Update: I can get in-game with the Nvidia 590 driver, so this does appear to be a regression, or perhaps an issue brought about by new features in the 595 beta.

I have edited the main report accordingly and added some additional information on current workarounds.

In Cutscene

Shaking the camera bit exhibits a almost rainbow like pattern

GPU: RX 9070 XT
Mesa: 26.0.3

Using FSR 4.1's DLL via PROTON_FSR4_UPGRADE=1

I'm seeing this issue from other AMD GPU owners.

Steam Runtime

edit:
I accidentally ran it with GE-Proton, here's the Proton log with Proton Experimental.
steam-3321460.zip

RX 9070 XT, I can get past the loading screen if I disable ray tracing in game settings. Enabling it again mid-play freezes the game and eventually freezes my pc.

It appears the game developers have some sort of internal blacklist against all Intel GPUs where an unsupported GPU error shows up and it blocks you from proceeding. this is the same behavior as on Windows, so not really a Proton issue.

force_vk_vendor="-1" did not work, but PROTON_HIDE_INTEL_GPU=1 lets the game launch although there are some significant issues such as non-transcoded videos and significant misrendering when attempting to load or start a new game leaving the game unplayable.

steam-3321460.tar.gz

System:
  Host: msi-claw8-a2vm Kernel: 6.19.7-1-cachyos-deckify arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc
    v: 15.2.1
  Console: pty pts/2 Distro: CachyOS base: Arch Linux
CPU:
  Info: 8-core model: Intel Core Ultra 7 258V bits: 64 type: MCP arch: Lunar Lake rev: 1 cache:
    L1: 832 KiB L2: 14 MiB L3: 12 MiB
  Speed (MHz): avg: 400 min/max: 400/4700:4800:3700 cores: 1: 400 2: 400 3: 400 4: 400 5: 400
    6: 400 7: 400 8: 400 bogomips: 52838
  Flags-basic: avx avx2 ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel Lunar Lake [Intel Arc Graphics 130V / 140V] vendor: Micro-Star MSI driver: xe
    v: kernel arch: Xe2 ports: active: eDP-1 empty: DP-1,DP-2 bus-ID: 00:02.0 chip-ID: 8086:64a0
  Display: server: X.org v: 1.21.1.21 with: Xwayland v: 24.1.9 compositor: Gamescope driver:
    gpu: xe note: X driver n/a, try sudo/root tty: 284x63
  Monitor-1: eDP-1 model: PN8007QB1-2 res: 1920x1200 dpi: 284 diag: 203mm (8")
  API: EGL v: 1.5 platforms: device: 0 drv: iris device: 1 drv: swrast gbm: drv: iris
    surfaceless: drv: iris inactive: wayland,x11
  API: OpenGL v: 4.6 vendor: mesa v: 26.1.0-devel note: console (EGL sourced) renderer: Mesa
    Intel Graphics (LNL), llvmpipe (LLVM 22.1.1 256 bits)
  API: Vulkan v: 1.4.341 surfaces: N/A device: 0 type: integrated-gpu driver: mesa intel
    device-ID: 8086:64a0
  Info: Tools: api: clinfo, eglinfo, glxinfo, vulkaninfo de: kscreen-console,kscreen-doctor
    wl: wayland-info x11: xdpyinfo, xprop, xrandr

EDIT: developer states Intel Arc is unsupported altogether:

Thank you for the reports. Note that there are fixes available for the game on Bleeding Edge that hasn't made it to regular Experimental yet. Hotfix also has these fixes as of right now.

GPU 7800XT. Similar to @ccalhoun1999 game refuse to work if FSR or RTX is turned on.

@NYBACHOK Interesting, FSR isn't causing any issues for me...

If able then make sure mesa is up to date. There are some radv fixes included in 26.0.3

@NYBACHOK Interesting, FSR isn't causing any issues for me...

Following comment of @Blisto91 this may be issue from flatpak mesa version

flatpak list | grep Mesa

Mesa    org.freedesktop.Platform.GL.default     25.3.3  24.08   flathub user
Mesa (Extra)    org.freedesktop.Platform.GL.default     25.3.3  24.08extra      flathub user
Mesa    org.freedesktop.Platform.GL.default     25.3.5  25.08   flathub user
Mesa (Extra)    org.freedesktop.Platform.GL.default     25.3.5  25.08-extra     flathub user
Mesa    org.freedesktop.Platform.GL32.default   25.3.5  25.08   flathub user
Mesa (Extra)    org.freedesktop.Platform.GL32.default   25.3.5  25.08-extra     flathub user

For Bazzite users that have Nvidia RTX 5070 TI

bazzite-rollback-helper rebase 43.20260303

This switches you to the latest version with NVIDIA driver 590.48.01. The game runs without crashing when encountering the blue light at the opening cutscene. To return to stable that currently uses NVIDIA DRIVER 595 beta:

bazzite-rollback-helper rebase stable

Workaround for now. Hope it helps :)

SteamOS Stable 3.7.20, Ryzen 9 5900X, Radeon RX 6900 XT.
The game used to crash the whole gamescope session on this screen after starting new game:

However, after disabling raytracing, the game seems to boot fine and run well so far, 60 fps at 1080p on Cinematic preset minus Ray Tracing.

Rainbow Reflection Issue

Also noticed this rainbow effect that is clearly not intentional and it seems to be the reflections which are not correctly rendered. This issue is really annoying but it's severity depends on the situation. E.g. these are some screenshots I captured which show the issue in different situations:

These seem to be small puddles or just wet surfaces that should reflect something???

The issue is especially annoying when it is raining

A thing that I also noticed was that for the rainbow to appear, the camera has to be tilted in a specific way, more tilt towards the ground = more pixel splatter. This could be just because of the way the game handles reflections but just thought I should put it in here:

This is with the tilt

This is from the top

Edge FLickering

There is also another issue that I noticed, it's this weird edge flickering or something and it occurs regardless of settings. Idk if this is a proton or a game issue, but I have not seen it on any footage from windows gameplay:

This issue gets worse when using upscaling:

This is FSR Native AA

This is FSR Quality

Settings & Hardware

GPU: AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT
MESA: 26.0.3-1
DISTRO: Arch
KERNAL: 6.19.6-arch1-1

I ran the game with all settings on cinematic and ray tracing turned off, because it crashed everytime (tried it around 25 times yesterday). Most of the screenshots were captured without upscaling, resolution was 1980x1080p, VSync off.

Specular blowouts are fixed on latest vkd3d-proton commit. Video decoding works in GE-Proton. You can build from source if you don't want to wait.

12900k, 9070 XT, latest mesa, Cachyos

Under proton hotfix, the game launches, but FSR 4 doesn't show up as an option despite it being supported by the devs directly. Game loads fine for me, but runs poorly without scaling at native 4k. Certainly nowhere near what they suggested via the perf numbers for this card.

Under proton cachyos, FSR4 shows up and HDR is available with the Wayland and HDR flags, but the main menu tries to load the background into the game, puts you under the world with those rainbow effects, and the new game button takes me to a black screen and never loads. (Also a white box appears in front of the little game window that normally appears when it's loading? Seems like an HDR issue, not 100% sure). See video:
https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/cf2a120f-0ea2-4ca0-8209-78afa29f908c

the new game button takes me to a black screen and never loads. (Also a white box appears in front of the little game window that normally appears when it's loading?

@cole21771 Did you disable ray tracing? Was the most mentioned issue of people not being able to start a new game.

RT worked fine under proton hotfix, but didn't try when I got the black screen on proton cachyos.

But I refuse to play this game without HDR and same with FSR4 if this is what the native 4k perf looks like. So I'll just wait a few weeks for some patches in the game and proton. I'm in no rush

Probably also also going to wait a bit before actually playing, most of my current issues are just graphical so it's not that important

Edge Flickering

Noticed that on surfaces like brick walls too, looks to me like an AO issue, though I'm not sure if it comes from Proton or the game itself, because I can't test it on Windows.

Edge Flickering

Noticed that on surfaces like brick walls too, looks to me like an AO issue, though I'm not sure if it comes from Proton or the game itself, because I can't test it on Windows.

I think I have the same issue with black lines that seems to match the outline of objects.
The following image is with default ultra setting.

And this is default ultra with model quality to set low.

All this is with hotfix

Edge Flickering

Noticed that on surfaces like brick walls too, looks to me like an AO issue, though I'm not sure if it comes from Proton or the game itself, because I can't test it on Windows.

I think I have the same issue with black lines that seems to match the outline of objects. The following image is with default ultra setting. And this is default ultra with model quality to set low.

YES, THIS IS MY BIGGEST ISSUE. i know the rainbow artifacting will get fixed with updates, but this was driving me nuts. i found out it was tied to the game's model quality setting. setting it to anything above low will result in this.

The edge flickering is indeed fixed by setting model quality to low

Before

After

@Miyazono1 idk why but the rainbow reflections are gone, I just compared Proton Hotfix and GE, and when using Proton Hotfix it is literally nowhere to be seen xD

those having graphical issues should always specify proton version (hotfix is selected by default for this title), graphics card, driver version, resolution, what upscaler is being used and then other graphics settings.

At the very least I couldn't repro the black lines with my 9070 with mesa git, proton hotfix, 2k, cinematic/ultra presets with and without fsr 3.

@simifor I tested the edge flickering thing with both with the latest Proton GE and Proton Hotfix and it was present in both. I used the same settings as you (except not 4k), for the rest of my setup you can look at this message https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/9595#issuecomment-4097997679

those having graphical issues should always specify proton version (hotfix is selected by default for this title), graphics card, driver version, resolution, what upscaler is being used and then other graphics settings.

At the very least I couldn't repro the black lines with my 9070 with mesa git, proton hotfix, 2k, cinematic/ultra presets with and without fsr 3.

Yeah, I apologize, I never changed any compatibility settings and just rolled with whatever Steam has chosen for me, so it never occurred to me to specify such details. I'll do better.

The game consistently crashes during the Mage Tower sequence at the exact moment the NPC "Alustin" teleports Kliff away.

Reproduction steps:

Progress to the Mage Tower cutscene involving Alustin wait for the moment Alustin initiates the teleport on Kliff game crashes immediately.

What I've tried:

• Multiple Proton versions — same result on all of them
• Cinematic and Minimum graphics settings
• Ray Tracing both enabled and disabled
• verified game files on steam (no faulty files found)
• Started a completely new game and replayed up to this scene — still crashes at the same point

This appears to be fully reproducible on my system and is not tied to a specific save state, graphics preset, or Proton version. However, other players seem to get through this scene without issues, so it may be related to my specific hardware/software configuration or installed packages. I haven't been able to find another player with the exact same setup to confirm this.

OS: EndeavourOS Linux x86_64
Kernel: 6.19.8-arch1-1
DE: GNOME 49.5 (WM Mutter)
CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090
Memory: 64GB

$XDG_SESSION_TYPE: wayland

NVIDIA: 590.48.01 (nvidia-open)

Proton: Experimental, Hotfix, GE-Proton10-33

Edit: this error is shown everytime the game crashes in that cutscene, maybe that give's a hint so someone.

kernel: umip: CrimsonDesert.e[15553] ip:14fda38f5 sp:1016a30: SGDT instruction cannot be used by applications.
kernel: NVRM: Xid (PCI:0000:01:00): 109, pid=15553, name=CrimsonDesert.e, channel 0x0000001e, errorString CTX SWITCH TIMEOUT, Info 0x10c022

SOLUTION:

remove gamemoderun from Steam params that was causing my issue.

@simifor You're right, my bad.

Proton version: hotfix
GPU: 7900XTX
Mesa version: 2:26.0.3-2
Resolution: 2560x1440
Upscaler: FSR 3.1

Graphics:
  Device-1: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Navi 31 [Radeon RX 7900 XT/7900
    XTX/7900 GRE/7900M] vendor: ASRock driver: amdgpu v: kernel arch: RDNA-3
    pcie: speed: 16 GT/s lanes: 16 ports: active: DP-3,HDMI-A-1
    empty: DP-1,DP-2,Writeback-1 bus-ID: 03:00.0 chip-ID: 1002:744c
  Device-2: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Raphael vendor: Gigabyte
    driver: amdgpu v: kernel arch: RDNA-2 pcie: speed: 16 GT/s lanes: 16 ports:
    active: none empty: DP-4, DP-5, DP-6, HDMI-A-2, Writeback-2
    bus-ID: 17:00.0 chip-ID: 1002:164e temp: 57.0 C
  Display: wayland server: X.org v: 1.21.1.21 with: Xwayland v: 24.1.9
    compositor: Hyprland v: 0.54.2 driver: X: loaded: amdgpu
    unloaded: modesetting alternate: fbdev,vesa dri: radeonsi gpu: amdgpu
    d-rect: 4480x2520 display-ID: 1
  Monitor-1: DP-3 pos: bottom-r model: Acer EI322QUR res: 2560x1440 hz: 165
    dpi: 93 diag: 806mm (31.7")
  Monitor-2: HDMI-A-1 pos: primary,top-left model: Samsung res: 1920x1080
    hz: 60 dpi: 70 diag: 801mm (31.5")
  API: EGL v: 1.5 platforms: device: 0 drv: radeonsi device: 1 drv: radeonsi
    device: 2 drv: swrast gbm: drv: kms_swrast surfaceless: drv: radeonsi
    wayland: drv: radeonsi x11: drv: radeonsi
  API: OpenGL v: 4.6 compat-v: 4.5 vendor: amd mesa v: 26.0.3-arch2.2
    glx-v: 1.4 direct-render: yes renderer: AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX (radeonsi
    navi31 ACO DRM 3.64 6.19.8-1-cachyos-bore) device-ID: 1002:744c
  API: Vulkan v: 1.4.341 surfaces: N/A device: 0 type: discrete-gpu
    driver: mesa radv device-ID: 1002:744c device: 1 type: integrated-gpu
    driver: mesa radv device-ID: 1002:164e
  Info: Tools: api: eglinfo, glxinfo, vulkaninfo wl: wlr-randr
    x11: xdpyinfo, xprop, xrandr

So from a lot of testing over the last hours I have gathered the following solutions for fixing most of my issues, going to add further things when I get to them:

Game crashes when starting new game
Deactivate Ray Tracing, it causes the game to crash. Idk if it's an AMD or Nvidea issue directly.

Rainbow Issues
Seems to be resolved when using Proton Hotfix but not when using Proton GE, it randomly disappeared around a few hours ago

"Edge Flickering"
This issue disappeared when changing the model quality to the lowest option, maybe it is somehow inverted, because the models look way better after the change

As far as issues that don't happen on hotfix, that proton version got some changes specifically for this game and as it just released it's possible third party forks haven't picked up the changes yet.

@Sazzels for issues specific to certain locations or progression it's a good idea to share a save file, though I haven't checked if this game locks save files to specific accounts.

Replying to https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/9595#issuecomment-4094609740

Lower Reflection Quality to High and it fixes it, at least it did for me.

It seems obvious to me that the edge flickering is simply caused by a mesh tesselation shader that is applied with higher settings, and that is why they disappear when you scale them down. I installed Windows 11 just to test and can reproduce the exact same result on an RX 9070 XT.

It seems obvious to me that the edge flickering is simply caused by a mesh tesselation shader that is applied with higher settings, and that is why they disappear when you scale them down. I installed Windows 11 just to test and can reproduce the exact same result on an RX 9070 XT.

oh so that issue is present even on windows?? that's weird, bc until opening this thread, i haven't seen anyone else have the issue. i even saw other linux footage on ultra/cinematic preset that didn't have it, so i was so confused lmao.

@derekagraham78 deactivate ray tracing.

@derekagraham78

export PROTON_FSR4_RDNA3_UPGRADE=1

You're using the RDNA 3 flag on an RDNA 4 GPU. The crashing is most likely because you have ray tracing enabled though.

It doesn't even goes past the splash screen for me on a 5700XT on CachyOS with Proton Hotfix or Proton GE or Cachy Proton. I'm on Mesa 26.0.3.

steam-3321460.log

Behavior
A black flickering effect is seen on the edges of trees when the skybox is in the background. Flickering goes away once the background contains terrain elements. Even without the obviously flickering there is still an ever-so-slight transparency effect around the tree. This happens regardless of proton version, usage of upscaler (or versions), and all quality settings. Tried installing 595 beta but had an issue and had to revert.

Edit 2026-03-24: Can now confirm this is not a hardware issue as my live-windows instance running the game has neither the edge flashing against the skybox nor the flashing tree leaves / distant edges.

Youtube: https://youtu.be/EmbtXIJKYkQ
Log (Hotfix): steam-3321460.zip

System Info
Distro: Arch
GPU: Nvidia RTX 5090
Video driver version: Nvidia 590.48.01
Kernel version: 6.19.9-arch1-1
Proton version: Hotfix / Experimental / Proton-GE
Desktop: KDE Plasma / Wayland
Upscaler: None / DLSS 4.0 / 4.5
Quality settings: All / RT / Ray Reconstruction

Attempted fixes

• Swapping Proton versions, even tried Proton-GE and none-helped
• Removing, changing upscaler
• Adjusting quality settings / tried RR
• Attempted to get 595 installed but had issues so had to revert.
• No other modern DX12 games show this behavior for me.

Replying to https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/9595#issuecomment-4107894491

I confirm this.
Any proton version has it. AMD Suffers from this too.
My system is basically the same, with a 7900 XTX.

Replying to https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/9595#issuecomment-4107894491

Arch 6.19.9, 7900xt, Mesa 26.0.3, changing proton version or ingame settings(aside from switching to windowed) doesn't help. It also makes the game look very bad with any sort of upscaling, as it upscales those artifacts as well, turning trees into a shimmering blurry mess.

Behavior A black flickering effect is seen on the edges of trees when the skybox is in the background. Flickering goes away once the background contains terrain elements. Even without the obviously flickering there is still an ever-so-slight transparency effect around the tree. This happens regardless of proton version, usage of upscaler (or versions), and all quality settings. Tried installing 595 beta but had an issue and had to revert.

Same issue. I tried Proton-GE, Proton CachyOS and Proton Hotfix. No luck, Driver Version: 590.48.01.

           .-------------------------:                    dragon@cachyos-dragon
          .+=========================.                    ---------------------
         :++===++==================-       :++-           OS: CachyOS x86_64
        :*++====+++++=============-        .==:           Kernel: Linux 6.19.8-1-cachyos-gcc-zen4-nvidiaopen
       -*+++=====+***++==========:                        Uptime: 1 day, 18 hours, 16 mins
      =*++++========------------:                         Packages: 2018 (pacman), 10 (flatpak-system), 31 (flatpak-user)
     =*+++++=====-                     ...                Shell: fish 4.5.0
   .+*+++++=-===:                    .=+++=:              Display (34GL750): 2560x1080 in 34", 144 Hz [External]
  :++++=====-==:                     -*****+              DE: KDE Plasma 6.6.3
 :++========-=.                      .=+**+.              WM: KWin (Wayland)
.+==========-.                          .                 WM Theme: Breeze
 :+++++++====-                                .--==-.     Theme: Breeze (Dark) [Qt], Breeze-Dark [GTK2], Breeze [GTK3]
  :++==========.                             :+++++++:    Icons: breeze-dark [Qt], breeze-dark [GTK2/3/4]
   .-===========.                            =*****+*+    Font: Noto Sans (10pt) [Qt], Noto Sans (10pt) [GTK2/3/4]
    .-===========:                           .+*****+:    Cursor: capitaine (24px)
      -=======++++:::::::::::::::::::::::::-:  .---:      Terminal: konsole 25.12.3
       :======++++====+++******************=.             CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D (32) @ 5.76 GHz
        :=====+++==========++++++++++++++*-               GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 [Discrete]
         .====++==============++++++++++*-                Memory: 29.36 GiB / 93.93 GiB (31%)
          .===+==================+++++++:                 Swap: 369.87 MiB / 32.00 GiB (1%)
           .-=======================+++:                  Disk (/): 766.45 GiB / 897.51 GiB (85%) - btrfs
             ..........................                   Local IP (wg0-mullvad): 
                                                          Locale: en_US.UTF-8

I hope this information helps the Proton team figure out a workaround!

