Cementas
Published
With some performance loss, the game ran well at 720p 60fps on a 10 year old laptop. Played 30+hours, completed Main Game and Nyakuza Metro.
Had to scale down the graphics (I have old hardware, but compared to Windows, most levels had worse performance) to "Performance" and reduce the window size to around 1440x900, and sometimes to 1280x720 (don't remember the exact number). Certain levels were definitely slower: like the Mafia Town with rain, and certain Nyakuza Metro areas... but they were comparably slow to when I played this game on Windows as well.. so it might just be my 10 year old laptop.
Dying when playing subcon forrest final boss fight triggered crash every time (but the level worked fine in every other regard). Also had one crash in Nyakuza Metro DLC final boss fight upon death. Sometimes the picking up of collectable Stickers from the ground would take a bit longer... you'd need to use some hat like Time Stopper or the Dweller one for it to trigger.
In Nyakuza Metro, within levels where you have to move accross the tube while dodging trains, the trains would sometimes load a bit late - so you'll manage to run half of the distance you need before the level as it's supposed to be played starts. Not a big issue, but makes those levels easier.
I'm pretty sure, Queen Vanessa's Manor level didn't work until I tried the Liekku's (from 2years ago) suggested fix of editing the "HatinTimeEngine.ini" game file from the config folder and increase PhysXGpuHeapSize from the default 32 to either 64 or 128 (higher and the game rendering breaks). I also made sure these are both present and with correct values:
bForceCPUAccessToGPUSkinVerts=true (offloads some work to CPU)
PhysXGpuHeapSize=128 (by default 32, setting to 64 or 128 prevents the game from crashing when running into high memory loads like load screens).
Lastly, if you have Intel, AMD switchable graphics - make sure your AMD graphics is correctly configured. I had a typical issue with AMD Radeon HD 7000-8000 series, where the wrong driver would be enabled by default from fresh install and it's not obvious at all when you're new to Linux. This has prevented the game from even loading past "Press any button to continue". What I had to do was to enable the "Southern Islands (SI) and Sea Islands (CIK) support".
I have also used the launch flag (need to have ferral gamemode installed - doesn't come by default with Pop!_OS):
gamemoderun %command%
Lastly, I used the Experimental Proton (the one after 6.3.7) for close to all of the gameplay, but the recent patch has made the game work worse, so I finished the game with plain 6.3.7, which seemed to perform better.
Played 30+hrs, finished Main Game and Nyakuza Metro DLC. Some performance loss compared to Win7, but ran well at 720p 60fps on 10yr laptop.
I have used the launch flag (need to have ferral gamemode installed - doesn’t come by default with Pop!_OS):
gamemoderun %command%
Compared to when I was running this game on this machine on Windows, it's running slightly slower. So I had to scaled down the graphics to 1440x900 ( the exact number), or to 1280x720 depending on the level. Certain levels are very significantly laggier than others, such as Mafia Town when it's raining. A rule of thumb: if it's laggy, reduce graphics or resolution (then you should avoid any weird crashes), if it's not scale settings back up (on map-to-map basis).
When playing the "Subcon Forrest" final boss fight, the game runs fine, but when you die, the game gets stuck in the black screen - so be prepared to reload the game a lot on that one. This could be caused by me not having enough RAM (only 8GB) from what I've seen in Systems Monitor, the games is extremely RAM hungry - some people even reported it occasionally requesting 10GB.
I also had one crash upon death in Nyakuza Metro DLC final boss fight as well, but that only happened once unlike in Subcon Forrest, where it was happening 100% of the time.
Lastly, the collision detection or something at least was off while picking up collectable stickers - it would take longer to do so… sometimes to the point where you just have to use your Time Stopper hat effect to slow down time (I think the Dweller one worked in certain occasions as well).
There was one issue relating to game difficulty. In Nyakuza Metro DLC, there are certain levels where you have to move across the tube tunnel while dodging trains. For some reason the trains would sometimes load late - you'd effectively manage to run half of the distance you need before they spawn. Not a big issue, but makes those levels significantly easier.
Dedicated GPU
Make sure it's doing work
If the game doesn't get passed the initial menu, check whether your dedicated GPU is being used. If you run this game on Integrated graphics, expect it not to load. To enable by switchable AMD GPU, so I exported this variable:
export DRI_PRIME=1
Then I ran steam from terminal, where I exported the variable. Did this so that steam & games it launches would inherit this variable.
steam
This variable does not persist on reboot or closing of terminal.
