Compatibility Report

Hello. I had the wrong Proton version selected, my bad. I changed it to Proton Experimental and the gstreamer error has gone away. However, the game still refuses to launch.
The log for Experimental:
steam-1985810.log

The game tries to open dxdiag (presumably either for error reporting or for automatically setting graphics settings), but fails while doing so.
Here is the core dump:
https://gist.github.com/Parapass/bd7593ecb1030bc4e921afdea14cf546

Hi, I'm having this issue too; on AMD as well, except this time on desktop with an RX 6900 XT.

I wasn't able to corroborate the journalctl d3d12 stuff, however I have an interesting addition where occasionally, a blank (wayland default) icon will show in the taskbar, it goes away very fast, too fast for me to look at the window title. It happened only once under amdvlk but a few times under radv. I'll attach logs for both radv and amdvlk.

steam-1985810_radv.log
steam-1985810_amdvlk.log

Along with that, in journalctl I get
umip: BlackOpsColdWar[24832] ip:14ce27576 sp:11a230: SIDT instruction cannot be used by applications.
umip: BlackOpsColdWar[24832] ip:14ce27576 sp:11a230: For now, expensive software emulation returns the result.
however i'm not certain that's really relevant to this game.

I installed Arch Linux on my desktop to try out Cold War on it. Still crashes the same. Here is the log:
steam-1985810.log

Ive been trying to get it to run, i think this needs a patch to wine/proton hope someone smart enough sees this thread

I know this is from a while ago but I'm using the Battle.Net version and I'm getting these errors:

5002.838:012c:0154:err:sync:RtlpWaitForCriticalSection section 00006FFFFFFB0380 "../src-wine/dlls/ntdll/loader.c: loader_section" wait timed out in thread 0154, blocked by 0130, retrying (60 sec)
5002.941:012c:0190:err:sync:RtlpWaitForCriticalSection section 00006FFFFFFB0380 "../src-wine/dlls/ntdll/loader.c: loader_section" wait timed out in thread 0190, blocked by 0130, retrying (60 sec)
5005.888:0064:007c:err:wineusb:usb_main_loop Error handling events: System call interrupted (perhaps due to signal)
5025.636:0064:007c:err:wineusb:usb_main_loop Error handling events: System call interrupted (perhaps due to signal)
5045.560:0064:007c:err:wineusb:usb_main_loop Error handling events: System call interrupted (perhaps due to signal)

I was using Proton Experimental then Proton 9.0 (Beta) and after that I tried ProtonGE but still got this error. The game loads with the T9 Console and the loader but that's really it

Replying to https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/6852#issuecomment-2053646093

It's quite odd that this game has issues under proton, the anticheat isn't a kernel level so that's not a problem, seems like a wine problem?

I wonder if anyone has any information about why this game doesn't work still, if it is anticheat related or just something to do with wine

Id like to play some cold war zombies again sometime lol

Replying to https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/6852#issuecomment-2053646093

I have asked modders about the game and some say there isn't an anti-cheat and it uses an engine simlar to BO4 (Which works great on linux according to few people)
So I presume it could be the games problem or a wine/proton problem

Hi,

Here's the Proton BO3 workaround:
if os.environ.get("SteamGameId", 0) == "311210":
or here for Experimental:
"311210", # CoD: Black Ops 3

Whatever version you use, add "1985810" and it'll get further. (Screenshot)

However, graphics is still an issue, at least with Lavapipe and AMD (Mesa-9999 and Proprietary 22.40.6.1580631-r1 on Gentoo Unstable, nothing newer because of an "old" RX470).
I won't test it with my nVidia Titan V's, because they're in my workstation and history has shown that I can't trust the Steam client on important computers.
Maybe I'll put one of them inside the gaming machine, but I'm not sure if VKD3D simply just needs to support that game.
From what I can tell is that this workaround is necessary for both games because of the Treyarch Anti-Cheat. I won't go into details, because Activision is known to be very vicious.

P.S.:
@ValveSoftware:
This time I didn't had to decompile the disassembly by hand, like with your CEG. Thank you very much for not helping with Modern Warfare 3 (the older one), I'm still resentful because I had to fix your issues all by myself.
Please be the Valve from 20-25 years ago again.

Replying to https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/6852#issuecomment-2306344902

What did you do exactly to get it running? You posted some 'if' code, but where do you put that?

Replying to [#6852 (comment)](https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/6852#issuecomment-2306344902)

What did you do exactly to get it running? You posted some 'if' code, but where do you put that?

Exactly there.

"311210", # CoD: Black Ops 3

turns into

"311210",   # CoD: Black Ops 3
"1985810",   # CoD: Black Ops Cold War

And

        if os.environ.get("SteamGameId", 0) == "311210":
            argv = [g_proton.wine_bin, "c:\\Program Files (x86)\\Steam\\steam.exe"]

turns into (e.g., very long version)

        if os.environ.get("SteamGameId", 0) == "311210":
            argv = [g_proton.wine_bin, "c:\\Program Files (x86)\\Steam\\steam.exe"]
        elif os.environ.get("SteamGameId", 0) == "1985810":
            argv = [g_proton.wine_bin, "c:\\Program Files (x86)\\Steam\\steam.exe"]

Or (shorter)

if os.environ.get("SteamGameId", 0) == "311210":

turns into

if os.environ.get("SteamGameId", 0) in ("311210", "1985810"):

As I said, the same workaround/treatment is needed, so just add the Cold War game id as well, like in these examples.

That specific workaround was committed two and a half years ago and this bug report is from a year ago. Hindsight is 20/20 when a very similar game needs the exact same workaround.
I got lost into the details as usual and kept digging until I finally followed my thought of checking what exactly Proton does with BO3.

Now it's randomly either stuck or crashes. The crashes, at least, are because of heap corruption. I have a hunch that it has something to do with openxr, because it gets past that point in Proton 7, only to show many D3D12 errors.

359575.535101:0114:0118:err:heap:validate_used_block heap 0000000000140000, block 00000000640D0038: free block overwritten

I guess, since nobody else volunteers, I have to bisect between Proton 7 and 8. Damnit, all I wanted to do, was to play some Prop Hunt. :-D

The change in behavior happened during the d3d12core refactoring. I really hope that the actual underlying cause of those hangs and crashes is somewhere else, because graphics is not my métier.
experimental-bleeding-edge-7.0-38314-20230320-pa52104c-w2a9873-d3d5bec-vf0697a (full screen)
experimental-bleeding-edge-7.0-38355-20230321-pa52104c-w2a9873-d3d5bec-v071ead (no full screen)

Edit, forgot to post this:
When atiadlxx.dll is set to builtin, like with BlackOps3.exe, it can crash like this:
wine: Call from 00006FFFFFC1CF07 to unimplemented function atiadlxx.dll.ADL2_Adapter_AdapterInfo_Get, aborting

The change in behavior happened during the d3d12core refactoring. I really hope that the actual underlying cause of those hangs and crashes is somewhere else, because graphics is not my métier. experimental-bleeding-edge-7.0-38314-20230320-pa52104c-w2a9873-d3d5bec-vf0697a (full screen) experimental-bleeding-edge-7.0-38355-20230321-pa52104c-w2a9873-d3d5bec-v071ead (no full screen)

Edit, forgot to post this: When atiadlxx.dll is set to builtin, like with BlackOps3.exe, it can crash like this: wine: Call from 00006FFFFFC1CF07 to unimplemented function atiadlxx.dll.ADL2_Adapter_AdapterInfo_Get, aborting

If you think graphics might be an issue, then I suggest filing a report on vkd3d-proton's issue tracker

If you think graphics might be an issue, then I suggest filing a report on vkd3d-proton's issue tracker

TLDR: Feel free to do that yourself, I don't really have much time for that.

