Playing Guild Wars 2 on Linux - Performance optimizations and more.

[Unknown.9027]

14 minutes ago, SoftFootpaws.9134 said:

sounds like vulkan just isn't working on your system? enabling dx9 and disabling vulkan would've just...

The thing is, today, or rather yesterday at this hour, in the morning before this daamned patch, I was able to play just fine (enough...), and now this.

Also, I am not the only one who was forced to force -dx9 to make this work and they too are now bricked out of playing the game as of the latest patch since they too can't use anet's sorry dx11 spaghetti implementation, apparently it causes them graphical and or performance issues.

I have a policy regarding things that work, which is to not fix (break) them. I wouldn't go disabling things if things worked, the -dx9 thing wasn't working 'till I toggled off the DXVK/VKD3D setting, and only then did the game properly launch.

Just what is it with companies/devs and their zealous fixation on taking options away from users?

[zistenz.1945]

They said in January they'll remove the DX9 option soon, it wasn't a surprise. It's inefficient to develop for both renderers, especially for their legacy spaghetti code. And linux is not officitally supported, so we should be thankful they're not using any kittened up kernel level DRM/anticheat tech in the game and/or they don't treat us as cheaters and don't ban us simply just because we use linux (f* you, Bungie!).

Edited July 19, 2023 by zistenz.1945

[Veprovina.4876]

On 7/19/2023 at 1:54 AM, Public Display Name.7694 said:

Aaaand IT'S GONE!

Adding a -dx9 line in arguments no longer works, bravo anet, you've gone done it once again.

I freaking knew it would be a short lived thing, didn't expect it would be over so soon, figured 'till the expansion drops but hahah nope.

Oh well, that's it.

Really speedrunning my prophecy, huh anet? From July 8 to July 19. So much for that.

They did say dx9 is not going to be an option anymore eventually.

Any reason you can't use DX11?

[Chaba.5410]

42 minutes ago, Veprovina.4876 said:

Any reason you can't use DX11?

He posted this info earlier> Some outdated library versions so his gpu isn't being detected or something.
 

 

[Veprovina.4876]

13 minutes ago, Chaba.5410 said:

He posted this info earlier> Some outdated library versions so his gpu isn't being detected or something.
 

 

Yes, but, i told them before that post to try the Steam version because Lutris hasn't worked in a long while, and then they posts this with lutris version on it.

Most likely - that's the problem.

Also "they" in both "i don't know their gender" and "there were 2 posters so plural they". Idk what if the other person managed to get GW2 working.

But Public Display name seems to want to avoid Steam when Steam and its proton is likely the solution.

@Public Display Name.7694 Did you try the Steam version? If yes - what proton (also, use -provider Portal)? If not - why not?

  

On 4/24/2023 at 6:45 AM, Public Display Name.7694 said:

@Veprovina.4876

I am rather iffy about steam and will try to avoid it if possible, that said, it does seem to be a final solution type of case given that lutris isn't shaping better any time, --> from what I've gathered, it has to do with how it conflicts with anet's incoherent UI at the launcher phase. <--

Been thinking about it, good to know one can simply move that fat .dat file over. Still, don't like feeling cornered between lutris' BS and gaben's intrusive game garden.

Also - this specific issue is fixed in proton. Lutris having issues with the launcher. This is literally what i was experiencing on Lutris and why i don't play GW2 through lutris. Use proton. Not lutris wine.

Edited July 20, 2023 by Veprovina.4876

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

11 hours ago, zistenz.1945 said:

They said in January they'll remove the DX9 option soon, it wasn't a surprise. It's inefficient to develop for both renderers, especially for their legacy spaghetti code. And linux is not officitally supported, so we should be thankful they're not using any kittened up kernel level DRM/anticheat tech in the game and/or they don't treat us as cheaters and don't ban us simply just because we use linux (f* you, Bungie!).

we know that a handful of the developers play the game on linux, and on steamdeck, so they could never add anything like that.

[zistenz.1945]

11 hours ago, SoftFootpaws.9134 said:

we know that a handful of the developers play the game on linux, and on steamdeck, so they could never add anything like that.

That doesn't matter. Destiny 2 worked well on linux before and devs successfully demoed the game on the Deck too (heck, the game was on Stadia, legally!), but Bungie decided that linux is not a safe environment and they immediately ban you if you try to run the game on it. (F* you, again, Bungie! And you decided to delete a huge chunk out of your game, f* you for that too!)