Older AMD GPUs
If you're using AMD Radeon HD 7000-8000(and M) GPUs, then by default the incorrect driver (radeon instead of amdgpu) is active. I fixed it by enabling the “Southern Islands (SI) and Sea Islands (CIK) support”. You need to do is to add a couple of boot flags to your system. For Pop!_OS you'll need to use kernelstub command.
Performance intensive levels
Certain levels like "Queen Vanessa’s Manor" and "Toilet of Doom" might fail to load entirely. I used the fix suggested on ProtonDb by Liekku about 2 years ago:
edit the “HatinTimeEngine.ini” game file from the config folder and increase PhysXGpuHeapSize from the default 32 to either 64 or 128 (higher and the game rendering breaks)
You need these flags exist in that file with the these values:
bForceCPUAccessToGPUSkinVerts=true
PhysXGpuHeapSize=128
A thing to keep in mind is that changing the proton version or updating the game might restore that file to defaults. So after such changes take a peek to it to see whether those flags are still there.
Other reported flags
I have tried other reported flags by the previous reports to fix any remaining issues, however I had no success with them. The:
PROTON_NO_ESYNC=1
Didn't do a thing, because:
ulimit -Hn
was already giving high number: 1048576. So, this flag was useless. However, if you're getting 4096, then it might be useful. Also the:
PROTON_FORCE_LARGE_ADDRESS_AWARE=1
Didn't seem to change anything either.
Played 30+hrs, finished Main Game and Nyakuza Metro DLC. Some performance loss compared to Win7, but ran well at 720p 60fps on 10yr laptop.
I have used the launch flag (need to have ferral gamemode installed - doesn’t come by default with Pop!_OS):
gamemoderun %command%
Compared to when I was running this game on this machine on Windows, it’s running slightly slower. So I had to scaled down the graphics to 1440x900 ( the exact number), or to 1280x720 depending on the level. Certain levels are very significantly laggier than others, such as Mafia Town when it’s raining. A rule of thumb: if it’s laggy, reduce graphics or resolution (then you should avoid any weird crashes), if it’s not scale settings back up (on map-to-map basis).
When playing the “Subcon Forrest” final boss fight, the game runs fine, but when you die, the game gets stuck in the black screen - so be prepared to reload the game a lot on that one. This could be caused by me not having enough RAM (only 8GB) from what I’ve seen in Systems Monitor, the games is extremely RAM hungry - some people even reported it occasionally requesting 10GB.
I also had one crash upon death in Nyakuza Metro DLC final boss fight as well, but that only happened once unlike in Subcon Forrest, where it was happening 100% of the time.
Lastly, the collision detection or something at least was off while picking up collectable stickers - it would take longer to do so… sometimes to the point where you just have to use your Time Stopper hat effect to slow down time (I think the Dweller one worked in certain occasions as well).
There was one issue relating to game difficulty. In Nyakuza Metro DLC, there are certain levels where you have to move across the tube tunnel while dodging trains. For some reason the trains would sometimes load late - you’d effectively manage to run half of the distance you need before they spawn. Not a big issue, but makes those levels significantly easier.
Dedicated GPU
Make sure it’s doing work
If the game doesn’t get passed the initial menu, check whether your dedicated GPU is being used. If you run this game on Integrated graphics, expect it not to load. To enable my switchable AMD GPU, I exported this variable:
export DRI_PRIME=1
Then I ran steam from terminal, where I exported the variable. Did this so that steam & games it launches would inherit this variable.
steam
This variable does not persist on reboot or closing of terminal.
Older AMD GPUs
If you’re using AMD Radeon HD 7000-8000(and M) GPUs, then by default the incorrect driver (radeon instead of amdgpu) is active. I fixed it by enabling the “Southern Islands (SI) and Sea Islands (CIK) support”. You need to do is to add a couple of boot flags to your system. For Pop!_OS you’ll need to use kernelstub command.
