EVE Online (8500)

EVE Online

The game EVE Online doesn't run out-of-the-box with Steam Play / Proton 3.7. However, this is an issue specific to WINE and the game itself. When WINE is manually set to run in "Windows XP"-mode, using winecfg, then Steam Play will start the game and the game will run normally. It then starts the EVE launcher, allows to login, starts the client and runs in DX11 with all graphics options set to high at ~90fps on an Nvidia GTX960.

To switch Proton into "Windows XP"-mode does one need to enter into the shell the following command:

$ cd "/home/user/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/Proton 3.7/dist/bin"
$ export WINEPREFIX="/home/user/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/compatdata/8500/pfx/"
$ ./wine winecfg

After which one can select "Windows XP" at the bottom of the WINE configuration tool.

Note: The paths need to be adjusted to the current user and the exact directories for Proton and the game. Make sure you're typing it in as shown above so it picks up the right winecfg. Don't use the winecfg that comes with your distribution.
The path ~/.steam/steam/ may also be used and can be a symbolic link to ~/.local/share/Steam/ depending on the type of distro you're using. I.e.:
~/.steam/steam/steamapps/compatdata/8500/pfx/ for the WINEPREFIX and
~/.steam/steam/steamapps/common/Proton\ 3.16/dist/bin/ for the binaries.

The OS used for this was GNU/Debian 10 "Buster", Nvidia driver 396.54.02 (Vulkan beta).

Other reports on EVE Online suggest a variety of winetricks in addition to the above. However, none of these are in fact required for Debian and may only be required for other distributions.

Additional information:

• Nvidia driver releases prior to 396.54.02 can show flickering or even cause freezes.
• Depending on the window manager and compositor may it be necessary to enable Force Composite Pipeline in the settings to the Nvidia driver for the game to render correctly (see Display Configuration -> Advanced).
• The game launcher can consume unusually high cpu resources or even hang, when left running for too long. This appears to be caused by too much output coming from WINE and DXVK. Should this occur should one set WINEDEBUG=-all and DXVK_LOG_LEVEL=none as environment variables to suppress the output.
• DXVK 0.80 features a state cache, which needs to be disabled when running multiple clients, because it's currently not easily possible to have multiple state caches per executable. The environment variable DXVK_STATE_CACHE=0 needs to be set to prevent the use of the state cache.

More information regarding EVE Online on Proton can be found in the Linux section of the game's forum. https://forums.eveonline.com/t/steam-play-beta-all-games-are-available-for-download-to-linux-steam-client/99843

One minor issue remains, which is crackling sound. As this has been observed with quite a few oth`er games and not just EVE Online does this seem to have a different cause. So I'm mentioning it here, but the game works otherwise fine. Using a locally installed version of WINE 3.15/DXVK 0.71 does the game play without crackling sound. So this will possibly fix itself in the future with a newer Proton version I hope.

Update: Audio issues was fixed with https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/1223#issuecomment-418521585

Start with the Proton winecfg command and the EVE Online launch, rendering, and audio details in this issue, then review the referenced comment and forum thread. Confirm whether the reported Windows XP workaround or remaining compatibility symptoms still reproduce on a current Proton version; done means the current status is verified and the issue is updated with evidence.