protonscr

Crimson Desert: GI/shadow lighting flickers and resets post-1.04 on Linux across all Proton versions and AMD hardware

vkd3dclosed
HansKristian-Work/vkd3d-proton#2969 · opened 2026-04-28 by andy10115 · updated 2026-04-28 · 7 comments · github
Aandy10115 2026-04-28 github

Since 1.04, the game has a persistent lighting issue where global illumination and shadows flicker and periodically reset — like the GI can't stabilize and keeps starting over. This was not present before 1.04 in the same areas with the same settings.
Tested across three machines:
Ryzen 7800X3D + RX 7900 XTX, Mesa 26.0.4, Bazzite
Ryzen 7900X + RX 6800 XT, Bazzite
Legion Go 2 Z2 Extreme, Bazzite
All three exhibit identical behavior. Tested with:
Proton CachyOS (latest)
Proton GE 10-34
Proton Hotfix
None made a difference. The issue also persists regardless of:
RT on or off
FSR/XeSS on or off
Model Quality (including Low)
Shadow quality settings
Shader cache fully cleared between tests. RADV_DEBUG=nohiz had no effect.
Given three different AMD GPUs, three different Proton versions, and settings having zero impact, this looks like a 1.04 regression in how the game's GI/lighting is being handled through the translation layer rather than anything hardware or settings specific.

Eemilnymann 2026-04-28 github

I'm not seeing this on:

OS: Arch Linux x86_64
Kernel: Linux 6.19.13-arch1-1
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D
GPU: AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT
WM: Hyprland 0.54.3 (Wayland)
Vulkan: 1.4.348 - radv [Mesa 26.2.0-devel (git-642bed9eba)]
OpenGL: 4.6 (Compatibility Profile) Mesa 26.2.0-devel (git-642bed9eba)
OpenCL: 3.0
Mesa: mesa-git 26.2.0_devel.221639.642bed9eba7.3f53833-1
libdrm: libdrm 2.4.131-1
linux-firmware: linux-firmware 20260410

If I drop the lighting quality setting to around "high", I do see something resembling what you're describing, but I can reproduce it on Windows, so that's just a consequence of the GI implementation in the game itself.

It would probably be helpful if you could provide a video of the problem, and a Proton log. (PROTON_LOG=1)

Sshelterx 2026-04-28 github

The later Crimson Desert updates has been troublesome as far as I know. Mesa main (git) got some sort of fix that targets some CD issues using vkd3d-proton. I am not sure if the fix is needed on Mesa stable or not or if was needed only for the main branch.

Eemilnymann 2026-04-28 github

The later Crimson Desert updates has been troublesome as far as I know. Mesa main (git) got some sort of fix that targets some CD issues using vkd3d-proton. I am not sure if the fix is needed on Mesa stable or not or if was needed only for the main branch.

The patch (now merged to main) fixed shadow and UI flickering since game version 1.04. I didn't even consider that could be what they're talking about. That's why a video would be helpful.

But yes, it seems likely that they're related.

Aandy10115 2026-04-28 github

So sounds like someone need to ask that get backported to 26.0 stable? Sorry i'm still learning git.

Eemilnymann 2026-04-28 github

So sounds like someone need to ask that get backported to 26.0 stable? Sorry i'm still learning git.

Whether it does or doesn't, it's not directly relevant to VKD3D. If you could record a video or if you're able to try out the main branch of Mesa, we could confirm that it's the same issue. If it is, there's nothing the maintainers of this repo can really do about it.

Aandy10115 2026-04-28 github

Just heard back from Samuel on the charge that was merged he confirmed it'll be backported into 26.0 stable! That would also mean we can probably just close this.

Aandy10115 2026-04-28 github

I'm so sorry ya'll I didn't realized my video failed to upload until now. I uploaded to YT:
https://youtube.com/shorts/4QNYy-gYXxE?si=GfmtZao9UifmEUFf

Proton versions

Launch options