Just want to confirm that a few months after launch I still have the same issue with a 4070 Ti (tried both the 560.35 driver & the 565.77 driver), the most recent 6.11 kernel on Ubuntu 24.10 on an i5 12500 with 32 GB Ram. Earlier sections of the game with smaller maps run great but many larger areas (Lostwing/Northreach) are dropping down to 30 fps or even below with extremely inconsistent frame times and/or stuttering in some areas, which reportedly does not really happen on Windows. CPU and GPU usage has a lot of headroom. No other demanding games (e.g. Silent Hill 2, Cyberpunk 2077, Indiana Jones, Dead Space Remake) run this badly on my machine. Recent Proton updates that claimed to improve the performance in FFXVI did not help.

Might be a general problem of Nvidia driver + VKD3D, or it might have something to do with DirectStorage emulation, because apparently FFXVI uses this a lot. Would be great if someone more knowledgeable about Proton/VKD3D with an Nvidia card could take a look.

as an addition, I have also been experiencing some crashes, generally after an hour or so
on nixOS with:

• linux kernel -> 6.12.7
• nvidia-drivers -> 565.77

I've seen in the nvidia logs a ctx switch timeout, I tried with proton hotfix and experimental, the issue still appears causing crashes

hardware info

• CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 7700X
• GPU: Nvidia RTX3060 12G
• 32GB RAM DDR5
• drive: nvme

fwiw this may not be the right place to put this info but maybe it could help, I also tried indiana jones and the game runs fine

Anyone else notice an issue where the game runs noticeably slower when using fullscreen or borderless mode with FSR 3 on? Like the game runs fine in windowed mode, at least on my gaming laptop, but even with the same resolution and settings, it results in the game running at half the framerate with choppy framepacing if I put it in fullscreen or borderless.

@KingKrouch I just tried in windowed mode, no performance difference for me when using FSR. The performance seems to be equally awful in all modes.

I have a RTX 4070 TI with the latest driver on the latest kernel. While the performance seems to be OK using an upscaler and frame generation, the game sometimes completly freezes and there is nothing to do to unfreeze it except quit the game. It used to happen especially during cutscenes but now it also happens during combat or just exploration when there are HUD displays (low heatlth effect, stance break, ...).

I have tried proton 9 and experimental bleeding edge, I have tried to disable DirectStorage via special K, I lowered the graphics and tried without an upscaler. I wanted to provide some logs but the log file is litteraly flooded with

vkd3d_native_sync_handle_release: Failed to release semaphore ([#12](/issue/ValveSoftware/Proton/12)).
warn:dxgi_vk_swap_chain_wait_worker: Failed to increment swapchain semaphore. Did application forget to acquire?

I have tested multiple proton versions and now I am locked from the game for 24h (thanks Denuvo).

I could back to the game for a few more tests. While I play, during cutscenes or when an overlay element is displayed (during combat, entering a new zone, ...), my game sometimes freezes and never recover, I have to close the game manually. Note that after the game has crashed, I have to delete the FF16 shader so it can be recreated otherwise the game is stuck on the splash screen.

Logs

My proton log is filled with

627.308:0124:0128:warn:vkd3d-proton:d3d12_command_list_QueryInterface: {5b2662fb-eb28-4aec-819e-1c1b4de060f6} not implemented, returning E_NOINTERFACE.

generally followed after a few lines by

627.316:0124:0424:warn:vkd3d-proton:vkd3d_native_sync_handle_release: Failed to release semaphore (#12a).
627.316:0124:0424:warn:vkd3d-proton:dxgi_vk_swap_chain_wait_worker: Failed to increment swapchain semaphore. Did application forget to acquire?

