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PSA: Have you tried NTSYNC? You should (programming.dev)
submitted 3 days ago by to c/linux_gaming@lemmy.world
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so I tried for the longest time to game on my 12-16 year old system with varying results. the constant issue was with Far Cry 5 - whatever I tried, it was always laggy, choppy, sometimes it's 30 fps, sometimes it's 50, altering resolutions, details, nothing worked or at least, no consistent results. my specs are above the recommended ones (i5-4670K, 16 GB, RX 580 8 GB, Fedora 44, Lutris, Wine 11.x) yet it always ran like ass.

so I read somewhere that the new NTSYNC is da bomb for CPU heavy games, which this one is, and in lieu of any succinct tutorial, I stumbled around and did the following:

  1. sudo dnf install ntsync-autoload
  2. sudo modprobe ntsync
  3. turned off Esync and Fsync in Lutris

ran it with MANGOHUD_CONFIG=full to verify, and verily, there it is, says NTSYNC.

the game - forgetaboutit, butter smooth, constant 60 fps, no issues, no stutters, no frame gen spikes, this is like a new machine!

so it's possible this isn't the proper way to do it, but if you got issues, doesn't hurt to try.

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[–] 8 points 3 days ago (7 children)

As for Proton GE, it's actually not downloading tons of stuff. I guess you tried to install some Proton software manager, which can have dependencies. All you really need to do is, downloading a single archive and unpack it. If you unpack it under the Steam directory (there is a specific Proton directory Steam expects), then it will be picked up automatically with restarting Steam. You can also use it without Steam, but then you need the right commandline arguments; Proton is after all a commandline tool like WINE.

I personally created my own script that downloads this and installs it. It's just a single Python script without dependencies. But I'm not here to advertise my (free) tool, just explaining how easy it is to do this manually:

  1. Go to https://github.com/GloriousEggroll/proton-ge-custom/releases .
  2. Scroll down to the Assets of the newest entry.
  3. Download the archive with file ending "-x86_64.tar.gz".

For integrated use in Steam:

  1. Unpack the archive under ~"/.steam/root/compatibilitytools.d/" . If the directory "compatibilitytools.d" does not exist, create it.
  2. Restart Steam and select this GE Proton version.

If you want run it without Steam, you can run the proton executable itself found inside the archive. But there are a few options you have to set, which I forgot what they were.

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  • [–] [S] 5 points 3 days ago (6 children)

    shoulda been more verbose... ain't no manager, when you select "latest" in lutris it downloads the latest proton-ge, that's item one. then it downloads some steam runtimes, rt something, sniper something, can't be bothered to repeat the ordeal, then it does the umu thing, spits out phonebooks of log spam and then... it craps out with various statuses. when you run it again, it doesn't download it again, just runs the stuff downloaded.

    anyhoo, I don't got no steam on my disk and don't plan on changing that, possibly that might be relevant

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  • [–] 8 points 2 days ago (2 children)

    FWIW, I frequently had problems with Lutris as well. I have since switched to Heroic. I use it for games that are not on GOG or Epic as well. Far fewer problems than with Lutris. For now.

    Over the years Linux gaming with Wine happened in cycles. First you fiddled around with Wine on its own. Then someone made an awesome tool that did the fiddling for you. Then more and more stuff broke and you had to do more and more stuff in the tool manually. Until you gave up on it and just did the fiddling directly with Wine. Rinse and repeat.

    I think Lutris is from the third or fourth generation. Heroic is one generation beyond that. Though they do collaborate and with Valve support in Proton they might last much longer than previous generations.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 days ago (1 child)

    Same. Heroic just works way more consistently than Lutris for me

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  • [–] 1 point 9 hours ago

    The problem with Lutris is that even previously working installations can suddenly just stop working. I had that happen with Affinity studio, and now that I tried to reinstall them, the installer script I used no longer works, so I'm out of the whole program altogether. Kind of ridiculous.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 days ago

    I see. Sounds like an issue with the installer script for that thing. Because why would it download Steam Runtime and Sniper Runtime for Steam if you don't use Steam at all.

    Whatever it's good to know one can use NTSync like you described in your post. I wouldn't have thought it made such a big difference. I also have a PC from that era too (before I upgraded), DDR-3 based and same generation as your CPU. It's not in use right now, but thought out to put it out just for fun.

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  • [–] 1 point 9 hours ago (1 child)

    Lutris can be a crapshoot, you never know when it's gonna give. Have you tried Bottles? That too can be a crapshoot, but a different one (I'm assuming from your comments that you don't like dedicated game launchers like Heroic or Faugus).

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 9 hours ago

    nope, never had problems, every game I tried worked or could be persuaded to work - switch wine version, disable/enable the runtime, etc. the setup does taking used to, but once you figure out how to keep separate pfx for every game (yay for btrfs and deduping!), how to run the setup within it and then switch to the installed .exe, it all goes swimmingly. the only thing I don't understand is why they went with proton-ge as default, as nothing ever ran with it; the predecessor, wine-ge, worked plenty fine.

    over the years tried all alternatives - heroic, bottles, fagus, steam even - but none took (or even worked, for that matter), this does everything and conveniently so. it's possible my misgivings are due to exclusively running cracked games, but at this point I'm just happy everything works.

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