Performance intensive levels
Certain levels like “Queen Vanessa’s Manor” and “Toilet of Doom” might fail to load entirely. I used the fix suggested on ProtonDb by Liekku about 2 years ago:
edit the “HatinTimeEngine.ini” game file from the config folder and increase PhysXGpuHeapSize from the default 32 to either 64 or 128 (higher and the game rendering breaks)
You need these flags exist in that file with the these values:
bForceCPUAccessToGPUSkinVerts=true
PhysXGpuHeapSize=128
A thing to keep in mind is that changing the proton version or updating the game might restore that file to defaults. So after such changes take a peek to it to see whether those flags are still there.
Other reported flags
I have tried flags by others to fix any remaining issues, however I had no success with them. The:
PROTON_NO_ESYNC=1
Didn’t do a thing, even though my system was compatible as shown by:
ulimit -Hn
it needs to give large number like 1048576, if not see: esync. Also the:
PROTON_FORCE_LARGE_ADDRESS_AWARE=1
Didn’t fix crashes either.
Won't work on Pop!_OS for no apparent reason
Tried launching the game on my main Pop!_OS (20.10 at the time) machine, but the game would get stuck on a black or white screen. I tried multiple proton versions from 6.3.8 to the early ones like major version 3. I have also tried Glorious Eggroll proton version as well from 6.1 to 6.10, but these didn't work either. I have tried with & without gamemoderun launch flag - nothing matters.
However, I have then tried running the game on my another Linux Mint 20.2 (Cinnamon) machine - game worked like a charm! I launched it using gamemoderun %command% flag, though I'm not sure whether it was needed. The game ran pretty much out of the box on Proton Experimental.
Both laptops are of similar hardware capabilities. Both are DELL laptops with dedicated AMD GPUs. Which makes me think, the problem is in the difference between Distros.
The game seems to be running. I was able to complete basic movement tutorial just fine. Need to use Proton 3.16-9.
Weapons firing noises sounded crackly.
Loading times were slower than on my another lower powered Win10 machine
I've tried using newer versions of Proton such as all of the Proton 6 and Proton 5 versions, neither of them have worked. I also have tried using the GloriousEgroll tinkered Proton versions 6.10-GE-1 and 6.4-GE-1, however those didn't work either. The results vary from either not even launching a game window, to launching a game window and freezing on it. However, the SteamPlay vanilla Proton 3.16-9 seems to do the trick. I haven't played long enough to see whether everything works, however I saw that:
- the DRM bit wasn't an issue
- menus weren't an issue
- controls weren't an issue (was using keyboard & mouse)
- movement in game, jumpdrive, in-game pop-up menus, planet landing - no issues encountered.
- sounds seemed to be fine for the most part, except for the quality of gun firing.
- graphics seemed alright.
The game seemed to run just fine. Combat and menus worked fine, game controller and keyboard were picked up successfully.
Can't guarantee you'll have the same experience, but I had issues with the Native version. When running the Native version, during the first couple minutes of the game when you pick up the sword & are supposed to attack with it... the game would crash for me every time whenever I would simply press a button to attack. And it would crash so hard, that it would freeze the entire computer - the only way to get the control back is to cut the power and restart.
Due to the above reason, I suggest using the Proton version - it's much more stable than Native (which is apparently not stable at all). I was using the Proton Experimental (the one just after the 6.3.7) with the latest patch version present on Nov 19th 2021.
Still borked: official Proton 6 won't even get to the main menu.
Tried the Experimental version titled: "experimental-6.3-20210629". Also tried the Proton 6.3-5.
Glorious Eggroll
Occasionally it was making a sound effect similar to: When an error pops up on OS & you click an invalid button, a sound is played. Now imagine you held that button pressed and for every tick of it being pressed the sound would play.
On the very first level of the game, ground and walls textures were missing. It looked like the main character & NPCs were floating in a void.
Also the intro cinematic after couple seconds of playing froze up. The sound of the cinematic was playing, but the cinematic was stuck on single frame, until it finished and thrown me into main menu.
Video feed tells you to click various controller button. However, since I'm using mouse & keyboard, I've got no clue what to press. Through trial and error, I found out that the buttons I had to press are: "space", "h", "u", etc. Essentially, you'll find yourself guessing what buttons to press to play.
It's Proton version dependent. I didn't play long enough to find out how stable the best performing Proton version is.
Neither of new vanilla Proton 6's even launch the game. So I ended up trying the GloriousEggroll forks that have been reported as success here.
