Shihab
Published
Launching the game with controller (Xbox One S) connected loads the wrong mapping. Controller must be connected after the game is launched to work properly. Aim assist cannot be disabled with controller, but can be disabled using mouse and keyboard, then applying and exiting the menu before using the controller again.
Runs as you'd expect it would on Windows (including the controller mapping bug).
Runs [mostly] well.
Alt+Tabing out then back to the game causes it to break (freezes till OS prompts to kill the process).
Native version either freezes on splash or starts to a black screen or one with garbage artefacts. Forcing use of Proton (tested with 7.0-4) through Steam Play compatibility settings makes it run well.
Audio for the dragon introduction FMV didn't play.
Removed some of the game's assets
Game couldn't play any pre-rendered videos, which includes demonstrations that play in the level up menu. This often led to the game crashing on said menu. Solved by removing related wmv videos from the games data dir (/path-to-games-library/Fable The Lost Chapters/data/Video/), specifically those starting with "exp" and "gui."
DXVK_FRAME_RATE=75 %command%
Set "iPresentInterval=0" in Fallout4Prefs.ini to disable engine vsync.
Tinkering was to work around a common issue with FO4 and improve loading speed without relying on mods (and matching monitor's refresh rate).
Stick with the mods tho. Better loading speed, less tearing.
Runs more or less the same as it does on Windows (Read: Doesn't crash more than you'd expect from a Besthesda game).
Infrequent flickering in some distant object textures.
While alt+tabbing works, the game sometimes still registers mouse input while in background, resulting in pause menu items being triggered.
Runs *mostly* well
Audio mixing seems to sometimes break when a lot of sfx's playing. e.g. in a battle with multiple guns firing and especially when things explode. Audio gets borked for a moments then plays fine.
Disabled Steam Overlay
Enabling MSAA caused some artifacts with waterfalls, where a strip of the view near the center of frame is invisible.
Aside from the MSAA and Steam Overlay issues, the only thing noteworthy is the abysmal performance of the Ubisoft Connect launcher, which significantly extends the launch time of the game, and requires manually closing the launcher after exiting the game (else Steam would consider the game still running, if you care for playtime counters). Other than that, it didn't feel much different than it did on Windows.
The native version installs, runs, saves, loads, and everything, but there were very frequent UI - and only UI - glitches that occured while navigating it (e.g. going down or up to the next entry in the guild menu, or the action menu during battle, etc). Glitches included showing older UI instances (e.g. it would show arrow pointing at previous action plus its description, despite selecting the next action) and graphical corruptions (corrupted sprites and text), all persist until I force an update by moving the selector (moving to the next skill, menu item, etc). These glitches happen every third or fourth UI update. Playing around with the vsync settings through the config file and forcing glcore and opengl through launch commands yielded no improvements (the launch commands caused the game to crash at startup, however).
Enabling Proton (9.0-4 being the most recent, as of this writing) makes it run without any issues. I had to copy the saves manually to the prefix, however. Steam Cloud sync didn't bother doing so.
Disabled Steam overlay
Keeping EA's launcher active (i.e. not minimzed) in the background reduces in-game framerate. Simply minimizing it to the app indicator top panel solves this issue.
Game sometimes fails to start the first time (to be exact, the EA launcher doesn't). Running it twice or thrice usually starts it.
Works well, for the most part.
Car engine audio sometimes drops when driving. Some SFX in the racing minigames (e.g. when player or AI goes through checkpoint beacon light thing) starts delayed, sometimes with degraded quality.
Framerate drops to ~15FPs in inventory, despite actuall gameplay running at 60.
Running the updated D3d12 version, but without ray-tracing itself enabled. With settings at max/near max (except textures at 6GB, motion Blur disabled, TAA), at 1080p (true 1080p, no FSR), performance is generally acceptable. The framerate generally remains vsync-capped at 60fps, although some sections drop to mid 50s/upper 40s.
With exception to the inventory fps drop, the experience was highly comparable to running it on Windows.
Manually forced compatibility layer to Proton 7.0-4
In one run, grenades caused visual glitches when pointing camera at explosion area. In another section (of the same run), bloom effect accompanying explosion did not fade afterwards; metalic surfaces kept shining.
Game froze in one instance after last boss fight. Required relaunch.
Although not perfectly, it does run well enough to be enjoyed.
Played the game using a Gamepad (Xbox One 1708, through bluetooth). Not sure about keyboard and mouse. From memory, the game didn't play well with kbm.
And in case you were wondering, the AI is an imbecile by design, it's not proton's fault.
While I can't attest for the main campaign (could be working well). The random crashes in Raid mode makes it highly unenjoyable.
Some stutter at begining of Raid mode runs.
Game frequently crashes between (sometimes at start) Raid mode runs. Crashes on both Proton experimental and 7.0-5
Raid mode store always crashes when attempting to buy/sell. This occurs when game is installed on secondary drives. Moving the game to Steam's default library on /home fixed this issue.
Runs mostly well
The ESO Launcher significantly degrades performance while its running. Even moving it around the screen causes the entire DE to stall for several seconds. Fortuntely, it can be safely closed after the game launches (or even before it does, after clicking on "Play")
The game plays decently enough. Mods run without a hitch, except for ones that rely on external executables a la TTC (but you can use the in game mod, and manually download the price list).
Disabled Steam Overlay
Only once, when first launching the game, I switched monitor refresh rate from 60 to 75hz through Nvidia's x settings. This has caused the game renderer to freeze even after rebooting it, Steam, and the OS. Setting refresh rate through Gnome Settings' refresh rate (and a few reboots) fixed the issue.
The ESO Launcher significantly degrades performance while its running. Even moving it around the screen causes the entire DE to stall for several seconds. Fortuntely, it can be safely closed after the game launches (or even before it does, after clicking on "Play")
Runs very well. Mods work too (except the ones using external executables).
Starting the game while keyboard layout is a non-english one (Arabic, in this case) disables controls in the game until restart. Switching layout midgame (hotkey or after alt-tabbing) doesn't work. Game must be started with acceptable keyboard layout (e.g. English (US)).
Works very well out of the box. Overall, experience is comparable to the typical Windows one.
Minor, and very infrequent audio choppyness.
Texture streaming issues. Late loading (sometimes never loading) of all textures (models, objects, environment). Pausing the game seems to force loading of all textures in camera view.
Vsync doesn't work. Game always runs uncapped. Didn't affect gamplay nor graphics (didn't notice any tearing), but this taxes GPU fans more than it should for such an old game.
I haven't tried the fixes mentioned in other reviews. Perhaps they do help. I don't recommend playing the game as is. Breaks immersion, and some puzzles requires pausing/unpausing to solve. In some cases it did affect gameplay (couldn't tell beige blob of an untextured Haunted from the beige sea of the untextured environment.
Enabled Steam Input
The native mapping for my Xbox One S controller was entirely wrong. Some acctions were not mapped at all, rendering the game unplayable with it. Enabling Steam Input (but still letting it use the "official" configuration for the game) fixed this issue.
Runs well.
Game still captures mouse input in the background after alt+tabbing. Minor issue, but can be annoying sometimes.
Shading issues for the water near the shore (renders nearly transparent); Occasional momentary glitches and flashes. Occurs on both Proton 7.0 and Experimental.
Ran the same as it did on Windows.
It's a pity one can't force anisotropic filtering through the driver...
General performance is percievably lower than on Windows. Although still quite playable.
With exception to reduced performance, game runs well. No crashes, glitches, or noticeable bugs (other than uselessness of Grenadiers' interception fire -_-).
