Most Steam games won't launch

[paper anchor]

I've been at this for about a week and I simply cannot figure this out, I have been on countless reddit posts and linux mint forum threads and despite everything I try nothing seems to work.
What happens is the majority of the time I launch the game, it works fine till it loads... something or the other and then either simply crahses or freezes my entire OS and I need to reach for the power button.
The games that can launch fine are PDX games and Cookie Clicker, everything else CTDs or freezes my OS.
Here are my specs, they are modern and everything is updated, I am open to any suggestions at this point.

[surreal tartan]

Have you installed anything besides steam? Lutrix, extra Proton packages, etc?

[jagged knot]

something I noticed is he does have an 13th Gen Intel Core i9-13900H gen and NVIDIA AD106M [GeForce RTX 4070 Max-Q / Mobile]

@peak warren think it's actually good to recommend a custom xanmod kernel in this case?

From what I've noticed with Mint 22 this happens a lot with very brand new hardware since the kernels are still stuck at 6.8

[peak warren]

I really have no idea. I'm thinking it's more a of a Steam/Proton compatibility layer thing not being turned on

[jagged knot]

I assume he checked the box of enabling it in the settings?

[peak warren]

can never assume anything

[jagged knot]

@paper anchor Just to be extra sure have you:
#1 enabled Proton compatability in settings:
#2 manually activated the compatability in the settings of the game

After that have you installed the recommended Nvidia drivers?
550 should be fine and are most stable.

If you have done these 3 things, the next thing I would have you do is try installing a custom kernel due to your very brand new hardware, BUT before you do that make sure to make a backup of your system using the Timeshift app:
https://xanmod.org/

[paper anchor]

yep done all that

[jagged knot]

the custom kernel?

[paper anchor]

that I haven't tried, let me test it after I make another timeshift backup

[jagged knot]

It did fix stuff for me since I was using a very new MSI motherboard, like I managed to get my wireless wifi back.

[paper anchor]

Should I install MAIN, LTS, or RT?

[jagged knot]

lemme check

[jagged knot]

nah just follow the commands

[paper anchor]

kk

[jagged knot]

I think you need v3 (the already default option) for your Intel 13th gen

[paper anchor]

yeah thats what I was thinking but I just wanted to make sure

still a partial linux newbie

@jagged knot ok so I rebooted and I have neither prime profiles now nor the ability to change my display refresh rate

but, let me try launching a game

[jagged knot]

prime profiles?

[paper anchor]

Nvidia Prime Profiles

[jagged knot]

as for the display refresh rate here I ain't sure how that got disabled

currently on uname -r
6.12.6-x64v3-xanmod1 and I can change my refresh rate

you should be on the same version

[paper anchor]

how do i check kernel version again?

[jagged knot]

I gave you the command

[paper anchor]

yeah same version

[jagged knot]

go launch a game (with the compatibility settings I mentioned)

[paper anchor]

yeah nope same thing

[jagged knot]

Are you using nvidia drivers now?
You can check with the Driver Manager and it should show 5XX something selected

[paper anchor]

it said im on 550

[jagged knot]

no I just wanna make sure you are right now

had some cases when I was messing around when I didn't switch for some reason from open source nouveau driver

[paper anchor]

version 550

shit Gmod crashes even faster now

can't even get to the main menu

[jagged knot]

idk what to do, we both have an rtx 40s series and an intel 13th gen, just that yours is i9 and not i7

[paper anchor]

like, this is basically a fresh install of Mint, all I did was download discord and proprietary drivers

and steam ofc

[jagged knot]

where'd you get steam from

[paper anchor]

main site

through the .deb file

[jagged knot]

ah ok

wait

can you try removing it and getting it from the software manager and reinstalling GMOD

I will launch my GMOD to see if it works

[paper anchor]

ah thats

[jagged knot]

that's very odd

did you do a sudo apt remove with the deb file you used for installation?

[paper anchor]

I uninstalled from the menu

[jagged knot]

try with this one instead:

[paper anchor]

is this from the software manager?

I can't find it if it is

[jagged knot]

yeah

[jagged knot]

if you have Mint 22 you should have this

[paper anchor]

nothing

let me try another reboot, see if that fixes... anything

[jagged knot]

perhaps I too have it downloaded from a .deb file on their page

@paper anchor also Gmod launched for me

[paper anchor]

:/

[jagged knot]

these are my settings for preferences for the software manager but I think they shouldn't matter

[paper anchor]

I see steam from flathub but not steam-launcher

[paper anchor]

same issue after reboot

[jagged knot]

if you redownload steam from the .deb file and search "steam-launcher" in software manager would it appear for you?

[paper anchor]

let me try

[paper anchor]

nope

[jagged knot]

lemme ask the other guys

@paper anchor figured out what was happening

basically when you install the .deb file and refresh the store that's when the steam-launcher appears as a package, it's the deb file you installed

[paper anchor]

I still don't see it

I did reinstall the .deb file

[jagged knot]

click the refresh from the menu and then re-search for steam-launcher

[paper anchor]

there we go

found it

[jagged knot]

yeah leave it installed like that

that's the one both you and I have

[paper anchor]

right right

[jagged knot]

so we both have xanmod, steam (same package), nvidia rtx 40s with 550 drivers and intel 13th gen (yours is i9 instead of mine i7)

I am quite lost honestly

[paper anchor]

same

i've been at this for a week

[jagged knot]

could it be because you are on the laptop nvidia gpu?

[paper anchor]

maybe

but im not sure how that'd be an issue

[jagged knot]

nvidia drivers are a bit of an arse
His pc information if anyone sees this:

[paper anchor]

let me generate a new one

[jagged knot]

rename it with .txt at the end

[jagged knot]

@peak warren here is another one you could help if you can, I am really stumped here

[peak warren]

I have no idea that's why i called out for others.

