Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection Trial Version (3470630)

[TheMCNerd2017]

Compatibility Report

• Name of the game with compatibility issues: Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection Trial Version
• Steam AppID of the game: 3470630

System Information

• GPU: Nvidia RTX 5000 Ada Laptop GPU
• Video driver version: Nvidia 590.48.01
• Kernel version: 6.17.7-ba25.fc43.x86_64
• Link to full system information report as Gist: https://gist.github.com/TheMCNerd2017/f169d8b1e915501135df3ca23de2ffdb
• Proton version: 10.0-4

I confirm:

• that I haven't found an existing compatibility report for this game.
• that I have checked whether there are updates for my system available.

Proton log: steam-3470630.log

Symptoms

Object textures constantly flicker in and out while in the over world, battles and during cut scenes. During certain cut scenes this also leads to bright flashing of the screen as well. I've attached a few screenshots of how this appears as in-game.

Reproduction

1. Open the game and either create a new save or load a save file.
2. After at most a couple minutes, the textures of various objects will start flickering when moving the camera around. Sometimes the flickering appears to be random.

Additionally, this graphics issue might also occur on the full version of the game, though the full version does not come out until March 13th so no actual way to see if the full version is affected until that date.

[cameronbosch]

I can confirm the same thing on my system, though I can't always replicate it:

GPU: Nvidia RTX 5000 Ada Laptop GPU
Video driver version: Nvidia 590.48.01
Kernel version: 6.17.7-ba25.fc43.x86_64
Link to full system information report as Gist: https://gist.github.com/cameronbosch/17921a0c8983a383542ef99e5fa6ebf6
Proton version: 10.0-4

With versions of Proton that aren't Proton 10 (such as Proton Experimental), the DLSS support (this game has it) cannot be enabled despite showing up with Proton 10 and having an RTX dGPU.

Suprisingly, this also happens on AMD GPUs; I have a Z2 Extreme handheld (The Lenovo Legion Go 2) with CachyOS Handheld Edition, and this flickering/artifacting also happens there, even during the opening cutscenes.

Finally, a warning about Proton version testing the full game: It will use Denuvo with the 5 installs per 24 hour activation limit, so be careful changing Proton versions.

[TheMCNerd2017]

A small update to the issue, when the game is running at 30 FPS or lower, the issue seems to stop completely. I noticed this when my laptop (it has sensors present that if tripped do this automatically) limited wattage of the Nvidia GPU to 64 watts and the game could only run at around 30 FPS. I would have to do more testing, specifically if limiting the FPS to 30 through the in-game settings also works as a solution for this.

[TheMCNerd2017]

Okay, after some more testing I've found that capping the frame rate to 30 using the in-game settings causes the issue to stop appearing completely on my system. Whatever underlying issue is causing this to appear though is still present so limiting FPS to 30 is at most a workaround until the underlying issue is fixed.

[runar-work]

I'm also seeing the flickering/missing geometry on GTX 1660 Ti with 590.48.01. Unfortunately the glitch doesn't show up in RenderDoc captures, and I haven't found any other way to work around it so far. It seems to be a more general RE engine issue, as the same thing happens in the Pragmata demo as well.

@cameronbosch Which driver and graphics settings are you using for the AMD issue? I haven't been able to reproduce this on the Steam Deck OLED, at least.

[cameronbosch]

On the AMD Z2 Extreme Lenovo Legion Go 2, which has Mesa 25.3.5, it has these issues. Granted, at first I was intentionally trying to break the game (done for laughs because of Monster Hunter Wilds's now famous issues at launch and also Borderlands 4's even worse issues) by maxing everything out and trying to go over the vRAM buffer I set (8 GB of the 32 GB I have for the system).

Surprisingly, the FPS didn't result in poor 1% lows or even a lower average FPS like you'd expect, but the same glitches happened with the highest settings except for textures on high (to avoid the vRAM issue) and shadows on high. Some games like Hogwart's Legacy, Forspoken, Warhammer Space Marine 2, and Halo Infinite are known to have either texture pop-in or texture swapping when vRAM is low, and this is similar but not exactly what is happening here.

That being said, I now have FSR 4 (with a DLL mod) set to performance, but this happened before I did the FSR 4 DLL replacement (and it currently says FSR 4 in the game settings when I enable it instead of FSR 3.1), and I only did the replacement after I confirmed the issue was occurring without the DLL replacement.

Granted, with my chosen settings at 1920x1080 (with black bars because no 16:10 support) and FSR set to balanced with FSR 3.1 or set to performance with FSR 4 with said DLL replacement mod, I'm hitting around 40 fps in the opening part from the first time you get control of the protagonist until you land after flying for the first time and the cut scene that follows. It can drop to around 30 fps when busy, but this is a much more powerful handheld than the Steam Deck OLED (and even the Nintendo Switch 2), so hitting higher than 30 fps on average is possible, and even for the 1% lows.