It could very well be that it's only broken for my "ancient" card.

It somewhat looks like a timing issue, I've already seen the fullscreen on an unmodified bleeding edge, besides that workaround. However, on 99% of the runs, I won't even see "Failed to wait for VR registry key ready."
Mostly I see it being stuck because of a critical section ("loader_section"), crashes because of trashed heap, and even a crash with a stack trace that includes ntdll.dll/kernel32.dll/kernelcore.dll/d3d12.dll/BlackOpsColdWar.exe.

I think that I should remember Scrubs, if I hear hoofbeats, I should think of horses instead of zebras, but I want to be triple sure that it's not because of a specific TAC codepath. Like CEG, it doesn't show all its tricks on a single run, it's rather randomized.

Here's a screenshot and the logs of a extremely good run, however it still complains with a dialog window.

I'm getting too much pressure to focus on my real work. Unfortunately that doesn't include finishing the Lynx/SSC implementation of that iPhone/SEP emulator. I can't split myself and a day just has 24 hours.

I would simply suggest that everybody just tries that BO3 workaround, which should be included/applied in any case for CW as well (hello, @ValveSoftware), because that's the (first) issue, everybody is seeing here.
The SIDT access violation exception is a fake/trick/distraction, because it has the kernel space KUSER_SHARED_DATA address as a destination, it's not supposed to work in user-space, even on a real Windows.
The rest could be either other bugs or just (one of) my ancient machines crapping themselves yet again.

One file is slightly renamed, because GitHub won't take text files as an attachment if they don't have a .txt extension. Compressed it because GitHub complained again, and doesn't include a full trace, because then GitHub would complain even more because of the sheer filesize.

steam-1985810.log.bak50_experi_bleedingedge_fullscreen_dialog.txt.gz

@ValveSoftware, any progress on making it work so far?

Good news, everybody! No, not like Prof. Farnsworth, but actually good news!

I've retested it with the new Experimental - Bleeding Edge version, as I saw a few interesting changes a few days (or weeks, dunno anymore) ago. I've just got time for that, as the SEP emulation is still missing PKA, but overall somewhat/very workable.

Oh, back to the topic... I reapplied that CoD Black Ops 3 workaround and here's a new screenshot!

So please for the love of (whoever you're praying or not praying to), also apply it to the gameid/appid 1985810 !!

I just tested this on my machine, with [redacted, it'll ban you], it works as well!
It crashes not long after starting though; it runs long enough to compile shaders but not long enough to read the EULA.

This log (I removed two megabytes of vkd3d error duplicates) might help if anyone else wants to look into it.
I have a half-hunch it's an anticheat measure, those usually periodically check, but I don't see why it would crash instead of booting me out.

Here's another screenshot for the :eyes: reactors:

Good news, everybody! No, not like Prof. Farnsworth, but actually good news!

I've retested it with the new Experimental - Bleeding Edge version, as I saw a few interesting changes a few days (or weeks, dunno anymore) ago. I've just got time for that, as the SEP emulation is still missing PKA, but overall somewhat/very workable.

Oh, back to the topic... I reapplied that CoD Black Ops 3 workaround and here's a new screenshot!

So please for the love of (whoever you're praying or not praying to), also apply it to the gameid/appid 1985810 !!

There have been some fixes for the game specifically. We've been trying it out with the hack applied and on a few machines we used for testing this has caused Activision account bans, even when playing in an offline mode only. We are trying to sort this out but in the meantime it doesn't make sense to enable this to needlessly put users in the harm's way.

There have been some fixes for the game specifically. We've been trying it out with the hack applied and on a few machines we used for testing this has caused Activision account bans, even when playing in an offline mode only. We are trying to sort this out but in the meantime it doesn't make sense to enable this to needlessly put users in the harm's way.

Thank you, and thanks for the heads-up. I thought, that this issue was just being ignored. I think I mentioned how vicious Activision can be.
Maybe I should look at Ricochet instead, if the rumors are true that Infinity Ward said that they won't ban anybody if they manage to get it to run properly on Linux. (I would like to hear that directly from them, I couldn't find a source for that)
Maybe Treyarch is as vicious as Activision. Why can't they be more like Infinity Ward, if the rumors are true? In the long-term, they're only hurting themselves and their shareholders with such nonsense.

I wonder if they will unban those, who used this workaround before as bans made by mistake... At least anyone who got banned could probably appeal, or at last, Valve can try reach to Activision/Treyarch with this problem.

I've been banned.
Edit (7 hours later): Appeal was denied.

I've been banned.

Same thing, already trying to appeal ban both on Activision side and trying to get someone from Valve to talk with me.
UPD:I wasn't able to appeal a ban. :(

Unfortunately, I have to suggest to close this issue as "not planned" or a more matching reason.

TL/DR: TAC supports Proton/Wine, Activision doesn't anymore. Running the game under a non-Windows platform will get you permanently BANNED. This includes any Call of Duty, including the Ricochet ones, that alleged guarantee is a lie!
TL/DR 2:
I've just got banned as well, and it didn't got lifted. Their answer suggests, that they disallow running their games on anything but a pure baremetal (non-VM, only consumer hardware, no server boards) Windows >= 10 with Secure Boot being active.
This new policy appears to also include the ones already supported by Proton, including the pure offline games of the whole Call of Duty series.
What do they want next, a stool sample or a verification can?

Also, the ban email came as HTML+Text, telling that the whole account is banned, while the appeal answer came as HTML-only email, saying that I should avoid "these types of violations to keep your account in good standing" (running Linux, I guess). Erm, what account? It is gone.

The answer to the appeal is further suggesting, that due to recent policy changes, their anti-cheat engines are specifically used to detect if someone runs their games on non-Windows machines.
I guess it just took longer for me, because my crappy machine lead to the game crashing so often. Either that or the game's gross misuse of the steam_api64.dll file and various NT API's (like calling NtGetContextThread with context being NULL), running the game makes even the Steam client itself (running outside Proton's sandbox) crash.
They probably needed to wait to confirm that I'm actually running Linux. Recently, I even made it into the accessibility settings to enable the subtitles and to disable motion blur. They surely don't like those. :-D
Their anti-Linux policy appears to also apply on Ricochet, despite whatever different thing Infinity Ward/Sledgehammer Games allegedly said. It's a shame, making it compatible didn't looked that difficult at the first glance. (First step, stubbing/implementing ci.dll)

I recently, because of the ban reports, looked into the Microsoft Gaming aquisition of Activision Blizzard. According to some news reports, there were some gamers suing against it, because they expected/predicted the same thing as some Redditors and the judge's rejection/ruling were basically, "They surely wouldn't hurt their own bottom-line". Apparently, they don't care about money. (Don't have a Reddit account, never had. They even banned the whole subnet including my server's IP from read-only access a long time ago)
I would rather want a diarrhea infusion than to productively using Windows outside a VM. Microsoft and their anti-trust issues are unfortunately like me being fat, both will not change that quickly.

P.S.: No, I'm not cheating in online games, neither did I modified any game files. The game wouldn't even start, if it detects anything unexpected, like when ASLR is disabled under Windows (rejected immediately), using the steam_api64.dll from CoD BO III (also rejected immediately), or Secure Boot unsupported or supported but not being active (dunno if it rejects that, but it detects that).
That specific ASLR check is explicitely disabled when it detects being run under Wine/Proton/Linux, because ASLR is basically unimplemented under Wine/Proton. Their software/game, including their anti-cheat solution, supports Linux perfectly fine, their publisher just doesn't.
And no, using "impulse 101" in a CS 1.6 offline bot round over fifteen/twenty years ago, or using a self-written Python script to use a car as a flying carpet in GTA:SA doesn't count.

