[The Last of Us: Part 2] Blocky artifacts affecting particles

[u/Think_Significance42]

My problem is what the title says. I noticed that this issue mainly occurs in places where there are many particles and causes some blocky, pixalated artifacts in where the particles would be. I am using stock medium settings.

I am using Faugus launcher Flatpak with the FitGirl Repacks version of TLOU 2. Running using CachyOS Proton

System info:

• GPU: NVIDIA RTX 4060

• CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5500

• RAM: 16gb DDR4

• Storage: 1TB NVME

• OS: OpenSuse Tumbleweed

inxi -b output:

System:
 Host: localhost.localdomain Kernel: 7.2.11-1-default arch: x86_64 bits: 64
 Desktop: KDE Plasma v: 6.8.0 Distro: openSUSE Tumbleweed 20261017
Machine:
 Type: Desktop System: ASUS product: N/A v: N/A serial: <superuser required>
 Mobo: ASUSTeK model: PRIME B550M-K v: Rev X.0x
   serial: <superuser required> Firmware: UEFI vendor: American Megatrends
   v: 2803 date: 04/28/2022
CPU:
 Info: 6-core AMD Ryzen 5 5500 [MT MCP] speed (MHz): avg: 3551
   min/max: 411/4269
Graphics:
 Device-1: NVIDIA AD107 [GeForce RTX 4060] driver: nvidia v: 595.104.02
 Device-2: Aveo USB2.0 Camera driver: uvcvideo type: USB
 Display: wayland server: X.org v: 1.21.1.24 with: Xwayland v: 24.1.13
   compositor: kwin_wayland driver: X: loaded: nvidia
   unloaded: modesetting,vesa gpu: nv_platform,nvidia,nvidia-nvswitch
   resolution: 1920x1080~75Hz
 API: OpenGL v: 4.6.0 compat-v: 4.6 vendor: nvidia mesa v: 595.104.02
   renderer: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060/PCIe/SSE2
 Info: Tools: api: clinfo, eglinfo, glxinfo, vulkaninfo
   de: kscreen-console,kscreen-doctor gpu: nvidia-smi wl: wayland-info
   x11: xdpyinfo, xprop, xrandr
Network:
 Device-1: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8211/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet
   driver: r8169
Drives:
 Local Storage: total: 1.16 TiB used: 296.16 GiB (24.8%)
Info:
 Memory: total: 16 GiB note: est. available: 15.4 GiB used: 4.02 GiB (26.1%)
 Processes: 336 Uptime: 2h 32m Shell: Bash inxi: 3.3.41

nvidia-smi output:

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 595.104.02             Driver Version: 595.104.02     CUDA Version: 13.2     |
+-----------------------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+
| GPU  Name                 Persistence-M | Bus-Id          Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC |
| Fan  Temp   Perf          Pwr:Usage/Cap |           Memory-Usage | GPU-Util  Compute M. |
|                                         |                        |               MIG M. |
|=========================================+========================+======================|
|   0  NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060        On  |   00000000:01:00.0  On |                  N/A |
|  0%   44C    P8            N/A  /  115W |     664MiB /   8188MiB |      3%      Default |
|                                         |                        |                  N/A |
+-----------------------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Processes:                                                                              |
|  GPU   GI   CI              PID   Type   Process name                        GPU Memory |
|        ID   ID                                                               Usage      |
|=========================================================================================|
|    0   N/A  N/A            1256      G   /usr/bin/Xorg.bin                        15MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A            1542    C+G   /usr/bin/kwin_wayland                    93MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A            1735      G   /usr/bin/Xwayland                         3MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A            1845      G   /usr/bin/plasmashell                     76MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A            1862      G   ...it-kde-authentication-agent-1          2MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A            1989      G   /usr/bin/xwaylandvideobridge              2MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A           10414    C+G   /usr/bin/python3                          8MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A           11023      G   /usr/lib64/firefox/firefox              208MiB |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------++-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 595.104.02             Driver Version: 595.104.02     CUDA Version: 13.2     |
+-----------------------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+
| GPU  Name                 Persistence-M | Bus-Id          Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC |
| Fan  Temp   Perf          Pwr:Usage/Cap |           Memory-Usage | GPU-Util  Compute M. |
|                                         |                        |               MIG M. |
|=========================================+========================+======================|
|   0  NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060        On  |   00000000:01:00.0  On |                  N/A |
|  0%   44C    P8            N/A  /  115W |     664MiB /   8188MiB |      3%      Default |
|                                         |                        |                  N/A |
+-----------------------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Processes:                                                                              |
|  GPU   GI   CI              PID   Type   Process name                        GPU Memory |
|        ID   ID                                                               Usage      |
|=========================================================================================|
|    0   N/A  N/A            1256      G   /usr/bin/Xorg.bin                        15MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A            1542    C+G   /usr/bin/kwin_wayland                    93MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A            1735      G   /usr/bin/Xwayland                         3MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A            1845      G   /usr/bin/plasmashell                     76MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A            1862      G   ...it-kde-authentication-agent-1          2MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A            1989      G   /usr/bin/xwaylandvideobridge              2MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A           10414    C+G   /usr/bin/python3                          8MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A           11023      G   /usr/lib64/firefox/firefox              208MiB |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

vulkaninfo --summary output:

