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.
Two most common reason for Proton not working are:
Running games from NTFS or other incompatible file system.
Issues with GPU drivers.
Anyway, we are just guessing here without logs.
Set PROTON_LOG environment variable, eg. “PROTON_LOG=1 %command%” in launch options of Steam for the game. Log will show in your home dir. See Runtime config options part of the Proton README for more info.
https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/blob/proton_10.0/README.md#runtime-config-options
One of the things you can do is run Steam from the terminal. When the game crashes/fails to load; the terminal read out could be telling you what’s going wrong.
Some more info, like some error messages or logs would help people help you.
Also, stick with one distro while troubleshooting, and start by giving us the distro used, kernel, nvidia drivers, steam, wine and proton versions / variants, other packages used…
When you switched distro, did you do a full clean install for everything, including steam?
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:
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:
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:
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
Nothing stands out as being wrong here.
It’s detecting your graphics card, you’re using the latest versions of the graphics driver, wayland and vulkan and your GPU architecture is supported.
That’s good because these kinds of problems are much more annoying to deal with.
Not disk space exhaustion.
With the steam - d bit:
- game stopped [gameid=377160]
- removing process 304830, 304829, 304828 for (gameid aforementioned)
That’s basically the normal thing Steam does with an application is closing.
What version of Proton are you using in Steam Settings -> Compatibility -> Default compatibility tool?
It’s usually Experimental, but I’ve played around with others to set as default. Most recent was 8.0-4 since that’s what Fo4 usually likes.
Ah.
Try using GE-Proton-10-11, it’s a community build of Proton using the latest patches and fixes (it updates a lot more frequently than Valve’s proton). Another big advantage here is that you can use Wayland directly, bypassing the xwayland layer which will eliminate one possible thing that can go wrong.
You can install it using ‘ProtonUp-Qt’, which should be available on your package manager. When you run it, just click the Add version, select GE-Proton10-11 and click install. It’ll download it and put it in the proper directory, you’ll have to restart Steam for it to show up in Steam’s list. Set it to the default (either in Steam Settings, or in the settings of whatever game you’re using).
Once you have GE-Proton10-11 selected for the game, go into the launch options for the game (Properties -> General) and put:
PROTON_ENABLE_WAYLAND=1 %command%
This will tell Proton to directly output to Wayland. If your monitor supports HDR and you have enabled HDR in Plasma’s display configuration, you can enable HDR support by adding PROTON_ENABLE_HDR=1. So,
PROTON_ENABLE_WAYLAND=1 PROTON_ENABLE_HDR=1 %command%
Wayland and HDR support only work after Proton10 so make sure you select the right version of Proton.
Just went through a similar issue myself. My problem was that I scooped everything into an 8tb external hard drive when I migrated from Windows. Steam/Linux doesn’t like to run things off NTFS file systems. I formatted another drive as EXT4 and everything I moved has run fine in its new home
Are you using flatpaks and Nvidia?
Great catch, flatpacks fuck a lot of things up.
It’s more of Nvidia’s drivers suck in my book.
deleted by creator
I’ve been pretty happy with Flatpaks and AMD and Intel drivers.
Do you want to post the output of running fallout 4 through steam from the terminal?
steam steam://rungameid/377160
In my experience it’s usually some graphics issue. I see your GPU is 2014 model so maybe you need to use the legacy nvidia driver?
My strategy would be trying to find an error somewhere in some diagnostics or by running a game and then take it from there.
Are you deleting the prefix in between all of these changes? Because wine/proton prefixes are not resilient to changes, and even just updating to the latest version can brick the prefix.
OP, I had a similar issue, and I had to blow way the wine prefix.
Someone else will have to chime in, but I believe it’s the “compat data” folder, but be careful because some games like to keep saves in there.
After you do that, as someone else mentioned, try GE-Proton.
Also I’m not familiar with your card, if it is older, I believe there is a certain gen where they stopped adding older cards to the newer drivers. A lot of the distros you mentioned are new, maybe roll the dice and if you feel up for it try Debian. If games boot, the. You either have to grab the open source driver or use an older version.
Also for the future (after you’re up and running) you shouldn’t skip the shaders. Steam crowd sources them from similar configs and build, and vulkan can generate them before playing so that game play is smoother. Direct 12 trys to generate shaders during game play, which results in stuttering.
What are the symptoms you’re getting?
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.
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 likeoldsteam
, 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.8.0-5
Okay, yeah, that should work with it. I’m pretty sure that I run it with a newer version, but I see people running 8.0 without issue.
Next thing to try, I agree with the folks above, is probably to hit the Steam logs, unless you want to jump all the way to taking the extreme route I mentioned above of moving the Steam directory, starting up Steam, reinstalling the game, and seeing if that does it. If it does, that’d probably narrow it down to issues with Steam settings, the Steam installation, the game installation, and the Proton installation.
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?
I have waited before and either it ran or it didn’t depending on the machine I was using at any given time. Inconsequential generally. But as far as today, no I have not. It seems to take hours when I have let it previously.
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 asteam-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.
Should have been when I did the clean install and used the setup assistant to download some extras.
Getting a look at the proton logs is the next step. The game arguments I posted. They are not meant to get anything running but to give us log files.