I wonder if they extend that policy to World of Warcraft. Back then, they even had a native Linux client for internal use.

@jumofogit: Valve doesn't like to talk about any anti-cheat engines. I've made that experience seven years ago. After that, when Proton was suddenly and unexpectedly announced, they (and Codeweavers?) were saying that they won't support any anti-cheat software, that isn't already supported.
So if I wouldn't have found the Steam CEG debug register on thread creation issue in time back then, Proton probably wouldn't support CEG until this day.

I don't like, that doesn't matter where I go, everywhere I'll get turned into Don Quixote, just Windmills appearing everywhere. I don't want fight or even ask to. I'm too old and lazy for that crap. :-D
I just want to do my work and not get sucked into things like that. Before people reported that they got banned, I didn't even knew that Microsoft bought Activision.

I guess it just took longer for me, because my crappy machine lead to the game crashing so often

Nope, my fairly powerful (5900x, 6900XT) system (which handles the game great on windows) crashed about a minute or two in as well

This new policy appears to also include the ones already supported by Proton

So, the deck verified ones too? That's absurd (even if it did happen to GTA) and would absolutely not go unnoticed.

[I can't find a quote to directly refute]

I highly doubt Microsoft is at fault here, as they've allowed their games to be steam deck verified in the past; enabling EAC for MCC, not banning for Halo Infinite's custom anticheat, and enabling EAC when (probably before actually, no downtime) Infinite switched to it. Hell, if I have any hope for this, it'd be them intervening.

Activision has always been an awful company, or at the very least temperamental. I do not believe giving up on this is the right way to go. Personally I was going to wait and see valve's take on this when/if the game starts without tinkering, or (being cynical/selfish here) waiting for more people to get banned for simply launching the game though steam, to draw attention to this issue.

At the very least, if none of this ever goes anywhere, "I simply launched the game and never entered a match, and am now banned from the offline campaign" should be a slam dunk of a refund.

Nope, my fairly powerful (5900x, 6900XT) system (which handles the game great on windows) crashed about a minute or two in as well

I mean not only that, but crashing in over 90% of the time, between the launcher and the intro video. Sometimes also causing the Steam client itself to crash. Don't know if that is exploitable.

So, the deck verified ones too? That's absurd (even if it did happen to GTA) and would absolutely not go unnoticed.

Grand Theft Auto? Luckily that's afaik not owned by Activision or Microsoft. It appears that history, as always, repeats itself, and that the merger brought the worst from both, Activision and Microsoft. Nowadays, companies tend to even ignore the noticed things, as people tend to have a very short memory. Even the time during the launcher or while it's stuck counts towards game-time, so I'm way past the refund period. And I don't want a refund, I want to play Prop Hunt, someone showed me some [redacted]101 videos and it looks like a lot of fun, it reminded me very much of my pentesting work.

I highly doubt Microsoft is at fault here, as they've allowed their games to be steam deck verified in the past; ...
Activision has always been an awful company, or at the very least temperamental. I do not believe giving up on this is the right way to go. ...

I had to learn the hard way, that giving up can be ok, and sometimes the only winning move is not to play.

(being cynical/selfish here) waiting for more people to get banned for simply launching the game though steam, to draw attention to this issue.

Not gonna happen, because that game won't run without one of those two (maybe three) workarounds, all leading to the same result in different ways. With the history I now know, I have to assume, that only people who are affected way later will get their account reinstated, and the ones who got it banned early will get ignored.

At the very least, if none of this ever goes anywhere, "I simply launched the game and never entered a match, and am now banned from the offline campaign" should be a slam dunk of a refund.

Or as in, I downloaded it, it didn't ran. I made it run successfully, created the account in-game, haven't been able to enter a single match, and the whole account is now banned. It sucks, and I hope that the affected accounts weren't too valuable, financially or otherwise.

Edit:

[I can't find a quote to directly refute]

No, I won't publish any communication with them (except that tiny quote), by doing so I could count the seconds until I get a SLAPP suit.
Looking at software or even taking it apart to improve compatibility is perfectly legal in many if not most jurisdictions, but that wouldn't stop them.

I guess that I won't touch TAC, Ricochet or any Call of Duty and Activision stuff, until I get a written guarantee (email would be plenty) that they won't sue or ban me (yet again) for trying to fix their crap. Maybe I should charge them a hardship fee. :-D
There are tens of thousands of others, if not hundreds of thousands, who are perfectly able to do it instead of me. The problem is that 99.9% of them are already working on 100% capacity, the goal is to find the 0.1% who are only working on 99% capacity.

Replying to https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/6852#issuecomment-2396281583

For a matter of fact in regards to Infinity Ward's statement, it was actually Beenox who said it: https://pcgamesn.com/call-of-duty-modern-warfare-2/steam-deck-workaround

But I think the only way for us to resolve this further is if Valve can speak with Activision and ask if it such statements are true.

Since I saw another report on Reddit about someone getting banned from this game on Steam Deck, should we update Proton to block this title (like we do with Destiny 2)?

Since I saw another report on Reddit about someone getting banned from this game on Steam Deck, should we update Proton to block this title (like we do with Destiny 2)?

I know nothing about Destiny 2, but I think that would probably be a good idea, maybe checks on different places, all commented to explain why they're there and what will not only eventually happen if those blocks/precautions are being removed.
I recently read about e.g. Ricochet (afaik not TAC, but anyway) malfunctions (e.g. with graphic card drivers) and even design flaws (bans on demand/as a service), which caused people who never cheated to be banned even three years ago, back when it was released (and never fixed), while Activision knew perfectly well about it and still decided to silently sit on that knowledge, doing nothing but to smear people.
As much as I would like to finally being able to play Prop Hunt, I don't want to see any more people being banned because Activision is Activision. And I thought that E.A. or Ubisoft would be way worse. There's an old German saying, roughly translated, put them all in a sack and punch it, you'll never hit the wrong ones.
It's not only about being banned, they e.g. told me that they want to sue me for damages if I merely launch any current or future Call of Duty title, even including the first one from 21 years ago, that's why I wrote that I'll wait for them to explicitly tell me that they will refrain from doing so. I mean c'mon, what damages, that I gave them money?!

Edit: Just read about Destiny 2/Bungie, that's abhorrent.

Looks like fixes for this game have trickled down into experimental and GE, according to reports on ProtonDB. Someone's clock is ticking; let's hope it's Activision's.

Looks like fixes for this game have trickled down into experimental and GE, according to reports on ProtonDB. Someone's clock is ticking; let's hope it's Activision's.

You sure they don't cause bans anymore?

Yeah I would like confirmation that Activision won't ban us for playing lol

You sure they don't cause bans anymore?

Sorry, I meant fixes to get the game running, not fixes to Activision

Apologies, didn't mean that.

Replying to https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/6852#issuecomment-2396237747

Just asking, but anything new about fixing the account bans?

I don't know how relevant this is to the topic, but attempting to launch it on Windows 11, which is installed on ReFS... Also leads to a permanent ban without reasons, the appeal is rejected, the bug report is ignored, and access to Activision support is ultimately also closed... In total, we have 4 accounts banned on Steam, from friends and my own.

Hello @funkerwolf, you've come across the issue tracker for the Proton project. Proton is a compatibility layer for running Windows based games on Linux. Since you're playing on Windows, Proton isn't involved at all for you.

It's clear, I just ask everyone who sees this to take note that the game is locked on NTFS due to the investigation.

I made a pull request to have this game blocked from launching under Proton so we can avoid having more Linux users banned for just launching this game. I believe this is also something done for Destiny 2, but I cannot find the code specific to that game.

The app runs on my PC with Proton Experimental and I played for a few minutes against bots. When I'm in the options menus and customizing my classes, the game on two occasions stopped recognizing my keyboard button presses. However, the mouse and mouse buttons still work after that point.

