Hello @Littletiger, DXVK in Proton 5.0 grew to support D3D9, but I don't see DXVK initializing in your Proton Experimental log. How does the game behave if you set the game's launch options to PROTON_USE_WINED3D=1 %command%?
I suspect the issue you're seeing is being shown at https://gist.github.com/Littletiger/e0486a5f461c0c61930a14c1a311f20c#file-gistfile1-txt-L7256-L7296 in your extended diagnostics info. The 32 bit EGL/OpenGL render path is not healthy and is being forced to fallback to llvmpipe instead of showing the NVIDIA GPU in your system.
Thanks for taking a look @kisak-valve, I have tried using PROTON_USE_WINED3D=1 however the same thing occurs, I have attached another log below.
I'm not sure why it's showing that in the diagnostics, I've not been able to find anything missing and glxgears32 does run using the Nvidia card.
I have also tested this on my Steam Deck running the latest Beta OS and the same issue occurs with or without the env variable.
The game is using glide graphics for me (as per ingame settings menu), not directx. Game resolution can be fixed with address patching of the glider dll.
No videos seem to be working.
I wouldn't expect glxgears to exercise EGL, since it's using GLX instead and the glx/gl section is healthy. eglinfo32 might be more interesting, but it''s still based on guesswork on my part.
I have run into the same issue recently and debugged it to find the root cause.
The game actually tries to display a message box with the contents "Not enough memory to run Metal Fatigue!", that for some reason does not show up under wine / proton.
Cause of the bug:
The game reads dwTotalPhys, then compares that 32-bit value against 0x01E84800 using signed jge branch at file offset 0xB512. Memory capacity > 2GB can wrap into the signed negative range.
Fix:
The fix is to use a hex-editor to change the branch from signed jge to unsigned jae:
0xB5120x7D0x73Hope this helps!
That suggests that it would be worth testing the game with PROTON_FORCE_LARGE_ADDRESS_AWARE=0 %command%.
@Littletiger would you be able to give this a few tries on current experimental? 10 experimental from December is going to be a bit out of date. You can try experimental 11 by going to your Steam library, searching for "Proton Experimental", and then in the properties menu go to "Game Versions & Betas". Setting this to "Default Public Version" at the top of the list should give you a clean experimental version of Proton 11 (currently experimental-11.0-20260622b). Then you can go back to Metal Fatigue's properties settings, click the checkbox to force a Proton version, and set "Proton Experimental" and then launch the game.
fwiw, I have tried this with Proton cachyos-11.0-20260602-slr released last week. I have the game on GOG, not Steam, so am using Heroic Launcher and cannot select proton experimental. And got the same issue without my game patch.
Also running with PROTON_FORCE_LARGE_ADDRESS_AWARE=0 did not fix the issue.
I forgot to post an update to this report, it started working for me with the proton experimental update in February.
It still works on my devices using the latest proton experimental, there is however a different issue with this game which is also present in the older proton versions.
When creating a lobby in Multiplayer -> Host -> Create, it crashes after pressing Create
The game uses DirectPlay for networking, try to install that into your prefix. @Littletiger
proton experimentalx4 2026-06proton 5.0x1 2026-01PROTON_FORCE_LARGE_ADDRESS_AWARE=0`x1 2026-06PROTON_FORCE_LARGE_ADDRESS_AWARE=0x1 2026-06PROTON_USE_WINED3D=1x2 2026-01PROTON_FORCE_LARGE_ADDRESS_AWARE=0 %command%x1 2026-06PROTON_USE_WINED3D=1 %command%x1 2026-01
Compatibility Report
System Information
I confirm:
Experimental-steam-888040.log
4.11-steam-888040.log
Symptoms
The game does not run on newer proton versions, a window pops up for a split second then nothing, game has to be forced stopped via Steam.
Last working proton version is 4.11-13
Reproduction
Run the game