Sanaki
Published
The video settings can now be closed via the close window option in the steam menu, so nothing requires desktop mode anymore. I had one crash after a seven hour session, but no more after longer sessions and multiple suspends. The game runs well. Lower resolution means you'll want to use the map more in Somnium, but overall the game can be played to 100% without any extra effort or tweaks. I do recommend enabling gamepad on the launcher.
I enabled the 1280x720 checkbox in graphic settings, though it didn't seem to do anything. By default it seemed to think it was rendering at 1920x1080. On PC this game is a bit weird about resolutions though, so it may literally make no difference. Sadly I don't see a way to run at 1280x800, but that's not a big loss.
Control prompts are only for keyboard, but gamepad controls work fine regardless and are fairly obvious.
Menu controls are a bit screwy, but that seems to be an issue with the game itself. The gamepad didn't seem to work via proton, so stick to native to play this one.
If you want proper 16:10 resolution, it's possible, but requires getting Astebreed Tweaker (AsteTweak) to modify the resolutions available. In my case I changed 1280x720 to be 1280x800. Runs beautifully either way, but I definitely prefer full resolution myself. This is an issue on Windows as well, and one the community has been rather vocal about.
Despite not being listed as supporting Linux, there's a native build it'll default to. That one does work great, but won't trigger achievements. I got the ones I had gone past when I loaded my save on the proton build, so at least there's that.
The game supports 1280x800, but may start in a reduced resolution on first launch. I recommend at least assigning jump and dash to L4/R4. Overall, a very pleasant experience on deck.
Works with gamepad without issue, but for some reason changing anything in settings seems to require a mouse (or touchscreen). Don't believe that's Linux specific though.
Game will crash immediately on start sometimes, but always works on next launch. Mild inconvenience at worst. Could be related to playing in offline mode.
Due to the nature of the game, controls are mouse/touchscreen, and will correctly default to touchpad as mouse. If you're going to play with the touchpad extensively, it may be worth setting up a mouse region to span the screen so you don't drop the paddle at the end of the touchpad. I'll probably upload a community profile for this down the line.
I beat the game twice start to finish on the deck. No setting tweaks, default proton, it worked perfect. No slowdowns, no graphic issues, no freezes, no crashes. Suspend works great as well, I used it a couple dozen times. I recommend against running at 40Hz though. I tried it momentarily and frame pacing went a bit screwy that way. 30 fps at 60Hz should work if you need the battery savings.
Specific occasional scenes slow a little, but this is part of the game it seems, not related to performance of the hardware. Overall the game runs wonderfully.
Proton provides a like-native experience, but you'll likely encounter a random array of issues inherent to the game itself. Controls are poorly documented, menu controls sometimes get stuck and require touchscreen to function, text randomly switches languages.... Still, the game runs as well as it can. Do with that what you will. The decensor works fine as well.
Used Desktop mode for the "Aurelio." achievement (Easter egg, non-story). Game mode won't allow you to click ok on the pop-up box during that one.
TDP of 3W maintained 60 fps fine while reducing power consumption significantly.
Play in desktop mode if you want 100% achievements. You can collect the one problematic achievement (Aurelio.) on replay via fast forward and skip puzzles rather quickly if desired, or just switch over temporarily when (if) you encounter it. You won't be able to progress your playthrough until you do so, if you fulfill the conditions leading up to it.
As the other deck report indicated, running the native version does not go well. The game -runs- fine, but gets stuck showing only a section of the window, leaving most of the visible game cropped out.
The first couple cutscenes have been transcoded as shaders, but most in the game won't play correctly yet. First run you'll also need to use the touchscreen to change the control method to gamepad. For some reason, the game may not recognize a connected gamepad on occasion, requiring reopening the game and redoing this step.
Switching between fullscreen and windowed turns the display black. Quitting and reopening the game resolves this.
Without changing proton version, you just get a black screen.
Attempting to use any proton versions newer than 5.13-6 in gaming mode will just show a black screen, though you can hear the game's audio. Didn't try desktop mode, but since the performance overlay doesn't register any frames arriving in that state, it's unlikely to work there either. Given the low popularity of this game, some of the load stutter may have been shader compilation. Overall a very positive experience with the right proton version though.
Forced proton
Native build runs fine, but has no audio. Proton 7.0-2 works great though, with audio.
Prior report was native without the steam linux runtime. Verified now uses SLR by default and has working audio. Native works great.
mv MOVIE{,~}; %command%; mv MOVIE{~,}
Some dungeon floors are ridiculously demanding for unknown reasons. In these floors you may see drops to 30 fps and high power draw. It seems to be related to how many traps are on the floor. It doesn't interfere with gameplay, but it's vexing.
The launch option just renames the MOVIE directory to allow the game to run, then renames it back after the game closes. This way if the movies get fixed in the future, removing the launch option is sufficient for them to work immediately. Without it the game stalls on launch and can't even reach the title screen. The only movies in the game are the title video and the ending, and the game just skips them if it can't find the files.