Does the entry in the exp change log suggest that Activision is no longer banning non-Windows+NTFS users or that it's just playable (until the next ban wave)?

The commit that fixed CW was pushed a week ago, out of the blue. But, it isn't specified if Activision lifted their restrictions and communicated with CodeWeavers or Valve or that a dev simply attempted to run the game and play in a short session, not long enough to trigger a ban.

@daggintosh In my research, the ban was happening quite quickly and we ran into it as well while trying to fix the game initially which is why we had not published the change to the proton script. I played recently on multiple days for >30min per session and played full multiplayer matches, and I did not get banned. However, it was a mistake to put that in the changelog and I'll remove it now :)

Does the entry in the exp change log suggest that Activision is no longer banning non-Windows+NTFS users or that it's just playable (until the next ban wave)?

The commit that fixed CW was pushed a week ago, out of the blue. But, it isn't specified if Activision lifted their restrictions and communicated with CodeWeavers or Valve or that a dev simply attempted to run the game and play in a short session, not long enough to trigger a ban.

Old bans haven't been lifted, and for launching on refs, we've been completely ignored in tickets and to this day by Activision support.

@daggintosh In my research, the ban was happening quite quickly and we ran into it as well while trying to fix the game initially which is why we had not published the change to the proton script. I played recently on multiple days for >30min per session and played full multiplayer matches, and I did not get banned. However, it was a mistake to put that in the changelog and I'll remove it now :)

I will try to corroborate your experiment, i have 2 hours to kill today, will let you know if get banned

@alasky17 Thank you for the clarification, to be safe though I'll check back in a few weeks since some reports show that some bans were quite delayed.

@funkerwolf I've seen some blame the ReFS bans on Ricochet but as this game doesn't use Ricochet, I'm inclined to believe that this is an engine-level bug that originated either with CW or MW19. Maybe there's some sort of integrity check that uses some call specific to NTFS that isn't present in Linux filesystems (and supported in Wine) or MS's ReFS?

I'm also curious if a ban would still occur if the BTRFS Windows driver was used, but that would probably be a waste of $20-$60. It's a shame that Activision is being so vague.

Hello @chris-pcguy, please use a different medium to discuss legal matters.

k, just wanted to give it as a heads-up, since they explicitly mentioned the threat with the notion of "trying to make a game of the Call of Duty series run on a system which can't be classified as having a default Windows installation" (short/trimmed version).
So even if it currently only affects me, which I strongly doubt, I thought like an additional warning might be warranted, since it appears like they got more active in that regard in the last months.

@alasky17 had to fiddle with it (PROTON_LOG=1 gamescope -f -- %command%) launch cmds but other than that it worked find and i got some zombies gaming in for like an hour and no ban

@funkerwolf Wow that is very much instantaneous, and after viewing the videos in your message I think our issues may not be the same. BO4 has been fully functional through Wine for years no matter what (Linux) file system. Are pre-2018 titles also affected? That could be indicative of a much deeper incompatibility between ReFS and the IW engine (but sadly outside the scope of this thread).

@alasky17 you mentioned that your team ran into the bans as well, were all of them temporary matchmaking bans or did some of them evolve into permanent account suspensions?

[images]
@alasky17 had to fiddle with it (PROTON_LOG=1 gamescope -f -- %command%) launch cmds but other than that it worked find and i got some zombies gaming in for like an hour and no ban

2 hours in, no ban, only issue i noticed was flickering terrain textures sometimes and mouse input going haywire for like 2s right after PaP/Armor/Bench

[images]
@alasky17 had to fiddle with it (PROTON_LOG=1 gamescope -f -- %command%) launch cmds but other than that it worked find and i got some zombies gaming in for like an hour and no ban

2 hours in, no ban, only issue i noticed was flickering terrain textures sometimes and mouse input going haywire for like 2s right after PaP/Armor/Bench

Flickering textures is something I've experienced on Windows too.

@daggintosh We hit the same permanent account ban that folks had mentioned elsewhere, not a temporary suspension :/ - this was ~August 2024 though so things seem to have changed since then. Back then, the ban actually happened before even getting into a game, while just on menus, the very first time someone tried to test the game after fixing the bugs in upstream Wine. This is why we never originally added this game to the hack, although then at some point other folks figured out how to get the game to start too and got banned as well (at least according to my research on ProtonDB).

Hello @funkerwolf, it should be clarified that you've come across an issue tracker for the Proton project. Proton is a compatibility layer for running Windows based games on Linux. Since you're running the game on Windows, Proton isn't involved at all making your feedback out of scope for the Proton devs.

I understand, but take all this data into consideration as well, and I have nowhere else to turn with this problem, everyone is just playing football instead of solving it. The very fact that the CoD series 'games' are locked to NTFS, but this is not mentioned anywhere. And what saddens me the most is that such a large company can't stand up for its customers. Valve clearly knows what systems the games are running on, but provides nothing to protect against false bans like in this case.

@funkerwolf Seems like this may actually be on Microsoft's end as ReFS appears to be missing a lot of features that NTFS and Wine's IO implementations have. Judging by the documentation it seems like ReFS is only designed for enterprise use in newer applications designed with it in mind. These consumer apps and games tend to use old or poorly documented functions predating ReFS (like Persona 5's use of TxF that was found and implemented in Wine soon after release). It's clear that this is off-topic so I'm sorry but I don't think Microsoft sees enough consumer ReFS use at this moment to warrant bringing feature parity with NTFS but I wish you and others luck in working to bring more attention to ReFS by Microsoft and third-parties. A modern, complete alternative to NTFS would be lovely!

Cold War's issue in Proton's case may have actually been due to inaccuracies in Wine that have since been fixed. I still believe that this strict of a punishment is overkill and would prefer a crash rather than account suspension. Assuming only the Cold War account is one to get suspended I think I'm going to take the dip and do some testing. But I am worried about cases like https://www.protondb.com/app/1985810#s9iCTbgWC4 where they were able to play for 9 months before getting banned.

@alasky17 By any chance do you know if Valve would be able to communicate directly with Activision to lessen/nullify the punishment for users in the event that bans occur? I believe this punishment is far too harsh for something that can be triggered by a regression in a rapidly changing environment like Proton, Windows Insider Previews, or ReFS in its journey to feature parity.

@alasky17 By any chance do you know if Valve would be able to communicate directly with Activision to lessen/nullify the punishment for users in the event that bans occur? I believe this punishment is far too harsh for something that can be triggered by a regression in a rapidly changing environment like Proton, Windows Insider Previews, or ReFS in its journey to feature parity.

@daggintosh I wouldn't keep my hopes up. Valve is still handling the caused bans as being equivalent to VAC bans, and thus cause the account to not be in good standing anymore. I weren't able to buy a "Steam Deck OLED: Limited Edition White" because of it.

Understandable. I still want to be optimistic towards the possibility of things eventually improving though, even if it takes a long while and a lot of trial and error.

Though, Valve upholding a game ban over what is inherently an uncontrollable Proton level issue is not the correct approach! I wish you luck in your case and to the others affected that one day the status quo will change.

Though, Valve upholding a game ban over what is inherently an uncontrollable Proton level issue is not the correct approach!

I wouldn't necessarily call that a Proton level issue, but rather an Activision/Microsoft level issue. Activision were never a good company, but they went bonkers/haywire after the merger.

