I actually originally started SM2 on Windows 10 last fall playing single player, and I did play a few nights this summer on Windows 10 while troubleshooting to test. I was unable to reproduce the issue on Windows - played 2+ hours without it happening.
I think I did it a few weeks ago actually, when my discord client wouldn’t connect and I figured I’d test it again to see.
If I have time with all my other testing I’ll give it another shot tonight or tomorrow night.
Definitely on Bazzite. I tried lowering the DLSS render scale to performance and also dropping the graphics quality preset.
I’ll double check that it still happens on Tumbleweed though and log it later today.
I don’t click Google Drive links.
Fair enough. I’ve since posted images of several graphs.
I initially assumed thermal throttling or resource exhaustion. I just can’t find any evidence to support either cause.
Heat: No temperatures I can measure are anywhere near the limits that cause throttling. GPU, CPU, SSD are all relatively cool. I can’t measure VRAM temp (because NVIDIA) but it’s also important to note zero issues in Windows.
Resources: Neither RAM or VRAM appear to be exhausted. My idle tests show 5.5/16GB VRAM and 16/64GB System RAM used. Other system-wide monitors confirm that VRAM/RAM and GPU/CPU usage (overall) matches the games usage so nothing external seems to be hogging the resources. I have plenty of space left in my partitions so I’m not running out of disk space.
I ran the game for a while, idling. GPU load is down to 70%. I ran the process. Also tried looping nvidia-smi in the background with the game as the focus for a while.
> nvidia-smi -q -l 1 -f smi.log -d PERFORMANCE
All of the records look like this:
> nvidia-smi -q -d PERFORMANCE
==============NVSMI LOG==============
Timestamp : Tue Sep 23 07:06:07 2025
Driver Version : 580.82.07
CUDA Version : 13.0
Attached GPUs : 1
GPU 00000000:01:00.0
Performance State : P0
Clocks Event Reasons
Idle : Not Active
Applications Clocks Setting : Not Active
SW Power Cap : Not Active
HW Slowdown : Not Active
HW Thermal Slowdown : Not Active
HW Power Brake Slowdown : Not Active
Sync Boost : Not Active
SW Thermal Slowdown : Not Active
Display Clock Setting : Not Active
Clocks Event Reasons Counters
SW Power Capping : 1160456 us
Sync Boost : 0 us
SW Thermal Slowdown : 0 us
HW Thermal Slowdown : 0 us
HW Power Braking : 0 us
Sparse Operation Mode : N/A
Since I’ve been checking, my kernel has been 6.14 to 6.16+, whatever Bazzite and now openSUSE Tumbleweed defaults to. Currently - Kernel Version: 6.16.7-1-default (64-bit). I’m not familiar with the xanmod kernel or running custom kernels at all.
I believe that I’ve ruled that out. See the blue line in the fourth fifth graph in each set. When idling VRAM is steady at ~5.5GB, but performance degrades. I’ve also checked VRAM availability outside of mangohud while the game is running and my total VRAM usage/availability aligns with the game’s VRAM usage reported by mangohud.
It seems I get stuck once a benchmark is finished. I downloaded what appears to be an appimage from their website. Ex.
00:00:00 - Info - Benchmark schedule started at 2025-09-22 23:46:03
00:00:00 - Info - CPU - Benchmark initializing
00:00:00 - Info - CPU - Benchmark started
00:00:10 - Info - CPU - 1 threads, SSE : 108.47
00:00:10 - Info - CPU - Benchmark stopped
00:00:10 - Info - CPU - Benchmark initializing
00:00:10 - Info - CPU - Benchmark started
00:00:20 - Info - CPU - 16 threads, SSE : 954.19
00:00:20 - Info - CPU - Benchmark stopped
00:00:21 - Info - CPU - Benchmark initializing
00:00:21 - Info - CPU - Benchmark started
00:00:31 - Info - CPU - 1 threads, AVX : 229.73
00:00:31 - Info - CPU - Benchmark stopped
00:00:31 - Info - CPU - Benchmark initializing
00:00:31 - Info - CPU - Benchmark started
00:00:42 - Info - CPU - 16 threads, AVX : 1 935.24
00:00:42 - Info - CPU - Benchmark stopped
00:00:42 - Info - Uploading the results to Ocbase
00:00:42 - Info - Schedule Completed
~~~~~
00:00:00 - Info - Benchmark schedule started at 2025-09-22 23:52:29
00:00:00 - Info - Memory - Benchmark initializing
00:00:00 - Info - Memory - Benchmark started
00:00:10 - Info - Memory - Read : 2 034.06
00:00:10 - Info - Memory - Benchmark stopped
00:00:10 - Info - Memory - Benchmark initializing
00:00:10 - Info - Memory - Benchmark started
00:00:20 - Info - Memory - Write : 780.88
00:00:20 - Info - Memory - Benchmark stopped
00:00:21 - Info - Memory - Benchmark initializing
00:00:21 - Info - Memory - Benchmark started
00:00:31 - Info - Memory - Combined : 1 317.76
00:00:31 - Info - Memory - Benchmark stopped
00:00:31 - Info - Uploading the results to Ocbase
00:00:31 - Info - Schedule Completed
~~~~~
00:00:00 - Info - Benchmark schedule started at 2025-09-22 23:56:51
00:00:00 - Info - Storage benchmark - Benchmark initializing
00:00:00 - Info - Storage benchmark - Benchmark started
00:00:21 - Info - Storage benchmark - Sequential Read : 7 360.58 MB/s
00:00:21 - Info - Storage benchmark - Benchmark stopped
00:00:22 - Info - Storage benchmark - Benchmark initializing
00:00:22 - Info - Storage benchmark - Benchmark started
00:00:43 - Info - Storage benchmark - Sequential Write : 6 246.57 MB/s
00:00:43 - Info - Storage benchmark - Benchmark stopped
00:00:44 - Info - Storage benchmark - Benchmark initializing
00:00:44 - Info - Storage benchmark - Benchmark started
00:01:06 - Info - Storage benchmark - Random Read : 1 651.07 MB/s
00:01:06 - Info - Storage benchmark - Benchmark stopped
00:01:07 - Info - Storage benchmark - Benchmark initializing
00:01:07 - Info - Storage benchmark - Benchmark started
00:01:28 - Info - Storage benchmark - Random Write : 1 870.32 MB/s
00:01:28 - Info - Storage benchmark - Benchmark stopped
00:01:29 - Info - Schedule Completed
00:01:29 - Info - Uploading the results to Ocbase
After the CPU, Memory, and Storage benchmarks it consistently just… sits. No errors, nothing of note. I have a big stop button and the green animation continues at the top left. However nothing else happens after this point if I wait/leave it for a while. The “Stop” button is unresponsive. I have to close and reopen. Am I doing something wrong? I tried Memory and CPU multiple times, same behavior. Tried the “Test” version 15, same.
