I'm having these issues as well. Seems like the game filles the whole RAM during gameplay resulting in freezes because the operating system is swapping.
When I tested it 16 GiB of RAM were filled in about 10 minutes. Maybe some kind of memory leak in combination with Proton? I don't remember having these issues with Windows.
About the second, not so disturbing problem I found out in the meantime: The Online Arena was shut down by the publisher.
There's a regression with this game: starting a new game from main menu will result in black screen and game never actually finishes loading a level.
I remember this used to work in Proton 6.x? Currently using Mesa 22.0, kernel 5.16.14
Using PROTON_USE_WINED3D=1 works but framerate is very low.
Hello @ipr, can you retest and confirm that this game works as expected with an older release of Proton? I'm only really interested in confirming that there's a Proton-sided regression compared to a system change before I add the regression label.
Hello @ipr, can you retest and confirm that this game works as expected with an older release of Proton? I'm only really interested in confirming that there's a Proton-sided regression compared to a system change before I add the regression label.
I tried 6.3 earlier but it did not work, even controller did not work.
But I tested again and with 7.0 I need to have PROTON_NO_ESYNC=1 PROTON_NO_FSYNC=1 as well as PROTON_USE_WINED3D=1 to make it work. 6.3 does not get into main menu with these.
Edit: now I got into actual game with 6.3, without those options. But controller does not work.
It's a really mixed bag of different options.
Ok, I'm getting into game with 6.3 when I have Steam input enabled. It does not load the level if Steam input is disabled.
Either way, controller does not work with 6.3
Controller works with 7.0, but level does not load unless I specify the three options, which causes bad framerate.
Somehow it seems horribly random if the game works or not.
One more case: with Experimental, level loads when I specify: PROTON_NO_ESYNC=1 PROTON_NO_FSYNC=1
Framerate is not good (seems worse than with 6.3) but at least it loads and while controller is operative..
ProtonDB users seem to be getting the best results with the following launch options:
PROTON_NO_ESYNC=1 PROTON_NO_FSYNC=1 PULSE_LATENCY_MSEC=60 %command%
Updating that it is playable with Proton 8.0 but you still need to have PROTON_NO_ESYNC=1 PROTON_NO_FSYNC=1 in launch options.
Updating that it is playable with Proton 8.0 but you still need to have PROTON_NO_ESYNC=1 PROTON_NO_FSYNC=1 in launch options.
How long did you test it for? The memory leak is gradual, did you play for at least 30 minutes to an hour?
Updating that it is playable with Proton 8.0 but you still need to have PROTON_NO_ESYNC=1 PROTON_NO_FSYNC=1 in launch options.
How long did you test it for? The memory leak is gradual, did you play for at least 30 minutes to an hour?
At least game isn't stuck loading a level and you get to play a level. So at least that much.
The Esync and Fsync command line parameters definitely cause a very large large performance penalty (Steam Deck), on proton 8 and 9, etc.
I have not tested Proton version 6.3, but I do know that version 5.13 does load this game and work with the controller, without needing the command line options, and performance is extremely fast. No idea if it eventually crashes or not, though.
However you need to disable SMT in Powertools for this to work. If SMT is enabled, you will get a black screen freeze on level load again. I don't know if this will work with other proton versions. WINE_CPU_TOPOLOGY=4:0,1,2,3 %command% does NOT work on 5.13.
Edit
Proton 6.3 works (at least in current OS beta and client) just fine with controller, but SMT still has to be disabled.
And you don't need powertools to disable SMT like you do on 5.13, because the command line
option " WINE_CPU_TOPOLOGY=4:0,1,2,3 %command% " works to disable SMT.
And performance is great. Did not test newer proton versions. It's definitely not worth having to use the sync commands, the performance loss is just huge.
So to play this game with Proton 10 beta-1/Proton 9.0-4 and a CPU with more than 4 cores there are two possible workarounds:
PROTON_NO_FSYNC=1 PROTON_NO_ESYNC=1 %command%WINE_CPU_TOPOLOGY=4 %command%On my end the second option has much better performance (cuts the CPU usage by half)
Specs:
Good news... this game works without workarounds with Proton 11.0 (beta) in case the ntsync module is enabled
Good news... this game works without workarounds with Proton 11.0 (beta) in case the
ntsyncmodule is enabled
Really? That's amazing. Even playing for > 30 minutes?
proton 11.0x2 2026-04proton 9.0-4x1 2025-05proton 6.3x1 2024-10proton 8.0x3 2023-06PROTON_NO_ESYNC=1x7 2025-05PROTON_NO_FSYNC=1x7 2025-05WINE_CPU_TOPOLOGY=4x1 2025-05WINE_CPU_TOPOLOGY=4:0,1,2,3x1 2024-10PROTON_USE_WINED3D=1x2 2022-03PROTON_NO_ESYNC=1)x1 2019-02
Compatibility Report
System Information
I confirm:
steam-404540.log
https://gist.github.com/NRG-R9T/955635010a1c2b8da6db7be15887d31e
Symptoms
Reproduction