Fraa
Published
Seems on-par with the Windows version, as far as I can tell. Throws an error when exiting the game, but that doesn't affect the gameplay.
Runs as expected. VSync is recommended, since the game has physics issues at high framerates (however, this limits the framerate to 30 FPS).
Doesn't seem to work with Proton Experimental (crashes on launch). Use 5.13 for now.
Works out of the box with Proton Experimental, no launch arguments needed
So far I only played through the first two chapters. I haven't encountered any issues.
Use Proton 4.11, as it doesn't launch with newer versions. The game works from start to finish without major issues.
Shadows don't render properly
Use the UniWS patch (here's a direct download link) to play the game at a custom resolution. There's probably better ways, but this is how I did it:
(Note: This will make the game appear cropped at the top and bottom, as it's not adjusting the FOV. At 16:9, everything important should still be in frame)
Move the "Prince of Persia The Sands of Time" folder from "steamapps/common" somewhere into "steamapps/compatdata/13600/pfx/drive_c"
Create a new "Prince of Persia The Sands of Time" folder inside "steamapps/common", and put the extracted UniWS files inside
Make a copy of the "uniws.exe" file inside the same directory, name one "POP.EXE", and the other "PrinceOfPersia.EXE"
Launch the game from Steam, and the patcher will run
Select "Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time" from the dropdown at the top, navigate to where you moved the game to in step 1, enter your desired resolution at the bottom, and hit the Patch button in the bottom right
Delete these files and move the original folder back into place (from step 1)
Edit the Hardware.ini file and change "CanStretchRect=1" to "CanStretchRect=0" (to fix UI stretching) (If you have issues with fog, also change "InvertFogRange=0" to 1 (wasn't necessary in my case))
Start the game and change your resolution
Everything seems to work as expected. Excellent framerate without stutters, even with all settings maxed out.
Crackling during the into cutscene. Audio is fine afterwards.
Performance was as expected. After setting up mf-installcab, I have not encountered any issues.
Requires mf-installcab (https://github.com/z0z0z/mf-installcab), otherwise the game will be stuck on the first in-game loading screen.
Note: On PopOS (same machine and game settings), the game consistently crashed during the cutscene after the initial gameplay section (after leaving the gas station), but this doesn't happen on Fedora.
Decent framerate compared to a VM, but the input latency issues might cause unnecessary deaths.
I am getting a consistently higher framerate in Proton than with my Windows VMware vitrual machine, however, the input lag frequently spikes for a few seconds, making your character difficult to control. (I've had my keyboard presses up to ~3 seconds behind at certain times. It seems somewhat random when it starts happening, but it is far more common in large groups of players.)
The game ran at about 30 FPS in most areas when playing in full-screen at 1440p, with occasional input lag.
With Proton 5.0-3, the input lag issue has improved significantly, however the game still becomes unresponsive at times (usually after holding a button for too long or when there are many people on-screen).
Runs flawlessly after the Exalt (Unity) release, which is now out of beta
DRI_PRIME=1 gamemoderun %command%
Characters are sometimes drawn twice when there are no reflective surfaces behind them
Doesn't work in fullscreen without the DRI_PRIME=1 launch option
Works fine out of the box, but I use these launch arguments (found on the forum) to improve performance: +r_swapInterval -1 +image_useCache 1 +fs_cachepath "C:\Cache" +image_anisotropy 16 . (Note: I still chose platinum, as this is an issue with the Windows version as well.)
I'm playing at 1440p with everything maxed, and the performance is mostly stable, with a few (barely noticeable) drops every now and then.
I did notice a bit of stuttering when playing it for the first time, but it seems to have disappeared completely after playing for a while. The launcher looks ugly, but it works.
