVX2 CPU with strong AVX2 performance to maintain above 60fps. Remember to use PROTON_NO_ESYNC=1 for fixing some audio problems.
Excellent experience using Proton, superior to the native version
The native Linux OpenGL version has graphical glitches with the Space Station level, but DXVK in Proton managed to fix said issues.
All levels except the TF2 level perform well so long as you use the launch options provided in this report.
-force-d3d11 -screen-width 1920 -screen-height 1080
Launch options required.
Launch options do not pass along to the game to set the resolution.
Frame times in the Team Fortress 2 level are tolerable with Vsync off, horrendous with Vsync on.
Unavoidable crash on exit. You must use the Steam interface to quit the game.
Crashes sometimes with Vsync off after changing a lot of graphical settings.
The launch options are mandatory as we enter an era of high resolution monitors. The game simply will not boot if the options are missing on a high resolution monitor.
...as long as you use a genuine Xbox 360 Wired controller. Non-Xinput controllers cannot guarantee that it will not drop inputs.
4K displays will instantly crash the graphics driver. Launch with "-force-d3d11 -screen-width 1920 -screen-height 1080" in launch options to solve.
Any non-Xinput controller will drop input, and for this game consistent input is required on the bumper buttons. Dualshock 3 drops input on buttons, and I believe the same would happen with a Dualshock 4. The Xbox 360 Wired controller had zero issues.
Crashes on exit.
This is the only game that heavily favors Xinput over other input methods in my Library. No other game has more problems with non-Xinput controllers than this game.
An excellent game with only minor audio bugs. Esync should be disabled to resolve some audio bugs.
Some oneshot sounds don't seem to have ambient effects or panning applied.
Changing MSAA quality in game may cause haze effects to be completely black. Restarting the game fixed the issue.
This game is extremely CPU heavy, maxing out at only 90fps on a 3600X with PBO enabled regardless of resolution. Make sure you play on a machine with good AVX2 performance for high stable framerates.
Proton works OOTB!
The Tutorial videos even work with Proton! This is because Klei made the smart decision to render the videos in VP8 WebM as opposed to H264, for which H264 would require Media Foundation to function on Proton. More games should do this! Unity and Unreal Engine should support AV1 to further use of open royalty-free codecs!
Both types of 3DMark videos, M4S2 and H264, now work. But H264 videos end early. (possibly a regression) Crash on exit as well.
Proton 5.9-GE-7-ST GloriousEggroll
Crash on exit.
H264 videos in quality presets "Ultra" and above end early. M4S2 videos in quality presets "Medium" and below work fine.
Stay to "Medium" quality preset and lower as this uses M4S2 videos which are more stable than H264 videos right now using GE Proton.
Proton 5.21-GE-1 GloriousEggroll
Crashes on exit after H264 3Dmark videos play.
H264 videos at Ultra quality and above end early. This then causes a crash on exit that requires force killing the process.
Beware of the gamesave and memory leak issues. Other than that, Media Foundation is 100% functional in the game on Proton GE.
GloriousEggroll Proton GE 6.20-1
In game music player plays beginnings of songs out of order when set to repeat one song. Unsure if this is Linux specific.
This may be a bug with the IT expansion, but after playing for a few hours, the game softlocks when loading a save.
Noticeable hitches playing the IT Expansion, where the game freezes occasionally loading levels.
Latest Proton GE has memory leak issues with loading levels or the Media Foundation implementation
Performance is 5% less than native Windows. Bugs that occur (Other than alt-tab bugs) are not specific to Proton.
Loss of focus could result in being unable to mouse look after alt-tabbing.
Using the valve-experimental/mesa-bionic PPA
Loss of focus could result in no mouse look input.
Frame rate halves if Vsync is not set and "TearFree" and "VariableRefresh" is enabled.
Vsync is mandatory in order to have smooth gameplay, otherwise frame rate could in some cases be half of expected when using Valve's ACO PPA.
You may have trouble with Xbox controllers. Xbox 360 Wired controller doesn't work. Try to use a Dualshock controller if possible.
Xbox 360 Wired Controller was not detected. However, Dualshock 3 was properly detected and mapped.
With most games using an external Xinput library, only use a genuine Xbox 360 Wired Controller to play the game flawlessly.
Only true Native Xinput (Only the Xbox 360 Wired controller) worked flawlessly. Others like Dualshock 3 would drop shoulder button input. (Same as I Am Bread)
Game does not work with the Dualshock 3, as with I Am Bread. This is something that needs to be improved on by the Proton devs, otherwise the only choice is to get a genuine Xbox 360 Wired controller.
Graphics ran superbly at 4K 60fps with no significant stutters or hitches with Vsync on when running a 1080 Ti. DLC integrated just fine as well. In Game FMVs use Bink Video 2 and ran at 4K without Media Foundation issues.
Game works OOTB with both WineD3D and D9VK. D9VK may have better performance at higher resolutions.
D9VK now on par with WineD3D DX9 in this title, could help at higher resolutions
Excellent experience, minor graphical bugs and performance issues, but set the game to High and it should be fine.
White circles for bloom effects sometimes appeared, but inaccuracies with bloom are less frequent than before. The first black hole level has noticeable artifacting in the CRT monitor reprojections of the player view.
The level "Bubble Trouble" is hampered by DXVK, regardless of CPU/GPU combo. Tested with 4960X + GTX 1060 6GB and 3600X + GTX 1080. The level will not render faster than 31fps if set to Very High and Ultra at 1440p and 4K. High settings allowed 55fps+.
One minor thing: The pause for reloading a level is lessened with Vsync off.
