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Valve continues tweaking the new 'Proton Experimental' for Cyberpunk 2077

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With Cyberpunk 2077 being the hot new thing in gaming, Valve and CodeWeavers are trying to ensure it can run nicely through the Steam Play Proton compatibility layer since it doesn't support Linux directly.

Valve recently set up a new branch of Proton named "Proton Experimental" along with the release of Proton 5.13-4. It appears to be the version of Proton where Valve will be adding in fixes quicker, and more newer features. Yesterday, December 14, Valve developer Pierre-Loup Griffais mentioned the newest updates to Proton Experimental implements the Spatial Audio sound API which should fix Cyberpunk 2077 world sounds. Additionally there's more CPU performance improvements, which should help Path of Exile too.

Currently though, NVIDIA still has issues with it crashing and sometimes entirely locking systems on Linux. I tried it myself today thanks to a gift from a reader and the experience for me on an NVIDIA 1080 wasn't great. Ensuring to set my CPU into performance mode with High game settings it gave 30FPS and below, Medium gave a total freeze on the loading screen but a good 10FPS increase to between 30-40FPS in game when it does work (a little higher in more confined spaces).

Safe to say, you need a really high-powered computer for it right now, especially on Linux and not NVIDIA. That will change over time of course as CDPR optimize the game, as Valve optimise Proton and when NVIDIA sort the driver situation out. Even so, incredible it was working so soon with Proton on Linux.

Here's all the current additions in Proton Experimental:

  • Beginnings of Wine architectural work to reduce CPU overhead and improve performance in scenarios related to input and windowing.
  • Memory allocator performance improvements.
  • Implemented the Spatial Audio sound API, fixing Cyberpunk 2077 world sounds.
  • Updated vkd3d-proton to 2.1, fixing Cyberpunk 2077 facial animations.
  • Improvements for non-US keyboard layouts.
  • All other changes from 5.13-4.

As always you can find Proton info on GitHub and on our dedicated page.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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kokoko3k Dec 16, 2020
Quoting: TheSHEEEP
Quoting: kokoko3kFWIW, i'm not pointing the finger to the developers alone, but to the entire ecosystem.
Wasn't early access an option?
Do consoles even have early access?


Anyway, I'm sure they were going on the (probably correct) assumption that only a same-day full release on all platforms would get them the maximum amount of purchases & pre-orders.
Early access would quite probably lower the amount of people willing to pre-order or to purchase to begin with.

After all, no game could possibly do justice to the hype that was around Cyberpunk.

Doesn't consoles have early access? No? Why is not an option?
I'm not really interested in the answer and as you say, I'm sure that releasing that way means the maximum profit too.
This is, of course, the main issue and not an excuse.
I repeat, the ecosystem does not work well and yes, users which buy the game and find dozillion bugs and still do not return the defective product, (thus allowing the profit to be, as you said, the maximum) are part of it.
They feed it, they eat it, then they complain about it.
Something isn't right.


Last edited by kokoko3k on 16 December 2020 at 2:25 pm UTC
TheRiddick Dec 16, 2020
Quoting: CaenthIt's not the game, but the 'gamers' who are the problem imo.

I wouldn't go that far, remember CDPR released it with specs and on platforms they did. People just automatically expect it to work, and for old hardware or consoles you could loose at GTA5 as an example of a similar large open world that plays decent on old hardware.

I've been mostly playing on WIN10 because of my 6800XT having issues under Linux atm (waiting on newer mesa and kernel, could be a month or two).

Biggest annoyance for me has been dialogue getting stuck on screen or audio/sound issues. There are also some odd quest bugs but they don't appear to stop the game from moving forward.
theghost Dec 17, 2020
Runs really smooth with Proton Experimental, even on my old cpu. I expected that I have to upgrade but 30fps is ok for me on high settings.

I don't know which game you guys played but I haven't encountered a bug in my first 10 hours. So I wouldn't call it a buggy mess. Story wise, this game is totally great.

I don't regret that I bought it.
M@GOid Dec 17, 2020
Eike Dec 18, 2020
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14 Dec 18, 2020
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Quoting: Caenth
Quoting: EhvisThe main story is pretty good, but deviating from it is not. The RPG element is pretty much nothing and the whole open world is pretty much an empty backdrop. And that is a far cry from what cdpr promised it to be and no so easily rectified with a patch.

You are just quoting media, but this is utter bullshit imo. I now have 47hrs play time on the ticker. I'm not sure how far I'm into the main story, but it feels it still has quite some hours left. The game has ton of side missions who are really great also. Besides that my whole map is still filled with activities to do. NCCP alerts, gangs fights and other things. The higher level I get the more missions open up. I have been slacking a bit on these random open world things, but they are a choice you can pick up, not mandatory so.

The world is filled to the brim with cars and people walking the city. This depends on a graphic setting to control performance. If it is set low, yeah I expect the city to feel more empty. Performance wise the game runs like a charm on Ultra settings on a Ryzen 3700x and a 5700XT, 1440p. Installed the latest drivers.

Yes there are a few glitches, like chopsticks hovering in the air, food falling out of NPC hands, trash that suddenly moves in the air a bit. I got stuck in a wall once or twice. But I had no crashes so far. The game is very stable. All these glitches do nothing about the fun I have in this game. This is a excellent game! It's next-gen imo and like the Witcher 3, they set the bar high again on what an open world game should be.

I think the biggest problems that people have is that they want to play it on old hardware and software, be it an console or a PC. On top of that they expect it to run without any problems. It's not the game, but the 'gamers' who are the problem imo.
I do sympathize with Ehvis that the side missions I've done so far (not that many as I'm only around 16 hours in) have felt almost inconsequential. The only reason I've done a few is because I needed to earn some cash. I guess you could say that's decent role-playing because you need to work through a problem that may only be mildly enjoyable if not grindy, which relates with real people's experiences. I would also say that main story missions are a lot better than pretty good. They flow into each other artfully.

EDIT: Now that I'm 23+ hours into the game, I have experienced a couple of side missions that were a lot more fun than earlier on. They were complex, intriguing, risky.

Those specific glitches you mentioned are not unique to running the game on Linux. I experience them on PS4. And I have experienced multiple crashes on PS4 and none on Linux. I've been playing my first story on PS4 and tinkering with the PC version in Steam+Proton. I didn't want tinkering and troubleshooting to distract my game experience, so probably won't really commit to a focused playthrough on Linux until one of these things get settled:
- Proton to support using custom video driver paths again (it will allow me to run CP with mesa-git without using mesa-git for my whole system)
- mesa-git updates that make CP work get released to stable branch


Last edited by 14 on 20 December 2020 at 3:16 pm UTC
K_BooM Jan 9, 2021
In my humble opinion, those who want to play Cyberpunk 2077, on a Linux PC, would be simpler, and without headaches, to buy it and play it on Google Stadia.
Shmerl Jan 9, 2021
Where is fun in that? I prefer to run games on my high end PC with performance it enables.
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