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Linux Gaming @lemmy.world
fleebleneeble @reddthat.com

I'm losing my fucking mind.

I have been able to run games whether it was Steam, GOG, or itch and now I can't get shit to run. I don't have the worst rig. I was playing Fo4, and now suddenly I can't. I switched from a shitty Windows to Garuda. That was working wonderful, until I suddenly couldn't get it to work no matter what Proton version. Then I switched to Ubuntu, same issue. Then Cachy, then back to Ubuntu, and now back at it again with Garuda. Still. The. Same. Fucking. Problem. I have scoured the net for answers and fixes to no avail and I feel like driving into traffic. I cannot get any Proton version to run ANY GAME at this point, not just the more intensive ones. What the fuck do I do? Here are some specs:

  • Processor: 8 x Intel Core i7-2600 CPU @ 3.40Ghz
  • Mem: 32 GiB RAM
  • Graphics Processor: Quadro K620
  • Dell Optiplex 990 (7010 housing)
  • 245GB SSD, with additional 500GB HDD and 4TB external drive

I have been able to seamlessly play all kinds of games for months, and then it just up and doesn't let me anymore. I haven't done anything to tweak shit out of whack. No matter how many clean installs and following instructions otherwise, this shit feels BROKEN and I'm LOSING IT. Someone help me please.

-Little extra info, I always skip the Vulkan shaders bullshit and it was fine before. Sometimes it'd load with the "Downloading Windows (somethingsomething), but I don't get that anymore, and as soon as I skip the thing crashes before any launchers of sorts can load so I can mess with configuration with the little GUI bullshit before total launch.

  • UPDATE:

I have switched to Bazzite and have set my external drive to ext4. Shit seems to work seamlessly now. Thank you all very much.

36 comments

  • Don't worry dude, we'll get you sorted.

    I could ask you a bunch of questions about your system, but it's easier if you just use inxi: 

     undefined
            inxi -Fz

    You may have to install it first with your package manager. It'll output your full system information (-F) with personal data removed (-z).

    Also, close steam, open a terminal emulator and run: 

     undefined
            steam -d

    Steam will launch and output debugging info into that terminal window. If you close the window it will exit steam.

    When you run a game and it fails, look at the log and see if you see any errors or crashes being reported.

    Note which version of Proton that you're using (if not default).

    • Here's what I got: 

       undefined
          
System:
Kernel: 6.15.9-zen1-1.1-zen arch: x86_64 bits: 64
Desktop: KDE Plasma v: 6.4.4 Distro: Garuda Linux
Machine:
Type: Desktop System: Dell product: OptiPlex 990 v: 01
serial: <superuser required>
Mobo: Dell model: 06D7TR v: A02 serial: <superuser required> BIOS: Dell
v: A24 date: 07/02/2018
CPU:
Info: quad core model: Intel Core i7-2600 bits: 64 type: MT MCP cache:
L2: 1024 KiB
Speed (MHz): avg: 2072 min/max: 1600/3800 cores: 1: 2072 2: 2072 3: 2072
4: 2072 5: 2072 6: 2072 7: 2072 8: 2072
Graphics:
Device-1: NVIDIA GM107GL [Quadro K620] driver: nvidia v: 575.64.05
Display: wayland server: X.org v: 1.21.1.18 with: Xwayland v: 24.1.8
compositor: kwin_wayland driver: X: loaded: nvidia unloaded: modesetting
gpu: nvidia,nvidia-nvswitch resolution: 1920x1080~60Hz
API: EGL v: 1.5 drivers: nvidia,swrast
platforms: gbm,wayland,x11,surfaceless,device
API: OpenGL v: 4.6.0 compat-v: 4.5 vendor: nvidia mesa v: 575.64.05
renderer: Quadro K620/PCIe/SSE2
API: Vulkan v: 1.4.321 drivers: nvidia,llvmpipe surfaces: N/A
Info: Tools: api: clinfo, eglinfo, glxinfo, vulkaninfo
de: kscreen-console,kscreen-doctor gpu: corectrl, nvidia-settings,
nvidia-smi wl: wayland-info x11: xdpyinfo, xprop, xrandr
Audio:
Device-1: Intel 6 Series/C200 Series Family High Definition Audio
driver: snd_hda_intel
Device-2: NVIDIA GM107 High Definition Audio [GeForce 940MX]
driver: snd_hda_intel
API: ALSA v: k6.15.9-zen1-1.1-zen status: kernel-api
Server-1: PipeWire v: 1.4.7 status: active
Network:
Device-1: Intel 82579LM Gigabit Network driver: e1000e
IF: eno1 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
IF-ID-1: wlp0s29u1u2i2 state: down mac: <filter>
IF-ID-2: wlp0s29u1u6i2 state: down mac: <filter>
Bluetooth:
Device-1: Realtek 802.11ac NIC driver: btusb,rtw_8821cu type: USB
Report: btmgmt ID: hci0 rfk-id: 0 state: down bt-service: enabled,running
rfk-block: hardware: no software: yes address: N/A
Report: btmgmt ID: hci1 rfk-id: 1 state: down bt-service: enabled,running
rfk-block: hardware: no software: yes address: N/A
Device-2: Realtek 802.11ac NIC driver: btusb,rtw_8821cu type: USB
Drives:
Local Storage: total: 4.33 TiB used: 2.31 TiB (53.4%)
ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: SK Hynix model: SH920 2.5 7MM 256GB
size: 238.47 GiB
ID-2: /dev/sdb vendor: Western Digital model: WD5000AZLX-75K2TA1
size: 465.76 GiB
ID-3: /dev/sdc vendor: Western Digital model: WD40NDZW-11BCVS0
size: 3.64 TiB type: USB
Partition:
ID-1: / size: 238.47 GiB used: 46.71 GiB (19.6%) fs: btrfs dev: /dev/sda1
ID-2: /home size: 238.47 GiB used: 46.71 GiB (19.6%) fs: btrfs
dev: /dev/sda1
ID-3: /var/log size: 238.47 GiB used: 46.71 GiB (19.6%) fs: btrfs
dev: /dev/sda1
ID-4: /var/tmp size: 238.47 GiB used: 46.71 GiB (19.6%) fs: btrfs
dev: /dev/sda1
Swap:
ID-1: swap-1 type: zram size: 31.29 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) dev: /dev/zram0
Sensors:
System Temperatures: cpu: 36.0 C mobo: N/A
Fan Speeds (rpm): N/A
Info:
Memory: total: 32 GiB available: 31.29 GiB used: 3.69 GiB (11.8%)
Processes: 316 Uptime: 46m Shell: fish inxi: 3.3.38