Although Valve weren't so innocent in history. Before I fixed a previous CoD, I asked Valve for anything to help debugging their CEG, to which they only responded with a "that I should go f myself", just in nicer words, but the meaning was the same. (afaik HT-4JMF-JYCP-C39W)
Back then, I was quite surprised when Valve suddenly announced their Wine fork. Also that they said that they won't support any DRMs or anti-cheat software unless they are already supported by Wine until a certain deadline.
And that they would refuse to add any additional compatibility for the same after the said deadline. It was nice that I found their neat little "check the debug registers upon thread creation" trick in time (wine's #32515), it "only" took me to decompile quite a lot of it by hand.
Also it's nice that it looks like they eventually changed their mind about that. There's surely a lot of negative and positive things to say about any company, and with Valve it's certainly way more positive. They can certainly be considered a good company.
Also I'm happy about the constant supply of Kernel LPE's that I consistently get over the last few years on my dedicated gaming machine running Steam, they surely come in handy for my other line of work.
Although I still haven't looked what precisely is dropping them, if it's the Steam client itself, or some multiplayer game. Most likely the latter, I just treat them as regiftable gifts.

Fair points.

On the topic of Cold War's compatibility, on RDNA 3 I cannot say it is playable. There appears to be a vram leak as it slowly climbs and overflows into shared memory.

Certain maps like Moscow (Multiplayer, uses max of 18 GB) and Nowhere Left To Run (Campaign, uses a comical 20.5 GB) work "perfectly" fine and consistently while others Nuketown (Multiplayer) and Die Maschine (Zombies) cause both protection and page faults. Nuketown sometimes works but I didn't get a read of its vram usage. I did notice some minor texture flickering and z-fighting in some places but in the end I think the next steps for this title lie in vkd3d-proton.

Been 2 days now, no ban, still playing Die Maschina as usual. I think you can re-add the game to the now playable list, however it still has memory leak issues that need to be resolved BUT i am able to play it for like 34 rounds before a crash

that's cool to hear (but slightly aggravating for those of us that got banned for it)

Xwayland crashed when I loaded into a matchmaking tdm multiplayer game in the map Yamantau. My game got past the loading screen and choosing a class, but it didn't get past the pre-match cinematic.

Xwayland crashed when I loaded into a matchmaking tdm multiplayer game in the map Yamantau. My game got past the loading screen and choosing a class, but it didn't get past the pre-match cinematic.

Use gamescope otherwise the GPU irrecoverably crashes.

Been 2 days now, no ban, still playing Die Maschina as usual. I think you can re-add the game to the now playable list, however it still has memory leak issues that need to be resolved BUT i am able to play it for like 34 rounds before a crash

I heard someone on protondb say they played and got bannned 8 months later, maybe its just random?

when i play cold war it now works with proton experimental but it randomly just freezes completely and i need to kill it. Does anyone maybe have a solution ?

Logs:

cod_coldwar_freeze.log

Somewhere in the last 20% of the logs i think it froze and i then ended the process with the stop button in lutris.

Replying to https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/6852#issuecomment-3699360588

Could you try setting dxvk.useAsync = False? Just a hunch

Replying to [#6852 (comment)](https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/6852#issuecomment-3699360588)

Could you try setting dxvk.useAsync = False? Just a hunch

i tried just now. It is still the same issue.

cod_coldwar_freeze2.log

i think the issue is this here in the logs:

0698:fixme:win:NtUserGetWindowDisplayAffinity (0x6fffff58a721, 0x5917a74): stub
radv/amdgpu: The CS has been cancelled because the context is lost. This context is guilty of a hard recovery.
radv: GPUVM fault detected at address 0x8000fffc0000.
GCVM_L2_PROTECTION_FAULT_STATUS: 0x701431
CLIENT_ID: (SQC (data)) 0xa
MORE_FAULTS: 1
WALKER_ERROR: 0
PERMISSION_FAULTS: 3
MAPPING_ERROR: 0
RW: 0

its been a hour or two playing BOCW on lutris using Battle.net, Using Proton-Expeimental.

i have played through 3 matches with no graphical bugs, no crashing/stuttering. only problem i had was my mouse wasnt matching up with the game. but changing that to fullscreen borderless fixed that.

i havent been banned. im going to leave it for a few hours and come back to check.

its been a hour or two playing BOCW on lutris using Battle.net, Using Proton-Expeimental.

i have played through 3 matches with no graphical bugs, no crashing/stuttering. only problem i had was my mouse wasnt matching up with the game. but changing that to fullscreen borderless fixed that.

i havent been banned. im going to leave it for a few hours and come back to check.

do you have a amd gpu and are you using mesa ?

no. i am using a RTX 3060. and everything seems as normal as it would on windows. if there is anymore prblems ill let you know.

no. i am using a RTX 3060. and everything seems as normal as it would on windows. if there is anymore prblems ill let you know.

if you are using a nvidia card and i have the issue on amd with mesa then i think it really are the radv drivers.

it could be that yes. i haven't had no weird textures. no stutters except from when i load in and it says connecting to battle.net. but after im in the menu its fine. no more stutters. what problems are you having?

it could be that yes. i haven't had no weird textures. no stutters except from when i load in and it says connecting to battle.net. but after im in the menu its fine. no more stutters. what problems are you having?

when you scroll a bit up there i described it. complete graphical output freeze. and gpu reset.

yeah i don’t get that at all. i was playing for a good hour or two. and
mine ran flawlessly over 140+ frames a second.

On Tue, 30 Dec 2025 at 8:01 pm, WhitePeace36 @.***>
wrote:

WhitePeace36 left a comment (ValveSoftware/Proton#6852)
https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/6852#issuecomment-3700343399

it could be that yes. i haven't had no weird textures. no stutters except
from when i load in and it says connecting to battle.net. but after im in
the menu its fine. no more stutters. what problems are you having?

when you scroll a bit up there i described it. complete graphical output
freeze. and gpu reset.

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it could be that yes. i haven't had no weird textures. no stutters except from when i load in and it says connecting to battle.net. but after im in the menu its fine. no more stutters. what problems are you having?

when you scroll a bit up there i described it. complete graphical output freeze. and gpu reset.

For me the GPU resets were solved by using gamescope

yeah that could be it too. atleast we haven’t been banned straight away.
On Tue, 30 Dec 2025 at 9:03 pm, Phiality @.***> wrote:

PhialsBasement left a comment (ValveSoftware/Proton#6852)
https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/6852#issuecomment-3700561562

it could be that yes. i haven't had no weird textures. no stutters except
from when i load in and it says connecting to battle.net. but after im in
the menu its fine. no more stutters. what problems are you having?

when you scroll a bit up there i described it. complete graphical output
freeze. and gpu reset.

For me the GPU resets were solved by using gamescope

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yeah that could be it too. atleast we haven’t been banned straight away.
…

I feel like they would do bans in banwaves so it would be harder to know straight away that you're flagged

it could be that yes. i haven't had no weird textures. no stutters except from when i load in and it says connecting to battle.net. but after im in the menu its fine. no more stutters. what problems are you having?

when you scroll a bit up there i described it. complete graphical output freeze. and gpu reset.

For me the GPU resets were solved by using gamescope

i cant even start it with gamescope. It starts the launcher and after i click play i get the little load popup and thats it. nothing afterwards. my command is gamescope -H 1440 -W 2560 -S integer --

it could be that yes. i haven't had no weird textures. no stutters except from when i load in and it says connecting to battle.net. but after im in the menu its fine. no more stutters. what problems are you having?

when you scroll a bit up there i described it. complete graphical output freeze. and gpu reset.

I'm also having this issue with my RX 6800XT. I've noticed this issue before in games like warhammer darktide

it could just be a problem with your AMD drivers or mesa for your distro.

On Wed, 31 Dec 2025 at 02:13, Jorge @.***> wrote:

toweringdoor left a comment (ValveSoftware/Proton#6852)
https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/6852#issuecomment-3701263619

it could be that yes. i haven't had no weird textures. no stutters except
from when i load in and it says connecting to battle.net. but after im in
the menu its fine. no more stutters. what problems are you having?

when you scroll a bit up there i described it. complete graphical output
freeze. and gpu reset.

