protonscr

Extreme network latency spikes in games under Proton

protonclosed
ValveSoftware/Proton#8298 · opened 2024-12-07 by sadaisystems · updated 2025-11-15 · 1 comments · github
Ssadaisystems 2024-12-07 github

Proton versions: 9.3, Experimental, Hotfix
System: Arch, 6.12.1-arch1-1

I've been noticing some weird latency issues when playing Steam games through Proton. The internet seems to work perfectly fine outside of Proton (e.g., browsing, etc.), but as soon as I boot up a game using Proton, I start experiencing noticeable lag and high ping.

Has anyone else run into this? Could it be a Proton configuration issue, or maybe something related to Steam? Any tips on how to troubleshoot or fix this would be appreciated!

Persists in many games which run perfectly fine on Windows. Tried different version of Proton. Tried to install steam natively and through flatpak

Fresh install, updated all the system packages and firmware using pacman.

I'm using wireless connection.

Ssadaisystems 2024-12-09 github

Found a solution. In my case it was powersave mode on my wifi adapter.

What i did:

Create a file: /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/wifi-powersave-off.conf
In that file:

[connection]
wifi.powersave = 2

Then` restart network manager daemon:

systemctl restart NetworkManager

Feel like there should be a more elegant way of doing this though.

Nothing extracted yet.