Need for Speed is the popular racing video game series that came out with its first title all the way back in 1994. In a few days, that will be 30 years ago. Published by EA, the series received its twenty-fifth installment in 2022, called Need for Speed Unbound, or NFS Unbound for short. The game was officially released for Windows, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S. However, this left many people wondering: What about the Steam Deck? The Steam Deck was released earlier in the same year and saw millions of sales worldwide. Thankfully, NFS Unbound can be played on the Steam Deck.
There are some caveats to this, though. Since NFS Unbound was not released for the Steam Deck officially, you will need Proton to play it. Proton is a compatibility layer that allows Windows games to run on Linux-based operating systems similar to the Steam Deck’s. Being an unofficial method, though, it has its issues. Players have reported NFS Unbound crashing and not launching on the Steam Deck. So is there a fix for this? Keep reading this guide until the end to find out.
NFS Unbound crashing & not launching on Steam Deck: How to fix it?
There have been multiple reported instances of this issue on the Steam Deck, and not just with NFS Unbound. This is a known issue for many EA games that are unsupported on the Steam Deck. Logically, then, the issue seems to be related to the compatibility layer: Proton. So, on to how to fix the issue. Firstly, if you have not already, enable Proton Experimental. You need this to play any unsupported EA games on the deck. To do this:
- Select the game you want to play from your Steam library (NFS Unbound, in this case).
- Click the cog icon on the right and select Properties > Compatibility.
- Checkmark the ‘Force the Use of a Specific Steam Play Compatibility Tool’ checkbox.
- From the drop-down menu, select the most recent version of Proton Experimental.
If you already have Proton experimental enabled and the game still has the aforementioned issues, try the following steps:.
Enable steam overlay and delete proton files –
As Mateusz278 points out, ensure the ‘Enable steam overlay in-game’ option is turned on. This is because, apparently, the new version of EA Play does not launch without it. Afer this, delete the Proton files and restart the game. Note that this might possibly delete your saved files, so make sure to back them up before trying this. To do this:
- Select the game you want to play from your library (NFS Unbound, in this case).
- Click the cog icon on the right and select Developer.
- Select ‘Delete Proton Files’.
- Run the game and check if the issue persists.
For more detailed instructions, check out this post made by darkuni. According to the comments, this is what fixed the issue for many people across multiple unsupported EA games on the Steam Deck. Note that Mateusz278 also pointed out that if you have changed the UMA buffer size to anything above the default 1 gigabyte for the Steam Deck, the game struggles a lot with launching and performance. They also advise against using GE 7.42 since, apparently, it has lower performance and startup issues.
Increase swap file size –
According to HeavyPanzerPlus1, there are a couple of things you can try. Firstly, use Proton GE 7.41 and run the game with the following Launch Option command: ‘DXVK_ASYNC=1 %COMMAND%’. This should reduce stuttering. Next, for random crashes in desktop mode, install and run CryoUtilities. It is a collection of scripts made to optimize performance for the Steam Deck. According to lotumusic, increasing the swap file size to 16GB did the trick. You can do this in the user tab in settings while in desktop mode (you will need the user password to do this).
Well, that’s all the workarounds you can try to fix the crashing issue of Need for Speed Unbound on Steam Deck. If the workarounds proved useful, consider checking out Android Gram for more such guides. Also read: Need for Speed 2024 Release Date: Is it coming?