There's also the Steam Overlay virtual keyboard not appearing when entering the protagonist's name at the beginning unless it is manually bought up using "Steam + X", but that is not a deal-breaker, as it can still be "Steam Deck Playable" with that.

According to this article from SteamDeckHQ, FSR 3.1 on Balanced is needed to get 30 fps in this game with the "High" graphics preset. (Not the same as my settings.)

[cameronbosch]

Okay, as of February 22nd, 2026, with the same gaming laptop (the one with the Nvidia RTX 5000 Ada Laptop GPU) and Proton 10.0-4 version as a few weeks ago, I am now getting serious graphical glitches, to the point of this being distracting to me, and most users will likely find it distracting (at least) as well.

Here is an example of these serious graphical glitches on the laptop (all updates have been applied to the distro):

Monster.Hunter.Stories.3.-.Twisted.Reflection.-.Serious.Graphical.Glitches.mp4

Surprisingly, the Lenovo Legion Go 2 I own is no longer having any noticeable graphical issues,and it's running between 30 - 40 fps. So this might be an Nvidia driver Proton problem, but I'm not sure.

[runar-work]

I haven't come across anything like that on RTX 3070 so far. I'm seeing some shadow glitches in battles with low graphics preset on Ampere that I can't reproduce on Turing, so maybe there are some additional issues on beefier GPUs. Do graphics settings have any effect on whether you get those vertex explosions?

[cameronbosch]

I can try that later today, and I'll also try removing DLSS (though I expect issues in that regard given how bad modern TAA is). Unfortunately, using OBS Studio to record the screen while playing this game seems to cause severely poor average fps and especially 1% lows on the laptop, basically causing me to have to do what you see above by recording free handed to capture the issues.

And keep in mind that I had to reinstall the demo partially because of these issues on this laptop, but it didn't seem to make a difference for these glitches.

My guess is that there is some issue with the Nvidia RTX 50 series drivers on (at least) Linux and how it and Proton react to the RE Engine used in this game.

And the issues with DLSS being not available on any other version of Proton apart from 10.0-4 (even derivatives based off of Proton 10 like GE-Proton and proton-cachyos will have this issue) that I mentioned above are still occurring. Again, given the full game will launch with Denuvo with the 5 "installs" per 24 hour period, this could be a big issue for those with Nvidia GPUs. I do find it very strange that the AMD Z2 Extreme on my Lenovo Legion Go 2 is having less graphical issues than Nvidia and at least of when the video was taken, no issues, while Nvidia keeps degrading in that regard.

Finally, those graphical glitches are called "vertex explosions"? Wow, you learn something new every day! 😂

[simifor]

@cameronbosch gave it a quick try with a 4060m with 590.48.01, got until you hatch a monster egg and didn't see any glitches. Does it only happen in specific locations? and can you share your graphics settings?

[cameronbosch]

I can confirm that after once again applying all available system updates, rebooting, clearing the shader caches, and then running the game that the problem is still happening.

Even dropping the texture quality to high (instead of highest) and disabling DLSS does not fix the issue.

The more reports that come in and the more settings I try, the more I think that this might be an RTX 50 series Nvidia issue. Meaning something with that GPU driver is causing this.

I am going to try Proton Experimental, though I'm not holding my breath...

Edit: I just tried Proton Experimental, and three things happened of note:

1. The vertex issue did not disappear.
2. DLSS was no longer an option.
3. The frame rate was now unusably low. Like, 1% lows below 30 fps that were not present with Proton 10.0-4. Combined with issue 1, this makes it genuinely a problem, at least for RTX 50 series users.

This is clearly unusable for RTX 50 series users, and this likely is an Nvidia issue, either with their driver or the RTX 50 series part of their driver. And given that the part of the GPU driver (it's version 590.48.01 as well) having this issue is proprietary, I'm not sure what to do here...

[cameronbosch]

Also @simifor what Linux distro and Proton version are you using?

[runar-work]

Looks like Nvidia has identified the problem with the vertex explosions, according to this post: https://forums.developer.nvidia.com/t/590-release-feedback-discussion/353310/407

[cameronbosch]

Yep. This has been apparently been going on for a long time, which blows my mind that it's been apparently happening in Monster Hunter Wilds for this long as well as poor 1% lows, meaning it's an issue with the Nvidia drivers reacting with the RE Engine.

Here are some more people having issues with RE Engine games:

• https://forums.developer.nvidia.com/t/590-release-feedback-discussion/353310/305
• https://forums.developer.nvidia.com/t/590-release-feedback-discussion/353310/320
• https://forums.developer.nvidia.com/t/590-release-feedback-discussion/353310/324

Also, it seems like this will be fixed in the 590 drivers, but when are those releasing? Before 13 March 2026!?

Source on this: https://forums.developer.nvidia.com/t/590-release-feedback-discussion/353310/407

Finally, despite my well-placed anger at Nvidia, here's a fun fact about the RE Engine you might not know to try and end my thoughts on a lighter note: https://forums.developer.nvidia.com/t/590-release-feedback-discussion/353310/325