I tested Proton, native without SLR, and native with SLR (plus soldier and sniper). Proton won't launch, native won't launch, and while the steam linux runtime version launches, it plays about two notes of the music and then stops. The menu sounds play fine, but not the music. For a music game, this is unacceptable. Controller input also doesn't function in this configuration, and attempting to toggle to fullscreen locked up the game to where I had to restart my deck to get it to shut down.
I changed graphic settings to mid, enabled DirectX 12, enabled FidelityFX CAS + Upscaling, and disabled the framerate limit, then dropped the deck's refresh rate to 40Hz for this game. Looks good, feels good, and it's a smooth 40 fps without drawing too much power.
I've been waking up with this game on deck. I'm over 200 hours now and haven't had any issues of note. Once or twice I've gotten a "failed to save game" message, but apparently this is a sporadic issue on every platform, including the console versions. All cutscenes and videos work. No crashes, no issues at all. I do avoid suspending it, since that can screw up the audio on resume sometimes, but that's about it.
Steam Input bindings don't function in game mode unless the game is changed to windowed. Fullscreen bindings work fine in desktop mode.
Audio does cut out fully if you suspend and resume this game on the deck at the moment. Hopefully a future system update can help resolve that.
PROTON_NO_ESYNC=1 PROTON_NO_FSYNC=1 %command%
Game freezes irreparably after completing the third stage (Fire Caverns)
Unfortunately this game needs work still. No getting around the issues fully that I've seen.
Tossed boost and powerup on R4/L4
The verified proton version can't launch the game. 7.0-2 runs it fine, no further tinkering required. Hopefully they'll change the verified version to account for this.
Controller glyphs are all blank. It supports steam input, but it seemingly doesn't have deck glyphs.
Native has low framerate (30-40 fps), despite low utilization of both CPU and GPU. It also has shader compilation stutter and issues rendering models in the Netricsa (monster log). Proton fixes the framerate issues and model rendering, but has severe shader compilation stutter. That will be remedied in time by shader pre-caching as people play it. Neither version has button glyphs. Tested all three steam Linux runtimes, but saw no notable improvement for the native build. I'm slowly working on a playthrough on Ultra x3 to attempt to build a comprehensive shader cache, so hopefully that'll help others down the line.
Changed from native to proton
Native has no sound. Native with the Steam Linux Runtime has sound but no controller support. Gotta use proton for this one at the moment.
Power draw is ridiculously low compared to other visually comparable games. It's a great option for the deck. Supports 1280x800 resolution as well. This may be a permanently installed game for me.
Changed to 40Hz, enabled FSR, changed to 960x600 windowed, dropped shadow quality to low
Mostly just button glyphs.
This game is known to be unusually strenuous on Linux. This remains true on deck. Better to stay plugged in if possible. Framerate can drop in some areas, but I never saw it dive under 20 fps. Usually it's in the 35 fps area.
You won't be playing this one at 60 fps, but it runs reliably in spite of the performance impact, and it's a fun entry to give a spin.
Tried 7.0-2, experimental, GE-Proton7-16, Proton-6.21-GE-2, and Proton-5.9-GE-8-ST. Best case, either immediate ctd or an error message. The last variant I listed caused the deck to freeze and require hard power off. In all cases I wiped the prefix before trying a new version. Game's very borked on deck.
LB/RB on L4/R4 is just nicer.
rm bin/libstdc++.so.6; %command%
For the native version, libstdc++.so.6 needs to be removed for the game to run. The proton version works fine as well and is simpler to enable, but appears to consume approximately half a watt more power. Neither is particularly strenuous to run, so it's up to the user's comfort level which route they take. A bit like this game.
Starts up on a black screen. Two windows are open, but neither responds to the escape key (steam+dpad left). Tried mashing that, tried waiting, nothing. Game's borked.
Without forcing proton, nothing renders other than menus and text. Levels are just black.
Enable fullscreen to cut a third of the battery consumption
Use the second launch option (the Japanese one) to open the graphic configuration and enable fullscreen rather than windowed. This cuts about a third of the power consumption on the game and smooths out the frame times. Then press the ... button, enable a per-game profile in the power settings, and change the frame limiter to 30 fps. Between fullscreen and the 30 fps limit the game will run smooth. Without doing -both-, the frame limiter built into the game runs at about 31 fps and makes it very uncomfortably stuttery.
Tried testing FSR at 640x400 for battery. Touching resolution settings will get you stuck at 16:9. Resolution can only be changed through direct config ini edit. As an "easy" fix, you can change fullscreen type to windowed and it'll stretch to 16:10. For a proper fix you'll need to edit the config ini in AppData/Local/Wuppo and change "resolution" back from 13 (auto 16:9) to 14 (auto 16:10).
Lest anyone wonders, at 640x400 with FSR enabled (only possible through changing "custom_resolution_width" in the ini), I saw no battery savings whatsoever.
I tried multiple proton versions with no luck, though 4.11-13 can at least start the launcher if desired. Despite the reports from others, over 30 attempts failed to launch at all. Wish it were otherwise, but this one's borked.
