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Are you finding that ELDEN RING has some mad stuttering when loading things in the background? Valve has released an update for Proton Experimental in the bleeding-edge Beta to help.

Writing on Twitter, Valve developer Pierre-Loup Griffais mentioned:

The graphics team has been hard at work on optimizing ELDEN RING for Steam Deck. Fixes for heavy stutter during background streaming of assets will be available in a Proton release next week, but are available to test now on the bleeding-edge branch of Experimental.

Steam Deck specifically is mentioned, but if you see the same issue on desktop Linux it's worth a try too for ELDEN RING. Amazing to see Valve act so quickly to improve such a fresh game release.

How to access the bleeding-edge branch? It's very simple. For Steam Deck users, here's a quick howto:

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For desktop users: simply search for Proton Experimental in your Steam Library, open the right click Properties menu and go to the Betas tab. Then just select bleeding-edge from the dropdown box and let it update.

It's not wise to keep that on all the time, as it can have breakage but if you really want ELDEN RING to perform a bit better now - do it.

Available to buy on Humble Store and Steam.

On top of that more fixes came in for: Fable, The Force Unleashed 2, and GTA IV with Proton. However, you don't need any software update. Just restart Steam or your Deck to pick it up, as Valve has just enabled a few special options to launch with.

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22 comments
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StalePopcorn Feb 27, 2022
Awesome. Love that Proton team!
NoSt Feb 27, 2022
Judging from a lot of negative reviews on Steam it seems that the game is poorly optimized. Maybe after a few patches from the developers there won't be a need for Valve to make their own fixes.
Still, thumbs up to Valve and the Proton team!
scaine Feb 27, 2022
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I've been really enjoying the game on Proton GE 7.3, but a) it doesn't support EAC and b) it freezes after almost exactly 2 hours of playing. I haven't looked into why. But no stutter that I've noticed. Reasonable performance too, albeit I'm playing 1080p. I'm going to try the full-screen hack to see if I can get it even smoother in the more complex scenes. Beautiful game though, and very little of the frustration I felt when playing DS3.
emod Feb 27, 2022
In my case, I'm getting like 15-25 fps, no matter if I'm outside or in a dungeon. I'm even getting a message telling me that I can't play online since my framerate is so low and it throws me to the main menu :(

All this with a Ryzen 3600X and a RX 5700 XT.

Ahh man, I'm sad, I wanted to play this so bad, but I guess I'll be waiting a few weeks to see if it gets better.

I've been really enjoying the game on Proton GE 7.3, but a) it doesn't support EAC...
In the bleeding-edge version this appears to be fixed.
rustybroomhandle Feb 27, 2022
In the bleeding-edge version this appears to be fixed.

Seems to be here, but with Experimental bleeding-edge it does not seem to load Steam Input and the Overlay and my controller is not recognised.
scaine Feb 27, 2022
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All this with a Ryzen 3600X and a RX 5700 XT.
Those are pretty much my specs, so I'm not sure what you're running into there!

I've been really enjoying the game on Proton GE 7.3, but a) it doesn't support EAC...
In the bleeding-edge version this appears to be fixed.
I might be wrong, but I believe that the existing 7.3 release simply bypasses EAC, which allows single-player to load.

Seems to be here, but with Experimental bleeding-edge it does not seem to load Steam Input and the Overlay and my controller is not recognised.
I've heard as much for Experimental, but controller support seems pretty solid (for me) on GE. At least my dualsense (PS5) controller works perfectly.
scaine Feb 27, 2022
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Game has been running perfect for me on a GTX 1660 super. Users having issues maybe need to update their GPU driver?

I have a few videos of the game on my YouTube account. Keep in mind I'm recording and still getting good performance on High 1080p.:
https://youtube.com/channel/UCVzPDQaCUvRNf6FJ3McGyeQ

Oh my god... I thought you weren't gonna find that run button, dude! That was a frustrating, but hilarious couple of naked dungeon dives there!
Code_Eye Feb 28, 2022
Judging from a lot of negative reviews on Steam it seems that the game is poorly optimized. Maybe after a few patches from the developers there won't be a need for Valve to make their own fixes.
Still, thumbs up to Valve and the Proton team!

Actually the game is pretty well optimized in general. It seems the background streaming is the main issue. I suspect the game relies on direct storage tech on consoles. Im curious if they made the release date expecting windows to have dorect storage already enabled by then. And are now having issues because it is t yet.
scaine Feb 28, 2022
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Judging from a lot of negative reviews on Steam it seems that the game is poorly optimized. Maybe after a few patches from the developers there won't be a need for Valve to make their own fixes.
Still, thumbs up to Valve and the Proton team!