This smells like misleading AI spam to me. That analysis does not make sense to me.

Replying to https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/9595#issuecomment-4107894491

I've been able to mostly mitigate the background flickering and tree flickering by using DLAA on my 4090 using proton-hotfix - getting about 60 FPS on high settings. Was getting 80 on cinematic settings using bleeding edge but that is not working today for me.

Replying to [#9595 (comment)](https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/9595#issuecomment-4113469787)

@colerc0aster I'm not 100% sure we are talking about the same exact thing. I've attached a screenshot below pointing out the specific issue I was reporting. But to your point, I did absolutely notice the tree leaves flickering in the distance and they could be related issues I just wasn't sure so I was trying to be specific. :)

Unfortunately, I could not replicate any improvement on either tree leaves flickering in the distance nor the tree edge flickering against the skybox using the suggested settings nor hotfix / bleeding-edge experimental. :(

Here's a picture highlighting more specifically the issue from my report:

@LykanMonolyth - I initially didn't see these black edges to trees but now that you've pointed them out I do actually see this as well though I will say, using the DLAA seems to also help mitigate the persistence. With DLAA on i really only see these black edges on the trees up against the skybox when i'm moving the camera whereas if I'm using other upscaling presets they seem to be present even when the camera is stationary.

I dinked around with setting configurations for hours over the last few days and using DLAA is the least painful for me to look at haha overall with raytracing enabled. Shadows in general especially indoors for some reason seem to still be very strange sometimes. I did just realize i'm using some older drivers so I'm going to try updating to the same ones you're using 590.48.01 and see what the experience is like.

System Info
Distro: Nobara
GPU: Nvidia RTX 4090
Video driver version: Nvidia 580.142
Kernel version: 6.19.9-201.nobara.fc43.x86_64
Proton version: Hotfix / Experimental (standard and Bleeding Edge) / Proton-GE
Desktop: KDE Plasma / Wayland
Upscaler: None / DLSS 4.0 / 4.5
Quality settings: All / RT / Ray Reconstruction

I hope this information helps the Proton team figure out a workaround!

This smells like misleading AI spam to me. That analysis does not make sense to me.

Why was this marked as spam? I've tried a ton of things to get this working.

English is not my native language, so I used an AI to translate everything I wrote (and it took some creative liberties when generating the comment). I also tried bypassing it with OptiScaler and it didn't work, but hey, what do I know if I'm an AI?

Do you actually have an RX 5700 XT to run tests and see exactly what I am experiencing?

It's no wonder people don't want to contribute when things get flagged as SPAM right away. Next time I just won't say anything and will wait for it to be fixed.

Replying to https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/9595#issuecomment-4115502511

I don't want to contribute to turning this into a dramatic fight, but I did have the same thought as @HansKristian-Work when I read your comment, and asking Claude about the concrete symptoms mentioned here, it gave me an almost exact likeness to your entire analysis. Adding AI nonsense noise to your report does not help the maintainers, it does the opposite. Show them the respect of letting them apply their knowledge and experience to your observations, they don't have to be technical in any capacity.

FWIW, 5700xt should work with https://github.com/HansKristian-Work/vkd3d-proton/pull/2905. It had nothing to do with pipeline libraries or mesh shaders, but rather barycentrics and VRS. Still somewhat unknown why it works on Windows since RDNA1 supports neither, but maybe there are special workarounds in place.

Raytracing works on RX 9070XT, but only if lighting is set to Medium.

Edit: Upgrading mesa to 26.0.3 fixed it.

I installed the latest version of Mesa from Github using the mesa-git package on Manjaro. Now everything works at 4k with Ray Tracing On. All settings are at Ultra with Resolution at 3840x2160 with Upsacling set to Quality. I am getting 158 fps on my AMD 7900xtx.
I use this launch option in Steam:
PROTON_ENABLE_WAYLAND=1 RADV_DEBUG=nohiz,novrs gamemoderun mangohud %command%

@rafalb8 Raytracing started working for me (9070 XT) when I switched Omarchy to the edge channel and ran a system upgrade, so while I can't verify this, I presume it's because of newer Linux firmware.

The golden combination for me seems to be:

• Game version 1.00.03
• GE-Proton10-34
• Mesa 26.0.3
• mainline linux 6.19.9.arch1 (from arch repo)
• linux-firmware(-amdgpu/-radeon) 20260309
• FSR 4.1 libraries grabbed from FFX SDK

I'm observing some other artifacts that I either didn't notice before or that weren't present before. There seems to be a horizontal line going through the screen, about one tenth from the bottom. Above the line, everything is normal, but below the line, parallax effects and light/shadow from GI flicker in and out rapidly. Using FSR upscaling seems to make it worse by moving the line close towards the middle of the screen, with lower internal resolutions making it worse. Disabling upscaling doesn't remove the issue entirely though. I also tried with the default FSR3.1 libraries that ship with the game, and the issue also exists there.

@givver

PROTON_DLSS_UPGRADE=1

You don't have a Nvidia card, its useless to you.

PROTON_ENABLE_NGX_UPDATER=1

Does nothing.

Looks like Nvidia has just pushed the 595 driver into release status, with some additional bug fixes from the beta.

It looks like Powermizer didn't work as expected on Wayland on 590, so that plus the current DX12 deficiencies could nicely explain the performance drop compared to Windows on Nvidia.

I am currently flying home and may not be back until late tonight, but I will try and find some time to test the new driver either today or tomorrow.

I am currently flying home and may not be back until late tonight, but I will try and find some time to test the new driver either today or tomorrow.

Didn't matter for Crimson Desert. Game still crashes on Blackwell (5000 series) during loading using any of the 595 drivers

@ThomasEricB What kernel and firmware versions are you using, and what CPU? I'm starting to suspect the crashes is actually an AMD CPU issue that is fixed by some recent kernel or firmware change.

@ThomasEricB What kernel and firmware versions are you using, and what CPU? I'm starting to suspect the crashes is actually an AMD CPU issue that is fixed by some recent kernel or firmware change.

You can see here: https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/9595#issuecomment-4112425889

Replying to https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/9595#issuecomment-4119311363

I realized that these were for NVIDIA after I made my post.

@ThomasEricB Can you try linux 6.19.9? I'm curious if that alone lets you enable raytracing without crashing, then it's very likely upstream AMD CPU firmware.

@emilnymann RT-related crashing is specific to AMD GPUs. Nvidia works fine with RT on using the 590 driver, but some form of regression (possibly Blackwell-specific) on 595 causes the game to crash regardless of settings.

Separate issue.

System Specs

• OS: Fedora Linux 43 (KDE Plasma Desktop Edition)
• Kernel: 6.18.16-200.fc43.x86_64
• CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D (8C/16T)
• RAM: 32 GB
• GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 (16 GB VRAM)
• NVIDIA Driver: 590.48.01

I'm 'stuck' at 6.18 kernel as 6.19+ breaks nvidia driver 590 for me. And as others mention 595 crashes the game still.

Game is hovering around 60fps for me, regardless of settings set. I can set it to low or cinematic, no difference.
Until I turn on ray reconstruction that also forces lighting to Max, it completely shatters performances to 30-ish, fps.

Frame generation does not seem to work for me, it cuts the fps in half to 30 and the input lag is tremendous.

My only steam launch arguments are: PROTON_ENABLE_WAYLAND=1 WINE_CPU_TOPOLOGY=8

Frame generation does not seem to work for me, it cuts the fps in half to 30 and the input lag is tremendous.

The only way I can get frame generation to work is to start the game, load into a save, enable frame generation then restart the game. It'll work but sometimes it crashes after some hours playing. Also, if I restart my PC, the game will not launch, getting stuck on a small black window if frame generation is on, so I have to turn it off on the config files and repeat those steps.

Another interesting thing I've noticed is that fg is improving my base performance somehow. I'm barely getting 60 FPS with my settings, however if frame generation is on (after that workaround), Steam's overlay shows that I'm getting 80-90 base FPS and 100-130 with generated frames.

I'm also with a 5080 on 590.48.01

System Specs

• OS: NixOS unstable
• CPU: R7 5700X3D
• RAM: 32 GB
• GPU: RX 9070 XT
• Driver/LLVM version: 26.0.2
• Kernel version: Linux 6.18.18-xanmod1

Game visuals breaks when HDR+FSR 3/4 is used. It looks like color fringing, but I'm not sure what is it. I didn't test the game on Windows, so it could be a game bug, but I don't see any discussions of this, so I'm posting an issue here. Screenshots below (with FSR4, but I also tested it in Gamescope with FSR3. Still an issue, albeit not as noticeable), you can see it clearly on the grass
Without HDR:

With HDR:

Screenshots without FSR4 for comparison.
Without HDR:

With HDR:

System Specs

• Operating System: Arch Linux
• KDE Plasma Version: 6.6.3
• Kernel Version: 6.19.9-arch1-1 (64-bit)
• Graphics Platform: Wayland
• Mesa: 26.0.3-1
• CPU: 32 × AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D 16-Core Processor
• Memory: 64 GiB of RAM (61,9 GiB usable)
• GPU: AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX
• Proton: Experimental [bleeding-edge]

Launch Options

LD_PRELOAD="" PROTON_ADD_CONFIG=hdr,wayland gamescope -f -r 165 --adaptive-sync -h 2160 -w 3840 -H 2160 -W 3840 --force-grab-cursor --mouse-sensitivity 1.5 --hdr-enabled -- %command%

I have 4 different issues:

1. The already reported problem when using any graphical option above Low for Models quality, with geometry showing a black contour above or in walls:

1. The vegetation looks incredibly noisy/dithered while it's moving, be that by the wind or by the camera movement (and even worse when combined). The higher the resolution the worse it looks. It is so bad that running the game at 3k with FSR Native looks way better than at 4k (my monitor's native resolution). Even when rendering above native it looks awful (i.e. rendering at 5k in the game options by running gamescope with -w 5120 -h 2880). No combination of settings seem to eliminate the noise, and using FSR only makes it worse, even on Native (AA), because of the high sharpening that it introduces. The only way to make it bearable is to reduce the resolution and let gamescope scale it up to the window size.

I believe that this is simply how their engine draws the vegetation, taking a few frames to render the full detail, which causes it to look poorly while moving, because it keeps redrawing until it is mostly static for enough frames to render the full quality picture; and they only make it worse by adding these extra layers of sharpening and chromatic aberration which cannot be eliminated even at Low Post-processing Effects Quality.

I don't have a Windows setup to compare and the online videos can't be judged due to bitrate and compression, so I can't tell if this is simply how their engine works or if there something wrong with the proton translation or amd drivers.

Screenshot at 4k FSR Native:

Clip at 4k FSR Native:

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/9abdf920-b1f1-410b-9542-fff55849ab70

Clip at 3k FSR Native:

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/31e0bc78-0a8c-4a4c-b7d4-f62c967e86f2

1. Maybe related to the issue above: When the game renders at native resolution (4k) or beyond, the vegetation shows shadows and illumination artifacts which are not shown when the game renders below the native resolution.

In this example the plants are rendering the illumination of the glowing globe that is in the pillar next to the shrubs, and this artifact moves all over the shrubs render when moving the camera:

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/11107dba-6fd3-410f-a232-2a6f670ceb82

When using a resolution below native 4k the artifacts are gone (in this example it is 3k):

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/7c87af5d-2628-499b-a290-b15902de0df1

1. The mouse pointer is intermittently switching to the one of the OS (maybe this related to KDE plasma or one of the gamescope arguments instead of proton):

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/9da89c96-7d98-4e18-8a91-f6bb9fffcb27

System Specs

Operating System: CachyOS
Window Manager: Hyprland
Kernel Version: 6.19.9-2-cachyos
Graphics Platform: Wayland
Mesa: 26.1.0 (devel)
CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 9950X (32) 5.756GHz
Memory: 32 GB DDR5
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 Ti

Launch Options
Ive tried everything above and none seem to get me anywhere

I get the blue starting screen of death. The music keeps playing but it totally freezes on this spot or similar every time i launch the game.
Ive turned off Ray Tracing, done all the window modes, went to Low settings and more. Nothing has changed anything.
I have even tried different Proton versions but this doesnt help either

Black Desert Online (PA's other amazing game) works totally fine. Never have an issue with it

@Shadorain

Ive tried everything above and none seem to get me anywhere

First of all, you did not try everything. If you don't list your troubleshooting steps, we cannot help you.

Second, Cachy ships the 595 Nvidia driver, which has a regression for Crimson Desert.. You'll need to roll back to 590 and blacklist the appropriate packages for the time being if you want to play CD. I am currently tinkering with this and seeing if I can get it to work on the 595 release, but so far no dice.

That being said, performance on the 590 driver is roughly half of what it is on Windows, so whether your hardware will perform acceptably I don't know.

Continuing on the vegetation issues that I mentioned above.

The foliage and maybe other effects are clearly broken in my setup when rendered at my monitor's native resolution (4k) compared to lower res.

4k FSR Quality:

3k FSR Quality:

Using the Preview Screen option in the settings menu gives a static image of the game, and there is a lot of noise in the foliage, specially noticeable at 4k with upscaling off:

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/e2c1bf0c-0692-4b4a-9dab-cc19beb382b5

Looking at some of the comments that I found in this steam forum post, it seems like others also have this issue, and OP there states that it doesn't seem to happen on Windows. So something must be wrong in proton or mesa.

Thanks to this thread I was somewhat able to run the game.
I've experienced Test Screen (vertical color stripes) on proton experimental and also hotfix I think.

that is being resolved by using either GE-Proton or proton-cachyos.
Then this followed by freezes on the following step

So I did go on and compiled latest mesa-git and updated the kernel.

What also popped into my mind just at that moment, I'm stupid I know, to reduce the graphics settings, disable vsync in the game options, switched to window mode, reduced resolution.

I don't know which of the above 3 steps helped, but I did manage to get into the gameplay.
Switched a few settings searching for a sweet spot, and the game crashed the system badly with a green screen and a restart.
After that the game was crashing multiple times, even before the game menu screen. Green screen, system restart..
I did persist and already hooked on getting this to run.

Thanks to @givver and others for sharing their snippets.
I will continue banging this, hopefully not frying my system - GPU clock peaking at 140% junction temperatures approaching 100.

• Operating System: NixOS 25.11 (Xantusia)
• Kernel Version: 6.19.7 (64-bit)
• Graphics Platform: Wayland
• CPU: 16 × AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D 8-Core Processor
• Memory: 31 GiB of RAM (20.9 GiB available)
• Proton: GE-Proton10-34

Thanks to this thread I was somewhat able to run the game. I've experienced Test Screen (vertical color stripes) on proton experimental and also hotfix I think.

I was running into this issue and was able to resolve it by running this terminal command to enable h264. I believe I was running hotfix proton at the time.

steam steam://unlockh264/

About the edge flickering that is fixed by setting the model quality to low:

Setting the option RADV_DEBUG=nohiz also seems to fix the issue for me, allowing me to set the model quality back to ultra.

Replying to [#9595 (comment)](https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/9595#issuecomment-4133018124)

@MaxBosse
Are you responding with the additional Mesa environment variable setting regarding this observed Edge Flickering behavior?

Just want to confirm since we are in a pretty rough spot with at least two separate edge-flickering issues, not to mention a few other flickering issues to boot.

Would also like to mention that on my system specifically, tested with proton experimental (not bleeding edge), hotfix, ProtonGE 10-33, and steam default that some but not all graphics settings revert to cinematic after every restart of the game for me. The only one being constistent in not resetting seems to be shadows.

Wonder if others have noticed this as well? already tried to reinstall and delete cache as well

Are you responding with the additional Mesa environment variable setting regarding this observed Edge Flickering behavior?

Yes exactly, the black Edge Flickering around objects is gone for me with that RADV-Option.

nohiz is a very good lead. I've identified a game sync bug I think that I'm narrowing down now ...

About the edge flickering that is fixed by setting the model quality to low:

Setting the option RADV_DEBUG=nohiz also seems to fix the issue for me, allowing me to set the model quality back to ultra.

You're a hero. It worked.
There's a loss in performance but it's not too bad.

I am on an AMD Radeon 7800 XT. Currently with 6.19.9-1-cachyos-bore kernel and using Proton Hotfix. I have all set to Ultra with RT on and it all works quite well. Just one thing. Some textures seem mash-potatoey in motion, but then they come into crisp focus when I stop moving. Is this a known thing?

Found it https://github.com/HansKristian-Work/vkd3d-proton/pull/2912. Given this is a depth sync bug, it might explain the weird jank seen on NVIDIA too.

I am on an AMD Radeon 7800 XT. Currently with 6.19.9-1-cachyos-bore kernel and using Proton Hotfix. I have all set to Ultra with RT on and it all works quite well. Just one thing. Some textures seem mash-potatoey in motion, but then they come into crisp focus when I stop moving. Is this a known thing?

I think unfortunately that's just how the game works: the GI implementation in the game has some sort of radiance caching that seems to sometimes make surfaces look muddy when you do something to bust a cached area, especially in weak skylight conditions. It then gets sharper as the GI noise settles. Like most other GI artifacts in the game they're gone with ray reconstruction/regeneration turned on, but so is your framerate, so...

Regardless, I don't think it's a compatibility issue, I think it's just inherent. If someone smart does not agree, I'd love to be wrong.

Of course, it could also be a texture streaming issue, we might not be talking about the same thing.

Found it HansKristian-Work/vkd3d-proton#2912. Given this is a depth sync bug, it might explain the weird jank seen on NVIDIA too.

Just compiled that and replaced it in GE 10-34, and while I did not have the black edge flickering before, I can report that it also fixed the flickering near the bottom edge of the screen described in https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/9595#issuecomment-4119229848

Found it https://github.com/HansKristian-Work/vkd3d-proton/pull/2912. Given this is a depth sync bug, it might explain the weird jank seen on NVIDIA too.

Just built from source and tested on Nvidia 595. The game stuttered a bit before locking up, as opposed to an immediate freeze, which is admittedly an improvement.

Dmesg reports:

[ 1684.283498] umip: CrimsonDesert.e[11598] ip:14de90531 sp:101ef98: SGDT instruction cannot be used by applications.
[ 1684.283501] umip: CrimsonDesert.e[11598] ip:14de90531 sp:101ef98: For now, expensive software emulation returns the result.
[ 1688.731470] NVRM: GPU at PCI:0000:01:00: GPU-7ee6c026-7bca-6502-9376-6a0917796e24
[ 1688.731476] NVRM: GPU Board Serial Number: 0
[ 1688.731477] NVRM: Xid (PCI:0000:01:00): 109, pid=11598, name=CrimsonDesert.e, channel 0x0000000c, errorString CTX SWITCH TIMEOUT, Info 0x1dc00a

Proton log attached. VKD3D throws a few errors almost nonstop that drown out the interesting bits, but it's easy enough to filter those out.

steam-3321460.zip

Looks like Nvidia is aware of Blackwell freezing on 595, and is investigating.

Hopefully we'll see that fixed in the next driver release.

Found it HansKristian-Work/vkd3d-proton#2912. Given this is a depth sync bug, it might explain the weird jank seen on NVIDIA too.

Unfortunately, this does not fix the weird black artifacts on trees. Just tested using the latest .dll from https://github.com/HansKristian-Work/vkd3d-proton/actions/runs/23604664875 and replacing the .dlls of Proton-CachyOS at ~/.local/share/Steam/compatibilitytools.d/proton-cachyos-10.0-20260321-slr-x86_64_v4/files/lib/wine/vkd3d-proton/x86_64-windows/ Not sure if you can spot it in the screenshot below but it is clearly visible while moving the camera:

My setup:

• CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D @ 5.76 GHz
• Memory: 96 GB DDR5
• GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 ROG Astral (32 GB VRAM)
• GPU Driver: 590.48.01
• Desktop Environment: KDE Plasma 6.6.3 (Wayland)

I never saw that issue on my RTX 4070, so not sure what can be done about it.

