Gaming with CachyOS Guide

Welcome to the guide for Gaming on CachyOS. This will guide you through the essential aspects on how to set everything up for gaming.

Prerequisites

Caution

Before proceeding, ensure that your graphics card drivers are installed and functioning correctly, otherwise you may encounter issues when playing games.

Essential Packages

To make it easier to set CachyOS up for gaming, all the necessary gaming packages are grouped into one meta-package that includes all the necessary dependencies and libraries for gaming in Linux, with and a separate meta-package for tools and launchers/stores.

If you find that any packages are missing, feel free to let the CachyOS team know.

Follow the steps below to start with the gaming setup.

Meta Package

The cachyos-gaming-meta meta-package includes many gaming-related libraries.

sudo pacman -S cachyos-gaming-meta

Tools & Stores

The cachyos-gaming-applications meta-package includes the following:

• Tools
  • Gamescope, Goverlay, MangoHud
• Launchers
  • Steam, Heroic Games Launcher, Lutris

sudo pacman -S cachyos-gaming-applications

CachyOS Hello

• Go to Apps/Tweaks and click on Install Gaming packages.

CachyOS Hello installs both cachyos-gaming-meta and cachyos-gaming-applications.

Proton-CachyOS

Proton-CachyOS is based on Proton’s bleeding-edge branch and applies a number of modifications on top of it.

• Wine-staging patches
• Wine Fullscreen FSR
• Includes video and audio codecs for game cutscenes
• Support for umu-launcher including UMU-Protonfixes
• Adds early hotfixes/workarounds for games

NTSync is not enabled by default. You can enable it using the PROTON_USE_NTSYNC=1 environment variable.

How to Properly Set Multiple Launch Options

The launch options in Steam are constructed using the following pattern.

<env variables> <wrappers> %command% <application arguments>

• <env variables>: These are options in the form VARIABLE=value

  Examples

  PROTON_DXVK_D3D8=1
  # Or
  DXVK_HUD="fps,memory,version,api"

• <wrappers>: These are applications and scripts that modify how the real application is run. Arguments to the wrapper usually go after the wrapper’s executable.

  Examples

  mangohud --dlsym
  # Or
  gamescope -W 1680 -H 1050 -w 1280 -h 720 -S fit -F fsr --mangoapp --

• %command%: This is the real application. This should be specified exactly as is and Steam will replace it with the proper command when the application is run.

• <application arguments>: These are various arguments to the real application, and they depend on the application.

  Example

  %command% -dx11

Example of a complete launch option combining all the elements:

__GL_SHADER_DISK_CACHE_SKIP_CLEANUP=1 prime-run game-performance %command% -dx11

Caution

Don’t add multiple %command% by using them as separators for multiple launch options.

Example: __GL_SHADER_DISK_CACHE_SKIP_CLEANUP=1 %command% game-performance %command% prime-run %command%

In this case, everything after the first %command% is going to be ignored because it’s being treated as game arguments, therefore only __GL_SHADER_DISK_CACHE_SKIP_CLEANUP=1 gets recognized as a launch option.

Environment Variables

Graphics & Upscaling

• DLSS & Nvidia Features
  • PROTON_DLSS_UPGRADE=1: Automatically upgrade DLSS to the latest version.
  • PROTON_DLSS_INDICATOR=1: Show DLSS status indicator in-game.
  • PROTON_NVIDIA_LIBS=1: Enable Nvidia libraries (PhysX, CUDA) - not needed for DLSS/ray tracing.

Advanced Nvidia Controls

• PROTON_NVIDIA_NVCUDA=1: Enable only CUDA support.
• PROTON_NVIDIA_NVENC=1: Enable only NVENC encoding.
• PROTON_NVIDIA_NVML=1: Enable NVML monitoring.
• PROTON_NVIDIA_NVOPTIX=1: Enable OptiX ray tracing.
• PROTON_NVIDIA_LIBS_NO_32BIT=1: Restrict libraries to only 64-bit (fixes RTX 4000+ performance issues).

• AMD & Intel Upscaling
  • PROTON_FSR4_UPGRADE=1: Automatically upgrade FSR to the latest version.
  • PROTON_FSR4_RDNA3_UPGRADE=1: Use a RDNA3-optimized FSR4 DLL.
  • PROTON_XESS_UPGRADE=1: Automatically upgrade XeSS to the latest version.

