Compatibility Report

• Any game (affects all Proton titles)
• Steam AppID of the game: Any (native Linux games are NOT affected)

System Information

• GPU: NVIDIA RTX 3070 Ti (GA104)
• Video driver version: nvidia-open-dkms 590.48.01
• Kernel version: 6.18.6-zen1-1-zen
• Proton version: Proton Experimental
• Audio stack: PipeWire 1.4.x + WirePlumber
• Desktop environment: KDE Plasma (Wayland)
• Link to full system information report as Gist:
  https://gist.github.com/Wu28ri/71b877bba5bba4af0b649bac5eaabdd9

I confirm:

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

Symptoms

steam-1313140.log

Severe audio crackling/distortion occurs system-wide when launching any game via Proton Experimental. with enabled easyeffects

The issue affects all system audio (not only the game): browser audio, system sounds, and other applications start producing crackling/noise while a Proton Experimental game is running.

The issue does NOT occur:

• when using Proton 10.x
• in native Linux games
• when no Proton game is running

Audio immediately returns to normal after closing the Proton Experimental game.

Reproduction

1. use easyeffects for anything (im using it ONLY for microphone)
2. Set any Windows game in Steam to use Proton Experimental
3. Launch the game
4. Audio distortion/crackling appears across the entire system
5. Switch the same game to Proton 10.x
6. Relaunch the game → audio works normally

Additional Notes

• Restarting PipeWire/WirePlumber does not resolve the issue
• Im not using easyeffects for audio, only for microphone, output is my dac
• Forcing a fixed audio sink does not resolve the issue
• Setting PULSE_LATENCY_MSEC does not eliminate the issue
• Proton 10.x works correctly without any audio issues
• easyeffects bug ig
  This appears to be a regression introduced in Proton Experimental.