I never saw that issue on my RTX 4070, so not sure what can be done about it.

@HansKristian-Work I have an inkling that it's a bug related to the Blackwell cards. Op @BrandtVanDenBerg has it on his 5070, I have it on my 5090, my friend on Telegram also has it on his 5090 and people on the CachyOS Discord as well.

EDIT: Since Blackwell is stuck on the 590.48.01 drivers, I would think there isn't much to be done about it until @nvidia fixes the Blackwell crashes and we can play the game on the 595.

https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/9595#issuecomment-4142018671

I've also experienced this issue(or at least a similar one) on 7900XT as per https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/9595#issuecomment-4111389806(but not on 9070XT on the same system). So either it's a different issue or it's not limited to 5000 series GPUs. Does anything change if you switch the game to window?

I've also experienced this issue(or at least a similar one) on 7900XT as per [#9595 (comment)](https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/9595#issuecomment-4111389806) not on 9070XT on the same system). So either it's a different issue or it's not limited to 5000 series GPUs. Does anything change if you switch the game to window?

@rdgwb Have you tested Hans' PR at https://github.com/HansKristian-Work/vkd3d-proton/pull/2912 ? Because if it is just a similar issue, this PR addresses it. I am talking specifically about the trees against the skybox.

Edit: I just saw your screenshots from https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/9595#issuecomment-4111389806 and I can tell you it isn't the same issue. Your issue looks like it's a shadow/coloring issue, while the issue I am having with the trees is that there are black squares behind the branches that keep appearing and disappearing.

RTX 5000 Series + 595 drivers crash update: using the latest CachyOS-Proton with the flag PROTON_VKD3D_HEAP=1, the Crimson Desert now works without crashing in the loading screen. See more information here: https://github.com/HansKristian-Work/vkd3d-proton/issues/2914

RTX 5000 Series + 595 drivers crash update: using the latest CachyOS-Proton with the flag PROTON_VKD3D_HEAP=1, the Crimson Desert now works without crashing in the loading screen.

Excellent news. How is performance? Any notable bugs? I see the tree lighting appears to be fixed...

Excellent news. How is performance? Any notable bugs? I see the tree lighting appears to be fixed...

Apparently still 50% less than Windows according to people on Reddit and Discord.

For me it is running better and without the artifacts using PROTON_VKD3D_HEAP=1 on the 595 drivers.

RTX 5000 Series + 595 drivers crash update: using the latest CachyOS-Proton with the flag PROTON_VKD3D_HEAP=1, the Crimson Desert now works without crashing in the loading screen. See more information here: HansKristian-Work/vkd3d-proton#2914

Doenst workt for me RTX5080 / 9800x3d (Vulkan 1.4.329 - NVIDIA [595.58.03])
I have tried every proton available (from bleeding edge to GE). Same freeze on the loading screen when starting a new game

On 595.58.03, experiencing several crashes and visual issues.

Crashes

• Entering any Abyss portal crashes the game 100% of the time.
• After 1–2 hours of play, the game hard-freezes, sometimes recovers, sometimes doesn't.
• Certain cutscenes and merchant animations (e.g. the Witch adding sockets) cause extreme visual glitches on the character model and occasional crashes.

Xid Error

journalctl -b | grep Crimson

kernel: NVRM: Xid (PCI:0000:01:00): 109, pid=41962, name=CrimsonDesert.e,
    channel 0x00000024, errorString CTX SWITCH TIMEOUT, Info 0x2ec02a

System Info

OS:      EndeavourOS Linux x86_64
Kernel:  6.19.9-arch1-1
DE:      GNOME 49.5 (Mutter / Wayland)
CPU:     AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D
GPU:     NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090
VRAM:    24 GB
RAM:     64 GB
Driver:  595.58.03 (nvidia-open)
Proton:  Hotfix

Steam Launch Options

PROTON_ENABLE_NVAPI=1 PROTON_ENABLE_WAYLAND=1 DXVK_ASYNC=1 mangohud %command%

I previously had PROTON_VKD3D_HEAP=1 set as well, but it made no noticeable difference, at least not on a 4090.

General Observations

Performance is solid overall (110–125 FPS), but rendering still has issues: mushy/low-res textures, aggressive pop-in, and visual glitches on tree/leaf edges and distant mountain geometry. It's playable, but the hard crashes are the main blocker.

Edit 1:

switched to proton-cachyos-10.0-20260321-slr-x86_64 no effect - i'm on the main quest in scholarstone, where you have to transverse to the abyss realm on top of the spine, walking near that portal or interacting 100% crashes the game for me.

Edit 2:

still on proton-cachyos-10.0-20260321-slr-x86_64 added PROTON_VKD3D_HEAP=1 i could pass the transition to the abyss - but minutes after game still full on freezes.

switched to proton-cachyos-10.0-20260321-slr-x86_64 no effect - i'm on the main quest in scholarstone, where you have to transverse to the abyss realm on top of the spine, walking near that portal or interacting 100% crashes the game for me.

@Sazzels Can you add which Mesa Version you currently use? I'm at the same progress right now but have AMD RX9070XT using cachyos proton and no crashes at all right now. In addition i can also use portals without issues.

switched to proton-cachyos-10.0-20260321-slr-x86_64 no effect - i'm on the main quest in scholarstone, where you have to transverse to the abyss realm on top of the spine, walking near that portal or interacting 100% crashes the game for me.

@Sazzels Can you add which Mesa Version you currently use? I'm at the same progress right now but have AMD RX9070XT using cachyos proton and no crashes at all right now. In addition i can also use portals without issues.

I have problems on my 9070xt, CachyOS Proton SLR latest, Mesa 26.03 (Tried 26.1 from MESA-GIT as well). I get weird taskbar height parallax bumping and weird sharp shadow / terrain height bumping on the bottom of my screen, nothing I do fixes this but otherwise the game runs completely fine and no artifacting other than that weird rendering.

Doenst workt for me RTX5080 / 9800x3d (Vulkan 1.4.329 - NVIDIA [595.58.03]). I have tried every proton available (from bleeding edge to GE). Same freeze on the loading screen when starting a new game

still on proton-cachyos-10.0-20260321-slr-x86_64 added PROTON_VKD3D_HEAP=1 i could pass the transition to the abyss - but minutes after game still full on freezes.

@Sazzels @Gwarion It is known that some people have to clean you Steam Shader Cache and verify the games files. Please try again after doing that.

PROTON_ENABLE_NVAPI=1 PROTON_ENABLE_WAYLAND=1 DXVK_ASYNC=1 mangohud %command%

@Sazzels Also, try again without DXVK_ASYNC=1.

@Gwarion It is known that some people have to clean you Steam Shader Cache and verify the games files. Please try again after doing that.

Yup, recompiled shaders from scratch, installed latest proton-cachyos-10.0-20260321-slr-x86_64 and now the game starts. So progress !

The Framerate is rough though (about half what I get on windows with the same settings). Also, weirdly, changing the graphic settings to medium/low doesnt seem to change anything plus the framegen acts wonky.

Replying to https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/9595#issuecomment-4147886187

If by "bumping" you mean the parallax effect and shadows are flickering on the bottom right of the screen, that was fixed in vkd3d-proton, so you can either wait for your Proton fork to update, or you can build the latest commit and replace the library yourself. There is still a parallax transition inset from all edges of the screen that I'm not seeing on Windows though, but it's much less distracting than the extreme flickering.

@Gwarion try setting PROTON_USE_NTSYNC=1. This gave me a 10 to 20 fps improvement. (May already been enabled by default though depending on distri it seems)

@Gwarion try setting PROTON_USE_NTSYNC=1. This gave me a 10 to 20 fps improvement. (May already been enabled by default though depending on distri it seems)

Started using PROTON_VKD3D_HEAP=1 PROTON_USE_NTSYNC=1 game-performance %command%

Way better. I have tested different in game settings to see what's feel right. The sweet spots for me for 1440p with DLSS 4.5L (Quality) are the following (with MangoHud VKD3D FPS values)

• Ray Reconstruction Enabled | Framegen x4 | All Cinematic except Ultra on Shadow, Foliage, Fog, Reflection) feels like a smooth 150 FPS with some artifacting. Best experience overall
• Ray Reconstruction Disabled | Framegen x2 | All Cinematic : stable 120+ FPS that feels smooth with almost no artifacting
• Ray Reconstruction Disabled | Framegen x4 | All Cinematic except Ultra on Shadow, Foliage, Fog, Reflection) : can push a stable 240+ FPS depending on area but the camera movement feels a bit rough arround the edges.

RTX 5000 Series + 595 drivers crash update: using the latest CachyOS-Proton with the flag PROTON_VKD3D_HEAP=1, the Crimson Desert now works without crashing in the loading screen. See more information here: HansKristian-Work/vkd3d-proton#2914

Doenst workt for me RTX5080 / 9800x3d (Vulkan 1.4.329 - NVIDIA [595.58.03]) I have tried every proton available (from bleeding edge to GE). Same freeze on the loading screen when starting a new game

But did you replace vkd3d with the this patch applied: https://github.com/HansKristian-Work/vkd3d-proton/pull/2805

I just tried that and it works:

• Card: RTX 5080
• Driver: 595.58.03
• OS: Ubuntu 25.10
• Steam native (no Snap)
• Proton: GE-Proton10-34

Here are my steps. They may vary a bit depending on your system (I'm using Ubuntu)...

apt install git meson ninja-build glslang-tools   gcc-mingw-w64-x86-64 gcc-mingw-w64-i686   g++-mingw-w64-x86-64 g++-mingw-w64-i686   mingw-w64-x86-64-dev mingw-w64-i686-dev mingw-w64-tools

git clone https://github.com/HansKristian-Work/vkd3d-proton.git
cd vkd3d-proton
git submodule update --init --recursive

# checkout the branch ext_descriptor_heap
git fetch origin pull/2805/head:ext_descriptor_heap
git checkout ext_descriptor_heap

# build the vkd3d
./package-release.sh master /tmp/vkd3d-build --no-package

Now replace the dlls form /home/<user>/.steam/debian-installation/compatibilitytools.d/GE-Proton10-34/files/lib/wine/vkd3d-proton/<i386|x86_64>-windows with the ones from /tmp/vkd3d-build/vkd3d-proton-master/<x86|x64>.

Now it should work fine with the start params PROTON_VKD3D_HEAP=1 %command%

And the tree artifacts are gone

But did you replace vkd3d with the this patch applied: https://github.com/HansKristian-Work/vkd3d-proton/pull/2805

With Proton-CachyOS you don't really need to do all that. They already ship with a compiled version of vkd3d with VK_EXT_descriptor_heap. All you did is what I did with more steps. LOL

I know, but, I use Ubuntu.

@Gwarion Another tip: Did you disable Shader Pre-Caching?

And not just delete the cache. I noticed, that the game freezes, if enabled.

Can it be that shaders are downloaded which are not really compatible with the current setup?

I know, but, I use Ubuntu.

Bruh, you can use Proton-CachyOS on Ubuntu 😭. Anyway glad it worked it for you!

Using the newest Cachyos-proton version on vanilla arch has fixed my performance and graphical glitches for the most part, no more black flickering 😀

But did you replace vkd3d with the this patch applied: HansKristian-Work/vkd3d-proton#2805

With Proton-CachyOS you don't really need to do all that. They already ship with a compiled version of vkd3d with VK_EXT_descriptor_heap. All you did is what I did with more steps. LOL

Using Proton-CachyOS does not neccesarily mean you have the latest vkd3d-proton changes. They need to update it and release first. So it's worth trying, especially in this case where a very important Crimson Desert workaround was added to vkd3d-proton between two Proton-CachyOS releases.

Newest update (1.01.00) breaks graphics for me. I'm not sure if this is related to proton but I haven't seen reports like mine anywhere.
Here's what it looks like: https://files.catbox.moe/mxv84r.mp4
All DLSS options are broken, FSR seems to working, although I'm not 100% sure. RTX 4070 Ti S, AMD 7800X3D, ubuntu 24.04 on kernel 6.17, nvidia drivers 570.211.01
Before the game's 1.01.00 patch it was running amazingly well with RR enabled. Now it mostly looks like in the clip.

@bitcharmer Try updating your driver.

And the tree artifacts are gone

@bernhste can you check with latest Crimson Desert patch now released if they are still gone? They wrote something about "Improved the rendering of translucent materials such as hair, fur, and clothing when FSR-RR / DLSS-RR is enabled." I would assume these effects they used may count as translucent. (I assume you use either FSR or DLSS?)

@bernhste can you check with latest Crimson Desert patch now released if they are still gone? They wrote something about "Improved the rendering of translucent materials such as hair, fur, and clothing when FSR-RR / DLSS-RR is enabled." I would assume these effects they used may count as translucent. (I assume you use either FSR or DLSS?)

It fixed the shadow issue I was having, however now ~~without https://github.com/HansKristian-Work/vkd3d-proton/commit/e808096d5d9532f31f8b35b44fed263ae6c0502d~~ there is a bunch of more visible artifacts that this commit apparently already fixed. Proton CachyOS needs to update their vkd3d. Actually, upstream has to merge this into the heaps branch, my bad. See image for reference:

Notice the black stripes on the ground. That's the issue that https://github.com/HansKristian-Work/vkd3d-proton/commit/e808096d5d9532f31f8b35b44fed263ae6c0502d fixed.

It fixed the shadow issue I was having, however now without HansKristian-Work/vkd3d-proton@e808096 there is a bunch of more visible artifacts that this commit apparently already fixed.

I was wrong. It was a issue of the new patch. Just compiled HansKristian-Work/vkd3d-proton@e808096 with the heap test using:

~/Scripts/vkd3d-proton descriptor-heap-test 23s
❯ git fetch origin master
From https://github.com/HansKristian-Work/vkd3d-proton
 * branch              master     -> FETCH_HEAD

~/Scripts/vkd3d-proton descriptor-heap-test
❯ git cherry-pick e808096d5d9532f31f8b35b44fed263ae6c0502d
Auto-merging libs/vkd3d/device.c
[descriptor-heap-test 2a1b766a] vkd3d: Add sync bug workaround for Crimson Desert.
 Author: Hans-Kristian Arntzen <[email protected]>
 Date: Thu Mar 26 16:46:37 2026 +0100
 1 file changed, 8 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)

~/Scripts/vkd3d-proton descriptor-heap-test ⇡
❯ ./package-release.sh descriptor-heap-test ~/vkd3d-build --no-package
The Meson build system
Version: 1.10.2
Source dir: /home/dragon/Scripts/vkd3d-proton
Build dir: /home/dragon/vkd3d-build/vkd3d-proton-descriptor-heap-test/build.64
Build type: cross build
Project name: vkd3d-proton
Project version: 3.0
(...)
[217/218] Installing files
Installing libs/d3d12core/d3d12core.dll to /home/dragon/vkd3d-build/vkd3d-proton-descriptor-heap-test/x86
Stripping target 'libs/d3d12core/d3d12core.dll'.
Installing libs/d3d12core/d3d12core.dll.a to /home/dragon/vkd3d-build/vkd3d-proton-descriptor-heap-test/x86
Installing libs/d3d12/d3d12.dll to /home/dragon/vkd3d-build/vkd3d-proton-descriptor-heap-test/x86
Stripping target 'libs/d3d12/d3d12.dll'.
Installing libs/d3d12/d3d12.dll.a to /home/dragon/vkd3d-build/vkd3d-proton-descriptor-heap-test/x86

@HansKristian-Work Apparently the new patch 1.01.00 caused a regression on the sync bug workaround commit. The black lines in the ground are back again! Obviously needs more reports from people outside of the heap test to confirm it is a regression.

Replying to https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/9595#issuecomment-4149630089

Latest proton cachyos build is the same vkd3d build as what is currently in the proton experimental bleeding edge build at the time of writing this.

Replying to https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/9595#issuecomment-4148842729

How would you say is the performance compared to the 590 driver on the 5080?

Apparently the new patch 1.01.00 caused a regression on the sync bug workaround commit. The black lines in the ground are back again! Obviously needs more reports from people outside of the heap test to confirm it is a regression.

I'm not seeing the pre-depth sync fix issues on 1.01.00.

Vanilla (rolling) Arch and bumped to 595 because why not suffer! :)

Latest (as of this writing) proton-cachyos-slr from AUR works just fine with HEAP and even get ~10FPS boost with NTSYNC.

• proton-cachyos-slr (AUR): 1774750102 cachyos-10.0-20260324-slr

No major graphical anomalies to report, everything I reported is now fixed and graphical fidelity is in-line with Windows on my configuration. Performance of course is still pretty far away with RT settings tweaked to max even with FG. Unfortunately, I'm now spoiled and don't want to play this game without RR. :(

• Win11 on RTX 5090: 3440x1440 | DLSS 4.5 L - Quality | FG 2x | Ray Reconstruction | Cinematic
  • FPS (FG): Avg = 70 (140) | 1% Lows = >60
• Arch on RTX 5090: 3440x1440 | DLSS 4.5 L - Balanced | FG 3x | Ray Reconstruction | Cinematic
  • FPS (FG): Avg = 51 (154) | 1% Lows = >44
    

Replying to [#9595 (comment)](https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/9595#issuecomment-4150486137)

Bleeding-edge was a no-go with HEAP at this time. I didn't have time to capture a log but if I have time tonight I will do so. Version noted below.

• bleeding-edge: experimental-bleeding-edge-10.0-335876-20260329-p4dd19a-wa77d91-d1676dc-ve80809

a quick update since https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/9595#issuecomment-4132555200 :

I'm able to play the game, although with some caveats.

1. Keeping the resolution lower than native helps with weird artifacts on the trees.
2. Keeping the resolution lower does allow me to play at all, see the data fabric issues below. I'm running at 256x1440 while display is 4k.
3. I'm having "hardware" level troubles in certain configurations, game crashes host restarts:

x86/amd: Previous system reset reason [0x08000800]: an uncorrected error caused a data fabric sync flood event
mce: [Hardware Error]: CPU 4: Machine Check: 0 Bank 5: bea0000001000108

tried to tweak ram timings and many things, this is certainly the most demanding game I've tried so far. Lowered RAM frequency, changed timings, limited my GPU on power, there's a few other things I could try, but I'm getting suspicious this is not entirely my hardware issue.

PROTON_ENABLE_WAYLAND=1 seems to be helping with that significantly, although I don't think fully resolves it for me.

I've played 10h, half the time spend launching the game and crashing.

Now I'm looking for a ways to get this data fabric sync flood event ironed out.
I still could switch on the RT - causes game crash.

• Operating System: NixOS 25.11
• Kernel Version: 6.19.7 (64-bit)
• Graphics Platform: Wayland
• CPU: Ryzen 7 5800X3D
• Memory: 31 GiB of RAM
• GPU: Radeon RX 7900 XTX (rev c8)
• GPU Driver: amdgpu
• Mesa: 26.0.0-devel
• Vulkan: 1.4.335
• Proton: GE-Proton10-34

@andycandy-dev

• Kernel Version: 6.19.7 (64-bit)
• Mesa: 26.0.0-devel

Update Mesa to at least 26.0.3 and update kernel to 6.19.9 if you can as well. That combination works for most AMD systems where RT crashes the entire GPU and makes the compositor hang.

There seems to be something off going on with CD and Nvidia cards.