The last lines are as follow

638.499:0124:01ec:err:vkd3d-proton:d3d12_command_queue_execute: Failed to submit queue(s), vr -4.
638.499:0124:01ec:warn:vkd3d-proton:d3d12_device_mark_as_removed: Device 0000000013250080 is lost (reason 0x887a0005, "VK_ERROR_DEVICE_LOST").
638.499:0124:01ec:err:vkd3d-proton:d3d12_command_queue_execute: Failed to submit queue(s), vr -4.
638.499:0124:01ec:warn:vkd3d-proton:d3d12_device_mark_as_removed: Device 0000000013250080 is lost (reason 0x887a0005, "VK_ERROR_DEVICE_LOST").
638.499:0124:01ec:err:vkd3d-proton:d3d12_command_queue_flush_waiters: Failed to submit semaphore waits, vr -4.
638.499:0124:01ec:err:vkd3d-proton:d3d12_command_queue_execute: Failed to submit queue(s), vr -4.
638.499:0124:01ec:warn:vkd3d-proton:d3d12_device_mark_as_removed: Device 0000000013250080 is lost (reason 0x887a0005, "VK_ERROR_DEVICE_LOST").
638.499:0124:01ec:err:vkd3d-proton:d3d12_command_queue_execute: Failed to submit queue(s), vr -4.
638.499:0124:01ec:warn:vkd3d-proton:d3d12_device_mark_as_removed: Device 0000000013250080 is lost (reason 0x887a0005, "VK_ERROR_DEVICE_LOST").

System information

• GPU: Nvidia RTX 3070 Ti
• Driver: 570.86.16
• Wine version: Proton experimental (bleeding edge)

@ShepardCommander100 I encountered a similar issue once, disabling vsync solved the issue.

@Aerzas Thanks, it fixed the issue in some areas, but when I am in areas such as Martha's Rest I still get this issue.

Hello, sorry for necroing this, but I still get the same issues, where the cutscenes lag like hell and the game is performing really poorly regardless of proton version with Frame Generation enabled

Anyone else having way less performance on linux? I’ve tested on bazzite, cachyOS and chimera, all of the same bad performance, on windows I have 80 fps where on Linux I got 50, also on Linux o noticed it uses less gpu and cpu %

i7 8700k
Rx 9060 xt 16GB
16GB DDR4 2666 RAM
Gigabyte B360M AORUS GAMING 3

@ArthurHenriqueVieira Maybe helpful to others to list your hardware.

Sorry about that @RTbecard, I’ve updated my comment

On my side the game crashes after 10 to 20 minutes of gameplay. It seems to be same symptoms as in https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/8317#issuecomment-2654018290
The game suddenly freeze, at least the grapics as the sound continues to play.
Here is my (compressed) steam log.
steam-2515020.log.gz.

The crash seems to happen at the logs (a bit like https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/8317#issuecomment-2654018290 )

err:winevulkan:signaller_worker wait timed out with non-empty poll list.
err:winevulkan:signaller_worker wait timed out with non-empty poll list.
err:winevulkan:signaller_worker wait timed out with non-empty poll list.
[...]  (repeat plenty of lines)
16101.231:013c:0238:err:vkd3d-proton:d3d12_command_queue_execute: Failed to submit queue(s), vr -4.
16101.231:013c:0238:warn:vkd3d-proton:d3d12_device_mark_as_removed: Device 00000000099b0080 is lost (reason 0x887a0005, "VK_ERROR_DEVICE_LOST").

• GPU: RTX 4070 TI
• Video driver version:nvidia-open 580.82.07-2
• Kernel Version: 6.16.5-arch1-1
• Steam Runtime Version: steam-runtime_1.0.20250519.130917
• Proton version: Proton Experimental ( I am not sure how to get the exact version / commit)
• I am using Wayland (KDE Plasma) and Steam overlay is deactivated
  I can provide more information if needed

@elthommy I tried for over an hour on a 4060 laptop and no issues. Some possible factors are the area where you are (I'm at the forest with clive, not far from the start of the game), the graphics settings, and driver versions as I'm currently a bit behind you (580.76.05). I'm mostly on low settings, so if you can share your settings and location (or save file if you're far into the game) that could help reproduce the issue.