Display & HDR

• Wayland & Display

  • PROTON_ENABLE_WAYLAND=1: Enable native Wayland support.
    • Benefits: Allows HDR without Gamescope; improves latency/frame pacing
    • Caveats: Breaks Steam Overlay, currently experimental
  • PROTON_NO_WM_DECORATION=1: Disable window manager decorations.
    • Fixes: Borderless fullscreen issues, mouse clicking through windows

• HDR Support

  • PROTON_ENABLE_HDR=1: Enable HDR output support.
    • Requirements: Gamescope with --hdr-enabled OR PROTON_ENABLE_WAYLAND=1
    • Setup: Additional configuration needed

Performance & Caching

• CPU & Sync Performance

  • PROTON_USE_NTSYNC=1: Use NTSync instead of WINESync.
    • Benefit: Possibility of an increase of smoothness in certain games
    • Note: Experimental, may cause issues in some games
    • Verification: Use lsof /dev/ntsync (MangoHud reports incorrectly)

• Shader & Cache Management

  • PROTON_LOCAL_SHADER_CACHE=1: Enable per-game shader cache, similar to Steam’s “Shader Pre-Caching”.
    • Note: This does NOT compile shaders ahead-of-time, it ONLY isolates the shader cache of each game. Shaders will still be compiled during gameplay.
  • PROTON_ENABLE_MEDIACONV=1: Enable Proton Media Converter.
    • Note: Testing purposes only

• AMD Anti-Lag

  • ENABLE_LAYER_MESA_ANTI_LAG=1: Enable AMD Anti-Lag for reduced input latency.

Input & Compatibility

• Controller & Input
  • PROTON_PREFER_SDL=1: Workaround for controller detection issues
  • PROTON_NO_STEAMINPUT=1: Disable Steam Input support.
    • Fixes: Wayland controller/gamepad issues

Setting Up Proton-CachyOS with Lutris and Heroic

Note

The following configuration only applies to proton-cachyos. If you’re using proton-cachyos-slr, -GE or -EM, you can skip this section.

Make sure you have umu-launcher from CachyOS installed in your system. Install it with the following command.

sudo pacman -S cachyos/umu-launcher

Lutris Global

1. In the main Lutris screen, click the cogwheel icon next to Wine.
2. Go to the Runner Options tab and confirm that your settings match the following:
   • Wine version = proton-cachyos
   • Use System winetricks = Disabled
   • Graphics
     • Enable DXVK = Enabled
       • Note: User-defined versions of DXVK, VKD3D, and DXVK-NVAPI are not applied when using umu-launcher.
3. Navigate to the System Options tab.
   • Lutris
     • Disable Lutris Runtime = Enabled
     • Prefer system libraries = Enabled
4. Continue scrolling down to the Game execution section and locate the Environment variables table.
5. Add the following environment variables:
   • Key: UMU_RUNTIME_UPDATE optional
     • Value: 0
     • This will skip Steam Linux Runtime updates for proton-cachyos. Do not use this with any Proton that utilizes the Steam Linux Runtime, such as proton-cachyos-slr, -GE, or -EM.
   • Key: PROTON_VERB optional
     • Value: waitforexitandrun
     • This allows protonfixes to work with a corresponding GAMEID.
6. Click Save to apply the changes.

Lutris Per Game

1. Right-click the game you want to configure, then click on Configure.
2. Go to the Runner Options tab and confirm that your settings match the following:
   • Wine version = proton-cachyos
   • Use System winetricks = Disabled
   • Graphics
     • Enable DXVK = Enabled
       • Note: User-defined versions of DXVK, VKD3D, and DXVK-NVAPI are not applied when using umu-launcher.
3. Navigate to the System Options tab.
   • Lutris
     • Disable Lutris Runtime = Enabled
     • Prefer system libraries = Enabled
4. Continue scrolling down to the Game execution section and locate the Environment variables table.
5. Add the following environment variables:
   • Key: UMU_RUNTIME_UPDATE optional
     • Value: 0
     • This will skip Steam Linux Runtime updates for proton-cachyos. Do not use this with any Proton that utilizes the Steam Linux Runtime, such as proton-cachyos-slr, -GE, or -EM.
   • Key: PROTON_VERB optional
     • Value: waitforexitandrun
     • This allows protonfixes to work with a corresponding GAMEID.
6. Click Save to apply the changes.