My systems specs are:

• GPU: Nvidia 3090
• Driver: 595.58.03 (beta)
• Mesa: 26.0.3-1
• CPU: i9 12900k
• RAM: 64GB DDR4
• OS: arch 6.19.10-1
• Proton: experimental

Settings:

• Game on high
• RT ON (no impact on performance)
• Ray deconstruction OFF
• Native 1440p rendering (no upscaling, no fsr)

Proton settings:
PROTON_USE_NTSYNC=1 PROTON_ENABLE_WAYLAND=1 %command%
also tried other flags:
MANGOHUD=1 PROTON_ENABLE_NVAPI=1 DXVK_ASYNC=1 PROTON_DLSS_UPGRADE=1 PROTON_NVIDIA_NVOPTIX=1 PROTON_USE_NTSYNC=1 PROTON_ENABLE_WAYLAND=1 %command%

Results:

• max 40-50 fps (I also tried stable driver and latest proton but had a bit worse perf.)
• CPU utilization at 15%
• GPU utilization at 95%
• Game loads quickly
• Very occasional artifacts

Comparable system should get over 100 fps on Windows (I don't have option to try it atm).

Vanilla (rolling) Arch and bumped to 595 because why not suffer! :)

Latest (as of this writing) proton-cachyos-slr from AUR works just fine with HEAP and even get ~10FPS boost with NTSYNC.

• proton-cachyos-slr (AUR): 1774750102 cachyos-10.0-20260324-slr

No major graphical anomalies to report, everything I [reported]

5080, 595, latest proton-cachyos-slr, can confirm, no more flickering. It took a reeealy long time to get pass the initial cinematic tho.
Same fps across all upscalers (odd?): ~55, ultra without ray tracing.

I haven't seen anyone mention the issue that I have with the foliage when running at 4k: https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/9595#issuecomment-4131052369

Could someone with an rdna3 card confirm if this is not a general problem with these cards, please? It should be easy to test, just get close to some patches of grass and switch between 3k and 4k resolution. It is most noticeable with FSR in quality mode — as shown in my old comment above — with the foliage looking extremely pixelated at 4k when compared to lower resolutions.

Not seeing anyone mention it makes me think that it is caused by something in my setup, but I have tried to clean the cache, validate files, test a lot of setting combinations, use different proton builds and launch arguments and nothing seems to help.

GPU: AMD Radeon 7900XTX
Mesa: 26.0.3
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5800X3D
RAM: 32GB DDR4
OS: Bazzite 43
Proton: Proton-CachyOS/Proton GE/Proton Hotfix

Foliage rendering is busted compared to Mac/PS5/Windows. Massive ghosting regardless of upscaler/upscaling on and off.

@dex815 This is I believe your issue at 4K with foliage. I can't reproduce it on PS5 but it occurs for me on my 7900XTX PC.

PC:

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/3be8d074-adf2-476b-bb46-b5bba4b8ac6c

PS5:

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/99f31fb6-e60c-478a-9bd1-fed320f09fe7

Thanks @ziobroaatwit , that looks exactly like my issue indeed.

Reply to @lrodziewicz

Proton: experimental

Proton settings: PROTON_USE_NTSYNC=1 PROTON_ENABLE_WAYLAND=1 %command%
also tried other flags: MANGOHUD=1 PROTON_ENABLE_NVAPI=1 DXVK_ASYNC=1 PROTON_DLSS_UPGRADE=1 PROTON_NVIDIA_NVOPTIX=1 PROTON_USE_NTSYNC=1 PROTON_ENABLE_WAYLAND=1 %command%

None of those PROTON_ flags exist in Valve's Proton, they're added by GE-Proton. Please do some research before adding flags you've seen around in ProtonDB and Reddit.

None of those PROTON_ flags exist in Valve's Proton, they're added by GE-Proton. Please do some research before adding flags you've seen around in ProtonDB and Reddit.

I wasn't aware of that, thanks. It's not so obvious that they do not overlap.
I just tested with GE-Proton-Latest and made no difference. The issue still stands.

None of those PROTON_ flags exist in Valve's Proton, they're added by GE-Proton. Please do some research before adding flags you've seen around in ProtonDB and Reddit.

I wasn't aware of that, thanks. It's not so obvious that they do not overlap. I just tested with GE-Proton-Latest and made no difference. The issue still stands.

No worries, not sure why the person is so grumpy instead of being helpful to people trying to learn.
https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/blob/proton_10.0/proton
If you're interested, you can find the flags Valve supports there, it's a big file.

System Information:

GPU: AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT (RDNA4)
OS: Fedora 43
Kernel: 6.19.9
Mesa: 25.3.6 (stable)
DXVK: v2.7.1-509-g1676dcaf (CachyOS-Proton 10.0-20260324)
VKD3D-Proton: 3.0.0 build e808096d5d9532f (CachyOS-Proton 10.0-20260324)
Proton versions tested: GE-Proton10-34, Proton Experimental, Proton Bleeding Edge, CachyOS-Proton (10.0-20260324)

Problem:
From the very first launch, characters and buildings are completely invisible. Ground, trees and static terrain render correctly. The intro cinematic is also distorted. This occurs across every Proton version tested, with and without Ray Tracing, with and without OptiScaler, with iGPU disabled, across Mesa 25.3.6 and 26.1.0-devel.
Possible root cause:
After extensive log analysis, the rendering failure may be related to DXVK's OpenSharedResource1 and CheckVideoProcessorFormat D3D11 video processing APIs. These errors occur thousands of times within just a few minutes of gameplay:

warn: DxvkMemoryAllocator::createImageResource: Failed to get shared handle for memory
warn: D3D11VideoProcessorEnumerator::CheckVideoProcessorFormat: stub, format 842094158
warn: D3D11VideoProcessorEnumerator::CheckVideoProcessorFormat: stub, format 21
warn: D3D11Device::OpenSharedResource1: Failed to query resource

Is it correct that Crimson Desert uses D3D11 for video decode and D3D12 for 3D rendering, possibly sharing resources between both APIs via OpenSharedResource1? If so, this may explain why dynamic objects (characters, buildings) don't render while static geometry (ground, trees) appears to use a different path and renders correctly.
What was ruled out:

Ray Tracing (disabled, no effect)
Mesa version (tested 25.3.6 stable and 26.1.0-devel, same result)
VKD3D-Proton version (CachyOS-Proton correctly exposes WMMA/FSR4 for RDNA4, but rendering is still broken)
iGPU interference (disabled in BIOS, no effect)
OptiScaler (removed entirely, no effect)
Shader cache corruption (wiped multiple times, no effect)
Multiple Proton versions (all exhibit identical DXVK errors)

Notes:
The VKD3D/RDNA4 side appears to be working correctly with CachyOS-Proton. The remaining DXVK errors are consistent across all Proton versions tested. Crimson Desert may be one of the more prominent games to heavily use this API path — hopefully that makes it worth investigating.

Is it correct that Crimson Desert uses D3D11 for video decode and D3D12 for 3D rendering, possibly sharing resources between both APIs via OpenSharedResource1? If so, this may explain why dynamic objects (characters, buildings) don't render while static geometry (ground, trees) appears to use a different path and renders correctly.

That makes no sense to me. If they did use DX11 for video playback, why would that cause some objects in-world to be invisible?

There are also some clear AI indications in your text. I can't tell whether you had AI touch up your own text, or if it's mostly AI generated, but the fact that the grammar and style changes in sections points to the latter. Just report what you see and don't inject AI noise into it.

sorry, just trying to be helpful... This is what I see, or rather don't see in the very starting area

This commit in vkd3d-proton fixes Crimson Desert on RDNA1 hardware.

For anyone wanting to play on any RDNA1-based GPU, Proton Experimental Bleeding-Edge is currently needed as to make use of this recent change.
This can be done like by setting Proton Experimental to "bleeding-edge" in the "Game Versions & Betas" properties tab :

Then setting Crimson Desert to use Proton Experimental :

Works great now using proton-cachy and PROTON_VKD3D_HEAP=1.

What are these marks in Crimson Desert?

Issue transferred from [#9637](https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/9637). @minn1x posted on 2026-04-02T14:07:30:

What are these marks in Crimson Desert? The second one has already

Those are map markers placed by the player, that's a game feature 😆

Still experiencing this. Game freezes and hard crashes approximately every ~2 hours, requiring a full restart — it does not recover on its own.

# journalctl -b | grep Crimson
[25160.069757] NVRM: Xid (PCI:0000:01:00): 109, pid=54738, name=CrimsonDesert.e, channel 0x00000021, errorString CTX SWITCH TIMEOUT, Info 0x10c026
[31073.067465] NVRM: Xid (PCI:0000:01:00): 109, pid=62888, name=CrimsonDesert.e, channel 0x00000027, errorString CTX SWITCH TIMEOUT, Info 0x10c02e

# system info
OS:      EndeavourOS Linux x86_64
Kernel:  6.19.9-arch1-1
DE:      GNOME 49.5 (Mutter / Wayland)
CPU:     AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D
GPU:     NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090
VRAM:    24 GB
RAM:     64 GB
Driver:  595.58.03 (nvidia-open)

# proton version
GE-10-34

# proton launch options
PROTON_USE_NTSYNC=1 PROTON_VKD3D_HEAP=2 mangohud %command%

Replying to https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/9595#issuecomment-4184370342

Proton-GE doesn't have the updates yet from proton-bleeding-edge. Only proton-cachy and bleeding edge, i believe. And it's PROTON_VKD3D_HEAP=1

The descriptor heap work is still in progress and haven't been merged yet and so isn't in regular Proton. The env var doesn't exist there

Found it HansKristian-Work/vkd3d-proton#2912. Given this is a depth sync bug, it might explain the weird jank seen on NVIDIA too.

It looks to me like the latest patch 1.02.00 reintroduced some form of this issue. It does not happen everywhere, but I was able to see it at the walls of Scholarstone Institute.

Setting RADV_DEBUG=nohiz does get rid of it again, but I've noticed some artifacts on the pillars even with the RADV_DEBUG option being set.

Without RADV_DEBUG=nohiz

With RADV_DEBUG=nohiz

I'll take back my earlier report that I was not seeing the depth sync bugs again. Still running GE-Proton10-34 with vkd3d-proton built from https://github.com/HansKristian-Work/vkd3d-proton/commit/e808096d5d9532f31f8b35b44fed263ae6c0502d but now on game version 1.02.00.

Tagging @HansKristian-Work, hope it's okay.

I'll try latest vkd3d-proton commit now. Edit: did not change anything.

OS: Arch Linux x86_64
Kernel: Linux 6.19.10-arch1-1
BIOS (UEFI): 2.A50 (5.41)
Board: MAG B850 TOMAHAWK MAX WIFI (MS-7E62) (2.0)
Init System: systemd 260.1-1-arch
Omarchy: 3.5.0
Omarchy Branch: master
Omarchy Channel: edge
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D (16) @ 5.27 GHz - 53.6°C
GPU 1: AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT (64) @ 2.52 GHz - 46.0°C (1020.67 MiB / 15.83 GiB, 6%) [Discrete]
GPU 2: AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D 8-Core Processor (2) @ 2.20 GHz - 45.0°C (143.64 MiB / 488.15 MiB, 29%) [Integrated]
Memory: 5.53 GiB / 30.40 GiB (18%)
Physical Memory: Failed to get SMBIOS data
Disk (/): 670.94 GiB / 1.82 TiB (36%) - btrfs
Physical Disk (Samsung SSD 9100 PRO 2TB): 1.82 TiB [SSD, Fixed] - 41.9°C
Display (MAG274QRF-QD): 2560x1440 in 27", 165 Hz [External]
Monitor (MAG274QRF-QD): 2560x1440 px @ 164.835 Hz - 600x340 mm (27.15 inches, 108.18 ppi)
WM: Hyprland 0.54.3 (Wayland)
Vulkan: 1.4.335 - radv [Mesa 26.0.3-arch1.1]
OpenGL: 4.6 (Compatibility Profile) Mesa 26.0.3-arch1.1
OpenCL: clGetPlatformIDs() failed: CL_PLATFORM_NOT_FOUND_KHR
Mesa: mesa 1:26.0.3-1
vulkan-radeon: vulkan-radeon 1:26.0.3-1
libdrm: libdrm 2.4.131-1
linux-firmware: linux-firmware 20260309-1

Video of the problem:

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/9d4cb552-6058-4f84-a88d-72e74698dc20

Replying to https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/9595#issuecomment-4188672585

I'm also seeing this, also with a 9070xt. I don't know if your video shows the extent of your issues but mine spread across the whole screen sometimes.

Replying to [#9595 (comment)](https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/9595#issuecomment-4188672585)

I'm also seeing this, also with a 9070xt. I don't know if your video shows the extent of your issues but mine spread across the whole screen sometimes.

You're right, here's an example where I see it in the top left. As far as i can tell it's constrained to those two areas though: bottom right and top left, weirdly. I hope that gives a useful hint. In general there's something "off" about the look on these rocks right now, but some of it might just be the extreme sharpening effect that seems to happen in sunny weather.

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/2593d371-67b3-47fb-a167-a1f1413bca48

Replying to [#9595 (comment)](https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/9595#issuecomment-4184370342)

Proton-GE doesn't have the updates yet from proton-bleeding-edge. Only proton-cachy and bleeding edge, i believe. And it's PROTON_VKD3D_HEAP=1

i removed any launch options besides mangohud %command% game runs fine, looks good, but i can almost put a clock to it every 2hours'ish the game random freezes, GPU usage drops to 0% - no errors in journal none in dmesg. im stuck here ... 100% crashes after some gameplay time.

• downgrading now to 590...something for nvidia-open and looking if that helps, some users suggested that's fixing stuff.

Edit: i switched to proton-cachyos-10.0-20260330-slr-x86_64

Replying to https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/9595#issuecomment-4202616091

I had it working, then yesterday it decided not to work anymore. There was no proton update in between though. there was a game update though.

POM/Tessellation flicker regression is fixed again in vkd3d-proton https://github.com/HansKristian-Work/vkd3d-proton/commit/efc3d06cba240a56d62a59bfa17cfb2884a58fd7
Probably also fixes the black edges some people had before the original depth sync workaround. I never had that issue so I can't be sure though.

Build latest commit or wait for a new release of whatever proton fork you use to bundle it.

Rplying to https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/9595#issuecomment-4202616091

still no fix for that.

tested:

• ❌ PROTON_VKD3D_HEAP=1 (Proton-CachyOS 10.0-20260330)
• ❌ PROTON_VKD3D_HEAP=2 (GE-Proton 10-34)
• ❌ VKD3D_CONFIG=single_queue
• ❌ VKD3D_CONFIG=no_upload_hvv
• ❌ DXVK_ASYNC=1
• ❌ Driver downgrade 595.58.03 → 590.48.01
• ❌ Proton-CachyOS 10.0-20260330
• ❌ GE-Proton 10-34
• ❌ Shader cache cleanup
• ❌ Large shader cache (10GB limit + skip cleanup)
• ❌nvidia-smi -pm 1 nvidia-smi --power-limit=450Persistence mode + power limit 450W

system info

System: RTX 4090 | Ryzen 9 7950X3D | 64GB | EndeavourOS
Kernel: 6.19.11-arch1-1
DE: GNOME 49.5 / Wayland
Driver tested: 595.58.03, 590.48.01 (nvidia-open)
Crash: Xid 109 CTX SWITCH TIMEOUT ~2h, every session, random gameplay moment

With the latest update of the game (v1.03.00) you can now set the new "Displacement Scale"-Option to off to get rid of the black lines around/in walls. The model quality can then be increased without causing issues.

With the new patch (1.03.00) setting RADV_DEBUG=nohiz crashes the game on startup for me. Did anyone else run into this issue?

Crimson desert: new update introduced graphical glitch in bottom right corner of screen…

Ever since the latest update in Crimson Desert (1.03.00), while playing the game in Bazzite I started noticing something in the bottom right of my screen, sort of like this weird texture flickering or something. I honestly don’t remember this happening prior to the latest patch, but I’m wondering if I’m the only one that’s experienced this or am I alone here? If I set all of the settings down to low, it goes away, but the second I put everything back to any higher settings it comes right back. I also jumped into windows to see if it would happen there too, but it doesn’t, it seems to be something with Bazzite.

System is:

• Ryzen 7 9700x
• Radeon 9070 XT
• 32gb ram
• 850w PSU

Using GE Proton 34, Steam is the launcher and I have the following launch command in Steam:

VK3D_CONFIG=FS4 PROTON_FSR4_UPGRADE=1 %command%

@MaxBosse @mensinda Have you tried latest vkd3d-proton commit? The depth issues that were fixed earlier and then reintroduced with an update have been fixed again.

@spektreVII I had that issue too, it's a depth sync bug that has been worked around in vkd3d-proton. You can build the latest commit or wait for your proton package to bundle it. If you go back in this thread you will see I posted video of it, and you can confirm we are talking about the same thing. Edit: I just looked up Bazzite, it seems it's an immutable distro, so it might not be as simple for you to modify your GE Proton installation, depending on how it's managed.

And a few side notes:

• VK3D_CONFIG is not a valid variable. You probably meant VKD3D_CONFIG
• FS4 is not a valid value for the VKD3D_CONFIG variable. FSR4 isn't either.
• You can ommit PROTON_FSR4_UPGRADE if you have up to date Mesa and firmware, because the game already bundles SDK 2.2 (FSR 4.1) libraries.

@emilnymann Yes, that fixed it for me! Thanks!

Replying to https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/9595#issuecomment-4230696814

Oh I see. Yeah I added those based on others recommendations and the funny thing is, it fixed issues with ray tracing not working lol. I’ll look into this a little later on when I get a chance! Thanks for the info!

This commit in vkd3d-proton fixes Crimson Desert on RDNA1 hardware.

For anyone wanting to play on any RDNA1-based GPU, Proton Experimental Bleeding-Edge is currently needed as to make use of this recent change. This can be done like by setting Proton Experimental to "bleeding-edge" in the "Game Versions & Betas" properties tab :

Then setting Crimson Desert to use Proton Experimental :

Does not work anymore on game version 1.03.00 on RDNA1 hardware, game crashes on startup, could be the introduction of XeSS frame gen, or something else related to shadows, I'll try and provide logs later on.

Driver Version

Driver Version: 595.58.03

Now i get a Warning to update my Driver 😄

@NohanMV @Sazzels Hi there. Please attach a Proton log from a time the issue happened. Launching the game with PROTON_LOG=1 %command% in it's Steam launch options should make it appear in your users home folder.

Same issues here with video card outdated. Although I have a 5070. I tried to capture the log when testing various proton builds like GE or experimental, and with various launch properties, however the log file shot up to 40gigs one time at splash screen, then changing properties it would add gigs per minute I let it sit.

@NohanMV @Sazzels Hi there. Please attach a Proton log from a time the issue happened. Launching the game with PROTON_LOG=1 %command% in it's Steam launch options should make it appear in your users home folder.

Crimson Desert version : 1.03.01
Proton Version : Proton Experimental [bleeding-edge-debug-symbols]
Mesa Version : Mesa 26.1.0-devel (git-bbed00ac81)
Kernel : 7.0.0-rc7-2-cachyos-rc
Distro : Arch Linux
GPU : AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT (issue reported as well in the AMD BC-250 Community)

Rolling back the game to version 1.02.00 allows to play again with the latest bleeding-edge build of Proton, so I do not believe this is Proton related.

Game launched with the following environment variables :
PROTON_LOG=1

ACO_DEBUG=force-waitcnt
RADV_DEBUG=syncshaders,hang,umr
VK_INSTANCE_LAYERS=VK_LAYER_KHRONOS_validation

DXVK_DEBUG=validation
DXVK_LOG_LEVEL=debug
DXVK_LOG_PATH="/home/Nohan/Crimson Desert (1.03.00) - Proton Experimental (B-E) - RDNA1 Logs"

VKD3D_CONFIG=vk_debug,breadcrumbs,descriptor_qa_checks
VKD3D_DEBUG=trace
VKD3D_SHADER_DEBUG=trace
VKD3D_SHADER_DUMP_PATH="/home/Nohan/Crimson Desert (1.03.00) - Proton Experimental (B-E) - RDNA1 Logs"
VKD3D_LOG_FILE="/home/Nohan/Crimson Desert (1.03.00) - Proton Experimental (B-E) - RDNA1 Logs/vkd3d-proton.log"

%command%

Following zip archive contains :

• Proton, DXVK (dxgi), VKD3D and the Pearl Abyss Launcher logs at Logs/.
• DXIL, Spirv and RS files for shader debugging at IR/ .
• RADV shader dump and vkd3d-proton write cache at Dump/.

