ValveSoftware
Dark Souls III (374320)
Compatibility Report
- Name of the game with compatibility issues: Dark Souls III
- Steam AppID of the game: 374320
System Information
- GPU: GTX 1650
- Driver/LLVM version: nvidia 510.47.03
- Kernel version: 5.16.9-246-tkg-bmq
- Link to full system information report as Gist: https://gist.github.com/CygnusTerminal/4b3f848d9c279096371e51d24f97fd6d
- Proton version: 6.3-8
I confirm:
- [ ] that I haven't found an existing compatibility report for this game.
- [x] that I have checked whether there are updates for my system available.
Symptoms
Game runs pretty stuttery, and there are FPS drops present. Game runs well on Windows.
Reproduction
- Start the game
- Play for a bit
- Observe the issues
Running around the intro area is working well for me with 6.3-8, and users on Protondb mention it works well. Maybe something weird with your setup?
I notice you have some custom stuff going on. For example:
Kernel: Linux 5.16.9-246-tkg-bmq #1 TKG SMP PREEMPT Sun, 13 Feb 2022 02:58:34 +0000 x86_64
gamemodeauto: dlopen failed - libgamemode.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
Can you try disabling custom stuff like gamemode and any graphics overlays, and try your distro's default kernel?
(Also when testing perf stuff, be sure to disable Proton's logging. I don't think it's having an impact in this case, but sometimes logging can cause performance issues by itself.)
If I remember correctly it's a dx11 game and dxvk has always come up a little short on the performance side of things. Had same issue with Monster Hunter World in dx11 mode, which is what triggered me to get dx12 running in its experimental fashion to begin with. AVA is running at 200fps with dx9 so there's no problem there either. There's just something in the dx11 side of things that just doesn't sit well.
Replying to https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/5569#issuecomment-1040448505
Hello aeikum, will try and do as you say, and post an update. Thanks!
Oh sorry, it seems my last comment was too ambiguous for this thread. Let me clarify: I have the same issue with this game and pretty much every other dx11 game. I've had it with MHW, DS3, Path of Exile, the list just goes on. I've reported this issue in MHW thread as well and the only thing I got out of that was that people have a different perception on the matter between normal performance and unbearably slow and unstable to the point of crashing.
I'm running arch linux zen kernel with proton-tkg and proton experimental and have tried games with plenty of other proton versions as well and the issue never was addressed, let alone resolved. You can start almost any dx11 game and you will run into this problem.
With DS3 there's the added bonus that several hours in the sound starts cutting out and if you keep playing the game will crash on you.
Some games run good and after some time run bad in arch based distros. In Ubuntu/Pop!_OS LTS all are smooth. I try every interesting distro for games and that i can say. I try most optimized kernels and always have some problem in some game. Now i just use stock Ubuntu/Pop!_OS kernels and all games run very good. Last time i used Manjaro Gnome with BTRFS with no modifications done by me, but voila, after last update the system refuse to load. So the thing is: optimized kernels and stuff very often hurt than help. Anyway DS3/Sekiro is running perfect for me with Nvidia 1060 6GB
It got better, but there are slowdowns when backstabbing enemies, they dissapear after a second or so. My laptop is not overheating or throttling. I had to reinstall my system so i'll check again, to see if it was an issue with that old system.
It got better, but there are slowdowns when backstabbing enemies, they dissapear after a second or so. My laptop is not overheating or throttling. I had to reinstall my system so i'll check again, to see if it was an issue with that old system.
Be sure to disable controller vibrations in the game, even when using a keyboard. If you have a camera mod installed this is doubly important.
Some games run good and after some time run bad in arch based distros. In Ubuntu/Pop!_OS LTS all are smooth. I try every interesting distro for games and that i can say. I try most optimized kernels and always have some problem in some game. Now i just use stock Ubuntu/Pop!_OS kernels and all games run very good. Last time i used Manjaro Gnome with BTRFS with no modifications done by me, but voila, after last update the system refuse to load. So the thing is: optimized kernels and stuff very often hurt than help. Anyway DS3/Sekiro is running perfect for me with Nvidia 1060 6GB
It depends on the kernel of course, but zen is pretty stable in terms of usage (and comes with the FSync patch) and the kernel used by @CygnusTerminal is actually Tk-Glitch's kernel patches which I think is even optimized for use with proton.
It got better, but there are slowdowns when backstabbing enemies, they dissapear after a second or so. My laptop is not overheating or throttling. I had to reinstall my system so i'll check again, to see if it was an issue with that old system.
Be sure to disable controller vibrations in the game, even when using a keyboard. If you have a camera mod installed this is doubly important.
Oh, haven't tried that yet, i play with a DualShock 4 controller via BT, i'll have to test. Thanks!
Duplicate issue, already exists...
But for ubuntu based system, installing gamemode and adding gamemoderun %command% to launch options lets proton know you have it and it reserves power and resources for that game.
Proton currently cannot find gamemoderun.
Also, althought it might not change much... moving game to ssd drive may improve performance...
SEVERE performance regression on Dark Souls 3 on Proton Experimental (June, 18, 2025)
When running the game with proton experimental the game runs at 2 FPS, when i moved back to Proton 8 it was performing perfectly fine at stable 60 fps in my Ryzen RDNA3 APU (Ryzen 8700G, 780M)
it says 47 fps in the HUD but the frame pacing is so bad but so bad that it feels like 2 fps