Actually the game is pretty well optimized in general. It seems the background streaming is the main issue. I suspect the game relies on direct storage tech on consoles. Im curious if they made the release date expecting windows to have dorect storage already enabled by then. And are now having issues because it is t yet.

I'm also gobsmacked at the loading times, which are barely long enough to read a single hint/tip. Which is good, because it briefly reloads after every death, and I'm fairly certain I'm well past my 100th death. Like, WELL past. As in, it was waaaaay the hell back there. Keep going. Keep... going...

Yeah, about there.
drlamb Feb 28, 2022
b) it freezes after almost exactly 2 hours of playing.

Glad to see I'm not the only one experiencing this. It's happened twice thus far.
Eike Feb 28, 2022
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CheeseCake Feb 28, 2022
In my case, I'm getting like 15-25 fps, no matter if I'm outside or in a dungeon. I'm even getting a message telling me that I can't play online since my framerate is so low and it throws me to the main menu :(

All this with a Ryzen 3600X and a RX 5700 XT.

Ahh man, I'm sad, I wanted to play this so bad, but I guess I'll be waiting a few weeks to see if it gets better.

I've been really enjoying the game on Proton GE 7.3, but a) it doesn't support EAC...
In the bleeding-edge version this appears to be fixed.



I have the exact same specs as you and I'm getting the same performance with proton experimental. I gain about 10fps or so by using proton 7.0-1 but it is still borderline unplayable.

If anyone knows how to fix this issue, please tell us :(
Cookies Mar 1, 2022
Did the bleeding edge patches hit regular experimental branch yet?
I'm getting like 20-35fps on a rtx3080 @ 1440p with mid-high settings and lots of stutters/freezes.
I have seen freezes to like 1fps even when using mount but never crashed.
Nvidia drivers up to date (510.54) and using ubuntu 20.04lts.
GPU usage is low based on mangohud, like 40% and CPU is at like 10%.
I saw the post about setting shader cache to unlimited but theres no such setting on linux. I tried the dont clean shader cache flag but didn't so anything.
CheeseCake Mar 1, 2022
In my case, I'm getting like 15-25 fps, no matter if I'm outside or in a dungeon. I'm even getting a message telling me that I can't play online since my framerate is so low and it throws me to the main menu :(

All this with a Ryzen 3600X and a RX 5700 XT.

Ahh man, I'm sad, I wanted to play this so bad, but I guess I'll be waiting a few weeks to see if it gets better.

I've been really enjoying the game on Proton GE 7.3, but a) it doesn't support EAC...
In the bleeding-edge version this appears to be fixed.



I have the exact same specs as you and I'm getting the same performance with proton experimental. I gain about 10fps or so by using proton 7.0-1 but it is still borderline unplayable.

If anyone knows how to fix this issue, please tell us :(

Quick update! Someone found the issue with my poor framerate.
For those who like me, have an amd card, make sure to have the following drivers installed: vulkan-radeon and lib32-vulkan-radeon
Also make sure to uninstall amdvlk and lib32-amdvlk if you do have them installed as they make the game run VERY poorly
Cookies Mar 2, 2022
Did the bleeding edge patches hit regular experimental branch yet?
I'm getting like 20-35fps on a rtx3080 @ 1440p with mid-high settings and lots of stutters/freezes.
I have seen freezes to like 1fps even when using mount but never crashed.
Nvidia drivers up to date (510.54) and using ubuntu 20.04lts.
GPU usage is low based on mangohud, like 40% and CPU is at like 10%.
I saw the post about setting shader cache to unlimited but theres no such setting on linux. I tried the dont clean shader cache flag but didn't so anything.

Also an update from me, I used indicator-cpufreq to switch to performance mode since default was power savings mode on ubuntu.
I think this fixed it since there was no proton updates downloaded in steam today and yesterday was still laggy AF.
Now I get full 60FPS on max settings no problem on regular proton experimental.
scaine Mar 2, 2022
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Did the bleeding edge patches hit regular experimental branch yet?
I'm getting like 20-35fps on a rtx3080 @ 1440p with mid-high settings and lots of stutters/freezes.
I have seen freezes to like 1fps even when using mount but never crashed.
Nvidia drivers up to date (510.54) and using ubuntu 20.04lts.
GPU usage is low based on mangohud, like 40% and CPU is at like 10%.
I saw the post about setting shader cache to unlimited but theres no such setting on linux. I tried the dont clean shader cache flag but didn't so anything.