Beware, decompresses to about 200MB despite the small archive size due to high text compression, mind your disk space before downloading.
Crimson Desert (1.03.01) - Proton Experimental (B-E) - RDNA1.zip

VKD3D-Proton's log file is quite large as it contains just about every kind of debug message that can be printed, if you need me to send another one with less debug info just ask.

Replying to https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/9595#issuecomment-4238559270

Fixed.
Thank you @HansKristian-Work .

https://github.com/HansKristian-Work/vkd3d-proton/commit/8850039b792a1836cdd2e30ba70e035202e2db89

Working on my RX 5600 XT in Crimson Desert 1.03.01 as well as in the BC250 community, using the latest Proton Experimental Bleeding Edge build implementing the linked commit above.

Crimson Desert crashing at startup on v1.04.00. Proton Log attached.

steam-3321460.log

I start to see a pattern here... New Patch, New Problem :)

Hard crash with v1.04.00 on all my Proton Configs

• GE-Proton10-34 with vkd3d-proton and the custom VKD3D_HEAP patch applied
• proton-cachyos-10.0-20260330-slr-x86_64_v4
• proton-cachyos-10.0-20260420-slr-x86_64

And these env variables:

PROTON_DXVK_LOWLATENCY=1 PROTON_USE_WAYLAND=1 PROTON_USE_NTSYNC=1 PROTON_VKD3D_HEAP=1 %command%

steam-3321460.log

It may have nothing to do with VK3D:

Apr 23 06:23:22 stefan-deskop steam[736246]: wineserver: NTSync up and running!
Apr 23 06:23:46 stefan-deskop kernel: umip: CrimsonDesert.e[746859] ip:15295a80c sp:101eef8: SGDT instruction cannot be used by applications.
Apr 23 06:23:46 stefan-deskop kernel: umip: CrimsonDesert.e[746859] ip:15295a80c sp:101eef8: For now, expensive software emulation returns the result.
Apr 23 06:24:13 stefan-deskop steam[736246]: chdir "/home/stefan/.steam/debian-installation/steamapps/common/Crimson Desert/bin64"
Apr 23 06:24:17 stefan-deskop kernel: umip: CrimsonDesert.e[747539] ip:14ec629d1 sp:10165a0: SGDT instruction cannot be used by applications.
Apr 23 06:24:17 stefan-deskop kernel: umip: CrimsonDesert.e[747539] ip:14ec629d1 sp:10165a0: For now, expensive software emulation returns the result.
Apr 23 06:24:17 stefan-deskop kernel: umip: CrimsonDesert.e[747539] ip:14e108ceb sp:101f278: SGDT instruction cannot be used by applications.
Apr 23 06:25:23 stefan-deskop steam[736246]: chdir "/home/stefan/.steam/debian-installation/steamapps/common/Crimson Desert/bin64"
Apr 23 06:25:24 stefan-deskop steam[736246]: ProtonFixes[748128] INFO: Using early stage global defaults for "Crimson Desert" (3321460)
Apr 23 06:25:24 stefan-deskop steam[736246]: ProtonFixes[748128] INFO: No early stage global protonfix found for "Crimson Desert" (3321460)
Apr 23 06:25:24 stefan-deskop steam[736246]: ProtonFixes[748128] INFO: Using main stage global defaults for "Crimson Desert" (3321460)
Apr 23 06:25:24 stefan-deskop steam[736246]: ProtonFixes[748128] INFO: No main stage global protonfix found for "Crimson Desert" (3321460)
Apr 23 06:25:49 stefan-deskop kernel: umip: CrimsonDesert.e[748220] ip:15295a80c sp:101eef8: SGDT instruction cannot be used by applications.
Apr 23 06:25:49 stefan-deskop kernel: umip: CrimsonDesert.e[748220] ip:15295a80c sp:101eef8: For now, expensive software emulation returns the result.

DRM, Anti-Cheat, Denuvo, GameGuard...?

Update: https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/9702

Crashing on game patch 1.04 as well.

Proton log (GE-Proton10-34, vkd3d-proton built from source a few days ago. I'm trying with latest commit after this.)

steam-3321460.log

Edit: Proton log after building https://github.com/HansKristian-Work/vkd3d-proton/commit/14f13bc7fcdb8b25689198258f4465e8b782b336

steam-3321460.log

Update: [#9702](https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/9702)

AI generated assumptions. Misleading report.

Crashing on latest update 1.04.00, I hope they patch this quick! I been playing daily and I don't want this to be the day I don't play the game :( I want to keep the trend up and explore the world more :)
steam-3321460.log
Tried Proton-GE and now the latest Proton-CachyOS. Both crash.
Seeing this repeat:
trace:seh:RtlUnwindEx trace:unwind:RtlVirtualUnwind2 trace:unwind:dump_unwind_info

Also seeing this:
trace:mscoree:_CorDllMain trace:mscoree:DllMain

For all the addicts out there like me, this guy explained how to downgrade your game as a temporary solution. It worked for me: https://steamcommunity.com/app/3321460/discussions/0/805723331253882269/

mesa version= Mesa 26.0.5-2 on CachyOS tried Proton-GE, Proton-CachyOS, Experimental, and Hotfix. All Crashed to Desktop

steam-3321460-3.txt Proton Log

steam-3321460.log
Game crashes on launch after latest update. All troubleshooting options are exhausted. Tried different proton versions. All crash on launch. Log attached. GPU is 9070xt

We're aware of the crash bugs in 1.0.4. It's quite hard to debug and it's unclear if it's a Proton bug or game bug right now.

I'm parsing proton logs all evening and trying to pin point the point of crash. So far nothing.

I'll post anything here if I find something.

Lots of AI generated summary slop here today...

I did a syscall trace and there are lots of futex errors:

➜  ~ strace -p 813049 -c
strace: Process 813049 attached
% time     seconds  usecs/call     calls    errors syscall
------ ----------- ----------- --------- --------- ----------------
 78.77   14.820947          33    442323    208438 futex
  9.99    1.878929          50     37573       463 ioctl
  4.69    0.881947          15     57411           readv
  2.83    0.532110           4    108721           rt_sigprocmask
  0.85    0.159340           7     21517           write
  0.54    0.102232          17      5958           mmap
  0.38    0.072353           3     19851           writev
  0.38    0.071969          21      3357           pread64
  0.29    0.054961           9      5750        29 openat
  0.27    0.051681           5      9227           close
  0.27    0.051284           4     11012           kill
  0.17    0.032285           5      5435      1783 recvmsg
....

Excerpt:

futex(0x7606dfc5715c, FUTEX_WAIT_PRIVATE, 0, {tv_sec=5, tv_nsec=0}) = -1 EAGAIN (Resource temporarily unavailable)
futex(0x7606dfc5715c, FUTEX_WAIT_PRIVATE, 0, {tv_sec=4, tv_nsec=999999900}) = -1 EAGAIN (Resource temporarily unavailable)
futex(0x7606dfc57334, FUTEX_WAKE_PRIVATE, 1) = 1
futex(0x7606dfc57324, FUTEX_WAKE_PRIVATE, 1) = 1
futex(0x7606dfc57318, FUTEX_WAKE_PRIVATE, 1) = 1
futex(0x7606dfc57338, FUTEX_WAKE_PRIVATE, 1) = 1
futex(0x7606dfc5715c, FUTEX_WAIT_PRIVATE, 0, {tv_sec=5, tv_nsec=0}) = -1 EAGAIN (Resource temporarily unavailable)
futex(0x7606dfc5732c, FUTEX_WAKE_PRIVATE, 1) = 1
futex(0x7606dfc5715c, FUTEX_WAIT_PRIVATE, 0, {tv_sec=5, tv_nsec=0}) = -1 EAGAIN (Resource temporarily unavailable)
futex(0x7606dfc5715c, FUTEX_WAIT_PRIVATE, 0, {tv_sec=4, tv_nsec=999999900}) = -1 EAGAIN (Resource temporarily unavailable)
futex(0x7606dfc5731c, FUTEX_WAKE_PRIVATE, 1) = 0
futex(0x7606dfc57324, FUTEX_WAKE_PRIVATE, 1) = 1
futex(0x7606dfc5715c, FUTEX_WAIT_PRIVATE, 0, {tv_sec=4, tv_nsec=999999900}) = -1 EAGAIN (Resource temporarily unavailable)
futex(0x7606dfc57334, FUTEX_WAKE_PRIVATE, 1) = 1
futex(0x7606dfc57328, FUTEX_WAKE_PRIVATE, 1) = 1
futex(0x7606dfc5715c, FUTEX_WAIT_PRIVATE, 0, {tv_sec=4, tv_nsec=999999900}) = -1 EAGAIN (Resource temporarily unavailable)
futex(0x7606dfc5715c, FUTEX_WAIT_PRIVATE, 0, {tv_sec=4, tv_nsec=999999900}) = -1 EAGAIN (Resource temporarily unavailable)
futex(0x7606dfc5715c, FUTEX_WAIT_PRIVATE, 0, {tv_sec=5, tv_nsec=0}) = -1 EAGAIN (Resource temporarily unavailable)
futex(0x7606dfc5732c, FUTEX_WAKE_PRIVATE, 1) = 1
futex(0x7606dfc5715c, FUTEX_WAIT_PRIVATE, 0, {tv_sec=4, tv_nsec=999999900}) = -1 EAGAIN (Resource temporarily unavailable)
futex(0x7606dfc5715c, FUTEX_WAIT_PRIVATE, 0, {tv_sec=4, tv_nsec=999999900}) = -1 EAGAIN (Resource temporarily unavailable)
futex(0x7606dfc57338, FUTEX_WAKE_PRIVATE, 1) = 0
futex(0x7606dfc5715c, FUTEX_WAIT_PRIVATE, 0, {tv_sec=5, tv_nsec=0}) = -1 EAGAIN (Resource temporarily unavailable)
futex(0x7606dfc5715c, FUTEX_WAIT_PRIVATE, 0, {tv_sec=5, tv_nsec=0}) = -1 EAGAIN (Resource temporarily unavailable)
futex(0x7606dfc57314, FUTEX_WAKE_PRIVATE, 1) = 1
futex(0x7606dfc57340, FUTEX_WAKE_PRIVATE, 1) = 1
futex(0x7606dfc5715c, FUTEX_WAIT_PRIVATE, 0, {tv_sec=5, tv_nsec=0}) = -1 EAGAIN (Resource temporarily unavailable)
futex(0x7606dfc57338, FUTEX_WAKE_PRIVATE, 1) = 0
futex(0x7606dfc57320, FUTEX_WAKE_PRIVATE, 1) = 1
futex(0x7606dfc57318, FUTEX_WAKE_PRIVATE, 1) = 1
futex(0x7606dfc57318, FUTEX_WAKE_PRIVATE, 1) = 1
futex(0x7606dfc5731c, FUTEX_WAKE_PRIVATE, 1) = 1
futex(0x7606dfc57318, FUTEX_WAKE_PRIVATE, 1) = 1
futex(0x7606dfc5715c, FUTEX_WAIT_PRIVATE, 0, {tv_sec=5, tv_nsec=0}) = -1 EAGAIN (Resource temporarily unavailable)
futex(0x7606dfc5732c, FUTEX_WAKE_PRIVATE, 1) = 1
futex(0x7606dfc57320, FUTEX_WAKE_PRIVATE, 1) = 1
futex(0x7606dfc57320, FUTEX_WAKE_PRIVATE, 1) = 1
futex(0x7606dfc57340, FUTEX_WAKE_PRIVATE, 1) = 1
futex(0x7606dfc57320, FUTEX_WAKE_PRIVATE, 1) = 1

Could that be the cause.

strace -p 813049 -c

how did you do that? The game crashes right away that the process id is dead before i can run it

Sallvainian
Where is the proton log, dude?

steam-3321460.log

Just here doing my part. Attempted some potential fixes (switching proton versions, game file verification, uninstall/reinstall, etc), no dice. Have some logging.

steam-3321460.log New Logs hope it helps @HansKristian-Work

@derekagraham78 With nVidia, the driver version is not properly identified:

So plenty of time to attach strace :). But it would also be possible to use gdb to start and pause the process I guess.

Also, if you kill crashpad_handle, the game won't terminate and we may be able to get more infos.

This is the log after I waited a few seconds while the game stalls:

steam-3321460.log

steam-3321460.log

This one seems to come up in all logs exactly once:

23405.671:015c:024c:fixme:vkd3d-proton:d3d12_command_list_process_enhanced_barrier_texture: Transitioning away from UNDEFINED, but there is no DISCARD flag. Uncertain what is expected here. vkd3d-proton will force a discard.

crashes on boot, 5700x3d/9070XT. Broken since 1.04.

steam-3321460.log

After updating to version 1.04, the game won't launch anymore. It was working fine before the patch.

steam-3321460.log

R9 5900x, rx9070xt

Crashes on boot since version 1.04, tried 5 different version of proton (hotfix, Experimental, cachyos, GE)
Start up variables as follows:

PROTON_ENABLE_HDR=1 PROTON_ENABLE_WAYLAND=1 PROTON_FSR4_UPGRADE=1 PROTON_USE_NTSYNC=1 %command%

Note that on my system FSR4 is not available in game, only FRS3.1 (at least up to version 1.03 -- except when running Proton GE 34 but caused severe crashes.)

On dmesg I also note the following (I do not know if this was also present with version 1.03 and earlier)

[ 4096.134157] umip_printk: 35 callbacks suppressed
[ 4096.134159] umip: CrimsonDesert.e[55356] ip:14eb62af0 sp:10163c0: SGDT instruction cannot be used by applications.
[ 4096.134162] umip: CrimsonDesert.e[55356] ip:14eb62af0 sp:10163c0: For now, expensive software emulation returns the result.
[ 4096.136852] umip: CrimsonDesert.e[55356] ip:14f37121a sp:101f0d8: SGDT instruction cannot be used by applications.
[ 4096.136855] umip: CrimsonDesert.e[55356] ip:14f37121a sp:101f0d8: For now, expensive software emulation returns the result.
[ 4096.144126] umip: CrimsonDesert.e[55356] ip:150d1a40a sp:10163c0: SGDT instruction cannot be used by applications.
[ 4222.083612] umip_printk: 15 callbacks suppressed
[ 4222.083615] umip: CrimsonDesert.e[56468] ip:14eb62af0 sp:10163c0: SGDT instruction cannot be used by applications.
[ 4222.083618] umip: CrimsonDesert.e[56468] ip:14eb62af0 sp:10163c0: For now, expensive software emulation returns the result.
[ 4222.086468] umip: CrimsonDesert.e[56468] ip:14f37121a sp:101f0d8: SGDT instruction cannot be used by applications.
[ 4222.086471] umip: CrimsonDesert.e[56468] ip:14f37121a sp:101f0d8: For now, expensive software emulation returns the result.
[ 4222.095252] umip: CrimsonDesert.e[56468] ip:150d1a40a sp:10163c0: SGDT instruction cannot be used by applications.

Attached proton log, it looks same as others have already reported
steam-3321460.log

EDIT -- I am on Archlinux fully updated, kernel 6.19.13-arch1-1

same as above. prior to version 1.04, game was running. now CTD after splash screen.

my system:

5800x3D
4070 Super
32GB RAM

OS: CachyOS
Kernel: 7.0.0-1-cachyos
NVIDIA 595.58.03

my Steam settings:

mangohud PROTON_VKD3D_HEAP=1 VKD3D_CONFIG=no_upload_hvv DXVK_ASYNC=1 %command%

Attached the log from proton

steam-3321460.log

hope it can help!

@HansKristian-Work Not sure if I'm helping or not because I'm no DX12 expert.

But I added some debug messages around https://github.com/HansKristian-Work/vkd3d-proton/blob/14f13bc7fcdb8b25689198258f4465e8b782b336/libs/vkd3d/command.c#L20886

    /* This works like a "deactivating" discard.
     * The behavior around UNDEFINED layout in D3D12 is ... not well explained in the docs.
     * The basic idea for aliasing seems to be that you should transition to UNDEFINED + NO_ACCESS to "deactivate",
     * and the activating resource will transition from UNDEFINED.
     * Using NO_ACCESS seems to imply that the resource can be invalidated (i.e. any data in caches can vanish),
     * so any subsequent transition from UNDEFINED should be able to discard, regardless of the DISCARD flag.
     * For deactivation, we will perform no layout transition. In sync2, this is done by setting newLayout == oldLayout. */
    if (vk_transition.newLayout == VK_IMAGE_LAYOUT_UNDEFINED)
        vk_transition.oldLayout = VK_IMAGE_LAYOUT_UNDEFINED;
    
    WARN("Barrier debug: LayoutBefore=%u LayoutAfter=%u Flags=0x%x SyncBefore=0x%"PRIx64" SyncAfter=0x%"PRIx64" AccessBefore=0x%"PRIx64" AccessAfter=0x%"PRIx64"\n",
        barrier->LayoutBefore,
        barrier->LayoutAfter,
        barrier->Flags,
        (uint64_t)barrier->SyncBefore,
        (uint64_t)barrier->SyncAfter,
        (uint64_t)barrier->AccessBefore,
        (uint64_t)barrier->AccessAfter);

    if (barrier->LayoutBefore == D3D12_BARRIER_LAYOUT_UNDEFINED && !(barrier->Flags & D3D12_TEXTURE_BARRIER_FLAG_DISCARD))
        FIXME("Transitioning away from UNDEFINED, but there is no DISCARD flag. Uncertain what is expected here. vkd3d-proton will force a discard.\n");

    d3d12_command_list_barrier_batch_add_layout_transition(list, batch, &vk_transition);

The last one before the crash was always:

211715.917:015c:0294:warn:vkd3d-proton:d3d12_command_list_process_enhanced_barrier_texture: Barrier debug: LayoutBefore=4294967295 LayoutAfter=7 Flags=0x0 SyncBefore=0x0 SyncAfter=0x200 AccessBefore=0x80000000 AccessAfter=0x800
211715.917:015c:0294:fixme:vkd3d-proton:d3d12_command_list_process_enhanced_barrier_texture: Transitioning away from UNDEFINED, but there is no DISCARD flag. Uncertain what is expected here. vkd3d-proton will force a discard.

Meaning:

According to LLM, this is a "minor application bug". What about manually setting the flag?

The game stores logs in drive_c/users/steamuser/AppData/Local/Pearl Abyss/log/ and every time it crashes with the exact same error:

(2026-04-23 19:08:29) (0x688 ) [ERROR] [Success](0) [RenderPassFilename: RenderPass/RenderPass.xml
RenderPassName: CopySceneColorMS
PipelineName: CopySceneShadowMS
Failed to load cache blob c14259a4_1129b0fe_0_9d09d163_3_deba1dcd_c3a4d692]]

Same blob ID every time too. I thought it might be corrupted and toggled the shader preloading to try and flush stuff but no dice.

This error didn't appear in any of the logs before the update either.

I see noticed different errors with proton Experimental bleeding edge vs Hotfix. It seems that Hotfix getis a bit further along before choking.