@simifor I got the issue at the very begining (the attack on the castle). I was playing in Ultra and was not able to play more than 10 to 20 minutes. Reducing the Graphic setting to High seems to have fixed the issue: I had only one crash since then, after 1h30 playing. And Today I played 2h00 without a single crash.
I have the feeling that if the game overload the GPU then at some point it completly hangs and cannot recover.
Here are screenshot of the graphical setting that were causing the hangs

=====================================================
1 / graphical setting that were causing the hangs

=====================================================
2 / Graphical setting that work fine (without crash for a long period of time)

=====================================================
If you want I can also provide the same game related to the castle (basically it was just before the fight with the Dragoon) or even all savegames I have.
Or if you need any other informations, feel free to ask.

• GPU: AMD Radeon 7900XTX
• CPU: AMD Ryzen 5800X3D
• RAM: 32GB, DDR4, 3200Mhz
• SSD: Samsung 990 Evo Plus formatted to BTRFS (Game), Operating system on a Samsung 990 Pro formatted to BTRFS.
• Video driver version: Mesa 25.2.1
• Kernel Version: 6.16.4-108.bazzite.fc42.x86_64 (64-bit)
• Steam Runtime Version: steam-runtime_1.0.20250616.139563
• Proton version: Proton Experimental, Proton Hotfix, ProtonGE10-x (multiple), proton-cachyos-10.0-20250906-slr-x86_64_v3
• Gamescope-Session, KDE Plasma 6.4.4 (Wayland)
• I will return with graphs and data comparing to Windows as a control/truth.

Performance of this game is unusually pitiful through Proton compared to native on Windows. Loading/Streaming of any kind in the game results in massive frametime spikes upwards of 100ms in capped and uncapped framerate gameplay that is not reproducible in Windows. Could be a DirectStorage emulation/translation problem as it does not appear to be Shader Compilation related as it does not get better with repeating the same run. Running the game with Resize Bar enabled further increases the stuttering issue by a significant amount, so I wouldn't recommend it here.

When capping the framerate to leverage dynamic resolution, the dynamic resolution figures are constantly lower than on Windows, with a 30FPS cap outputting roughly 1500P or worse even in a best case scenario when like-for-like scenarios and settings produce 2160P native resolution extremely frequently on Windows. Even when framerate is locked, the framepacing is unstable, and utilizing the framerate cap in Gamescope does not help this issue. Due to the above mentioned stuttering problem with asset streaming, the resolution frequently pulses between the resolution you are at, and the lowest possible (50% on each axis) in bursts.

GPU Util in many scenarios reports 100% utilization with very low wattage/power draw. GPU maxes at 402W but in many instances performance is lower than expected, with 100% util at just 270-305 watts.

steam-2515020.log

@elthommy Haven't been able to repro with my laptop. Somethign that came to mind is the fact that my laptop severely power limits the gpu compared to other models, only allowing it to go up to 60W of consumption, while some models go up to 140W.
I'm wondering if your issue has more to do with gpu load more than the settings themselves, so I think it would be worth trying the graphics settings with which the game has issues, but lowering the resolution and capping the framerate, and if that works fine, reporting to nvidia that high gpu loads seem to be making the gpu unstable.

@ziobroaatwit While not necessarily what's to blame here, btrfs is generally slower than other filesystems like ext4 or xfs, though it probably also depends on what features you have enabled, as I would expect something like compression to increase latency, for example.
Having performance metrics while having your character just standing in a single place should help minimize btrfs' effect on the performance you see by having the game not actively loading assets, so it would be a good baseline of sorts..

@simifor Thanks for your message. Indeed I can confirm that by reducing the graphic settings I was able to play for more than 2 hours in a row without any crash and since several days I had not a single crash.
Tomorrow I can launch the game again in Ultra setting and see if I can reproduce the crash and send nvidia-bug-report.

@simifor Good point about BTRFS, I will format that drive over as EXT4 and double check again with the stuttering.

As for performance standing still to avoid IO getting in the way, screenshot vs screenshot as I haven't had the time to capture the data in detail yet:
On Windows, same save, same settings, roughly the same amount of time after loading in as the area UI is on screen. 78FPS, 402W at 100% util. The colors are whacked because AMD Relive still can't capture HDR.