At the time of writing, my tests show that the best running version is still Proton-6.1-GE-2. You might as well say that nothing has changed since when the last reports with this version were made. Actually, things are worse. This is because the previous reports stated that the Proton-6.1-GE-2 made the game run relatively fine. Maybe it did for those people, however it did not for me: I had missing textures, sound playback issues, slight lag, some video cinematics weren't getting played right and the game did not recognise mouse & keyboard.
I've tried the following GE fork versions:
- Proton-6.1-GE-2
- Proton-6.4-GE-1
- Proton-6.8-GE-1
- Proton-6.9-GE-2
- Proton-6.10-GE-1
Most of these version didn't even get to the main menu. The only ones that did were Proton-6.1-GE-2 and Proton-6.8-GE-1. The Proton-6.8-GE-1 crashed upon clicking "Start" on the main menu.
I've tried them all with and without the gamemoderun %command% option. I also tried the these flags with vanilla Proton-6.3-5 & Proton-6.1-GE-2:
- Disable Esync (PROTON_NO_ESYNC)
- Disable Fsync (PROTON_NO_FSYNC)
- Disable D3D10 (PROTON_NO_D3D10)
They didn't make a difference.
Proton Experimental 6.3-20210924 covered gameplay & boss cinematic, but it got failed to play the start game cinematic of Comic Book intro.
(Reported experimental version: experimental-6.3-20210924)
Proton-6.1-GE-2- for the initial start-game Comic cinematic, but not for the rest of the game.gamemoderun %command%- launch flag of "FeralInteractive gamemode". It's installed by default on Ubuntu, but not Pop_OS!export DRI_PRIME=1- I ran this command in the terminal to switch to my laptop's dedicated GPU. Then I ran steam from the same Shell with:steamcommand.
Enabling AMD GPU CI & CIK support (for older GPUs)
My previous failures to run the game failed because for some reason my OS installation has defaulted to using Radeon drivers over AMDGPU. Apparently my AMD Radeon HD 8870M GPU needed to have experimental amdgpu support enabled. If you have Radeon HD 7000 or 8000 series GPUs, then enabling this support might just solve your GPU problems. I enabled all 4 flags listed in this link. #
Attempts with Custom Protons
To see the start game Comic book Cinematic, use Proton-6.1-GE-2, for the rest of the game the experimental should work just fine as the GE one fails to play boss cinematics. I also tried using the newer Glorious Eggroll Proton version, but they didn't seem to work:
- Proton-6.8-GE-1
- Proton-6.9-GE-2
- Proton-6.10-GE-1
- Proton-6.15-GE-2
Proton Experimental 6.3-20210924 - perfect gameplay & boss cinematic, but it failed to play the start game cinematic of Comic Book intro.
- Proton-6.1-GE-2 - for the initial start-game Comic cinematic, but not for the rest of the game.
- gamemoderun %command% - launch flag of “FeralInteractive gamemode”. It’s installed by default on Ubuntu, but not Pop_OS!
- export DRI_PRIME=1 - I ran this command in the terminal to switch to my laptop’s dedicated GPU. Then I ran steam from the same Shell with: steam command.
Depending on the Proton version, the intro Comic Book Cinematic will either be missing or not missing.
Attempts with Custom Protons
To see the start game Comic book Cinematic, use Proton-6.1-GE-2, for the rest of the game the experimental should work just fine as the GE one fails to play boss cinematics. I also tried using the newer Glorious Eggroll Proton version, but they didn’t seem to work:
- Proton-6.8-GE-1
- Proton-6.9-GE-2
- Proton-6.10-GE-1
- Proton-6.15-GE-2
Enabling AMD GPU CI & CIK support (for older GPUs)
My previous failures to run the game failed (and hence I gave the "borked" reports) because for some reason Pop!_OS installation defaulted to using Radeon drivers over AMDGPU. I'm aware that this tip doesn't fit into this report perfectly, but this problem was not mentioned in any guide on YouTube I watched... so I'm posting this for beginners' sake. Apparently my AMD Radeon HD 8870M GPU needed to have experimental amdgpu Southern Islands (SI) and Sea Islands (CIK) support enabled. If you have Radeon HD 7000 or 8000 series GPUs, then enabling this support might just solve your GPU problems. I enabled all 4 flags listed in this link.
