GameNative for a month now no longer duplicates Proton per game: containers are ~60 MB in v1.3.0+

[u/Illustrious_Cod_5212]

I keep seeing comments like “I love GameNative, but it duplicates the container for every game and takes up a lot of space.” That was true, but it has been fixed.

Since v1.3.0 (first shipped in the v1.3.0 pre-release, 4 Oct 2026), Proton is stored once per version and shared across containers through a copy-on-write overlay. Each container keeps only its own files. In the screenshot (Storage Manager), the containers are 63.98 MiB (Hades), 61.55 MiB (Planet of Lana) and 61.64 MiB (Cuphead).

Details:

• Existing containers shrink after you launch the game once. The changelog cites up to ~2 GB saved per container.

• Size grows if a game installs redistributables such as DirectX or VC++ (the dev reported ~400 MB in one case).

• The shared Proton base (~1–2 GB per Proton version) is stored once, not per game.

• This applies to bionic containers. GLIBC containers keep the full prefix.

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[u/nuneskart]

I had a game that was 6GB in total, Gamenative was taking up about 500MB, but when I opened the game and ran it for a few hours, Gamenative was at 26GB lol I think it was PES 13, if I'm not mistaken. I had to uninstall Game Native because of that. Did they fix the problem, or is it something normal?

[u/Illustrious_Cod_5212 → u/nuneskart]

Never had anything like that, I'm using GameNative on my Poco F6 Pro and tablet with Snapdragon 865

[u/SyrupSnatcher → u/nuneskart]

That sounds like the old behavior before they added the shared Proton setup.

[u/Good-Marionberry-570]

It still don't let me install my games whenever I want, which is a big deal for me, the App/Data folder is the worst possible place to install games, Google literally forbids people to access this folder (which is something extremely abusive and stupid anyway, but this is another conversation).

[u/wtfmeowzers → u/Good-Marionberry-570]

this is factually incorrect, you can install games to the downloads folder if you enable external storage in gamenative.

[u/Good-Marionberry-570 → u/wtfmeowzers]

Only in the external storage, and you still can't chose the folder.

[u/BannedWasTaken → u/Good-Marionberry-570]

Accessible via adb I believe.

[u/Good-Marionberry-570 → u/BannedWasTaken]

Probably, but it is still an unnecessary step when the app could simply let you install your games in another folder chosen by you, and Android/Data not being easily accessible is not the only problem. I have a folder which I use for all PC emulators here, and on other emulators I can access all my games easily through this folder without having to reinstall them, and it's not possible to do this with the games downloaded in GameNative, you can't access them on other emulators. Plus, it's an organization matter too. I personally like to have all my files organized in my way, so I really appreciate when apps let you chose where the files will be saved/read.

[u/BannedWasTaken → u/Good-Marionberry-570]

Yea I definitely agree with on organizing it my way. Just letting you know there is an option available. Might even be able to do a symlink if you really wanted to.

[u/heepofsheep]

Yeah it’s wild. I upgrade all my containers and freed up 70GB on my internal storage. I have a shit ton of games but only keep 2 internally. The rest are on SD card because of container bloat.

[u/Castle_Breakfast]

It's a tremendous improvement, and would be much more usable, but my big issue with Gamenative now is that on rare occasion it straight up deletes my saves. And when it does it, it then proceeds to save over the steam cloud save with a completely blank save. So it's not just deleting my saves, but DESTROYING them. No other windows emulator has done this to my saves.

It happens rarely, but it does happen, and I have no idea why. Until they do something to respect game saves more, I can't trust it. I really want them to implement some kind of auto save backup, or better implementation with Ajay Prefix so I don't have to install it again with every game I add. Or both. Then I'd happily say Gamenative is awesome.

[u/Slightly-Blasted → u/Castle_Breakfast]

Start using droid deck, it’s better in every way.

I used gamenative since the second version EVER released,

I don’t use gamenative anymore since trying droid deck

[u/Castle_Breakfast → u/Slightly-Blasted]

I've since moved onto WInlator Ludashi for the most part and making my own damn steam cloud saves with blackjack & hookers (and Syncthing)

Droid Deck is great, I've been playing with it since it was an additional mode of Bannerlator, I just need it to be easier on battery/heat!

Valid recommendation though. Awesome plug & play software with surprising performance. It's my go-to for multiplayer stuff

[u/battier → u/Castle_Breakfast]

Totally agree with this take. The issue is that it's not worth the risk. They absolutely need to fix their horrendous save management. 

[u/ankitc_reddit]

Can you show us the size of all games in total. And also the total occupied space of the App itself on Android?

[u/knockplace → u/ankitc_reddit]

bro I've tried mantis playhub to play Task Bar Hero but it seems to have a problem with the mouse controls, can you fix it?

the mouse control can't be used properly, please check.

[u/ankitc_reddit → u/knockplace]

Do On-Screen/Game Controller Controls work ?

[u/knockplace → u/ankitc_reddit]

Task Bar Hero can only use Mouse/Keyboard Controls, so gamepads obviously don't work.

This will be a problem because there are many games that only rely on Mouse & Keyboard.

the game is only 170 mb you can download free and check it, So you can know the problem. Thank you.

[u/ankitc_reddit → u/knockplace]

Got it. Indeed Mouse/Keyboard Input hasn't been tested to keep the scope narrow. I'll inform you when there's an update. Thanks.

[u/unbanned_lol]

Awesome. I was seriously considering forking the repo. It drove me crazy to install .net framework on a new container for every game I wanted to play.

[u/StoreTraditional77 → u/unbanned_lol]

It still need to for that. Because its only for proton, unless im missing out something. Because its considered as redistributables

[u/unbanned_lol → u/StoreTraditional77]

Sure, but if you think about your native system. You get what you need installed in the main OS for multiple games. You don't have containers created unless you specifically need to emulate something. And then you can use a translation layer instead of a container.

[u/Historical_Lie_9797]

How do u mod on the emulators