Fix image distortion on Cyberpunk 2077 and other Windows games on PS4 Linux

Have you tried playing Cyberpunk 2077 on a PS4 Linux distro. You most probably have faced image distortion issues, right? This issue seems to plague many games including Cyberpunk 2077, Spongebob Squarepants, etc. while running them on PS4 Linux.

Cyberpunk seems to be all yellow on PS4 Linux, and the images are too bright, making the game unplayable. In some cases, Cyberpunk fails to load on the newer distros. Similarly, Spongebob Squarepants just flickers a lot, yet again, making it unplayable. You might have already tried different versions of Wine and Proton in an attempt to fix it. No luck? Don’t worry. In this article, I will explain how you can fix image distortion issues in games on PS4 Linux distros.

Image distortion on Windows games on PS4 Linux: Reason

If you want to know the most probable cause of this error, keep on reading. Else, skip to the fix section. See, Cyberpunk and the other affected games seem to work fine on some older distros, like ITmania’s older Fedora 32. By the way, you can find the download links for currently available Ps4 Linux distros here. Anyways, the issue seems to persist on the newer distros like Fedora 34 and Ubuntu 21.10 based ones.

So, what is causing it in the newer distros. The issue can be pinpointed to the LLVM version in most cases. You see, the earlier distros use LLVM 10, while the newer ones use versions that were released after LLVM 10. In my testing, I found that the issue was seen on distros running LLVM versions higher than 10. My suspicion was confirmed after going through this thread.

In a nutshell, the problem could virtually be fixed by using an older version of LLVM and Mesa. But, this isn’t easy on a newer distro, especially those like Fedora. This is because of two reasons. One, you will have to manually downgrade the Mesa version when you want to play the affected games. Secondly, this isn’t possible in some cases, as the dependencies for these older versions are not met on newer distros.

So, what is the solution?

Download

Download Custom Mesa for PS4 Linux

Video Guide: Fix image distortion on Windows games on PS4 Linux

If you are alright with a textual guide, keep reading.

Fix image distortion on Windows games on PS4 Linux

To fix the issue, I have made custom Mesa with a lower version of LLVM, which fixes the image distortion in these games. You can try using it if you face the issue. Before beginning, I would suggest you to use a PS4Linux.com distro while using this custom Mesa, because I have built it with these distros in mind. But, if you are using a different dev’s distro, just follow the extra instructions to have it working.

1. Download the latest version of PS4Linux.com Custom Mesa from the downloads section. Please note that, there are two different versions for Ubuntu-based and Fedora-based distros. Download according to your distro. You should download both the .tar.xz file and the script – mesa.sh.
2. Go into the download folder and open a terminal there. Now, if you are on Ubuntu or an Ubuntu-based distro, like Pop OS, type sudo apt-get install libz3-4 and press Enter.
3. Next, if on a PS4Linux.com distro
   1. Type sudo tar -xvf custom-mesa-ubuntu-v1-ps4linux.tar.xz -C /home/noob404 and press Enter. Please note that the filename might be different with any new versions of the custom Mesa that have or will be released and also depending on whether you are doing it on Fedora or Ubuntu.
4. If on any other dev’s distro
   1. Type sudo mkdir /home/noob404 and press Enter.
   2. Type sudo chmod -R ugo+rwx /home/noob404 and press Enter.
   3. Type sudo tar -xvf custom-mesa-ubuntu-v1-ps4linux.tar.xz -C /home/noob404 and press Enter.
5. Assuming the mesa.sh script is copied to the Desktop, load the custom Mesa driver by typing source /home/noob404/Desktop/mesa.sh and pressing Enter. You will have to change the command depending on where mesa.sh is.
6. Now, run the affected game by using your Wine command in the same terminal, for example, wine game.exe -d3d12. In the case of Cyberpunk 2077, there are other great commands that you can use. Here is our database which lists the best Wine commands to run Windows games on PS4 Linux.
7. Good luck gaming!

Additional instructions for PS4Linux.com Custom Mesa script

• After running the source command, run the command for Wine on the same terminal window.
• The system installed Mesa and LLVM versions will be used for running the game if you close the terminal window after running the source command. In this case, rerun the source command before running the Wine command.
• You may run the script with any version of Wine or Proton, including the custom Proton and Wine builds, which can be downloaded from the Downloads section.

Conclusion

I hope this helped you play the affected game on your PS4 distro. If you face any issues, just leave a comment below and I will post the solution as soon as possible.