I did have some success with the latency test. Only tried it once though.
00:00:00 - Info - Benchmark schedule started at 2025-09-22 23:54:02
00:00:00 - Info - Latency / bandwidth - Benchmark initializing
00:00:00 - Info - Latency / bandwidth - Pausing monitoring to ensure accurate readings through the benchmark
00:00:00 - Info - Latency / bandwidth - Benchmark started
00:00:03 - Info - Latency / bandwidth - L1 Latency : 2.89 ns
00:00:10 - Info - Latency / bandwidth - L1 Read Bandwidth : 2 557.30 GiB/s
00:00:17 - Info - Latency / bandwidth - L1 Write Bandwidth : 2 550.08 GiB/s
00:00:20 - Info - Latency / bandwidth - L2 Latency : 6.72 ns
00:00:27 - Info - Latency / bandwidth - L2 Read Bandwidth : 1 785.33 GiB/s
00:00:34 - Info - Latency / bandwidth - L2 Write Bandwidth : 1 745.18 GiB/s
00:00:40 - Info - Latency / bandwidth - L3 Latency : 51.07 ns
00:00:46 - Info - Latency / bandwidth - L3 Read Bandwidth : 593.72 GiB/s
00:00:53 - Info - Latency / bandwidth - L3 Write Bandwidth : 356.05 GiB/s
00:01:01 - Info - Latency / bandwidth - Memory Latency : 73.82 ns
00:01:13 - Info - Latency / bandwidth - Memory Read Bandwidth : 82.86 GiB/s
00:01:24 - Info - Latency / bandwidth - Memory Write Bandwidth : 30.44 GiB/s
00:01:24 - Info - Latency / bandwidth - Benchmark stopped
00:01:24 - Info - Latency / bandwidth - Resuming Monitoring
00:01:24 - Info - Uploading the results to Ocbase
00:01:24 - Info - Schedule Completed
00:01:24 - Info - Upload successful
Running the stability now and going to sleep.
I’m in IT and I was a computer Tech. I enjoy building gaming PCs and I know a good bit but this is really frustrating me. As I said, I’m currently driven by spite and hatred of Windows, especially 11.
I’ll play a bit and keep an eye on my SSD temp and I’ll run OCCT later. Thanks!
Mission Control? Do you mean Mission Center?
Sorry, wasn’t sure which SSD I had the Windows Partition on and needed to look up commands to check. Looks like I’m using the newer Sandisk WD Black SN850X for Linux.
Cooler, storage and OS?
Added more detail to the Hardware Spoiler. NOCTUA NH-D15S. Temps don’t seem to be an issue - as I mentioned in the post, usage/load goes down over time, eventually so much that so do my temps.
As mentioned in the post, OS was Bazzite, trying Tumbleweed now on a whim to see if it was a Bazzite issue. It’s not, still happans.
First, always check ProtonDB and see if other people have the same issues or tweaks to fix.
I’ve edited my post for clarity. I’ve checked for similar reports and posted my own experience on Proton DB. I described what I found in the beginning of my post - nothing specifying decreased performance over time, at least the last time I checked.
Second, get some system metrics, and check logs to see if anything obvious is showing.
Did… you look at the graphs? There are a lot of them. I’ll see if I can post screenshots here - I’ve not tried that before.
Edit: Are there some system logs I can check for more information?
I know someone who needs it to sleep due to PTSD. I think limiting REM sleep is actually the point for them. Their dreams are horrendous, wake them up, and sometimes trigger panic attacks which makes getting back to sleep quite difficult.
I feel you. I’m fearful of being so open about my diagnosis though. These days I “wear so many hats” for my job. Unfortunately I have to be support for a number of related systems, script automations, and a tons of other stuff. Recently I’ve felt like this last project has taken forever and I’ve been hard on myself because of it.
Only in the last week or so did I realize that I’m writing scripts far more complex than ever before and I don’t get into a flow state until everyone else goes home but then it’s time for me to go home. Half of my normal work time is trying to get back into the mindset I need to continue building the project. Then I have to focus on different project for a few days and WTF was I doing with that first project?
Got about ~110 minutes on Windows 10 tonight. FPS was stable. Graphs posted.