Zenless Zone Zero

Issue transferred from https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/9288.
@Colomaxx posted on 2025-12-06T17:19:48:

Compatibility Report

• Name of the game with compatibility issues: Zenless Zone Zero
• Steam AppID of the game: Non-Steam Game

System Information

• GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX™ 4070
• Video driver version: NVIDIA 580.105.08
• Kernel version: Linux 6.17.9-300.fc43.x86_64
• Link to full system information: Gist
• Proton version: Proton Experimental

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.

steam-14977600926070603776.log

Symptoms

The game successfully starts but always freeze at the login step. Showing "steam_app_0" is not responding.
After a while, the server connection is timed out and you can reconnect, if you do, the same problem reappear.
Switching Proton version, kernel version, reinstalling/repairing the game doesn't change anything and you always end up in that situation.

Reproduction

• Start the game, either directly from the game executable or from HoYoPlay (HoYoVerse's launcher). Doing either way doesn't change the final issue, always end up the same if you start the game with its own .exe or from the launcher.
• After the logo intro and first loading, press to play.
• Wait for "Loading config data" to end.
• Press to play again.
• When you reach the login step "Logging on to game server; please wait" the game automatically freeze and fail to login. After a little while, the game is showing the following error "Server connection timed out. Attempt to reconnect?" message.
  Login in again or reconnecting repeat the same error. It's always good to precise that the servers are fully working and have no issues.

It's supposed that the error is tied to Intel's CPU as Zenless Zone Zero is working perfectly fine on an AMD platform. Either on the Steam Deck or another machine with an AMD's CPU. Others users have reported a similar issue on Intel LGA1700 platform on Reddit
The issue started after the 2.4 release of the game, before that, it was working flawlessly.
The only found fix to make the game working was to play on CachyOS.

Zenless Zone Zero fails to launch with RTX and DLSS on DX12

Issue transferred from https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/9365.
@Bossiskeyboard posted on 2026-01-03T13:36:18:

Compatibility Report

• Name of the game with compatibility issues:
• Steam AppID of the game:

System Information

• GPU: RTX 4090
• Video driver version: 590.48.01
• Kernel version: Linux 6.18.2-pikas
• Link to full system information report as Gist:
• Proton version: Proton Hotfix

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.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PS83FVyc99D9b1i6UpcrllDyX3RLCLjo/view?usp=sharing

Symptoms

When i try to launch ZenlessZoneZero with DX12, RTX and DLSS the game would not pass the loading screen that comes after the title screen. Even if I don't force DXVK_NVAPI and just enable or not even at all, this will happen anyways. I even tried different versions of Proton and they also don't work. I even tried to use spritz wine and that also doesn't work.

Reproduction

PROTON_FORCE_NVAPI=1 %command% -use-d3d12

https://youtu.be/yV-QH6K2O60

Zenless Zone Zero - CPU main thread bottleneck / ~50 FPS ceiling on AMD Radeon 780M (Phoenix APU)

Issue transferred from https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/10123.
@xh3sh posted on 2026-09-06T13:50:16:

Compatibility Report

• Name of the game with compatibility issues: Zenless Zone Zero
• Steam AppID of the game: /

System Information

• GPU: AMD Radeon 780M (integrated)
• Video driver version: Mesa 26.2.2-arch3.2
• Kernel version: 7.2.3-1-cachyos
• Link to full system information report as Gist: https://gist.github.com/xh3sh/aec3f8308be2117e97570a2b541c4474

steam-zzz-log.zip

• Proton version: Tried both Proton-GE and proton-cachyos-11.0-20260703 (Steam Linux Runtime), same result on both

I confirm:

• [ ] 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.

(Note: I am aware of #8951, which reports abnormally high CPU usage on this game under Wine. Opening a separate report because the symptom here is different and more specific - a hard FPS ceiling with GPU headroom unused, on integrated rather than discrete GPU - but flagging the overlap in case a maintainer wants to merge them.)

Symptoms

FPS sits flat around 50, regardless of:

• graphics quality settings (Low through High, all tested)
• native vs non-native resolution
• in-game frame limiter (set to 60, no vsync)
• DXVK_FRAME_RATE=0
• wrapping the launch in gamescope
• which Proton build is used (see above)

At native resolution (1920x1200 @ 60Hz), GPU clock does ramp up (observed up to ~2673MHz on pp_dpm_sclk) and GPU load sits around 73% - so it's not simply idling at a low power state. FPS stays at ~50 regardless.

Ruled out via direct testing (no effect on FPS):

• ACPI platform_profile (balanced vs performance)
• power-profiles-daemon / cpufreq EPP (balance_performance vs performance)
• GameMode (confirmed active via LD_PRELOAD)
• lactd stopped (to rule out it fighting for SMU control)
• multiple kernels
• gamescope
• different Proton builds (GE-Proton and proton-cachyos)

Control test: forced Unigine Heaven (owned via Steam) to run through the same Proton-GE instead of its native Linux build, DirectX11 render mode, same native resolution. Result: FPS ranges naturally with scene load - average 63.4, min 8.7, max 118.3 - with GPU clock reaching the full ~2700MHz under heavier load. So Proton-GE + DXVK + amdgpu on this specific APU scale normally under real GPU load; the flat ~50 ceiling seems specific to this game.

Hypothesis & profiling data:
- top -H shows the game's main thread is pegged at ~95–98% CPU of a single core, while worker threads hover
around 10–15%.
- perf stat on the main thread shows an IPC of ~0.64 with ~21% stalled-cycles-frontend and ~28% cache-miss rate,
consistent with instruction-fetch latency on the large 522MB GameAssembly.dll (IL2CPP) under Wine translation.
- Increasing CPU core clock from 3.3 GHz to 4.5 GHz via platform profile does not change FPS, confirming the
bottleneck is memory-latency/translation bound rather than raw compute or GPU.

Reproduction

1. Launch Zenless Zone Zero via Proton (GE-Proton or proton-cachyos), any launch options.
2. Enter the open world or combat, stand still or move freely.
3. Observe FPS via MangoHud or DXVK_HUD=fps,frametimes,gpuload - it sits at ~50 regardless of scene complexity, movement, or any settings change above.
4. For comparison, run Unigine Heaven through the same Proton build in DirectX11 mode - FPS scales normally with scene load instead of sitting flat.