[Sina.9208]

On 6/16/2023 at 8:29 PM, Sina.9208 said:

I tried LightDM today. It completely broke everything. I'm thinking if I installed another distro, not KDE neon it might work though..

 

I switched to Arch and now I have a working LightDM + Plasma system. Login is no longer a gamble xD

As someone mentioned in this very topic, the keyring settings needed to be adjusted in the LightDM config file.

Edited July 22, 2023 by Sina.9208

[draconicrose.6213]

Lutris works with the latest script and has worked for a long time. I have no idea why people are saying it doesn't.

Since the June 27th patch I have been having crashes after playing for a while, with no warning. Seems to be consistently at around 2 hours so I'm wondering if there's a memory leak somewhere. If anyone is experiencing the same, speak up. Maybe we can find out what's causing it.

[Sina.9208]

On 7/23/2023 at 7:27 PM, draconicrose.6213 said:

Lutris works with the latest script and has worked for a long time. I have no idea why people are saying it doesn't.

Since the June 27th patch I have been having crashes after playing for a while, with no warning. Seems to be consistently at around 2 hours so I'm wondering if there's a memory leak somewhere. If anyone is experiencing the same, speak up. Maybe we can find out what's causing it.

Are you sure it's not Nvidia? Put your textures on medium or low & see if that time window becomes longer..

Edited July 24, 2023 by Sina.9208

[draconicrose.6213]

21 hours ago, Sina.9208 said:

Are you sure it's not Nvidia? Put your textures on medium or low & see if that time window becomes longer..

Pretty sure. Changed the wine version on Lutris to lutris-GE-Proton8 and that seems to have solved it. Wine continues to be dark magic to me.

[garpu.6210]

Oh yeah, regular WINE hasn't worked for me since July of last year, when they changed the UI. I think it's because stock WINE/wine-staging doesn't have the vk child window patch, but Proton does.

[Sina.9208]

I just use Steam to launch it as an external game with Proton 8, I'm not even sure how to use command parameters in Lutris and GW2 kind of needs them for the best results.

[Bubba.2731]

Run the game with Proton, works flawlessly.

[VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig.]

I just use lutris with lutris-ge-proton8-10 and it just works. No crashes either. *shrug*

[garpu.6210]

"Processing Vulkan shaders"  I get this at least twice a day, in addition to any other shader downloads Steam does.  Does the processing vulkan shaders step actually do anything?  Or is this another instance of that bug we had awhile ago? I can understand a kernel upgrade triggering it, since i'm reinstalling drivers (nvidia) then. But after I've played for an hour, when it doesn't trigger it on the launch prior?  Makes no sense.

[YourOnlyOne.4937]

On 8/17/2023 at 10:37 PM, garpu.6210 said:

"Processing Vulkan shaders"  I get this at least twice a day, in addition to any other shader downloads Steam does.  Does the processing vulkan shaders step actually do anything?  Or is this another instance of that bug we had awhile ago? I can understand a kernel upgrade triggering it, since i'm reinstalling drivers (nvidia) then. But after I've played for an hour, when it doesn't trigger it on the launch prior?  Makes no sense.

For me, it only started after the Steam client update. And since my laptop is not a gaming laptop, and it's a 2020 release, I also noticed slowness with GW2 when launched via Steam.

When I tried Lutris again this week, it's faster, and I no longer experience crashes when opening TP (last time I tested it was CoherentUI days). So, I'm back to using Lutris with the latest lutris-ge-proton (I use Qt-Proton to get updates from GE's GitRepo easily).

* Pop!_OS 22.04

 

[garpu.6210]

Launcher patches.  🙂 Not expecting any big issues, since it's basically the same engine and UI we've been using the past 6 months.

[Unknown.9027]

I have some questions:

How much does the GW2's .dat folder weight now that "SotO" has been released, I've given up on trying to make it work on my setup, hence why I won't even attempt to boot this game up and check it myself when I know all it'll do is eat away at my current limited amount of SSD space left, probably before it even gets anywhere near full download despite not having brought the expansion, because that's how "live services" type games work, and if not, the sheer volumes of new expansion themed cash shop skins and what else has probably driven the folder's above ( or close to) 100GB.