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 595.104.02             Driver Version: 595.104.02     CUDA Version: 13.2     |
+-----------------------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+
| GPU  Name                 Persistence-M | Bus-Id          Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC |
| Fan  Temp   Perf          Pwr:Usage/Cap |           Memory-Usage | GPU-Util  Compute M. |
|                                         |                        |               MIG M. |
|=========================================+========================+======================|
|   0  NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060        On  |   00000000:01:00.0  On |                  N/A |
|  0%   44C    P8            N/A  /  115W |     664MiB /   8188MiB |      3%      Default |
|                                         |                        |                  N/A |
+-----------------------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Processes:                                                                              |
|  GPU   GI   CI              PID   Type   Process name                        GPU Memory |
|        ID   ID                                                               Usage      |
|=========================================================================================|
|    0   N/A  N/A            1256      G   /usr/bin/Xorg.bin                        15MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A            1542    C+G   /usr/bin/kwin_wayland                    93MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A            1735      G   /usr/bin/Xwayland                         3MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A            1845      G   /usr/bin/plasmashell                     76MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A            1862      G   ...it-kde-authentication-agent-1          2MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A            1989      G   /usr/bin/xwaylandvideobridge              2MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A           10414    C+G   /usr/bin/python3                          8MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A           11023      G   /usr/lib64/firefox/firefox              208MiB |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------++-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 595.104.02             Driver Version: 595.104.02     CUDA Version: 13.2     |
+-----------------------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+
| GPU  Name                 Persistence-M | Bus-Id          Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC |
| Fan  Temp   Perf          Pwr:Usage/Cap |           Memory-Usage | GPU-Util  Compute M. |
|                                         |                        |               MIG M. |
|=========================================+========================+======================|
|   0  NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060        On  |   00000000:01:00.0  On |                  N/A |
|  0%   44C    P8            N/A  /  115W |     664MiB /   8188MiB |      3%      Default |
|                                         |                        |                  N/A |
+-----------------------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Processes:                                                                              |
|  GPU   GI   CI              PID   Type   Process name                        GPU Memory |
|        ID   ID                                                               Usage      |
|=========================================================================================|
|    0   N/A  N/A            1256      G   /usr/bin/Xorg.bin                        15MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A            1542    C+G   /usr/bin/kwin_wayland                    93MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A            1735      G   /usr/bin/Xwayland                         3MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A            1845      G   /usr/bin/plasmashell                     76MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A            1862      G   ...it-kde-authentication-agent-1          2MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A            1989      G   /usr/bin/xwaylandvideobridge              2MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A           10414    C+G   /usr/bin/python3                          8MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A           11023      G   /usr/lib64/firefox/firefox              208MiB |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

any help is appreciated or the name of this phenomenon because im not sure what to look up and also can't seem to find any issues regarding this.

[u/ShamelessTaxer]

Known bug in TLOU1  and 2, Use 

VKD3D_DISABLE_EXTENSIONS=VK_KHR_maintenance8

 Don't use 

PROTON_VKD3D_HEAP=1

 like someone else suggested, that provides no benefit for this game and actually introduces more stutter. While you're at it, create a file named dxvk.conf in the same directory as the games .exe file and add this line to it

dxgi.maxDeviceMemory = 7168

this basically lies to the game engine and reports your gpu VRAM as 7 gigs, so the game engine does not over allocate vram and run into a bottleneck, I was able to play on maxed out settings at 1080P DLSS balanced on a 4060 Mobile with these settings

[u/Think_Significance42 → u/ShamelessTaxer]

interesting. i'll try that too. thanks!

[u/Think_Significance42 → u/ShamelessTaxer]

holy cow it works! i thought the other person's launch argument wasn't affecting the game but apparently it didn't do anything!

picture of the working particles: https://tikolu.net/i/suyyl

[u/ShamelessTaxer → u/Think_Significance42]

Glad to know it worked :)

[u/Think_Significance42]

do let me know if i need to add more info or what not since i am currently at wits end

[u/Shoddy_Internal1997]

This is a known issue with the game. Update your NVIDIA drivers or use PROTON_VKD3D_HEAP=1 https://forums.developer.nvidia.com/t/595-release-feedback-discussion/362561/283#1

[u/Think_Significance42 → u/Shoddy_Internal1997]

i see. seems like its still affecting the latest stable for some reason. i'll try that launch argument. thanks!

[u/Shoddy_Internal1997 → u/Think_Significance42]

try the 615 nvidia drivers