Proton Experimental:

(2026-04-23 14:06:07) (0x328 ) [I] [Success](0) [Display: [Display1 0]. HDR Support: [False] HDR10+ Gaming Support: [False]]]
(2026-04-23 14:06:09) (0x708 ) [I] [Success](0) [[데이터] (0/13):  로드가 완료되었습니다.]]
(2026-04-23 14:06:09) (0x708 ) [I] [Success](0) [[데이터] (1/13):  로드가 완료되었습니다.]]
(2026-04-23 14:06:09) (0x692 ) [ERROR] [Success](0) [RenderPassFilename: RenderPass/RenderPass.xml
RenderPassName: CopySceneColorMS
PipelineName: CopySceneShadowMS
Failed to load cache blob c14259a4_1129b0fe_0_9d09d163_3_deba1dcd_c3a4d692]]

Proton Hotfix:

(2026-04-23 15:59:00) (0x348 ) [I] [Success](0) [Display: [Display1 0]. HDR Support: [False] HDR10+ Gaming Support: [False]]]
(2026-04-23 15:59:02) (0x688 ) [I] [Success](0) [[데이터] (0/13):  로드가 완료되었습니다.]]
(2026-04-23 15:59:02) (0x688 ) [I] [Success](0) [[데이터] (1/13):  로드가 완료되었습니다.]]
(2026-04-23 15:59:03) (0x688 ) [I] [Success](0) [[데이터] (2/13):  로드가 완료되었습니다.]]
(2026-04-23 15:59:04) (0x672 ) [ERROR] [Success](0) [RenderPassFilename: RenderPass/RenderPassGBufferCharacter.xml
RenderPassName: GBufferCharacterRenderPassBindless
PipelineName: SkinnedMeshStandard_mt8
MaterialName: SkinnedMeshCable
Failed to load cache blob ec07ffaf_f2d601c7_0_dad59307_2_46ff0c3a_499455d5]]

@dmooney65 Can you specify where you found the log? I only found logs such as the following in /home/stefan/.steam/debian-installation/steamapps/compatdata/3321460/pfx/dosdevices/c:/users/steamuser/AppData/Local/Pearl Abyss/log:

Launcher_2026_04_24_00_47_32_352.log

The D3D12_BARRIER issue may not be directly responsible, since the crash happens between the "usual" ones and the one without DISCARD flag set.:

217948.114:0160:02c0:warn:vkd3d-proton:d3d12_command_list_process_enhanced_barrier_texture: NumPlanes == 0 promotes to 1 plane.
217948.114:0160:02c0:warn:vkd3d-proton:d3d12_command_list_process_enhanced_barrier_texture: NumPlanes == 0 promotes to 1 plane.
217948.114:0160:02c0:warn:vkd3d-proton:d3d12_command_list_process_enhanced_barrier_texture: NumPlanes == 0 promotes to 1 plane.
217948.152:0160:02c0:warn:seh:dispatch_exception backtrace: --- Exception 0xc0000005.
217948.152:0160:02c0:trace:seh:dispatch_exception code=c0000005 (EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION) flags=0 addr=00000001431EE9A4
217948.152:0160:02c0:trace:seh:dispatch_exception  info[0]=0000000000000000
217948.152:0160:02c0:trace:seh:dispatch_exception  info[1]=0000000000000030

So it may be a side effect of the crash and not the cause. The stack trace in the binary is:

217948.152:0160:02c0:warn:seh:virtual_unwind backtrace: 00000001431EE9A4: L"CrimsonDesert.exe" + 00000000031EE9A4.
217948.152:0160:02c0:warn:seh:virtual_unwind backtrace: 000000014317F10A: L"CrimsonDesert.exe" + 000000000317F10A.
217948.152:0160:02c0:warn:seh:virtual_unwind backtrace: 000000014317CECD: L"CrimsonDesert.exe" + 000000000317CECD.
217948.152:0160:02c0:warn:seh:virtual_unwind backtrace: 000000014317BFD4: L"CrimsonDesert.exe" + 000000000317BFD4.
217948.152:0160:02c0:warn:seh:virtual_unwind backtrace: 000000014344A8C1: L"CrimsonDesert.exe" + 000000000344A8C1.
217948.152:0160:02c0:warn:seh:virtual_unwind backtrace: 00000001404B1807: L"CrimsonDesert.exe" + 00000000004B1807.
217948.152:0160:02c0:warn:seh:virtual_unwind backtrace: 00000001429B93CD: L"CrimsonDesert.exe" + 00000000029B93CD.
217948.152:0160:02c0:warn:seh:virtual_unwind backtrace: 00000001429B8F36: L"CrimsonDesert.exe" + 00000000029B8F36.
217948.152:0160:02c0:warn:seh:virtual_unwind backtrace: 000000014109FD02: L"CrimsonDesert.exe" + 000000000109FD02.

I'll take look at the call tree in ghidra of these offsets in the CD binary. Maybe It this will point us to the root of the issue.

@bernhste In the same place as you i.e. the Perl Abyss log folder.

My HW is RDNA1 for reference. Every error log i've seen from this game involves some sort of shader processing error.

Proton Experimental:
Launcher_2026_04_23_14_06_06_324.log

Proton Hotfix:
Launcher_2026_04_23_15_58_59_344.log

Successful log for comparison wit game patch 1.03:

Launcher_2026_04_23_19_13_17_336.log

Replying to https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/9595#issuecomment-4307614133

Same issue with my 5070 TI rig here.

I tried to capture a Proton log, but it skyrocketed well past 60GB in size before reaching the crash point and sadly I don't have the RAM to even open such a file.

Same as above, crashes after splash screen. Nvidia 3070ti dGPU (laptop)

steam-3321460.log

Launcher_2026_04_24_04_41_11_320.log

Same issues as other have reported after the update.

On AMD based hardware the initial logo shows and disappears after 2 seconds meaning the game doesn't even start.

See error pulled from log,
RenderPassName: CopySceneColorMS
PipelineName: CopySceneShadowMS
Failed to load cache blob c14259a4_1129b0fe_0_9d09d163_3_deba1dcd_c3a4d692]]

Using 7900xtx, Pearl Abyss need to check how the cache is handled on AMD based hardware. I haven't tested on Nvidia .

Here's my log, using the latest proton cachyos version that used to work pre-1.04.01. Everyone's getting different error types, but mine appears related to the shader pipeline aspect of the systemwide borkage on Linux. I changed the extension from log to text file because I reported this to Pearl Abyss too. How ridiculous.

steam-3321460.txt

Just tried Proton Experimental (bleeding edge) and Proton Hotfix - game runs great on both :)

Confirmed. Just tried now. Proton hotfix earlier today and it would not run. Now with proton hotfix, it is running fine!

Note that the workaround that is live on Bleeding Edge and Hotfix is only enough to get the game running on Nvidia. AMD needs more work

Note that the workaround that is live on Bleeding Edge and Hotfix is only enough to get the game running on Nvidia. AMD needs more work

If you don't mind, can you share some details on the core issue that's been identified?

Note that the workaround that is live on Bleeding Edge and Hotfix is only enough to get the game running on Nvidia. AMD needs more work

I'm playing on an AMD 6900xt right now. The only issue is that world shadows often flicker on and off when I move the camera or character - otherwise perfect.

Lucky @MADek2501 :)

On my system, the game starts with Hotfix, but now the game freezes after loading a game In game with millions of proton log entries like:

531.093:0158:025c:warn:vkd3d-proton:d3d12_command_list_process_enhanced_barrier_texture: NumPlanes == 0 promotes to 1 plane.
531.093:0158:025c:warn:vkd3d-proton:d3d12_command_list_process_enhanced_barrier_texture: NumPlanes == 0 promotes to 1 plane.
531.093:0158:025c:warn:vkd3d-proton:d3d12_command_list_process_enhanced_barrier_texture: NumPlanes == 0 promotes to 1 plane.
531.093:0158:025c:warn:vkd3d-proton:d3d12_command_list_process_enhanced_barrier_texture: NumPlanes == 0 promotes to 1 plane.
531.093:0158:025c:warn:vkd3d-proton:d3d12_command_list_process_enhanced_barrier_texture: NumPlanes == 0 promotes to 1 plane.
531.093:0158:025c:warn:vkd3d-proton:d3d12_command_list_process_enhanced_barrier_texture: NumPlanes == 0 promotes to 1 plane.
531.093:0158:025c:warn:vkd3d-proton:d3d12_command_list_process_enhanced_barrier_texture: NumPlanes == 0 promotes to 1 plane.
531.093:0158:025c:warn:vkd3d-proton:d3d12_command_list_process_enhanced_barrier_texture: NumPlanes == 0 promotes to 1 plane.
531.093:0158:025c:warn:vkd3d-proton:d3d12_command_list_process_enhanced_barrier_texture: NumPlanes == 0 promotes to 1 plane.
531.093:0158:025c:warn:vkd3d-proton:d3d12_command_list_process_enhanced_barrier_texture: NumPlanes == 0 promotes to 1 plane.
531.093:0158:025c:warn:vkd3d-proton:d3d12_command_list_process_enhanced_barrier_texture: NumPlanes == 0 promotes to 1 plane.
531.093:0158:025c:warn:vkd3d-proton:d3d12_command_list_process_enhanced_barrier_texture: NumPlanes == 0 promotes to 1 plane.
531.093:0158:025c:warn:vkd3d-proton:d3d12_command_list_process_enhanced_barrier_texture: NumPlanes == 0 promotes to 1 plane.
531.093:0158:025c:warn:vkd3d-proton:d3d12_command_list_process_enhanced_barrier_texture: NumPlanes == 0 promotes to 1 plane.
531.093:0158:025c:warn:vkd3d-proton:d3d12_command_list_process_enhanced_barrier_texture: NumPlanes == 0 promotes to 1 plane.
531.094:0158:0350:err:vkd3d-proton:d3d12_command_queue_execute: Failed to submit queue(s), vr -4.
531.094:0158:0350:warn:vkd3d-proton:d3d12_device_mark_as_removed: Device 000000000df20080 is lost (reason 0x887a0005, "VK_ERROR_DEVICE_LOST").
531.094:0158:034c:err:vkd3d-proton:vkd3d_wait_for_gpu_timeline_semaphore: Failed to wait for Vulkan timeline semaphore, vr -4.
531.094:0158:034c:warn:vkd3d-proton:d3d12_device_mark_as_removed: Device 000000000df20080 is lost (reason 0x887a0005, "VK_ERROR_DEVICE_LOST").
531.096:0158:02f8:warn:vkd3d-proton:d3d12_command_list_consider_new_sequence: Avoiding split due to long running scoped query.
531.097:0158:02e8:warn:vkd3d-proton:d3d12_command_list_consider_new_sequence: Avoiding split due to long running scoped query.
531.097:0158:02f8:warn:vkd3d-proton:d3d12_command_list_consider_new_sequence: Avoiding split due to long running scoped query.
531.097:0158:02f8:warn:vkd3d-proton:d3d12_command_list_consider_new_sequence: Avoiding split due to long running scoped query.
531.097:0158:02f8:warn:vkd3d-proton:d3d12_command_list_consider_new_sequence: Avoiding split due to long running scoped query.

My command line:

PROTON_USE_WAYLAND=1 PROTON_USE_NTSYNC=1 PROTON_VKD3D_HEAP=1 %command%

My system:

CPU Brand: AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D 16-Core Processor
Ubuntu 25.10 (64 bit)
Kernel Version: 6.17.0-22-generic
Driver: NVIDIA Corporation NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080/PCIe/SSE2
Driver Version: 4.6.0 NVIDIA 595.58.03

Maybe it is a caching issue and I just need to be patience. I'll tinker with the env variables and caches ab bit now.

But it fixed the driver version warning:

Driver information
	Vendor: Nvidia
	Device: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080
	DriverVersion: 999.99
]]

(From the Launcher_2026_04_24_07_40_11_344.log )

Thanks for that 👍🏻

And yes, adding to my comment above. Game performs worse. Fps is still high, but frame time feels very off. VRR, Freesync, VSync and frame limit doesn't help much. Fair to say, game is kind of biased towards NVidia GPU and prefers them heavily. Game has artifacts on AMD even on Windows from what I saw. Not going to launch windows to check though.

It is working again.

I compiled the latest proton bleeding-edge and replace vkd3d-proton with the one from the branch descriptor-heap-test.

Building proton:

git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton.git proton
cd proton
git checkout bleeding-edge
make install

Then vkd3d-proton:

git clone https://github.com/HansKristian-Work/vkd3d-proton 
cd vkd3d-proton 
git switch descriptor-heap-test 
./package-release.sh master target --no-package 

(you could also switch the branch in the proton folder)

Now copy the vkd3d-proton binaries from ./target/vkd3d-proton-master/<x64|x86>/*.dll to your local proton build which is located at:

$HOME/.steam/debian-installation/compatibilitytools.d/bleeding-edge-local/files/lib/wine/vkd3d-proton/<i386-windows|x86_64-windows>/*.dll

Now 1.04.01 is working again on my system:

CPU Brand: AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D 16-Core Processor
Ubuntu 25.10 (64 bit)
Kernel Version: 6.17.0-22-generic
Driver: NVIDIA Corporation NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080/PCIe/SSE2
Driver Version: 4.6.0 NVIDIA 595.58.03

So there seems to be an regression issue with vkd3d-proton since the descriptor-heap-test branch.

on latest CachyOS and Proton Hotfix, seems to run on my 9070XT.
Logs filled with the following:

warn:vkd3d-proton:d3d12_command_list_process_enhanced_barrier_texture: NumPlanes == 0 promotes to 1 plane.

warn:vkd3d-proton:d3d12_command_list_consider_new_sequence: Avoiding split due to long running scoped query.

fixme:vkd3d-proton:d3d12_device_get_scratch_buffer: Requesting scratch buffer kind 1 larger than limit (1313792 > 1048576). Expect bad performance.

No crash within a minute or so.

Full log file is over 700MB, can provide if needed.

It is working again.

I compiled the latest proton bleeding-edge and replace vkd3d-proton with the one from the branch descriptor-heap-test.

On NVIDIA it seems that Crimson Desert needs a number of specific variables on the launch options, right? Can you tell the entire line of launch options you are using on Steam?

If time allows I might create a build of proton to be used by people who have nvidia at this moment, following your recipe.

@Patola Sure, I forgot. They are important:

PROTON_USE_WAYLAND=1 PROTON_USE_NTSYNC=1 PROTON_VKD3D_HEAP=1 %command%

I think the only one really necessary is PROTON_VKD3D_HEAP=1. But these work for me.

Replying to https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/9595#issuecomment-4311342758

Yeah, my log is same. How does it perform in your case?

I tried proton hotfix, the game launches but freezes immediately after 1 second when trying to load my save

OS: Arch Linux
KERNEL: 6.19.13-arch1-1
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D 8-Core
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090
GPU DRIVER: NVIDIA 595.58.03
RAM: 62 GB

PROTON_VKD3D_HEAP=1 PROTON_ENABLE_WAYLAND=1 PROTON_ENABLE_HDR=1 %command%

@Luquatic I had the same issue on a similar system.

I think it has to do with Nvidia 50xx series and a regression bug in VK3D.

Try https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/9595#issuecomment-4311305512

@Luquatic I had the same issue on a similar system.

I think it has to do with Nvidia 50xx series and a regression bug in VK3D.

Try [#9595 (comment)](https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/9595#issuecomment-4311305512)

tried it but didn't fix the issue

followed all steps then I copied the .dll files from the vkd3d-proton-master/x64 folder into /compatibilitytools.d/bleeding-edge-local/files/lib/wine/vkd3d-proton/x86_64-windows then launched the game. I receive a black screen for a few seconds and then it closes

i switched on proton-hotfix branch (in steam compatibility settings) and it works.

i switched on proton-hotfix branch (in steam compatibility settings) and it works.

what are your specs? this seems to work for some but not for all

can confirm proton-hotfix is working for me again

OS: Arch Linux x86_64
Kernel: 7.0.1-1-cachyos
DE: Plasma 6.6.4 (Wayland)
CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 7950X
GPU: AMD RX 7900 XTX

@Luquatic Hmm.

First, also copy the x86 dlls, not just the x64. There should be two folders.

And also: The game still does not start every time. Sometimes it stalls, and then I have to quit it and restart it again. I'd say it works 60%.

I know, it is still very janky...

My specs are:

CPU Brand: AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D 16-Core Processor
Ubuntu 25.10 (64 bit)
Kernel Version: 6.17.0-22-generic
Driver: NVIDIA Corporation NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080/PCIe/SSE2
Driver Version: 4.6.0 NVIDIA 595.58.03

I did delete the shader caches yesterday:

$ rm -rf ~/.nv
$ rm -rf ~/.nv/GLCache

And I did clear the download cache and stopped downloading shaders from remote (settings at the bottom):

Perhaps that was also necessary.

can confirm proton-hotfix is working for me again

OS: Arch Linux x86_64
Kernel: 6.19.12-arch1-1
DE: KDE Plasma 6.6.4 (Wayland)
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D
GPU: Nvidia RTX 3060

Replying to https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/9595#issuecomment-4312250408

Yes there are two folders but only one folder to place them into and the files have the same name so they just get overwritten? Unless I'm missing something

i switched on proton-hotfix branch (in steam compatibility settings) and it works.

what are your specs? this seems to work for some but not for all

CachyOs (up to date) AMD GPU/CPU

@Luquatic

These should be the compiled files in vkd3d-proton:

➜  vkd3d-proton-master git:(descriptor-heap-test) ✗ pwd
/home/stefan/code/vkd3d-proton/target/vkd3d-proton-master

➜  vkd3d-proton-master git:(descriptor-heap-test) ✗ tree ./x*
./x64
├── d3d12core.dll
├── d3d12core.dll.a
├── d3d12.dll
└── d3d12.dll.a
./x86
├── d3d12core.dll
├── d3d12core.dll.a
├── d3d12.dll
└── d3d12.dll.a

2 directories, 8 files

Now copy all 4 *.dll to

➜  vkd3d-proton pwd 
/home/stefan/.steam/debian-installation/compatibilitytools.d/bleeding-edge-local/files/lib/wine/vkd3d-proton

➜  vkd3d-proton tree
.
├── i386-windows
│   ├── backup
│   │   ├── d3d12core.dll
│   │   └── d3d12.dll
│   ├── d3d12core.dll
│   └── d3d12.dll
├── version
└── x86_64-windows
    ├── backup
    │   ├── d3d12core.dll
    │   └── d3d12.dll
    ├── d3d12core.dll
    └── d3d12.dll

5 directories, 9 files
➜  vkd3d-proton 

The ones from bleeding-edge-local were write protected, so delete them, or move them into a backup folder as I did.

I think the only one really necessary is PROTON_VKD3D_HEAP=1. But these work for me.

PROTON_VKD3D_HEAP=1 is from Proton-CachyOS. The correct one is VKD3D_CONFIG=descriptor_heap

@bernhste @jk53bg @MNarath1

Before you grasp at straws by using a million environment variables, and tell everyone else to do the same, it would be a good idea to research what they do, and where they are relevant. Let me summarise for you:

PROTON_ENABLE_WAYLAND and PROTON_ENABLE_HDR are not relevant when you're using the upstream Valve Proton branches, i.e. hotfix and experimental. That also means you naturally cannot use HDR, unless you use Gamescope which offers experimental support. You need Gamescope or a translation layer with support for Wine's native Wayland driver. DXVK variables are also not relevant since this is a DX12 game, and thus you are using VKD3D(-Proton).

PROTON_USE_NTSYNC is not even relevant with GE or CachyOS, as those enable it by default if your kernel supports it. GE has a flag to disable it, though.

When you go from the GE or CachyOS forks of Proton, to Valve's Proton, don't assume everything in your configuration still applies. In this case work is being done upstream, and will later be merged into those forks, so you can't have both for now, unless you can merge it yourself, in which case this would not be directed at you.

Please don't see this as a jab at you in any way, there's just a lot of noise (misinformation) shaped like that out there, and it spreads like wildfire.

@emilnymann Agreed. It was a copy/paste issue from pervious problem-solving :)

Just wanted to share what finally worked for me after a night of trying various configurations.

DXVK variables are also not relevant since this is a DX12 game, and thus you are using VKD3D(-Proton).

Nope, DXVK-NVAPI works with DX12 on VKD3D and VKD3D-Proton and uses DXVK_ variables. https://github.com/misyltoad/dxvk-nvapi

So DXVK variables might be relevant.

DXVK variables are also not relevant since this is a DX12 game, and thus you are using VKD3D(-Proton).

