Games that used to run fine now all suddenly unplayable due to severe stuttering issues

General system Gaming, sound and video
1

As title. I have a mix of games (all installed via Steam), installed either on an SSD or an HDD. I have tried to run several games today all of which ran buttery-smooth on high or ultra settings recently that now have unplayable stuttering issues. I have tried testing games installed on the HDD on the SSD instead to see if this helps, but there are no changes (with the exception of CK3, where there was minimal performance improvement). I have also tried rebooting my system. No changes.

The one change between today and previous recent gameplay was I attempted to use this fix to speed up background Vulkan shader loading through Steam. However, even after reversing this fix (exiting Steam, removing the config file, restarting Steam, disabling pre-loading and background loading of shaders on Steam, restarting Steam again) and waiting for Vulkan shaders to load on launch (in the case of Tainted Grail taking almost 2hrs), performance issues persisted.

Games tested so far: Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced [on HDD], Crusader Kings 3 [on both HDD and SSD, modded and unmodded, slight performance improvement unmodded], Tainted Grail Fall of Avalon [on HDD]. Have tested all three games with both Proton 11 and Proton Hotfix. No discernible difference.

What do I need to audit to fix this issue??? Extremely frustrating waste of an afternoon for no apparent reason.

System info below:

OS: EndeavourOS x86_64

Kernel: Linux 6.18.41-1-lts

DE: GNOME 50.3

CPU: 12th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-12400F (12) @ 4.40 GHz

GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 6GB [Discrete]

Memory: 3.00 GiB / 31.18 GiB (10%)

Disk (SSD): 404.89 GiB / 902.09 GiB (45%) - ext4

Disk (HDD): 549.53 GiB / 7.22 TiB (7%) - ext4

2

Using Hyprland w/Proton-GE here. Updated this morning, running the 7.1.5 kernel, no issues at all with Steam. FWIW, I’ve only been playing Grim Dawn today.

3

Mild improvements on GE-Proton but still nowhere near playable.

4

Was there a GNOME update recently? I would try the latest Arch kernel. When you say “discrete”, are you using a laptop? If so, confirm that Steam is still using the right GPU.

I’m running a desktop with an Nvidia 4060; not a powerhouse, but it does the job in my use-case.

5

Some noticeable improvements on the latest kernel + GE-Proton! But games still seem to stutter severely every 5-10 seconds. Stuttering gets worse with more demanding gameplay (e.g. combat, complex animations, rendering foliage). Still nowhere near performance just a day ago.

6

Forcing games to run on the NVIDIA GPU by putting

__NV_PRIME_RENDER_OFFLOAD=1 __GLX_VENDOR_LIBRARY_NAME=nvidia %command%

into the Steam launcher settings also improves performance, but again nowhere near previous levels.

I feel like all these tweaks are enhancing performance but not actually addressing whatever the issue is.

7

Was there any update to the version of proton steam was using? I would experiment with different versions. A site to check also would be protondb and see if there is anything mentioned there about the games you are running.

8

The RTX 3050 is a low end card, set your settings lower to get stutter free experience.

9

Seems this hasn’t been an issue which is why I didn’t suggest it.

10

Yeah i have read that, RTX 3050 and high/ultra/epic settings is a no go. If the game is 10 years old i would say yes. Newer games requires higher specs (More GB/NVRAM). The 3050 is a low end card so don’t expect to much from it.

11

Yer I thought along similar lines, the only reason I discarded it from my thoughts is that it used to run fine. (I am wondering if they are going to detect system settings in the game and if this is being suggested as it seems from my experience doing this it will almost always no matter what you are running select the highest settings)

12

I saw similar reports with nvidia. Probably nvidia drivers/firmware. Its AI accelerators anyway but. You can still try to roll back firmware-nvidia few versions back.

13

Roundup response to some feedback from last night:

The RTX 3050 is a low end card, set your settings lower to get stutter free experience.

I am aware my machine has limits and am generally conservative about configuring newer games. Again though, these were settings that were fine a few days ago, and to my knowledge there has been no major change to drivers or other software that should change that.

I am wondering if they are going to detect system settings in the game and if this is being suggested as it seems from my experience doing this it will almost always no matter what you are running select the highest settings

I configure my games manually, for the most part. I usually start newer games on low-medium and push upward from there. I was running these games on high-ultra settings after multiple rounds of testing.

If the game is 10 years old i would say yes. Newer games requires higher specs (More GB/NVRAM). The 3050 is a low end card so don’t expect to much from it.

To be more precise, AC Black Flag Resynced and Tainted Grail were able to run on “high” settings, CK3 ran on ultra. Again, these settings were fine over the weekend, only encountered issues yesterday.

Running these games medium-low translates into some performance improvements, but again nowhere near where they were running a few days ago on much more demanding settings. AC Black Flag is stuttering at the in-game start menu, not even in the game itself.

Was there any update to the version of proton steam was using? I would experiment with different versions.

No changes to my knowledge. Again, in the original post I said I experimented with both Proton 11 and Proton Hotfix (the latter is the recommended one on AC Black Flag Resynced), and subsequently GE-Proton. GE shows some improvement but nowhere near where these games were running a few days ago.

A site to check also would be protondb and see if there is anything mentioned there about the games you are running.

No documented issues on ProtonDB for any of these games.

I saw similar reports with nvidia. Probably nvidia drivers/firmware. Its AI accelerators anyway but. You can still try to roll back firmware-nvidia few versions back.

This could be it, but there hasn’t been a major driver or firmware update AFAIK between when games were running fine on my machine and when they weren’t.

14

Guessing you just glanced, the very first thing from searching AC Black Flag Resysnced was this
Screenshot_20260803_234422
So there are issues with this

15

Yep, missed that. But I am experiencing the same problems on Proton11 and Proton Hotfix, the latter of which is the recommended Proton for the game.

Doesn’t explain the performance issues with other games across multiple instances of Proton.

16

Every single game you have tested has issues when I look at what people are reporting on protondb in some way shape or form. And a lot of people reporting it working state significant perfomance issues or similar.
What I would suggest is going through what has worked for others and seeing if any of it helps.
As for why it was working one and not the next I could only guess and most would probably be wrong.

17

Did you check if the game runs on the dGPU ? It’s possible the iGPU took over.