Heroic Games Launcher

1. Click on the Configure button next to the Play Now button in the game you want to run.
2. In the WINE tab. Set the Wine Version to Proton - proton-cachyos.

Anti-Cheat Support

Important

If you encounter issues with games using Easy Anti-Cheat (EAC) or BattlEye (BE), such as refusing to log in game servers, you can use the version of Proton-CachyOS built using Steam Linux Runtime, also known as proton-cachyos-slr.

How To Install proton-cachyos-slr

protonup

1. Open a terminal and install protonup.

   sudo pacman -S protonup-qt

2. Open protonup-qt and follow the screenshot:

   

   Note

   Choose the x86-64_v3 version if your CPU supports AVX2.

   Otherwise, download the one ending with x86-64.

3. Restart Steam if you had it opened.

pacman

Run the following command

sudo pacman -S proton-cachyos-slr

Manual Installation (Advanced)

1. Download the latest version here (scroll down to Assets).

   Note

   Choose the one that ends with x86-64_v3 if your CPU supports AVX2 Otherwise download the one ending with x86-64.

2. Decompress the file and move the folder to ~/.steam/steam/compatibilitytools.d/
3. Restart Steam if you had it open.

Wine-CachyOS

This is the same wine that is at the core of proton-cachyos, but as a standalone package. It can be used in Lutris, Heroic, Bottles, and others.

• All the Wine modifications included with Proton-CachyOS
• Adds early hotfixes/workarounds for games

Note

In the CachyOS repositories, Wine-CachyOS is offered by two different packages. wine-cachyos installs it as the default system Wine and replaces wine or wine-staging. wine-cachyos-opt installs it in a different location, which allows multiple wine versions to co-exist on the system.

Caution

Wine-CachyOS’s primarily intended use is for gaming. Although it can be used as a system Wine with desktop applications, be aware that it might lead to unexpected behavior and issues due to the gaming-focused modifications.

If you want to use desktop application, we suggest using wine or wine-staging as your system’s Wine and installing wine-cachyos-opt for gaming.

Additional configuration options

• WINE_WMCLASS="<name>": Set the WM_CLASS of all Wine windows, allowing the window manager to control the Wine windows through rules.
• WINEUSERSANDBOX=1: Disable the creation of symlinks from Wine user folders (such as Documents and Pictures) to the equivalent folders in the user’s HOME directory.
• WINE_NO_WM_DECORATION=1: Disable window decorations. It can fix issues with borderless fullscreen and the mouse clicking through the window.
• WINE_PREFER_SDL_INPUT=1: Workaround for controller detection issues

How To Use wine-cachyos-opt

Standalone

Normally, running /opt/wine-cachyos/bin/wine instead of just wine should be enough for an application to run using wine-cachyos-opt.

If a more strict configuration is required, it could look like this:

export PATH="/opt/wine-cachyos/bin/:$PATH"
export WINEDLLPATH="/opt/wine-cachyos/lib/wine:/opt/wine-cachyos/lib32/wine:$WINEDLLPATH"
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH="/opt/wine-cachyos/lib/:/opt/wine-cachyos/lib32/:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH"

If you want to use winetricks with wine-cachyos-opt, you can invoke it like this:

WINE=/opt/wine-cachyos/bin/wine WINEPREFIX=<your prefix> winetricks <verb>

Lutris

Note

The second image also applies for setting it up per-game.

Heroic Games Launcher

Steam FAQ & Tips

Note

Laptop users with discrete Nvidia GPUs should refer to the Dual GPU Laptops guide.

Tip

CachyOS provides various Proton versions that are built and maintained for further performance improvements:

• proton-cachyos (included in the cachyos-gaming-meta package) is developed with added QoL changes, cherry-picked patches.

Tip

To check if a game is compatible with Linux, or how it runs on Linux, visit ProtonDB or Are We Anti-Cheat Yet?.

Which Proton Version Should Be Used in Steam?

Note

Since there is some confusion going on on Reddit, the native version of Proton-CachyOS is not being deprecated as a result of steam-native-runtime that has been deprecated.

They are not related and are irrelevant to each other. Our suggestion lately has been the SLR, which we also install by default, to reduce confusion and issues for newcomers to CachyOS and Linux in general. If you like the native version and it works for you, keep using it.

