Terrible performance compared to windows on Arch with non-steam games on proton.

Linux Gaming@lemmy.ml – 43 points – 1 weeks ago

Hello friends! I am back with another issue.

Recently I have taken on the task to get non steam games working on Proton. I have noticed that the performance is significantly worse with them on Linux then on Windows. More frequent stutterings and such. 100 fps consistently on Windows vs linux which it dips below 50 fps. Other "better performing" non-steam games get consistent micro stutters. I am using native steam because the flathub version because after installing dependencies with protontricks the game still would not launch.

The only possible thing I can think of is the games are on NTFS partition (yet steam regular games installed on it run just dandy). I dualboot with windows and access this particular drive between both os'. I am at a complete loss, any help would be appreciated oh Linux brotheren and sisteren.

Thank you!

(also the games drop audio consistently as well sometimes it wont come back unless I alt tab and come back to the game.)

EDIT: Hello everyone! thank you again for the help I think I have come to the conclusion that some of you suggested already. Wayland seems to be having the game perform significantly better than x11 but it still isnt quite up to par as windows. When I had tried it before I thought to myself "yeah this is better but it isn't up to par with my windows partition" so I kept searching for an answer. the conclusion I have come to is, I think this just comes down to the particular game being unoptimized. Thank you all for your suggestions! You all are truly moving mountains when helping people swap to this wonderful operating system. Hopefully one day I can get rid of my windows partition fully. (too bad I am a VR dweeb that needs windows for some applications to function 😭).

You are viewing a single comment

View all comments

Those micro stutters and lower performance for the non-steam games are due to shaders needing to compile as you play. If you play for a while and keep the same Proton version, they'll eventually go away and performance will improve.

I assumed from the start this would be the issue. The mention of it happening to non-Steam games is the giveaway -

Steam provides pre-compiled shaders for the games they supply, non-Steam games have to build up their shader cache whilst you play.

Damn. Well this train will chug along then ;-;

EDIT: just tested and it seems performance just gets worse the longer I play.

EDIT 2: I lied it actually is betyer with another non steam game after playing for a while and restarting.

This has not been the case for at least a year or so thanks to graphics pipeline libraries.

Shader comp also only really manifests in frametime spikes, not generally high average frame times.

@entropicdrift @ludicolo
I had the same issues, but since I've changed to a specific proton version, there are no noticeable lags on my games anymore. Especially Cyberpunk 2077 and Final Fanzasy 7 Remake are running very smooth.

I shall give this a shot!

EDIT: Sadly no dice they still run terribly.

@ludicolo
What are your hardware specs, distro and proton version you use?

3070

ryzen 7 3700x

16gb ram

arch linux

I have tested both proton experimental and peoton 9.0-3 (9.0-3 was reccomended per protondb) i gave both of those a whirl for about an hour each.

@ludicolo
Your hardware should be capable of doing similar results like Windows, but I consider that your hardware is ok.
On the other hand I can show you what I'm for games like Assassin's Creed and similar non-steam games.

I've also got a QEMU Windows VM with GPU passthrough (GTX 1080) for games that I can't run on my Bottles/Steam.