 

For those who play this through steam, how much does the steam client weight? Assuming you don't need to download anything else and can simply direct a path link to the gw2.dat file in order to boot the game out of the box with just that command line to force non-steam account use.

 

Has anet ever gotten around to fixing the problems with dx11? The saturated colors and other graphical errors, the lag/fps drops and the Trading Post/cash shop error crashes upon interacting with it?

 

How has the game been treating linux players since the expansion's release fps wise? Asking because out of own experience it seems that with every expansion/big patch, they're looking into making non-windows players times harder and having to jump through hoops trying to make a game that worked "yesterday and the day before" just fine, worse, or not work at all if PoF to EoD is to go by. I generally read those playing this through steam being content save for the first few days after anet does one of their updates and the latest proton runner hasn't been released yet, but I felt like asking anyways.

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

7 hours ago, Public Display Name.7694 said:

I have some questions:

How much does the GW2's .dat folder weight now that "SotO" has been released, I've given up on trying to make it work on my setup, hence why I won't even attempt to boot this game up and check it myself when I know all it'll do is eat away at my current limited amount of SSD space left, probably before it even gets anywhere near full download despite not having brought the expansion, because that's how "live services" type games work, and if not, the sheer volumes of new expansion themed cash shop skins and what else has probably driven the folder's above ( or close to) 100GB.

 

For those who play this through steam, how much does the steam client weight? Assuming you don't need to download anything else and can simply direct a path link to the gw2.dat file in order to boot the game out of the box with just that command line to force non-steam account use.

 

Has anet ever gotten around to fixing the problems with dx11? The saturated colors and other graphical errors, the lag/fps drops and the Trading Post/cash shop error crashes upon interacting with it?

 

How has the game been treating linux players since the expansion's release fps wise? Asking because out of own experience it seems that with every expansion/big patch, they're looking into making non-windows players times harder and having to jump through hoops trying to make a game that worked "yesterday and the day before" just fine, worse, or not work at all if PoF to EoD is to go by. I generally read those playing this through steam being content save for the first few days after anet does one of their updates and the latest proton runner hasn't been released yet, but I felt like asking anyways.

1. the game is currently about 66gb in total, which is still small enough to fit on a flash drive (sd card or similar) if drive space is a problem.

2. you can launch an arenanet account from steam, and there's information here (and on the wiki) of how to do so.

3. you shouldn't be having directx 11 errors, but if you're still having trouble with oversaturated colors you can install vkbasalt and disable the in-game post-processing and antialiasing and roll your own using reshade shaders. https://github.com/gripped/vkBasalt-working-reshade-shaders

4. coherentui was replaced with chromium embedded framework, so you shouldn't be crashing.at the trading post anymore. if you do its likely an issue with your setup as many games use this technology successfully on linux.

5. the game hasn't needed a new proton version since 7.2 and it was mainly for coherentui, which was removed anyway.

Edited September 8, 2023 by SoftFootpaws.9134

[Chaba.5410]

11 hours ago, Public Display Name.7694 said:

I have some questions:

How much does the GW2's .dat folder weight now that "SotO" has been released, I've given up on trying to make it work on my setup for the first few days after anet does one of their updates and the latest proton runner hasn't been released yet, but I felt like asking anyways.

You could always play on GeForce Now and download zero game files.  Or Steam Deck, but I couldn't tell you if that requires a Steam account or you can use the command line to use an ArenaNet account.

[RedArt.7405]

Yahallo, I am trying to create a new overlay for linux users (a gw2taco port). But will need some guinea pigs to test it. Preferably people who are already familiar with linux.

Join the `jokolay` channel on the gw2 development community server. If you look at your server list on left in discord, you will find "Discover" button at the bottom of the list. Click that and search for "gw2 dev" to find the gw2 development community server and join that.

Also posting a invite link here for easier access: https://discord.gg/zqeHCEg

Edited September 12, 2023 by RedArt.7405
spelling: fine -> find

[Mount Mazama.2917]

Any options to help out testing with this without using discord? I don't use that service for a variety of reasons, I have been playing this game on linux for a bit over a year and have been on linux desktops for over 6 years.

[RedArt.7405]

are you okay with matrix/element then? I can create a server on matrix.org

[RedArt.7405]

Okay, created a matrix room at https://matrix.to/#/#jokolay:matrix.org

You can also search for "jokolay" in public rooms on matrix/element, and join that.