• Proton 10.0 is the stable release from Valve. Use this if the game you want to play is known to work well with it.
• Proton Experimental is the bleeding edge release from Valve. Use this if the game you want to play is relatively new, doesn’t work well with the current Proton stable release, or if people recommend it on ProtonDB.
• proton-cachyos-slr is the one built and maintained by CachyOS maintainers. Using it is highly recommended due to its various QoL features, fixes, and optimizations. For games using anti-cheat, such as BattlEye or Easy Anti-Cheat, or custom launchers, proton-cachyos-slr is preferred.
• proton-cachyos is the same version as proton-cachyos-slr but built without depending on the Steam Linux Runtime. Use it only if you understand the significance of this difference, and fall back to proton-cachyos-slr if issues occur.
• Proton-GE is a custom build made by GloriousEggroll. It includes various fixes, and can be useful to have in certain situations.
• Proton 9.0.4 or lower are the stable releases from Valve. Use this if the game you want to play only works with a previous Proton release.

Fix Stuttering Caused by the Steam Game Recorder Feature

Caution

Adding this environment variable causes Steam’s Overlay to stop functioning.

Add the following launch option to your game.

LD_PRELOAD="" %command%

Capturing and Sharing Proton Logs

Note

When sharing logs with CachyOS, please upload them to paste-cachyos instead of posting directly.

You can simply drag and drop the log file onto the website, then share the generated link.

To enable Proton logging for a game:

1. Right-click your game in Steam and select Properties.
2. Under Launch Options, set the PROTON_LOG environment variable:

   PROTON_LOG=1 %command%

   This will create a log file in your home directory named steam-<AppID>.log (for example, Counter Strike 2 uses AppID 730, so the file would be steam-730.log).

Custom Log Directory

To set a custom log directory, use PROTON_LOG_DIR:

Example

PROTON_LOG=1 PROTON_LOG_DIR=/home/cachyos/steam-logs %command%

Pre-caching Shaders with Proton-CachyOS, -GE, and -EM

Note

It’s advised to disable Steam’s shader pre-caching feature when utilizing Proton-CachyOS, Proton-GE, or Proton-EM. They already contain all the necessary codecs to play videos inside games, and nowadays, a relatively modern GPU-CPU combo should be more than capable of dealing with compiling shaders in-game.

If, however, if you have time to spare, then you can ignore this tip and let Steam pre-compile some shaders for your game.

Keep in mind that not everything gets cached during this process, and updates to the Proton version used to compile the shaders may require full shader recompilation.

To disable this feature in Steam

In Steam, click on Steam->Settings, go to Downloads, and uncheck these settings:

• Allow background processing of Vulkan shaders
• Enable Shader Pre-caching

Note

It’s highly recommended to increase your maximum shader cache size after disabling shader pre-caching on Steam.

Repurposing a Windows NTFS Game Partition

Caution

Avoid using Proton on NTFS drives. Valve does not support this configuration, and it can cause games to behave unpredictably.

If you’re willing to proceed. Follow their unofficial guide.

Lutris

Lutris is a game launcher on CachyOS. With Lutris, you can easily manage your game runners, including Wine, Proton, and emulators.

• Launch games through Lutris simply by clicking the Play button.
• Add any game you want by clicking the + at the top-left corner.
• Set up a store in the Sources at the left panel and connecting your account. It will then proceed to install said store, and then you’ll be able to run games from within the store, just like you do on Windows.
• And more!

Game stores supported in Lutris:

• EA App
• Epic Games Store
• GOG Galaxy
• Steam
• Ubisoft Connect

How to Properly Set Multiple Launch Options and Environment Variables in Lutris

• Launch options such as -dx11 or -fullscreen should be added in the Arguments field under the Game options tab using a space as a separator.
• Command wrappers, for example mangohud --dlsym or game-performance, should be added in the Command prefix field under the System options tab using a space as a separator.
• Environment variables such as PROTON_ENABLE_HDR=1 should be added in the Environment variables table under the System options tab using the + button to add a new entry.

Note

Do not include = in the Key field. It should only contain the variable name.

Performance & Misc Tips

Do Not Combine gamemode and ananicy-cpp

Due to gamemode and ananicy-cpp both trying to modify a process niceness at the same time, it can lead to conflicts and unexpected behavior. It’s recommended to use gamemode without ananicy-cpp.

To stop ananicy-cpp, execute the following command:

systemctl stop ananicy-cpp

Power Profile Switching On-Demand

Note

This behavior differs slightly with intel_pstate. On Intel, the governor stays at powersave, but the EPP/EPB values are adjusted for performance.

game-performance may not provide any benefit on old CPUs.