    • With the steam - d bit:

      • game stopped [gameid=377160]
      • removing process 304830, 304829, 304828 for (gameid aforementioned)

  • Okay. Probably easier to focus on one, get that working, and see if the problem is common to the others.

    I see Fallout 4 and Steam on there. What specifically happens when you try to launch Fallout 4 out of Steam?

    EDIT: At least it looks like that's an older Sandy Bridge CPU. I had a 13th gen and 14th gen Intel CPU do the "destroy themselves internally" thing, which manifested itself as an increasing rate of crashes everywhere until finally it couldn't even boot without all cores but one disabled. Was hoping that this wasn't gonna be someone else getting hit with that.

    EDIT2: And I'm assuming that, at least for troubleshooting purposes, this is a clean, unmodded Fallout 4 install, right?

    • Just for now I am having the issue of not veing able to run Fo4 on Steam anymore when I have otherwise been able to run it with no issue. It just up and wouldn't let me boot it up one day. No matter what I tried. All that happens is that I will pick a Proton version I know it worked with, click Play and then it does the stupid Vulkan shaders bit. I click Skip which would normally be fine, and then it just crashes and says Play again in green. Haven't been able to get it to work.

      Totally unmodded, I couldn't get that shit figured out anyway and lost interest. Just wanted to play what I had, which is what I was doing before it decided to torment me.

      • then it does the stupid Vulkan shaders bit.

        Just disable this, it's annoying and basically doesn't do much.

        Steam Settings -> Downloads -> (at bottom) Enable Shaderpre-caching, turn off.

      • All that happens is that I will pick a Proton version I know it worked with, click Play and then it does the stupid Vulkan shaders bit. I click Skip which would normally be fine, and then it just crashes and says Play again in green. Haven't been able to get it to work.

        Okay, so then what you're seeing is no dialog or anything coming up, just the "Play" button going green again after a while?

        And you already mentioned setting a Proton version, which was going to be about the next thing I was wondering about --- which version is it that you're using?

        EDIT: Also, I believe that if you let it complete the Vulkan shader processing, it won't need to do so again until the next time a game updates, so if you're going to be launching a game multiple times in a short period of time for troubleshooting or something, you might want to let it complete the pass once.

        EDIT2: If you have the hard drive space and a reasonably fast connection and want to try this, one thing you might try, though it's a bit of a brute force method, is quitting Steam, renaming the .steam directory in your home directory to something like oldsteam, and then relaunching Steam and reinstalling Fallout 4. I have seen Steam get into a broken state before on at least three occasions over the years that it could not recover from on its own after I had my machine lose power while Steam was updating itself. That may not be necessary, but it'd rule out a number of potential issues.

      • I understand that skipping the Vulkan shaders has been ok in the past, but as something has gone wrong/ changed since then, have you tried waiting for the shaders to load at all?

  • GPU is 11 years old... Could try Manjaro XFCE. Install Nvidia drivers. Don't skip Vulkan compilation when running games. Post errors if any.

  • Did you install the nVidia drivers? That could be a common error source across distros. No idea how that works with Quadro cards.

    You can use PROTON_LOG=1 %command% as launch parameter of your games to get a steam-123.log file in your home to help with debugging.

    Do Linux native games work?

    • I'll try that out, but typically when I have tried using launch options they have never worked so far.

      I tried Half Life and Gmod and those ran fine, but those are the only games out of like 100.

      • Hmm. If this is the original Half Life, that's Linux-native, so it won't be using Proton. Valve indicates that with a little SteamOS "gear" icon in the list of supported OSes on the game webpage.

        Don't know what else might be unique to Half Life.

        I wonder if it might be something breaking Proton.

        EDIT: Can force a Linux native game to instead run the Windows binaries under Proton by going to the game's properties and choosing "run this game under a specific compatibility tool" and selecting a Proton version. If nothing is chosen, Steam will prefer to use Linux-native binaries, if available. If you do that and it makes Half Life not work, that'd be a good argument that Proton isn't able to function at all.

        EDIT2: I guess "gear" isn't the right term for the SteamOS logo. "Cam", maybe? This thing:

      • Did you install the nVidia drivers? That could be a common error source across distros. No idea how that works with Quadro cards.

  • Are you using any custom launch options? I've had this happen sometimes when i tried running a game with gamemode, but then it turned out my gamemode was broken, and when that happens it doesn't start your game at all and it just stops immediately after gamemode exits with an error.

36 comments