I'm also having this issue with my RX 6800XT. I've noticed this issue
before in games like warhammer darktide

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Game seems to work fine, but keyboard input doesn't work. However, dualsense controller works fine with the adaptive triggers working as well.

On Fedora 43 with an RTX 3070

Playing on Proton GE 28 for a few hours and it works, however sometimes navigating the ui can cause keyboard to stop working

I just switched from an Nvidia 3090 to a AMD 9070 XT and now have the ground texture flickering too.
It worked fine on Nvidia.

See for example my video of the map "Apocalypse" below:

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/59c1bb5b-e190-43a8-875c-4478f4ed6243

Some maps do not have this issue.

Does someone here with an AMD GPU not have this flickering?
Could you share your setup please ? (GPU & Proton Version)?
Thanks

I am using Proton Experimental.

Was able to play on my steamdeck, crashes on most singleplayer missions, but is playable online, most maps crash but every now and then you can get a game in, seems like when loading some maps the graphics api/graphics start loading really slow/glitching showing pixels and the game crashes. Havent tested zombies yet, I was also able to use frame gen on cold war, online and offline. Looking forward to this compatibility getting better overtime.

Setup:

• R7 5700X
• 16GB DDR4 4066Mhz
• Tested on Following GPUs: RX 580 8GB, RX 7700 XT, GTX 780
• Tested with Proton: Experimental, GE-Proton 10-28

Current Issues (Will likely update with further testing):

• Campaign crashes the game immediately when trying to finish the first Mission (Nowhere to run)

Also this game seems to be completely broken on RX 580 (POLARIS20). Launching the game results in this error message:

If anyone here has access to other cards of the Polaris (RX 400/500) series of GPUs, please try if you can to confirm this is a wider issue with that gpu architecture.

its been a hour or two playing BOCW on lutris using Battle.net, Using Proton-Expeimental.

i have played through 3 matches with no graphical bugs, no crashing/stuttering. only problem i had was my mouse wasnt matching up with the game. but changing that to fullscreen borderless fixed that.

i havent been banned. im going to leave it for a few hours and come back to check.

Still no ban?

Every time a match starts to load my game completely locks up and I'm forced to kill the process. I've tried both with and without gamescope. I'm running KDE with wayland on Arch with a 7900 XTX.

When loading into a match sometimes the game will freeze, sometimes it happens on a cutscene before loading it, sometimes when the map is loading.

Cachyos
RX 6700 10GB
Mesa 25.2.6 under faugus launcher flatpak on battle.net
Proton-GE-10-28

Log's

cod cold war crash log.zip

Seems like some of the issues with running this game on AMD GPUs could be resolved by this once it gets merged o:
https://github.com/HansKristian-Work/vkd3d-proton/pull/2781

game runs for me on Arc B580 but has bad texture flickers and the game inaccurately reports VRAM usage and capacity making it essentially unplayable for me. it's progress though nevertheless!

steam-1985810.zip
https://gist.github.com/thenetwrx/f68e1ecf0ca72292c5e95d4f98884c88

Here's the information you've asked for! @kisak-valve

Reporting back after two weeks of owning the game and playing exclusively on Steam Deck: a decent number of maps work. If you stick to the same rotation, you can get into multiplayer matches consistently. I’ve been playing maps like Echelon, Moscow, Express, Diesel, Hijacked, Jungle, and others.

Some maps with high prop counts and extra assets can cause crashes. Maps that don’t work include Nuketown 2025, Satellite, and a few others.

@nfltemp the issue with satellite was fixed a few days ago, but it hasn't made its way to base proton experimental yet, but it is part of bleeding edge https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/wiki/Proton-Versions#proton-bleeding-edge

I couldn't find any map called nuketown 2025, so I can't say anything about that in particular, but it's likely fixed as well with newer proton builds

My experience so far, Proton Bleeding Edge fixed the texture issues and the crashes on my 9060 XT (assuming from the recent merged work on VKD3D-Proton that I linked on my previous comment days ago). The game runs pretty much almost flawlessly for me now, the only issue I have with it is that my keyboard inputs randomly stop working every now and then when inside the menus (which was also reported by @2Epik4u a few weeks ago). Other than that, an overall excellent experience now all-around o:

My experience so far, Proton Bleeding Edge fixed the texture issues and the crashes on my 9060 XT (assuming from the recent merged work on VKD3D-Proton that I linked on my previous comment days ago). The game runs pretty much almost flawlessly for me now, the only issue I have with it is that my keyboard inputs randomly stop working every now and then when inside the menus (which was also reported by @2Epik4u a few weeks ago). Other than that, an overall excellent experience now all-around o:

Can confirm, both on PC and Steam Deck the game runs flawlessly with Bleeding Edge

Also can confirm cold war with Proton Bleeding Edge runs perfect on steam deck now

the keyboard input still seems to randomly stops working for no apprent reason

@Kyr4l but that only happens in menus, right? I tried playing the game today, but after an hour I was still unable to fill a full lobby. Does it also happen when playing against bots?

@Kyr4l but that only happens in menus, right? I tried playing the game today, but after an hour I was still unable to fill a full lobby. Does it also happen when playing against bots?

depends what you define as "menus", simply pausing the game is enough to trigger this bug, so i was unable to play for more than 5 minutes.
the game runs fine though, but the kb input breaking randomly is a dealbreaker for now

@Kyr4l I misunderstood a previous report, I thought the keyboard breakage only affected menus. It would be good to know if the issue started happening at some point or if it was always there

@funkerwolf:

False Bans is really gone, just like the false detections for ReFS. But for some reason, they still don’t want to unban the old accounts. Maybe Valve will take a look and start solving the problems?

Do I understand correctly that this is a response regarding some old ban?
Or did you get banned recently? (i.e., is it less likely to get banned now?)

I'm considering buying this game once I know I'll be able to play it on Linux.
If there's any way I can help with this (that doesn't end with me throwing away $60 due to a ban), please let me know!

the keyboard input still seems to randomly stops working for no apprent reason

Wayland seems to be the issue here, on X11 doesn't have that

@funkerwolf:

False Bans is really gone, just like the false detections for ReFS. But for some reason, they still don’t want to unban the old accounts. Maybe Valve will take a look and start solving the problems?

Do I understand correctly that this is a response regarding some old ban? Or did you get banned recently? (i.e., is it less likely to get banned now?)

I'm considering buying this game once I know I'll be able to play it on Linux. If there's any way I can help with this (that doesn't end with me throwing away $60 due to a ban), please let me know!

Yes, this is about old bans due to ReFS in our cases. But as others have mentioned above, there aren’t more bans, and as I’ve checked, there are also no ReFS detections on Windows. They probably quietly removed the filesystem analysis, but for some reason, they don’t revoke the old bans obtained during that period. I write to support almost every day; I have all the evidence, repeatedly verified, but they stubbornly ignore everything and, with my friends, keep insisting that we supposedly violated the rules, yet they can’t point to any specific clause. And overall, this is a deadlock situation for me: my computer was upgraded on credit and with components bought as advertised, and Activision initially confused me. I thought the ban could have been hardware-related or due to the DLSS override, but all the rechecks led to false bans for ReFS and Wine/Proton like for the people above. Considering how many copies I’ve gifted and how much money I’ve given them, I get treated so unfairly. I have never cheated in online games, but they branded me nonetheless...

Initial testing with GE-Proton 10-29 shows that the game no longer causes a GPU reset with my 6800xt. Will run for a bit longer to see if issues arise.