CachyOS includes a wrapper script game-performance which uses power-profiles-daemon to temporarily switch the power profile to performance. The profile raises system power levels and sets the CPU governor to performance, and also switches any active scx scheduler to its gaming profile (if available).

When used to launch a game, the system remains in performance mode until the game exits, at which point the previous profile is restored.

Feral’s GameMode offers similar functionality.

How To Add game-performance to Steam, Lutris, and Heroic Games Launcher

Steam

1. Open your Steam Library.
2. Right-click the game’s title and select Properties.
3. On the General tab you’ll the find Launch Options section.
4. Add the following launch option:

   game-performance %command%

Heroic Games Launcher

1. On the left panel open Settings.
2. Go to Game defaults then click on Advanced.
3. In the wrapper command section. Add the following line without any argument:

   game-performance

4. Click on the + sign to save changes.

Lutris

1. On the top right open the hamburger menu.
2. Go to Preferences/Global options.
3. Enable Advanced Mode on the top right.
4. Scroll down to Command prefix and add the following line:

   game-performance

5. Save changes.

Increase maximum shader cache size

Game shaders are compiled automatically while playing, which may cause long loading times and stuttering the first time you encounter them. These shaders are stored on your system to be reused when needed.

However, there is a maximum limit to the shader cache’s file size, causing old shaders to be forgotten when exceeding the default size. This can be an issue since large games can have shaders over 1GB in size, causing them to re-compile shaders every launch.

To avoid long loading times and stuttering, we can increase the global shader cache size:

Nvidia GPU

1. Open the terminal.
2. Enter this command to edit the environment file:

   nano ~/.config/environment.d/gaming.conf

3. Paste the following at the end of the file:

   # Increase Nvidia's shader cache size to 12GB
   __GL_SHADER_DISK_CACHE_SIZE=12000000000

4. Save the file by pressing CTRL+X, Y, then Enter.
5. Restart your system.

AMD GPU

1. Open the terminal.
2. Enter this command to edit the environment file:

   nano ~/.config/environment.d/gaming.conf

3. Paste the following at the end of the file:

   # Enforces RADV Vulkan implementation
   AMD_VULKAN_ICD=RADV
   
   # Increase AMD's shader cache size to 12GB
   MESA_SHADER_CACHE_MAX_SIZE=12G

4. Save the file by pressing CTRL+X, Y, then Enter.
5. Restart your system.

After restarting, the maximum shader cache size should be permanently increased. Thanks to psygreg’s shader booster for helping this guide.

Forcing the Latest DLSS Preset

How to add dlss-swapper to Steam, Lutris, and Heroic Games Launcher

Steam

1. Open your Steam Library.
2. Right click the game’s title and select Properties.
3. On the General tab you’ll find Launch Options section.
4. Add the following Launch Option:

   dlss-swapper %command%

Heroic Games Launcher

1. On the left panel open Settings.
2. Go to Game defaults then click on Advanced.
3. In the wrapper command section. Add the following line without any argument:

   dlss-swapper

4. Click on the + sign to save changes.

Lutris

1. On the top right open the hamburger menu.
2. Go to Preferences/Global options.
3. Enable Advanced Mode on the top right.
4. Scroll down to Command prefix and add the following line:

   dlss-swapper

5. Save changes.

Manual DLL Replacement Method

If dlss-swapper is not working or causing issues, try updating game’s DLSS implementation manually by replacing nvngx_dlss.dll with an up-to-date version and using the dlss-swapper-dll wrapper script instead.

Ray Tracing Support

The Arch Wiki has already provides comprehensive instructions on how to enable ray tracing for various hardware platforms.

• Ray tracing on Nvidia
• Ray tracing on AMD
• Ray tracing on Intel

Performance Drop on Nvidia in DirectX12 Games

Some users report that the issue is related to how Nvidia’s Linux drivers handle GPU scheduling—unlike on Windows, where proper scheduling is enforced. There’s been no official Nvidia statement on this matter yet. There is Currently no known workaround for this issue. Nvidia is supposedly working on a fix, but it’s not clear when it will be released.

It has nothing to do with CachyOS.

In some titles, the performance drop is less noticeable than in others. Check out this benchmark comparison video for reference.

Follow the Nvidia thread to learn more about this issue.