Also an update from me, I used indicator-cpufreq to switch to performance mode since default was power savings mode on ubuntu.
I think this fixed it since there was no proton updates downloaded in steam today and yesterday was still laggy AF.
Now I get full 60FPS on max settings no problem on regular proton experimental.

I really, really suggest you install Feral's gamemode, then just stick "gamemoderun %command%" into any titles you think are demanding enough to warrant it. It takes care of CPU freq and a lot more besides.

Mint has it pre-installed. Pop has it in the repos. Arch-based has it in AUR... I think? Might be official actually. Anyway, definitely worth doing!

EDIT - here's the link: https://github.com/FeralInteractive/gamemode


Last edited by scaine on 2 March 2022 at 11:59 am UTC
Cookies Mar 2, 2022
Did the bleeding edge patches hit regular experimental branch yet?
I'm getting like 20-35fps on a rtx3080 @ 1440p with mid-high settings and lots of stutters/freezes.
I have seen freezes to like 1fps even when using mount but never crashed.
Nvidia drivers up to date (510.54) and using ubuntu 20.04lts.
GPU usage is low based on mangohud, like 40% and CPU is at like 10%.
I saw the post about setting shader cache to unlimited but theres no such setting on linux. I tried the dont clean shader cache flag but didn't so anything.

Also an update from me, I used indicator-cpufreq to switch to performance mode since default was power savings mode on ubuntu.
I think this fixed it since there was no proton updates downloaded in steam today and yesterday was still laggy AF.
Now I get full 60FPS on max settings no problem on regular proton experimental.

I really, really suggest you install Feral's gamemode, then just stick "gamemoderun %command%" into any titles you think are demanding enough to warrant it. It takes care of CPU freq and a lot more besides.

Mint has it pre-installed. Pop has it in the repos. Arch-based has it in AUR... I think? Might be official actually. Anyway, definitely worth doing!

EDIT - here's the link: https://github.com/FeralInteractive/gamemode

Thanks! Installed it just now, it's in the repos for ubuntu as well.
I actually saw the gnome extension for it before but never bothered looking into it.
I didn't expect it to make such a big difference. It seems like it works with lutris out of box as well so that will be useful.
Cybolic Mar 4, 2022
Seems to be here, but with Experimental bleeding-edge it does not seem to load Steam Input and the Overlay and my controller is not recognised.
I've heard as much for Experimental, but controller support seems pretty solid (for me) on GE. At least my dualsense (PS5) controller works perfectly.
Which GE version are you running? I have a PS5 DualSense as well and so far it has failed to work at all with Experimental beta, Experimental, 7.0-1, 7-5-GE and 7.3-GE-1.


Last edited by Cybolic on 4 March 2022 at 9:37 pm UTC
scaine Mar 4, 2022
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Seems to be here, but with Experimental bleeding-edge it does not seem to load Steam Input and the Overlay and my controller is not recognised.
I've heard as much for Experimental, but controller support seems pretty solid (for me) on GE. At least my dualsense (PS5) controller works perfectly.
Which GE version are you running? I have a PS5 DualSense as well and so far it has failed to work at all with Experimental beta, Experimental, 7.0-1, 7-5-GE and 7.3-GE-1.

It's been a few days, but it was GE-Proton-7.3 (NOT Proton-GE) at the time I think. 7.4 is out now. But you have activate the controller in Steam/Settings/Controllers/Profiles before it's recognised.
Cybolic Mar 5, 2022
Seems to be here, but with Experimental bleeding-edge it does not seem to load Steam Input and the Overlay and my controller is not recognised.
I've heard as much for Experimental, but controller support seems pretty solid (for me) on GE. At least my dualsense (PS5) controller works perfectly.
Which GE version are you running? I have a PS5 DualSense as well and so far it has failed to work at all with Experimental beta, Experimental, 7.0-1, 7-5-GE and 7.3-GE-1.

It's been a few days, but it was GE-Proton-7.3 (NOT Proton-GE) at the time I think. 7.4 is out now. But you have activate the controller in Steam/Settings/Controllers/Profiles before it's recognised.
Hmm, I just tried with GE-Proton-7.3 and got the same result. I'm not sure what you mean by `Steam/Settings/Controllers/Profiles`? I don't have `Profiles` under the main Steam settings nor in BPM. I have tried selecting a custom mapping for the game, and togging forcing Steam Input on/off but neither did anything.
I should mention that the controller is working beautifully in BPM and Horizon Zero Dawn.

EDIT: Also, I'm trying it out on Pop!_OS, just like you. Very weird stuff.
EDIT 2: I just tried the Windows trick of disconnecting everything but the controller and launching from BPM, still no-go.


Last edited by Cybolic on 5 March 2022 at 8:53 am UTC
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