Linux Review:

Need for Speed™ Heat

Hustle by day and risk it all at night in Need for Speed™ Heat Deluxe Edition, a white-knuckle street racer, where the lines of the law fade as the sun starts to set.

PROTON TIER: GOLD

Need for Speed™ Heat is a street racing game where players balance daytime hustling with nighttime illegal racing.

Status Check Proton (Gold)

TWEAKS & TRICKS

• Installation Issues: Initial installation through Heroic or Steam may fail.
  • Solution: Install the Epic Games Launcher, then install Need for Speed™ Heat through it.
• Crashes: Game may crash after several hours of gameplay.
  • Solution: PROTON_EAC_RUNTIME=1
• Choppy Framerate: The game may exhibit a choppy framerate upon initial launch.
  • Solution: sudo sysctl kernel.split_lock_mitigate=0
• Low FPS: Extremely low, unplayable frame rates.
  • Solution: sudo sysctl kernel.split_lock_mitigate=0
• Performance Issues: General performance problems.
  • Solution: sudo sysctl kernel.split_lock_mitigate=0
• Framerate Improvement (Wayland): Improve performance on Wayland.
  • Solution: PROTON_HIDE_NVIDIA_GPU=0 PROTON_ENABLE_WAYLAND=1 NV_PRIME_RENDER_OFFLOAD=1 gamemoderun %command%
• Performance and NVIDIA (Further Optimizations): Further optimization for NVIDIA GPUs.
  • Solution: GLX_VENDOR_LIBRARY_NAME=nvidia DXVK_ASYNC=1 PROTON_HIDE_NVIDIA_GPU=0 PROTON_ENABLE_NVAPI=1 PROTON_USE_NTSYNC=1 PROTON_ENABLE_WAYLAND=1 NV_PRIME_RENDER_OFFLOAD=1 gamemoderun %command%

Verdict Need for Speed™ Heat delivers a solid Platin-Status experience on Linux. While performance optimization and configuration, potentially including environment variables, may be required, and installing through the Epic Games Launcher adds an extra step, these factors do not detract from the overall enjoyable experience. A recommended purchase for Linux gamers.