Can confirm i havent been banned. i have now loaded up after a week of not playing. it still loads up and works fine. mouse input wasnt right as im on wayland. but i used the following command 'gamescope --force-grab-cursor -W 1920 -H 1080 -r 144 -f -- %command%' and my mouse came back.

the keyboard input still seems to randomly stops working for no apprent reason

Wayland seems to be the issue here, on X11 doesn't have that

It happens whenever the game activates text input mode. This can be triggered by opening the chat or opening the dialog to change your clan tag.

All keyboard presses will stop functioning until the game is restarted.

the keyboard input still seems to randomly stops working for no apprent reason

Wayland seems to be the issue here, on X11 doesn't have that

It happens whenever the game activates text input mode. This can be triggered by opening the chat and opening the dialog to change your clan tag.

All keyboard presses will stop functioning until the game is restarted.

I think both of these are issues, for me when finally loading into a game it breaks keyboard input and when i tested your thing the keyboard also breaks on chat

I am really happy to read it's working. I am still too afraid to test it myself. One step closer to ditching Windows for me.
I find it really frustrating that Activision isn't cooperative with this. At least they should talk to the people who are working on Proton.

I contacted Blizzard support and I asked directly if playing Cold War on Linux is a bannable offense. This is the response I received:

First off, I want to clarify that Blizzard doesn't officially support Linux, and there aren't any current plans to provide native compatibility for either Overwatch 2 or Black Ops Cold War. However, I can assure you that playing on Linux isn't a bannable offense. That said, there have been instances where players using Linux faced bans due to anti-cheat systems mistakenly identifying certain configurations as hacks. Fortunately, those bans have been overturned in the past once they were recognized as false positives.

When it comes to Overwatch 2, many players have found it to be playable on Linux through Steam using Proton, which is great news! It benefits from Valve's compatibility layers, making the experience smoother. As for Black Ops Cold War, recent reports suggest that it’s functional on Linux via Steam/Proton as well. Just keep in mind that Activision's Ricochet Anti-Cheat can be a bit more aggressive with non-Windows systems, so it’s something to be aware of.

Looking ahead, there are no plans for native Linux support for either game, and for the best experience, I’d recommend using a dual-boot Windows setup if that’s an option for you. If you do decide to play on Linux, using the Steam version with Proton Experimental is a smart move to help minimize any potential anti-cheat triggers.

I've been playing on Proton Experimental as suggested for more than a week and I've had no issues so far besides the odd bug.

Fortunately, those bans have been overturned in the past once they were recognized as false positives.

I guess blizzard just doesn't know what activision's doing, and is inadvertently lying?

@doasu in https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/6852#issuecomment-3793145989:

I'm considering buying this game once I know I'll be able to play it on Linux. If there's any way I can help with this (that doesn't end with me throwing away $60 due to a ban), please let me know!

I bought it on sale today. Besides the keyboard issue and a bit of shimmer around objects in fog, I'm glad to report that it worked pretty well :))

Fortunately, those bans have been overturned in the past once they were recognized as false positives.

I guess blizzard just doesn't know what activision's doing, and is inadvertently lying?

Most likely they won’t revoke it until Valve and others intervene themselves. And as practice has shown, the problem with bans in Wine/Proton, and in my case, coincides with the fact that the anti-cheat was nailed down with NTFS checks, and now it has quietly been fixed. Overall, it’s really sad what the whole series has turned into. With my direct bug reports over the past year, it all basically came down to nothing coming of it. Except that there won't be any more future bans.

I guess blizzard just doesn't know what activision's doing, and is inadvertently lying?

Honestly i think the blizzard employee might be referring to the false linux ow1 banwaves caused by a bug in dxvk which indeed have been undone.

But from the message it's quite evident they don't know what activision does based on the fact they refer to ricochet meanwhile bo5 still uses TAC.

Fortunately, those bans have been overturned in the past once they were recognized as false positives.

I totally believe them, yeah

I guess blizzard just doesn't know what activision's doing, and is inadvertently lying?

At least one part of that newly formed conglomerate is answering, even if it's inaccurate and wrong information. But don't you guys worry, they'll get their muzzle soon enough if they weren't already told to shut up about it.

As of today I still am having the keyboard issue where I lose all keyboard input after opening game chat or changing my clan tag. That being said, the random crashes I was getting on Nuketown and when spawning in seem to be gone. I'm not sure if nvidia cards still crash but at least my 7900 XTX doesn't.

As of today I still am having the keyboard issue where I lose all keyboard input after opening game chat or changing my clan tag.

I tried using the Wayland option in Faugus/GE-Proton, but it didn’t help. I'm on arch/kde plasma if that makes a difference if anyone has a workaround that would be awesome

Thought I would update the thread, latest ProtonGE on Lutris appears to be working on this game. I've played a couple of MP matches and no hard desktop crashes so far, which I was seeing back in January when I first tested. I will continue to test and see if it occurs in certain maps still or if I get banned.

CPU: R7 7700X
GPU: RX 7800 XT
RAM: 32GB
WINE/Proton Version: Proton-GE (Latest)
Game Version: Battle.Net Version
Mesa Version: 25.3.5
Distro: Fedora 43

Replying to https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/6852#issuecomment-4029228272

I've tried using proton-cachyos-slr with PROTON_ENABLE_WAYLAND=1 to no avail, tested on hyprland and mangowc. It runs fine with absolutely no input issues in dwm, so it's obviously something related to wayland.

Replying to https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/6852#issuecomment-4063968657

try proton-ge and the wayland env var then it works. But with proton-cachyos-slr it does not seem to work.

proton-cachyos-slr does not work on some games

Replying to [#6852 (comment)](https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/6852#issuecomment-4063968657)

try proton-ge and the wayland env var then it works. But with proton-cachyos-slr it does not seem to work.

proton-cachyos-slr does not work on some games

I also tried Proton-GE and Proton-EM both with and without the wayland envar and got the same results.

You guys are able to play this game with the Wayland flag enabled? This game in particular randomly crashes on me within like a minute or two of me turning on Wayland on either GE, Cachy-slr or EM, I can only run it on XWayland o:
steam-1985810-GE.log

You guys are able to play this game with the Wayland flag enabled? This game in particular randomly crashes on me within like a minute or two of me turning on Wayland on either GE, Cachy-slr or EM, I can only run it on XWayland o: steam-1985810-GE.log

I ended up just using xorg in an openbox session and used the workaround script from the post above this one to get input working properly.

game runs for me on Arc B580 but has bad texture flickers and the game inaccurately reports VRAM usage and capacity making it essentially unplayable for me. it's progress though nevertheless!

anyone still get this issue? here's a visual representation I should've provided

https://drive.proton.me/urls/W7M8AHY66G#9GrCLv0xEpJE

@AKarpenter47:
You guys are able to play this game with the Wayland flag enabled? This game in particular randomly crashes on me within like a minute or two of me turning on Wayland on either GE, Cachy-slr or EM, I can only run it on XWayland o: steam-1985810-GE.log

Hmmm... I was able to play a couple games of DM using the wayland driver. The only issue I had was that the key labels would show up incorrectly ('R' was 'T', etc.).

I did eventually switch back to XWayland because it seemed to be a bit more responsive.

But in general, the game did not crash for me on Wayland.

You guys are able to play this game with the Wayland flag enabled? This game in particular randomly crashes on me within like a minute or two of me turning on Wayland on either GE, Cachy-slr or EM, I can only run it on XWayland o: steam-1985810-GE.log

Yes, im getting this. Random instant ctd's for no reason. I think zombies is more stable.
I can only play with wine-wayland. Gamescope or xwayland makes game boot to a black screen. I can just barley see the intro video which is super dark. but the game it 100% unresponsive.