Game can run fine using 3.16-9 version of Proton, however no voice or music audio will ruin the experience.
Missing Voice (dialog) and Music audio. Game sounds are fine.
Missing small video communications window. It's the pop-up one that shows the NPC character's head while it's talking.
Proton 3
The best Proton version so far is 3.16-9: it will allow you to launch, run & play the game. However voice and music sounds are absent. Also the talking head video window is also missing. In a game, where you spend most of your time flying through empty space atmosphere is key. Unfortunately, it's 100% lost with missing audio. Proton 3.7-8 crashes while trying to load the main game menu.
Proton 6
I also tried Proton 6.3-5 and the version above "Experimental" - these don't even open the initial menu. You click the Steam's "Play" button, it turns blue and then green again as if nothing happened.
Proton 5
Lastly, I've tried Proton 5.0-10 as it was reported to have similar performance of Proton 3.16-10, however it was only able to open up main game menu. Once I started the game, it froze during loading.
GloriousEggroll Proton didn't make a difference.
I've noticed that another user has reported success with Proton-6.10-GE-1, so I tried it myself. Not even initial menu was loaded. Same behaviour as vanilla Proton 6: You click play, then you get a "Preparing to launch" pop-up for a microsecond, and it ends up with nothing having happened. I also have tried Proton-6.4-GE-1, which made no difference as well.
I don't know what made it work for the other user. It could be another linux distro (I'm using Pop_OS! 20.10 - Ubuntu derivative). It could also be different hardware. It all feels like a dice roll, so you might as well give it a go and see for yourself whether GE makes a difference or not.
Works perfectly so long your Steam is well installed & you have installed Glorious Eggroll Proton (easy to do).
GloriousEggroll Proton-6.10-GE-1
In the player menu, there's "Incoming Messages" feature. These are the sort of the reminders of what you have to do. Those are text messages, but they're also voiced. For some reason one of those messages got read through only half-way. I can't tell if it's an indication of any problem, but I figured I would report it.
Over 2 hours of in-game time, I have only ran into 1 crash while docking at the station. However, I can't tell if it's a Proton issue, as I remember running into these same sort of crashes on my Windows XP machine about 10 years ago. So it could be more of a programming error; however it shouldn't be an issue, because game auto-saves every time you dock at a station, which is frequent!
I was using the Glorious Eggroll Proton-6.10-GE-1. With it all of the audio issues mentioned by me and other in the past are completely gone (as far as 2 hours of game-play can show).
This custom Proton fork version is not enough on it's own. You have to have steam installed correctly. Previously, I had Steam installed using Pop_OS! Shop, which made it so newer versions of Proton don't even get to line of code, where it can start producing logs.
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What I had to do to fix this issue, was to: install Steam via terminal with apt install. I also launch it via terminal for a good measure.
Additionally, I went over the entire linux gaming setup all over again using this tutorial. What I found was that I did not have "gamemode" installed, which could have contributed to the game working fine as well.
I added this to the game launch options: gamemoderun %command% I don't know if it changes anything, but by this point I'm tired of testing - you can try running without it.
When launching the game, initial pre-launch options menu will pop-out. When selecting resolution, make sure you don't accidentally select 16bit colors - this will make it crash immediatelly. Use 32bit color.
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I tried running the vanilla experimental proton with/without the gamemode option, however it's not quite there. The vanilla "experimental-6.3-20210629" Proton fixes the audio issues to a degree, however they still persist. What it does, it succeeds in playing the voice & music audio, however for some reason it cuts off abruptly without finishing playing every time. Perhaps, someone could try playing around with Proton launch options & see if it goes away?
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In summary, everything works well:
- The game runs fine
- The voice & music audio issues are gone
- I didn't run into any graphics issues either. I'd say I've had a full-fledged experience so far.
Won't get past clicking the Steam's Play button.
Once the Steam "Play" button gets clicked, the "Preparing to Launch" Steam pop-up shows up and disappears so fast you won't be able to read it.
I tried a custom Proton-6.4GE-1 that has reported a success before. I also tried all Proton versions going backwards to latest Proton 4. Neither of them work.
I'm using Pop_OS! 20.10. The GPU is AMD Radeon HD 8870M. Adding this information as the generated one from Steam's System Info is not very accurate.