On Linux with Proton Experimental, only 71FPS, 100% Utilization, but only 335W. Also, what's up with the UI having different scaling? It's at the same settings and resolution in "Fullscreen" as the Windows screenshot. This in itself seems like some sort of other bug with this.

Is ~9% loss on performance expected when GPU bound? Also if my card isn't maxing out on power...is something else the bottleneck?

@ziobroaatwit while 9% is possible, that power difference (assuming they are measuring the same thing) is weird and something that might fall more towards the driver side. To adjust clocks and voltages, you need the following kernel boot parameter gpu.ppfeaturemask=0xffffffff, I don't know if that would be enough for it to increase its power budget or if you might still need tools like LACT or corectrl.

@simifor I already do use LACT to push the power limit to 402W and apply the 3D_FULL_SCREEN power profile to avoid the power profile bug that is mentioned in the VKD3D issue post for this game. Depending on where I look, I will hit 402W, but I need to really really pressure the GPU in the right area. Otherwise I get this strange max util low wattage behavior.

The game should be done installing soon on my EXT4 partition so I'll be able to speak for whether it still stutters.

Unfortunately, still getting loading stutter jank even on EXT4. 80ms on this example riding the chocobo through the 2nd DLC area. Despite locking to 60FPS my framepacing looks like an EKG reading.

This second example is even more extreme:

Repeating the previously mentioned concept of remaining stationary to mitigate the impact of the file system, frametime stabilization is observed even under significant effects and during combat.

This leads me to believe that the issues are almost definitely IO/loading/DirectStorage related.

steam-2515020.log

Having a lot of very weird issues. Whenever I load into a hub area like Martha's Rest or Lostwing, my fps drop to single digits, and when I load away from them and then enter them the fps is fine. Moreover, after a few mins of getting good fps, my entire game freezes and I have to force close it. I have attached the steam log for this and I am willing to attach more logs.
GPU: RTX 4060 Mobile 8GB Driver: 580.105.08
CPU: Ryzen 7840HS
RAM: 16GB
Proton Version: GE-Proton 10-25 and Proton Experimental.

Make sure to enable ReBAR. Mine was disabled due to a random BIOS reset which I've missed, and the FPS in game dropped from almost 60 most of the time on 9070 XT to 40-55 on the same rig with the same settings with heavy drops when turning the camera in the direction of NPCs in populated areas.

Took me a while to find the actual reason (took a break from the game, and first thoughts after returning to a game with worse performance was some proton/mesa update messed with this game specifically) as most of the other games I've played at this period worked fine, except this one and Monster Hunter Wilds. Both work great now (as far as "great" is considered for both of them).

Hello @Zinkfish, https://gist.github.com/Zinkfish/6a57f820e616e8f7d6c42ad6ee9eb456#file-gistfile1-txt-L89-L111 and https://gist.github.com/Zinkfish/6a57f820e616e8f7d6c42ad6ee9eb456#file-gistfile1-txt-L453-L474 are the sections to focus on. Your NVIDIA driver install is broken and everything's being forced to fallback to llvmpipe (mesa's CPU renderer) to work at all.

I reinstalled my NVIDIA drivers and made sure they are actually installed and running but I am facing the same issue; The game crashes during cutscenes.

steam-2515020.log

From the attached log it seems as though the issue is still the same though, but I am out of ideas. The most prominent issues in the log are:

1. warn:vkd3d-proton:d3d12_command_allocator_allocate_meta_index: Meta descriptor pressure! Falling back to global heap (potentially slow) ...
   (VRAM issues? I read somewhere the game needs at least 16 GB of VRAM, I have 8 GB. Though, again, the issue is not present outside of cutscenes.)