Hi, for those looking to use the keyboard bug workaround found in the comment from @teidetechconsulting on March 17th, the script does not work with the latest Proton 11 / Experimental releases due to the lack of wine64 in the /files/bin directory. I modified the script a bit to have it look for just wine instead, which seems to have made the script work properly again for me (not well versed in this by any means, just was curiously poking around).

Keyboard-Bug-Workaround-Proton11.zip

Just extract the files to Cold War's game directory and add ./coldwar-try-fixes.sh --endcomp %command% to your launch commands (you can also just run the script inside a terminal and see what other launch options are available, if you are curious). One caveat I found though is that after exiting the game, you also have to click on the Stop button inside Steam, otherwise the script will keep running in the background o:

Somewhat off topic:

While I'm happy that the workaround seems to work for some people, I'm somewhat concerned about the origin of the patch--it was AI-generated.
I'm not sure what the Wine project's stance on AI contributions is, and to this day the patch sits "UNCONFIRMED" on the Wine bug tracker.
(Couldn't find their stance on AI, please let me know if it exists)

Perhaps instead of waiting for some random AI-generated patch to be merged (copyright/QC issues, etc.), we would find better luck having someone (a human) write the patch.
For various reasons, I won't be available in the near future, and I don't have much experience writing C (nor have I contributed to Wine), but I'd be willing to take a look at it during the summer vacations, if it's still in this state.

Replying to https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/6852#issuecomment-4529209790

If the patch was manually reviewed I don't see the problem in AI writing it we don't need AI hysteria here

I'm not sure what the Wine project's stance on AI contributions is

Not permitted: https://gitlab.winehq.org/wine/wine/-/wikis/Developer-FAQ#can-i-contribute-code-generated-by-a-large-language-model-llm-tool

Seems like this game received a random update earlier this month. Ever since that update, I can't seem to close the game normally. It just freezes itself and I have to either force stop it via the Steam button or kill it with a task managing program like btop++. Guess that's another small hiccup to add to on my side on top of crashing when enabling the Wayland flag using GE / EM / Cachy.

On the plus side, the keyboard bug looks to have been fixed for me with the latest Proton-GE that got released recently, so there's no need for me to be running that previous script anymore o:

We fixed the keyboard bug with the most recent Proton Experimental release thanks to all the reports about it here :) So it should also be fixed on regular Proton Experimental 👌

Even so, i still cant get past the black screen. https://dpaste.com/87DSD5YSA

@LethalManBoob So at 1st glance, I see that you are using Gamescope. I do not use the Battle Net version of the game like you do, so this may be a bit of an apples-to-oranges comparison, but I played around with getting the game to run under Gamescope via Steam and found that for me, the --immediate-flips variable was preventing the game from successfully running. Try removing that from your launch options and see if it has any effect o:

Also, enabling FSR via Gamescope brought me some weird visual glitches. Running the game without Gamescope via ProtonGE and using the WINE_FULLSCREEN_FSR=1 command does work without any visual shenanigans for me, but it looks rather bad on my monitor due to it being just FSR 1. One could probably be tempted to play around with OptiScaler, but the anticheat would probably bite them in the rear, so I'd rather just play without any upscaling :o

Replying to https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/6852#issuecomment-4811265406

Hi. Sorry i forgot to mention. Gamescope on or off has no effect. The only thing that got it to work was being able to somehow get it running with cachy-proton using wine-wayland. But now it just white screens on battledotnet

We fixed the keyboard bug with the most recent Proton Experimental release thanks to all the reports about it here :) So it should also be fixed on regular Proton Experimental 👌

That's awesome! I just tested it and indeed the bug seems to be fixed with one caveat. Is it expected behavior that I can't type in the in-game chat?

We fixed the keyboard bug with the most recent Proton Experimental release thanks to all the reports about it here :) So it should also be fixed on regular Proton Experimental 👌

That's awesome! I just tested it and indeed the bug seems to be fixed with one caveat. Is it expected behavior that I can't type in the in-game chat?

Adding to this, on my setup I am unable to type in any text fields (chat, class rename) with native wayland flag enabled.
On xwayland or gamescope text fields work as intended.
Also to mention that setting up keybinds does work with wayland flag set.

Edit: as of the latest proton experimental (bleeding edge) build it seems to have begun working on my setup.

@c0mpile That is not expected - I see lots of folks are using native wayland - if you still see the failure on standard proton (with xwayland) please let me know :)

hey, anyone banned during the last 6 months yet?
really tempted to try it out again, but still quite cautious about it

@jumofogit No bans for me, I've put about 212 hours since January or so o:

Tried it in december with Proton GE latest and Proton experimental and never have been banned as well

Is it worth getting on steam deck now? Debating getting it in the sale but don’t wanna risk a ban coz I heard it’s possible I could be banned from playing the cods that do work (ww2 and prior titles)

@wildermiles04 I'd say go for it, I haven't seen anyone getting banned nowadays. The game now has a Gold rating on ProtonDB as well, just turn on Proton Experimental and you should be good to go o:

I'd like to note I haven't seen anyone getting unbanned for this either.

I have a new issue - trying to connect to online services (using proton experimental bleeding edge for compat) and it keeps coming up with an error notice “Negative 345 Rare Gator” - does anyone know what this is and how to fix it?

@wildermiles04 From what I was able to look up, that looks to be a connection error. You may have to play around with your DNS / network settings for that one, though there have also been a few reports on ProtonDB specifically from Steam Deck owners stating that they were having issues getting matchmaking to work (though they have been able to play solo zombies, campaign, or MP with bots). Slightly different problem, but may be related o:

I've been playing this game for a few hours with no in-game issues, but I've noticed that upon quitting the game the whole program freezes. I have to kill the process to get the game to close. I am playing through Battle.net using Proton-GE, but I doubt this is a GE specific issue. I was not able to test this through regular proton because the Battle.net installation kept failing. The game seems to freeze at line 2469 in the attached logs

launch.log

@EnumeratedDev Not just you, I've been having the same issue via Proton Experimental and the Steam version of the game, as well. It started right after the game's most recent update in June o:

Update: it works now! I used my mobile network hotspot instead and it logged in, played some zombies and mp using that, then switched back to wifi and it’s been absolutely fine ever since.

Sometimes it’s a bit laggy or slow to find matches but nothing too bad. It’s perfectly playable against other players online and bots offline - Steam Deck LCD SD Card Install btw

For those having issues with running the game via Wayland with GE/Cachy/EM like I did, there's recently been a new fork of Proton-Cachy that fixes it for me:
https://github.com/nanomatters/proton-cachyos

Based on this Reddit post, it mainly adds cross-process rendering support and defaults to PROTON_ENABLE_WAYLAND=1 automatically o:

When playing with Proton, I noticed that I can't type in the chat in-game. Also, if I'm on mangowm I can't type in any windows on any other monitors or other workspaces on the same monitor as the game until I close the game. I'm not sure what's causing this, but the inability to type in other windows problem isn't present when I test under Hyprland. No matter what I use, I still can't type in game chat.

EDIT: It seems that using the wineland fork of proton-cachyos fixed all of those problems for me, both in-game and out.

Yeah, seems like the keyboard bug is mostly fixed, but every now and then you still can't input anything in a text field (though the controls still work unlike last time, so no need to reboot). It seems to come and go every few matches.

As for issues with trying to close the game normally, it still persists even when running on native Wayland, so something about that last game update in June definitely screwed it, it didn't used to freeze up like that before o:

Is anyone at all making any effort towards reversing the unjust bans for running this game that now works perfectly? I went to go give the MW4 beta a shot because it's free with discord nitro and found out I can't because of this game. It seems obscene that any of those bans are still standing given that (and even more absurd it's blocking this beta)

I would give up any hope of imagining Activision doing anything proconsumer such as removing unjust bands