Pseudonymous
Published
WINEDLLOVERRIDES="winmm,version=n,b" %command% --launcher-skip --intro-skip -skipStartScreen
Added d3dcompiler_47 and vcrun2022 to default wineprefix
Some minor GPU artifacts noticed during one particular sequence involving a lot of complex transparency effects; large, complex holograms exhibited some checkerboarding when viewed from specific/oblique angles. Otherwise appears flawless per the graphics settings used.
Proton 7.0-6 was playable but did not work with mods. Newer Proton versions (9.0-6, GE 9-25 and Experimental) would start and progress to the main menu fine (after starting the game with 7.0-6 and disabling frame generation in the settings), with mods such as Cyber Engine Tweaks working and accessible from there. However, the game would freeze on loading a save or starting a new game.
It took a near-total descent into madness to realise the reason: recent versions of Proton dropped Vulkan 1.2 support, which is the most recent version my GPU and/or drivers work with. Older versions of Proton (7.0-6) have Vulkan 1.2 support but as mentioned they don't work with mods. Proton-Sarek is a fork of ProtonGE with added support for older Vulkan versions, which runs the game fine and supports mods.
(The protontricks additions and WINEDLLOVERRIDES launch option are necessary to run mods on any version of Proton, credit to this guide for that.)
OPENSSL_ia32cap=~0x20000000 %command%
Used protontricks to run the EA desktop app installer in the default wineprefix; also ran winecfg and enabled "hide wine version from applications".
Before tweaks EA overlay did not load and I could not invite friends or accept invites. After tweaks the overlay worked fine and we were able to play a custom game.
Started with the launch option as recommended by other users, as I was already familiar with the issue it's there to fix. If I were a true scientist about it I'd try it without that but I'm just sharing how I eventually got it to run.
Game ran without any issues whatsoever from what I could tell. Problem is that EA can't let a good game be good, they have to graft their tumour of a launcher onto it and pipe all the social stuff through that, and then declare that Linux is not supported so it's just inaccessible. All of which meant I had to spend a few hours across a few attempts trying things out to get it to work. I didn't actually try the campaign or matchmaking against randos before that but the game was able to connect to the servers fine, so I imagine that would've worked. It was literally just the EA app/overlay that was busted, stopping me from playing custom games, which I was able to remedy with the specified steps.
Custom proton version is just what works best with my now-aging GPU so it's set as my default, it's based on Proton-GE so you might be good with that instead.