2. err:vkd3d-proton:d3d12_command_allocator_Reset: There are still 1 pending command lists awaiting execution from command allocator iface 0000000000bac4b0!
   (No clue what this could be but seems related to memory as the above error is spammed in the log right after this one)

3. err:vkd3d-proton:vkd3d_wait_for_gpu_timeline_semaphore: Failed to wait for Vulkan timeline semaphore, vr -4.
warn:vkd3d-proton:d3d12_device_mark_as_removed: Device 0000000009ae0080 is lost (reason 0x887a0005, "VK_ERROR_DEVICE_LOST").
err:vkd3d-proton:d3d12_command_queue_execute: Failed to submit queue(s), vr -4.
   (No clue but these three appear together)

4. warn:vkd3d-proton:d3d12_resource_QueryInterface: {aec22fb8-76f3-4639-9be0-28eb43a67a2e} not implemented, returning E_NOINTERFACE.
   (No clue)

And of course
5. err:service:device_notify_proc failed to get event, error 1726
The critical error.

Ive asked around and it would seem that many players are facing cutscene crash issues, even on Windows devices. It seems the game is just horrendously poorly optimized.

So really, I have no clue where to go from here. If anywhere at all.

EDIT: I just did a little session where I just ran around and jumped around ingame without entering the problematic cutscene. Game ran with no issues, despite the errors I numbered 4 and 5 above still occuring the log. Not sure if that helps...

steam-2515020.log

It would really seem the issue is a memory leak that occurs during select cutscenes and dialogue sequences and is an issue on the game's part, not on Proton's.

Final Fantasy XVI: Intermittent black FMV cutscenes with audio continuing on Lenovo Legion Go S (SteamOS 3.8.11, Proton 10.0 and Proton Experimental)

Description

System

• Device: Lenovo Legion Go S
• OS: SteamOS 3.8.11 (official Lenovo image)
• Proton: Proton 10.0 and Proton Experimental
• Game: Steam version of Final Fantasy XVI Steam App ID 2515020

Problem
Certain pre-rendered cutscenes intermittently display a black screen while the audio continues normally. Gameplay is unaffected, and skipping the cutscene allows the game to continue normally.

The issue did not exist until a few days ago.

One reproducible location is during the Bahamut attack on the capital. Earlier cutscenes played correctly.

Troubleshooting performed

• Verified game files.
• Deleted and rebuilt Proton compatibility data (compatdata).
• Game installed on internal SSD.
• No Decky Loader plugins.
• No OptiScaler.
• No Lossless Scaling.
• No frame generation.
• No mods.
• Fresh GE-Proton prefix created.
• Audio continues normally while video remains black.
• Gameplay immediately resumes after skipping the cutscene.

Expected behavior
Pre-rendered cutscenes should display normally.

Actual behavior
Audio plays, but the screen remains black until the cutscene is skipped or ends.

@ESTRICKER80 could you share a save file close to the point where the troubled cutscenes play?

@ESTRICKER80
is it on boot mode or desktop?
its also possibly due to the battery modes. charging to 80% or with limits and low battery have caused me greif on external displays. it IS possible some udev rule makes any non standard display on that isn't steam deck hardware as external...

I think its only in the ...

spoilers

continual darkened skies

section, the shader used in realtime cutscenes has larger patches of black artifacting. This is reminiscent of code that is range dependent for some math that if outside that range the logarithm or exponent equation of some float math on an RGB color just exceeds beyond 0 or 1 in a fairly unintentional way.

probably not Proton related but in the Svarog fight experiences some of the same FPS slowdown as one does in a few of the more expansively detailed towns. the imperial cannoneer is much worse and, in my opinion, more likely cpu side as the culprit. Timing based moves do compensate for this a little but can be less useful. It is survivable, though.

it appears the dlc uses a different video compression format than main game. main game appears to handle cutscenes just fine but the DLC is another matter. I suspect this to be as the video frame texture is sent to GPU. postprocessing effects are appearing on screen but a sold color is in place of the video frame.

FYI, the latest release to date of Proton Experimental (24794197) allowed me to proceed after the previously-crashing cutscene. I haven't found any new issues in my limited playtime since the update was released 🤞