Nope, DXVK-NVAPI works with DX12 on VKD3D and VKD3D-Proton and uses DXVK_ variables. https://github.com/misyltoad/dxvk-nvapi

So DXVK variables might be relevant.

DXVK_NVAPIhas its own environment variable prefix, DXVK_NVAPI_.

As a side note, you linked the wrong repository, this is the generally used and maintained one: https://github.com/jp7677/dxvk-nvapi

But anyway, I'm not going to respond more about this, I did not intend to go off-topic.

This game update sure threw us for a loop. I think we've resolved the issues now between vkd3d-proton and Proton.

NVIDIA crash root cause was that game now requires VIEW_INSTANCING feature which is the first D3D12 game to do so ... Fortunately vkd3d-proton already had partial VIEW_INSTANCING support which a proton hotfix build enabled earlier. This allowed game to work on NVIDIA again.

RADV was harder. Another issue was that the game started to use some AMD specific code paths when AGS was detected. Bleeding edge has a workaround to disable AGS when RADV is detected, but I think this lead to the "missing HDR" reports, assuming game uses AGS to deal with HDR support.
We implemented the required shader intrinsics in vkd3d-proton and are working on exposing them in Proton. The shader intrinsic added was DrawIndex, and based on how I understand it this is likely a performance uplift on AMD GPUs. I didn't compare side to side though.

The game also uses a very awkward combination of DGC and multiview which is technically out of spec in Vulkan and added yet another layer of complexity. If you're seeing weird glitched shadows on RADV you probably need this MR: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/mesa/mesa/-/merge_requests/41153.

We're working on cooking together a refreshed Hotfix build that should land soon.

Replying to https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/9595#issuecomment-4311305512

Can confirm this works on 5-series cards, thank you!

So using proton hotfix works but no longer can use FSR4, is there any way to enable it with a launch command?

Replying to https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/9595#issuecomment-4130073376, https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/9595#issuecomment-4131052369, https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/9595#issuecomment-4157382056, https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/9595#issuecomment-4157148605

@dex815, @ziobroaatwit

I report that this issue is still present:

1. Shimmering geometry (blurry and sparkly) when running the game at native 4K resolution.

Observation:

1. Any lowering of a resolution fixes this issue.
2. Identical GPU model as the referenced posts.
3. Tested on Windows 11 24H2 - no issue in 4K native.
4. Tested on separate Linux setup with RX 9700 XT - no issue in 4K native.
5. I can't test any other RDNA3 GPU if it's model-series related or 7900 XTX specific related.

System Specs:

Operating System: CachyOS
Kernel Version: Linux 7.0.0-1-cachyos
Graphics Platform: Wayland
Mesa: Mesa 26.0.5-arch2.2
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D (16) @ 5.27 GHz
Memory: 32 GiB of RAM
GPU: AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX Sapphire Pulse
Display:  AOC U32G4U: 3840x2160 @ 1.5x in 32", 160 Hz [External] 
KDE Plasma: 6.6.4
KDE Plasma Display Settings: Legacy applications (X11) - Apply scalling themselves
Proton: Experimental [bleeding-edge] April 24th 2026

The provided video shows the far field three geometry to be shimmering with sparkles when using 4K native. Any kind of lowering of a resolution resolves this issue. Upscalling while using 4K resolution still presents this issue.

4K native (3840x2160) - shimmering:

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/2c0e13e8-b7c5-45d4-a343-75c14e504edf

4K reduced slightly (3840x1600) - no shimmering:

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/0acb21d0-f6b7-438b-92b2-efefc050da98

2K resolution (2560x1440) - no shimmering:

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/71df9119-13db-4731-ba17-e2cd4ca7215c

from the commit VKD3D_CONFIG=enable_experimental_features fixes the game on Proton 10 for me as well.
Thank you!

But I cannot play Crimson Desert on the current Proton 11 / Experimental / Hotfix / Bleeding edge... (everything that is based on Proton 11). For me this is not a real issue as I'm able tol stay at Proton 10-34 as the game works perfectly fine with it (using the above mentioned environment variable).

Visually the issue looks like the game does not render any assets/models.
I'm pretty sure this is not just the hidden insane difficulty mode :)
https://youtu.be/4PdWMbfaiW4
first is hotfix second is 10-34 as of now (skip to 1:24 or end of video to see in-game respectively)

Proton 10:
Screenshot

Proton 11:
Screenshot

Please let me know if you need any logs, files, images etc.

System Information

GPU: AMD Radeon RX 7900 GRE (radeonsi, navi31, ACO, DRM 3.64, 6.19.11+deb14-amd64)
CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 5900X 12-Core Processor
Video driver version: amdgpu/Mesa 26.0.4
Kernel version: 6.19.11+deb14-amd64
Proton version: Hotfix/Experimental/Beta 11
Desktop: Gnome 49/wayland
Distro: debian/trixie (testing)

We're working on cooking together a refreshed Hotfix build that should land soon.

Our refreshed Hotfix build is up.

Noting this just in case, Proton Hotfix is a temporary measure to get a game working. Any fixes in Hotfix will be in an Experimental release shortly after a Hotfix is released. Proton Hotfix does not get regularly updated. If you want a build that gets regularly updated, you will need to use the Proton Experimental build for regular releases and Bleeding-Edge Beta branch of Proton Experimental for even quicker unvetted updates. Bleeding-Edge reports are preferred as that gives us the most recent build with any potential commits that can slightly change behavior.

Once Proton Experimental gets the fixes that shipped in this Hotfix, any reports should be done using Proton Experimental or Proton Experimental with Bleeding-Edge Beta branch.

Replying to https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/9595#issuecomment-4315168655

Really, really appreciate all the efforts on this!

I can report that the Hotfix update allowed me to "launch" the game again. I can make it to the title screen.

However, we appear to be back to square-one where we were a few weeks ago. The game freezes at the loading screen with the blue "star"/"nova".

Running 5090 with 595 drivers under CachysOS. Happy to provide any logs/etc. that would be helpful.

@CMCarlsen

Like that?

Or a few frames more, and then in freezes? NVIDIA and CD still have issues like that. Had the same thing yesterday and the following fix worked:

https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/9595#issuecomment-4311305512
https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/9595#issuecomment-4312393716

Until we have a real fix, could be the workaround for the NVIDIA 5-series cards.

Replying to https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/9595#issuecomment-4315343832

Yeah, this is the screen @bernhste

I had previously followed this same suggestion last month from you on this comment: https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/9595#issuecomment-4148842729 for Proton GE 34. Thanks again for that! Got a lovely few weeks of play time after that. 😂

However, this time around after building the new .dll files and moving them to the bleeding edge build, I was still getting this "nova screen" issue.

To confirm, I moved the x86 files to i386, and the x64 to x86_64. Is that correct? Any launch params? I tried both with and without the ones I had previously been using under the Proton GE 34 fix from a month ago with no luck.

(Appreciate the edit @kisak-valve, will make sure to truncate the replies to keep posts concise. 🙏 )

@CMCarlsen

Yes, and I compiled bleeding-edge from upstream, no GE-Proton.

But I just saw, that the default setting VKD3D_CONFIG=enable_experimental_features was removed from bleeding-edge again: https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/commit/bd319b234fe9c35e2aac02042a844d1814fc6222

So if you compiled the latest one now, maybe add VKD3D_CONFIG=enable_experimental_features again manually. This game is such a mess... :)

Also, the nice people from vkd3d-proton are aware of the issues. So keep an eye on their master branch as well. I'm just telling you that bleeding-edge and vkd3d-proton with descriptor-heap-test fixed the problem for me this morning.

And I will keep this configuration for now :)

@bernhste

Sure thing, super appreciate it. I probably goofed something somewhere. Will rebuild from scratch one more time and add that config.

Can you confirm if I moved the DLLs to the correct folders? I'm assuming that the i386 folder isn't actually even being used in 2026 with 64-bit being the norm, but just want to make sure I'm copying the right DLLs to the right locations. The bleeding-edge build has x86/x64 folders, but Proton Hotfix has i386/x86_64. To the best of my understanding it should be:

• x86 -> i386
• x64 -> x86_64

Thanks in advance!

But I just saw, that the default setting VKD3D_CONFIG=enable_experimental_features was removed from bleeding-edge again: https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/commit/bd319b234fe9c35e2aac02042a844d1814fc6222

It was moved to be done inside vkd3d-proton itself instead.
See https://github.com/HansKristian-Work/vkd3d-proton/commit/a8677602bb4c07288bd6258b93fe75c3cfda91a3

• x86 -> i386

• x64 -> x86_64

Exactly. See also https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/9595#issuecomment-4312393716

But I'll give the new vkd3d-proton master another try. Maybe this workaround is not necessary anymore now.

I just tried the latest vkd3d-proton form upstream with https://github.com/HansKristian-Work/vkd3d-proton/commit/a8677602bb4c07288bd6258b93fe75c3cfda91a3, but on my NVIDIA 5080 I still get the loading screen freeze,

So back to the https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/9595#issuecomment-4311305512 workaround I guess. Hope that helps all NVIDIA 5-series owners.

Just to add in to the discussion, I added the hotfix env variable VKD3D_CONFIG=enable_experimental_features to my proton-cachyos env list and the game loads and works on an AMD 9070XT.

proton version is proton-cachyos-10.0-20260420-slr

Currently launching as this: VKD3D_CONFIG=enable_experimental_features PROTON_LOG=1 PROTON_ENABLE_WAYLAND=1 PROTON_ENABLE_HDR=1 PROTON_FSR4_UPGRADE=1 %command%

Proton log ends up being 10gb though so something still not working right, I guess we'll have to wait for cachy devs to include latest vkd3d.

All the fixes and updates mentioned here laterly concern official Proton only: Proton Experimental bleeding edge, currently Proton Hotfix updated for the game (but note that it may stay not updated for another few months now, the latest one is Proton Experimental bleeding-edge one). On Proton PROTON_ENABLE_WAYLAND, PROTON_ENABLE_HDR PROTON_FSR4_UPGRADE and some other mentioned here do not exist and never existed. No options are currently known to be needed on the current Experimental bleeding-edge or hotfix.

Downstream community builds are not supported here, before reporting the issue it is best to try with official Proton and attach logs from that. If downstream version was previously used it is best to delete proton prefix (back it up first if needed) before switching, leftovers from downstream build hacks may affect things.

Replying to https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/9595#issuecomment-4311305512

I finally summed up the "courage" to try your workaround, and after some trial-and-error I managed to install a local bleeding-edge proton and got the 4 .dll files copied over. Sadly, it still stalls/crashes at the blue rings - just a tad bit later though than it did on hotfix and bleeding-edge experimental.

I'm using the env variables as you suggested:

PROTON_USE_WAYLAND=1 PROTON_USE_NTSYNC=1 PROTON_VKD3D_HEAP=1 VKD3D_CONFIG=enable_experimental_features %command%

System info:

CPU Brand: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-14600KF
Fedora Linux 43 (KDE Plasma Desktop Edition) (64 bit)
Kernel Version: 6.19.13-200.fc43.x86_64
Driver: NVIDIA Corporation NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060/PCIe/SSE2
Driver Version: 4.6.0 NVIDIA 595.58.03

I also tried removing the prefix and clearing the shadercache - first with the local bleeding-edge workaround, which didn't work, after which I again removed the prefix and cleared the shadercache to try with the experimental bleeding-edge, which also didn't work.

@mafupe89 Sorry to hear that.

Double-Check the path $HOME/.steam/debian-installation/compatibilitytools.d/bleeding-edge-local/files/lib/wine/vkd3d-proton/<i386-windows|x86_64-windows>/*.dll because there is another folder which looks similar (/home/stefan/.steam/debian-installation/compatibilitytools.d/bleeding-edge-local/files/lib/vkd3d). But that is the wrong one.

You need to replace the vkd3d-proton dlls.

For the shader caches, I cleaned them like described here: https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/9595#issuecomment-4312250408

Hope it works for you.

Using current cachy proton, and above launch settings...

PROTON_USE_WAYLAND=1 PROTON_USE_NTSYNC=1 PROTON_VKD3D_HEAP=1 VKD3D_CONFIG=enable_experimental_features %command%

I get a successful launch (Title screen and video tutorials now also render correctly. Previously would render in 'stripes')
Loading save game works fine.

... After a bit of testing, the only required launch setting is

VKD3D_CONFIG=enable_experimental_features %command%

to successfully load ingame

(Attempting to use proton hotfix causes seemingly nothing to happen. Using PROTON-LOG=1 also does not produce a log for hotfix... This may be (probably is) an issue with my setup somewhere, though.)

proton-cachyos-10.0-20260420-slr-x86_64_v3

CPU   -- AMD Ryzen 9 5900X
RAM   -- 32GB DDR4
GPU   -- AMD Radeon RX 6750 XT

Distro  -- CachyOS
Desktop -- KDE (Wayland)
         Plasma 6.6.4
         Frameworks 6.25.0
Kernel  -- 6.12.69-2-cachyos-lts-lto

@bernhste I double-checked the paths - I had used the correct ones. I did a clean replace of the .dll files and cleaned the shader cache like described in the post you linked to. It made no difference, unfortunately.

I then saw the post from @Link-Jon about using the env variables with current cachyos proton and in desperation tried to combine my last "known to work" env variables with the "enable_experimental_features" flag and it worked like a charm(!!)
I am now able to boot, load into and play version 1.04.02 on latest Proton-CachyOS.

This is the environment variables I've ended up with:

PROTON_DLSS_UPGRADE=1 PROTON_ENABLE_WAYLAND=1 PROTON_VKD3D_HEAP=1 VKD3D_CONFIG=enable_experimental_features,descriptor_heap %command%

Thanks for all your effort.

Edit: Ignore the below, problem is fixed when upgrading to Mesa 26.0.5

Beware that on 9070 XT, the runtime's video player now presents tiling artifacts like so. Normal game rendering works fine now, however.

@mafupe89

...
This is the environment variables I've ended up with:

PROTON_DLSS_UPGRADE=1 PROTON_ENABLE_WAYLAND=1 PROTON_VKD3D_HEAP=1 VKD3D_CONFIG=enable_experimental_features,descriptor_heap %command%

Well hot dang, thanks for sharing! I'm not sure if it's one of or all of these, but I can confirm that this is also working for me with the Params in your post.

Info is:
GPU: Nvidia 5090 on 595.xx drivers
Distro: CachyOS Linux
Proton ver.: proton-cachyos-10.0-20260420-slr

Apologies, I realize this topic is for the official Proton distributions, so I'll limit further conversation. Just wanted to let other 50xx series Nvidia folks know that this does indeed seem to work for now!

I can confirm the game works as expected (from a user perspective) on AMD and official Proton bleeding edge with the RADV patch mentioned by Hans-Kristian here. Without this patch, shadows and UI elements are flickering. I'll write some instructions below on how to do this on Arch Linux, or derivatives, that might help someone who hasn't done it before. Just be aware that obviously this is an unmerged patch on an unreleased version of Mesa, so if you do it, expect the unexpected.

OS: Arch Linux x86_64
Kernel: Linux 6.19.13-arch1-1
BIOS (UEFI): 2.A50 (5.41)
Board: MAG B850 TOMAHAWK MAX WIFI (MS-7E62) (2.0)
Init System: systemd 260.1-2-arch
Omarchy: 3.6.0
Omarchy Branch: master
Omarchy Channel: edge
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D (16) @ 5.27 GHz - 51.6°C
GPU 1: AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT (64) @ 2.52 GHz - 52.0°C (1.38 GiB / 15.80 GiB, 9%) [Discrete]
GPU 2: AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D 8-Core Processor (2) @ 2.20 GHz - 47.0°C (202.88 MiB / 488.15 MiB, 42%) [Integrated]
Memory: 6.39 GiB / 30.40 GiB (21%)
Disk (/): 530.41 GiB / 1.82 TiB (29%) - btrfs
Physical Disk (Samsung SSD 9100 PRO 2TB): 1.82 TiB [SSD, Fixed] - 44.9°C
Physical Disk (dm-0): 1.82 TiB [Virtual, Fixed]
Physical Disk (zram0): 15.20 GiB [Virtual, Fixed]
Display (Panasonic-TV): 3840x2160 in 58", 120 Hz [External]
Display (MAG274QRF-QD): 2560x1440 in 27", 165 Hz [External]
Monitor (Panasonic-TV): 3840x2160 px @ 120 Hz - 1280x720 mm (57.82 inches, 76.20 ppi)
Monitor (MAG274QRF-QD): 2560x1440 px @ 164.835 Hz - 600x340 mm (27.15 inches, 108.18 ppi)
WM: Hyprland 0.54.3 (Wayland)
Vulkan: 1.4.348 - radv [Mesa 26.2.0-devel (git-642bed9eba)]
OpenGL: 4.6 (Compatibility Profile) Mesa 26.2.0-devel (git-642bed9eba)
OpenCL: 3.0
Mesa: mesa-git 26.2.0_devel.221639.642bed9eba7.3f53833-1
vulkan-radeon: mesa-git 26.2.0_devel.221639.642bed9eba7.3f53833-1
libdrm: libdrm 2.4.131-1
linux-firmware: linux-firmware 20260410-1

Some side notes:

• I'm seeing a pretty significant performance uplift with Mesa 26.2 (26.2.0_devel.221639.642bed9eba7.3f53833) over 26.0.5.
• Native Wayland and HDR also works perfectly fine if you build https://github.com/HansKristian-Work/vkd3d-proton/commit/7373c84c1602641f060f6edcdb96239dc3dd18de and use it with GE-Proton10-34.

Edit: the patch is now merged and you just need to install mesa-git and nothing else.

Replying to https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/9595#issuecomment-4315049851

Is there someone who experienced this issue (flickering / shimmering bushes/trees only on 4K) on any other GPU than AMD RX 7900 XTX? Every post I've seen was with this model.

Also, has anyone found a workaround to this? Thank you.

@mrlukyxd I had shimmering on my 7900XTX, not sure if it's the same as yours. 2 potential fixes:

1. Set model quality to low. Sadly this loses the parallax occlusion mapping that makes everything look so detailed
2. RADV_DEBUG=nohiz

@mrlukyxd I saw said flickering on a 9070 XT.

Replying to [#9595 (comment)](https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/9595#issuecomment-4315049851)

Is there someone who experienced this issue (flickering / shimmering bushes/trees only on 4K) on any other GPU than AMD RX 7900 XTX? Every post I've seen was with this model.

Also, has anyone found a workaround to this? Thank you.

I'm experiencing the flickering on a 9070xt with the latest proton-cachyos. Using Proton Hotfix fixes it (no FSR4 and the other features of proton-cachyos though of course).

@jnvsor thank you, but RADV_DEBUG=nohiz did resolve the issue with black spots in geometry, but it has been patched a week ago. It has no influence on shimmering / sparking geometry at 4K only.

What's interesting is that I don't observe it with 9070 XT, I'm going to check again.

Just to be clear, I'm talking about the shimmering only apparent at 4K resolution - https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/9595#issuecomment-4315049851 (anything lower than that fixes it), not the new latest issue with the flickering shadows - https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/9595#issuecomment-4321452823.

EDIT: checked it on 9070 XT - 4K native. I don't see the issue. No difference when lowering a resolution.

I'm using Mesa 26.0.5-arch2.4 and proton-cachyos-10.0-20260424-slr on both systems (7900 XTX and 9700 XT).

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/eeac3b01-0b5a-40c2-aa41-632849594a5e

Replying to [#9595 (comment)](https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/9595#issuecomment-4315049851)

Is there someone who experienced this issue (flickering / shimmering bushes/trees only on 4K) on any other GPU than AMD RX 7900 XTX? Every post I've seen was with this model.

Also, has anyone found a workaround to this? Thank you.

I have the exact same issue, not sure what causes this, but installing the RenoDX mod fixes this for me.

Using the current version of Proton Experimental, the game starts with a strange warning suggesting that GPU drivers are significantly out of date (screenshot attached), followed by a crash.

Using the current version of Proton Experimental, the game starts with a strange warning suggesting that GPU drivers are significantly out of date (screenshot attached), followed by a crash.

