Compatibility Report

• Name of the game with compatibility issues: Hades II
• Steam AppID of the game: 1145350

System Information

• GPU: AMD Radeon Graphics (RADV RENOIR)
  • (iGPU; CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 4650G with Radeon Graphics)
• Video driver version: 4.6 (Compatibility Profile) Mesa 24.3.4
• Kernel version: 6.13.0
• Link to full system information report as Gist:
  • https://gist.github.com/peniblec/4167783a31daca0a87517a39f99d8881
  • gists do not seem to have TOCs, so direct links to specifc sub-sections for convenience:
    • Help > System Information
    • Help > Steam Runtime Diagnostics
      • "LD_* scout runtime" information
      • "scout runtime container" information
      • "soldier runtime container" information
      • "sniper runtime container" information
• Proton version: 1737504144 experimental-9.0-20250121

I confirm:

• [x] that I haven't found an existing compatibility report for this game.
• [x] that I have checked whether there are updates for my system available.

Attached PROTON_LOG=1: steam-1145350.log

Symptoms

Framerate oscillates at about 40±10 FPS in a sawtooth pattern; this correlates with game animation looking stuttery. When the framerate settles (either at 30 or 60 FPS), game animation looks smooth again.

Reproduction

In the game's hub rooms (Crossroads, Training Grounds), framerate stays at a smooth 60 while running around the edges of the rooms; moving toward the center of the rooms, the symptoms begin.

(Have not attempted a run since I have noticed this issue, so cannot say if this affects every area)

Closing notes

Regarding:

I confirm: - [x] that I haven't found an existing compatibility report for this game.

To be more precise:

• The game is ranked platinum on protondb.
• It seems well-earned: I personally sank 100h into the game, and never noticed any issue.
• Then I took a "forced break" from the game from November 19 to 28, due to a failing SSD bringing my system down.
• Symptoms began after system reinstallation.
• Since then, I have:
  • tweaked in-game knobs ("low/medium/high" graphics, resolution, vsync, full/windowed)
  • changed Proton versions
  • switched from Wayland to X11
  • enabled CPPC in UEFI settings, which let amd_pstate initialize and drive the CPU
  • poked at sysfs tunables mentioned in fdo:drm/amd#1500
  • checked whether VRR could be involved (kscreen-doctor says: Vrr: incapable)
  • started the game with LD_PRELOAD= %command%, (as suggested in other ValveSoftware GH issues, to work around a recent regression from the game recording update IIUC)
  • changed the Plasma Renderer to Software to free up some VRAM
• None of the above (each tested on its own then reverted) had any effect on the symptoms.
• I have not:
  • bisected any element of the distro stack (kernel, drivers, Mesa, Plasma): I would like to exhaust other "first principles"/"observation-based" methods before going down that road and introducing more bugs from incomplete (de|re)ⁿinstallations.

I worked up the nerve to file an issue here after trying a PROTON_LOG=1 %command% run: the 40s session generated 4MB's worth of trace:unwind:dump_unwind_info. I guess at this stage, I'm mostly after an informed opinion on these specifc logs: is the volume a red herring or a smoking gun?

Thoughts on the symptoms themselves also welcome, though apologies for vagueness in that regard. If that helps, I posted mangohud captures in fdo:mesa/mesa#11300.