With the latest update the game does not work without using Proton Hotfix.

For people using NVidia RTX 40 series, prefer to stay on 580 instead of 595 to avoid freezes/crash.

[!NOTE]
If you are on RTX 50 series, you better of keeping 595 to avoid performance issues.
See @BrandtVanDenBerg comment bellow

For people using NVidia, prefer to stay on 580 instead of 595 to avoid freezes/crash.

I'm going to pump the brakes on that a bit. The RTX 50 series has a number of performance issues in the RE Engine and other titles on drivers pre-595, so falling back works for this title but isn't advisable if you want to use your system for other games.

The ideal method is to use the VKD3D experimental heap branch. You can build this yourself; alternately, Proton-CachyOS packages it and allows you to activate it with a few environment variables.

My current solution is to use the latest Catchy proton with the following launch arguments:

PROTON_ENABLE_WAYLAND=1 PROTON_VKD3D_HEAP=1 VKD3D_CONFIG=enable_experimental_features,descriptor_heap %command%

Notably, forcing Proton to Wayland native also fixes the cursor flicker seen through XWayland, and seems to result in a slight performance improvement.

I am seeing not just shadow flicker but flashing in and out since last patch, and sometimes smaller shadows appearing. No issues running the game. It appears in latest cachy-proton and GE, but not Hotfix (which doesn't run hdr or fsr 4?). It is mainly with moving shadows, not still ones and it is worse in busy places like Hernand city or the camp. It's pretty consistent with Kliff when in flight mode and the raven feather thing shadow flashes in and out. It's easy to see on a sunny day.

There is a video here that shows what it looks like since I don't have capture setup: video

I've RADV_DEBUG=nohiz, setting model quality to minimal and it doesn't have an effect.
I'm wondering if this is the same problem or something else?

Bazzite testing/9070XT

It appears in latest cachy-proton and GE, but not Hotfix

This is the upstream Proton repository. If you are not seeing it with official Proton hotfix, you should report it downstream.

There is a video here that shows what it looks like since I don't have capture setup: video

That looks like the shadow flicker issue that was fixed in Mesa. You can either wait for your distro to catch up, or you can build Mesa from the main branch to get the fix.

Crimson Desert stopped working for me again on latest nvidia drivers 595.71.05

It's stuck at a white screen trying to boot the game up

proton-cachyos Version 10.0-20260424

PROTON_DLSS_UPGRADE=1 PROTON_ENABLE_WAYLAND=1 PROTON_ENABLE_HDR=1 PROTON_VKD3D_HEAP=1 VKD3D_CONFIG=enable_experimental_features,descriptor_heap %command%

EDIT:
downgrading to 595.58.03made the game work again...

I'm unable to launch the game again.
It crash on launch.

Nvidia drivers : 595.58.03
OS : Ubuntu 24.04.4
CPU : AMD Ryzen™ 7 9800X3D × 16
GPU : NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080
RAM : 64GB
Proton : Proton hotfix, Proton Experimental, GE-Proton.

The log is with Proton hotfix

steam-3321460.log

I'm unable to launch the game again. It crash on launch.

Nvidia drivers : 595.58.03 OS : Ubuntu 24.04.4 CPU : AMD Ryzen™ 7 9800X3D × 16 GPU : NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 RAM : 64GB Proton : Proton hotfix, Proton Experimental, GE-Proton.

The log is with Proton hotfix

steam-3321460.log

https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/9595#issuecomment-4328293596

I forget to say it is the same with driver 580.142 (log below), the game crash on launch.

steam-3321460.log

Using experimental and it loads fine. But mangohud is showing that it's using wine-11, with ntsync/xwayland

Distro: Fedora 44
CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 9900X
GPU: Nvidia RTX 5070 TI
Video driver version: Nvidia 595.58.03
Kernel version: 6.19.14-300.fc44.x86_64
Proton version: proton-cachyos-11.0-20260428-slr-x86_64
Desktop: KDE Plasma/Wayland

After the game updated to 1.04 and later to 1.05, it did not work at all with Proton 11.0 (Beta)/Experimental/Hotfix with various command line arguments - the game either went black from the very beginning or kept getting stuck in the first moment of the blue loading screen.

Finally a dmesg check revealed the issue:

~$ sudo dmesg | grep -E 'Xid|NVRM'
[    8.004432] NVRM: loading NVIDIA UNIX Open Kernel Module for x86_64  595.58.03  Release Build  (dvs-builder@U22-I3-AM25-28-3)  Tue Mar 17 19:55:10 UTC 2026
[  339.866741] NVRM: GPU at PCI:0000:01:00: GPU-2f066ea2-fc8f-889a-0557-5080c5e25744
[  339.866746] NVRM: GPU Board Serial Number: 0
[  339.866746] NVRM: Xid (PCI:0000:01:00): 109, pid=12002, name=CrimsonDesert.e, channel 0x00000018, errorString CTX SWITCH TIMEOUT, Info 0x30c02c
[ 3599.123026] NVRM: Xid (PCI:0000:01:00): 109, pid=89953, name=CrimsonDesert.e, channel 0x00000051, errorString CTX SWITCH TIMEOUT, Info 0x59c055

After some search, I found suggestions to try latest CachyOS-Proton proton-cachyos-11.0-20260428-slr-x86_64. (I am not on CachyOS..) and together with these settings the game finally ran fine:

VKD3D_CONFIG=descriptor_heap,enable_experimental_features PROTON_VKD3D_HEAP=1 %command%

Related:
https://github.com/HansKristian-Work/vkd3d-proton/issues/2914
https://github.com/NVIDIA/open-gpu-kernel-modules/issues/1097

I can confirm that this issue https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/9595#issuecomment-4315049851 is still present as of today.

System Specs:

GPU: AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX Sapphire Pulse
Mesa: Mesa 26.1.0-arch2.1
Proton: Proton experimental-bleeding-edge-11.0-35844 Build ID: 23162289 

4K native (3840x2160) - shimmering:

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/1cf488b6-752a-4a25-a275-6002bbc3def0

4K reduced slightly (3840x1600) - no shimmering:

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/1f165b6e-900b-4974-98fe-353c34cf481f

Quick update:

• Operating System: NixOS 25.11 (Xantusia)
• Kernel Version: 7.0.5 (64-bit)
• Graphics Platform: Wayland
• Mesa: 26.1.0
• CPU: 16 × AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D 8-Core Processor
• Memory: 31 GiB of RAM (22.5 GiB available)
• GPU: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Navi 31 [Radeon RX 7900 XT/7900 XTX/7900 GRE/7900M] (rev c8)
• GPU Driver: amdgpu
• Vulkan: 1.4.348
• Proton: GE-Proton10-34

I had to change my launch options:
VKD3D_CONFIG=descriptor_heap,enable_experimental_features just to get the game launched
and
RADV_DEBUG=nohiz to get rid of edge flickering

Full Launch Options

PROTON_ENABLE_WAYLAND=1 PROTON_VKD3D_HEAP=1 VKD3D_CONFIG=descriptor_heap,enable_experimental_features RADV_DEBUG=nohiz DXVK_FRAME_RATE=60 mangohud %command%

I'm reducing resolution to get rid of tree shimmering.

cropped image for reference (upd: its actually sharper in game), all is well.

So after 1.06 and also in 1.07 I was able to boot into game with ray tracing enabled. Runs fine until it hit random freeze/ crash. dmesg throws amdgpu errors (7900 xtx). The fix I found was uninstalling, re-installing. What this enables is longer session. Once the game crashes the crash appears within 10 minutes, especially when teleporting but re-installing make it work for like a day or two. I've noticed that being impatient with game menu; like switching menu tab without letting it load or continuously pressing back button (O) causes the freeze/crash. Once it crash the game is officially broken. I can boot up but it is sure to crash within 10 minutes. Not sure if bleeding edge proton experimental fixes this exact issue. Anyone?

The game has been running fine for me most of the time but now I encountered these artifacts: https://files.catbox.moe/xus8hx.mp4
They are especially bad in this example but occur sometimes when I use the skill "Crows Pursuit".
I experimented with the in-game settings (DLSS on/off, Reflex on/off, Ray-tracing on/off, etc.) but could not get them to stop.

System:
OS: Arch Linux
Kernel: Linux 7.0.9-arch1-1
CPU: 9950X3D
GPU: Nvidia RTX 5080
Drivers: 595.71.05
Proton: cachyos-11.0-20260506-slr
CMD: VKD3D_CONFIG=enable_experimental_features,descriptor_heap PROTON_VKD3D_HEAP=1 %command%

I have the same "flashing triangles" artifacts as @bwachtendorf with the following specs:
OS: Linux (Kubuntu 26.04)
Kernel: Linux 7.0.0-15-generic
CPU: i9-13900k
GPU: Nvidia RTX 4070 Ti
Drivers: 595.58.03
Proton: tried both hotfix-20260518-fh6 and cachyos-10.0-20260424-slr
CMD: PROTON_DLSS_UPGRADE=1 PROTON_ENABLE_HDR=1 PROTON_USE_NTSYNC=1 PROTON_PRIORITY_HIGH=1 PROTON_ENABLE_WAYLAND=1 %command%

No in-game graphics setting affects it. Seems to happen especially in the presence of the game's crows: particularly end of Chapter 5 and early Chapter 8. Current area in chapter 8 is approaching unplayable due to the density of colored triangles on screen

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/9ddfb028-ae97-4b03-9ed1-23e8a03d591b

@Runi-c Thank you for the report. Are you able to share a save game?

@Blisto91 Sure, I think this should be it: slot100.zip

That should load in right where a lot of crows are overhead.

Im at the Abyss at the Entrance of Frostbitten Paradise where you have to deactivate the force field (and probably can lock yourself in progress if you "throw" the "key" away....). When i pass the force field the Game Freezes at a certain point (see image) and i cannot continue. Its reproducuable and is triggered when i try to pass the red line or stay short in front of it and rotate the cam so that i can see the character. Im in Chapter 7 right now and maybe this bug triggeres because of this which has happened before with other quest bug (just assuming, im unsure about this).

Same issue here, exact same spot from your screenshot, also just hit chapter 7. Could just be a game bug, everything is perfectly stable everywhere else.

I'm on CachyOS and also running a 9070XT. No special launch commands, default Steam proton version, no compatibility settings used.

Replying to https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/9595#issuecomment-4413732805

I'm having the same issue. Any news about how to solve it?

Replying to [#9595 (comment)](https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/9595#issuecomment-4413732805)

I'm having the same issue. Any news about how to solve it?

Unfortunately not. I test it from time to time, but the game still exibits this shimmering issue when using 4K resolution on RDNA3 7900 XTX.

I tested it on RDNA4 9070 XT without any such issues running Mesa stable 26.0.5-arch2.4 two months ago and I had it confirmed that running the game on 9070 XT with Mesa git version from that time also had this shimmering issue.

As of today the issue seems to affects owners of 9070 XT as of Mesa stable 26.1.2-arch2.1, as it apparently cought up to the bug introduced in the Mesa git release from 2 months ago.

In the end, it could really be a MESA issue and not proton relevant.

Replying to https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/9595#issuecomment-4640188492

Thanks for confirming. I'm experiencing this issue on 9070 XT. Will try looking into mesa

I actually have almost 60 hours on this game mostly with proton experimental and nvidia rtx 4090 with 610.43.02 drivers, and I have had very few problems.

However, I have ran into the crash others have mentioned at the "abyss gates" most of the time. I've been through 3 or 4 of them, a couple of them crashed the first time but then I ran the game again and it didn't crash, but now I'm at one that no matter what I do I can't seem to get through without rashing.

Log attached

crimson_desert_log.zip

@ExpandingMan if you are having issue entering the abyss gate because of the game crash (i encountered this in Spire of Sun), you can try out this combination which worked for me as well as a few others. Change the proton version to experimental+ graphics settings to minimal+ dlss or any other upscaling off . Same is mentioned in below post

https://www.reddit.com/r/CrimsonDesert/comments/1s7blnx/linux_spire_of_the_stars_head_to_the_abyss_hangs/

Having this same issue where it's crashes on the loading screen.

Tried proton experimental, hotfix, ge, and cachy.

5080 on 595.58.03
Bazzite

Update: Was able to get it running with the descriptor heap command.

For anyone else experiencing the Abyss Gate crash on nvidia 610 drivers: for whatever reason one of the configs that was suggested in protondb seems to consistently get me past the crash:

VKD3D_CONFIG=descriptor_heap,enable_experimental_features PROTON_VKD3D_HEAP=1

though the person that posted that didn't mention anything about this.

Unfortunately, with these settings there is some graphical flickering, mainly of foliage, so I wouldn't recommend keeping these settings on, but it will get you past the abyss gates with no apparent issues.

Hello, I have similar issues with this game.

Problem:

Game launches, but loading a save file usually results in a black screen with music still playing, which requires restarting the game two or three times before the save loads properly.

Proton versions tried:

• Proton Hotfix
• Proton Experimental
• Proton 11.0 Beta
• GE Proton 10-34
• CachyOS 11.0-20260521
• CachyOS 11.0-20260601
• CachyOS 11.0-20260602 (released 15 hrs ago)

Other details:

I was running this game using gamescope (for HDR). I then disabled gamescope and any launch arguments, disabled HDR from ingame settings, as well as raytracing. After disabling those settings, I tried launching the game again but had the save file loading errors still. No mods are loaded or have ever been loaded for this game.

System & OS specs:

Operating System: Bazzite 44
KDE Plasma Version: 6.6.5
KDE Frameworks Version: 6.26.0
Qt Version: 6.11.1
Kernel Version: 7.0.9-ogc3.2.fc44.x86_64 (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: Wayland
Processors: 16 × AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D 8-Core Processor
Memory: 32 GiB of RAM (30.4 GiB usable)
Graphics Processor 1: AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT
Graphics Processor 2: AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D 8-Core Processor
Manufacturer: Micro-Star International Co., Ltd.
Product Name: MS-7D73
System Version: 1.0

I am pretty technically "limited" compared to the average github user, but with some direction I can produce any system/game logs if that helps with this issue at large. I would just need pointers.

@napghost I think, unfortunately, since you're on an immutable distro, you will have to wait for a system upgrade with a newer Mesa version.

For anyone else experiencing the Abyss Gate crash on nvidia 610 drivers: for whatever reason one of the configs that was suggested in protondb seems to consistently get me past the crash:

VKD3D_CONFIG=descriptor_heap,enable_experimental_features PROTON_VKD3D_HEAP=1

though the person that posted that didn't mention anything about this.

Unfortunately, with these settings there is some graphical flickering, mainly of foliage, so I wouldn't recommend keeping these settings on, but it will get you past the abyss gates with no apparent issues.

Remove the descriptor_heap flags. The heap PR was merged with VKD3D a little while ago. That (and perhaps the fact that I'm playing with RR on) are the only differences I'm seeing between our setups.

Using the latest Catchy Proton on Nvidia 610 with a 5070TI, here are my environment variables. The first two are going to be the most relevant for you.

PROTON_DLSS_UPGRADE=1: Forces DLSS to the latest version. Works on Cachy and GE forks only.
vkd3d_config=enable_experimental_features: Does what it says on the box.
WINE_CPU_TOPOLOGY=16: Only present the first 8 physical cores of my 99503D to the game, to keep it on the 3D V-cache.
__GL_SHADER_DISK_CACHE_SIZE=107374182: Increase shader cache limit to 1GB.
__GL_SHADER_DISK_CACHE_PATH="/path/to/your/custom/folder": Keep shader cache in an easy-to-reach location so I can nuke and rebuild it between updates.

@napghost I think, unfortunately, since you're on an immutable distro, you will have to wait for a system upgrade with a newer Mesa version.

Two things:

1. Why do you think this is a mesa issue (just curious, I want to know for myself)
2. What mesa version is the one that might get around this issue?

Sorry if this is going off into the weeds. I appreciate your response.

1. Why do you think this is a mesa issue (just curious, I want to know for myself)

Because I was having similar issues that I resolved by building Mesa from head. You can find several reports of the same on Proton DB, all of which are running Mesa 26.0.

@napghost I think, unfortunately, since you're on an immutable distro, you will have to wait for a system upgrade with a newer Mesa version.
1. Why do you think this is a mesa issue (just curious, I want to know for myself)
..

Adding to this without having the intention to highjack your thread: I'm on bazzite as well and for having an outdated kernel and mesa - fedora was in the transition to kernel 7 and just had released a newer mesa build while i was playing crimson desert - it really fixed a lot of things. I switched to testing for couple of days just to be able to play crimson ... It did help a lot regarding performance and fixed some crashes back then - AMD 9070XT User here.

Anyways you can go back to stable easily when shortly switching to testing. Thats the benefit of using immutable OS. See: https://github.com/ublue-os/bazzite/releases. Mesa in stable and in latest testing (as of today) is on 26.1.0-1 though so yes .. if there is a particular fix done to this game in mesa 26.1.3 we have to wait for it to arrive in testing. That was the very reason i thought about switching to CachyOS but then you may encounter other issues. Recent developments for Cachy show that it might be worth switching at some point... But ... Currently i can live with the fact that im blocked from playing this game under bazzite.

Replying to [#9595 (comment)](https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/9595#issuecomment-4640188492)

Thanks for confirming. I'm experiencing this issue on 9070 XT. Will try looking into mesa

@Cethrivias, please, have you figured anything out in regards to Mesa?

Replying to [#9595 (comment)](https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/9595#issuecomment-4640188492)

Thanks for confirming. I'm experiencing this issue on 9070 XT. Will try looking into mesa

@Cethrivias, please, have you figured anything out in regards to Mesa?

Sorry for not responding right away. I've confirmed that the last working version is 26.0.6

glxinfo | grep "OpenGL version"
OpenGL version string: 4.6 (Compatibility Profile) Mesa 26.0.6-arch1.1

Updating to the next release 26.1.0 introduces the issue. I probably need to report it as a bug, but if you have time to do it then please go ahead. It is still not fixed in the latest mesa git

Hello @Gigio2107, there's a decent chance what you're seeing is related to https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/mesa/mesa/-/work_items/15139.

Yeah it looks like, sorry for creating another post I didnt realize it was per game.
I'm going to try what was advised in this post and later I return with any news.

Adding a data point for an older AMD GPU (Polaris/GCN4), since this doesn't seem covered yet in the thread.

System:

• GPU: AMD Radeon RX 580 8GB (Polaris, Ellesmere — reported by the in-game AGS driver check as "Radeon RX 480 Graphics")
• Driver: Mesa 26.2.1-1 (RADV), linux-firmware 20260810-2
• Kernel: Linux 7.1.9-arch1-2 (Arch Linux)
• vkd3d-proton: build 7ad4937e28ea1a0, applicationVersion 3.1.0

Tried: Proton 9.0 (Beta), the default auto-selected Proton (11.0-100), and Proton Experimental. Crash is identical on all three.

Symptom: Game exits ~5-10s after the splash, right after the first data chunk loads ([데이터] (1/12)). No unhandled exception, no anti-cheat involved, no Linux coredump — the game's own launcher log records a clean internal crash:

[ERROR] RenderPassFilename: RenderPass/RenderPass.xml
RenderPassName: TerrainHeightField
PipelineName: GenerateIndirectCommand
Failed to load cache blob 661fd47f_18909cdc_5_95fcea9e_3_deba1dcd_f0c2822b
[Crash] Sending dump...

Ruled out corruption: Verifying game file integrity via Steam had no effect. I also renamed aside Crimson Desert/bin64/vkd3d-proton.cache to force a rebuild — it regenerated (identical 9768 bytes) and failed on the exact same blob hash at the exact same step. So this looks deterministic/reproducible for this GPU generation, not a stale-cache issue.

Graphics preset was "Low" in user_engine_option_save.xml, so this isn't tied to a high-end preset choice either.

Happy to attach full PROTON_LOG=1 output or the Pearl Abyss launcher log if useful.