[jagged knot]

we basically have almost the same hardware and software so I dunno how his is doing so bad

[paper anchor]

It's always me with the edge case bugs... Even back on Windows

I think I'm cursed or something

[peak warren]

maybe it's a graphics driver crash.. i was gonna say google up some "linux openGL GPU graphics test demo"

and run it. the demo will produce fancy shapes, and 3D fish n colurs etc.. if the thing crashes af, then u know it's the GPU

[jagged knot]

https://benchmark.unigine.com/superposition
?

[peak warren]

booyah

[jagged knot]

@paper anchor

[paper anchor]

ill try it and see if it's the GPU or something else

[peak warren]

that one linked says needs VR headset in the min. requiremnts

but u can prob also just find something in Software Manager under "GPU test"

or 3D accelerator stress test or whatever similar notion

[jagged knot]

there is this utility

[peak warren]

no

[jagged knot]

unverified flatpak gui benchmark

[peak warren]

there was this one I saw that looked like graphics of being in a flying hot air balloon ship

very 3Dish

just was months ago so i cant recall name

basemark might be of some use. depends if user wants to download a FATPAK

[paper anchor]

what's wrong with that?

[peak warren]

huge

but anyway ur call

[jagged knot]

1.3GB huge

[paper anchor]

I have space that's not a concern

like... 3 tb of space

[jagged knot]

https://web.basemark.com/run/tests/30/graphics_suite/draw-call_stress_test/
@peak warren here is basemark but in a website, does this work?

[paper anchor]

do these settings work?

[peak warren]

sure

[jagged knot]

seems to be detecting your GPU so I think so?

[peak warren]

I have intel GMA graphics from nearly 2 decades ago. it's running about 1 FPS

[paper anchor]

nope

[peak warren]

sorry, 2 FPS

[paper anchor]

not a GPU issue

[jagged knot]

seems to be working fine

[peak warren]

shows it used Vulkan right?

[paper anchor]

yes

[jagged knot]

Vulkan 1.0

can he run the games from terminal ?

[paper anchor]

this is like your doctor asking other doctors to take a look at your results because they're incomprehensible

[jagged knot]

Also @paper anchor something you can do if a game locks you out of your desktop is this:
Ctrl + Alt + ->

using the arrow keys on the right you can switch workspaces

[paper anchor]

oh that's neat

[jagged knot]

you can use Alt + F2 to enter commands

r -> refresh desktop
xkill -> an X cursor with which you could click a window and it kills the app

[paper anchor]

mm

[peak warren]

can also do ctrl-alt-backspace to logout immediately, nothing saved in case of a hangup

[jagged knot]

basically the last option before needing to shutdown

[peak warren]

or ctrl-alt-t then xkill

[jagged knot]

NOTE: Do not press these
Ctrl + Alt + F1 = Terminal UI where you could only type in a terminal and nothing else
Ctrl + Alt + F7 = Bring back the Desktop UI

[paper anchor]

well that's useful but those are in case the game freezes my OS... Which shouldnt happen me thinks

[peak warren]

correct

also idk what PDX games are.

[paper anchor]

Paradox

they're known to support linux

[jagged knot]

https://www.paradoxinteractive.com/
?

Stellaris?
Cities Skylines?

neat

[paper anchor]

Victoria 3

[peak warren]

something or the other and then either simply crahses or freezes my entire OS and I need to reach for the power button.
The games that can launch fine are PDX games and Cookie Clicker, everything else CTDs or freezes my OS.

[paper anchor]

yeah PDX games can run on linux natively

[peak warren]

what does CTD mean?

[paper anchor]

Crash to desktop

[jagged knot]

so native linux games run ...

but other ones which require proton don't?

why doesn't GMod run then ...

[paper anchor]

only god knows...

[jagged knot]

I think Gmod doesn't run natively

[paper anchor]

"Source, the game engine Valve uses for all of their games(or Source 2), has been Mac native since 2010, Linux native since 2012. As they updated to this version porting to linux was fairly trivial for their older games, it was all opengl based and had no directx in the code. " - guy on reddit

[jagged knot]

ah alright

well that does make it more confusing as to why you can't run Gmod

[paper anchor]

why do you think i've been at this for a week

this is basically a fresh install of mint, no changes (other than the kernel one you suggested), and it seems to be working for EVERYONE else except me

I literally downloaded each version of proton and none of them worked

[surreal tartan]

Inside or outside steam?

[paper anchor]

inside steam

[surreal tartan]

Did non-linux games ever launch or no?

[paper anchor]

you mean non-native games run through steam or games not on steam?

[surreal tartan]

Not on steam...do you have something else to launch non-steam games?

[paper anchor]

I have Lutris

[surreal tartan]

Get rid of it. All the problems I had started when I installed Lutris.

Just happened to me last week too. I installed some WINE and Proton stuff outside of steam just messing around, including Lutris, went to game and the games would flash open and then close. Never had a hard lock tho where I had to reboot.

[jagged knot]

there is this command which you can use to launch Garry's Mod from the terminal but I don't think Steam would output any errors in the terminal
steam steam://rungameid/4000

[surreal tartan]

I back tracked and removed Lutris and all the extra Proton/WINE stuff I installed outside Steam and everything went back to working.

[paper anchor]

nope, wasn't it

[surreal tartan]

Poo.

Well...if I were in your situation, I'd just reinstall Mint, install steam and only 1 game and test it. If it doesn't work, then you know it is probably a hardware or driver problem.

If it does work, try another game...etc. Until something breaks.

Who knows, maybe it's some oddball DRM somewhere causing a conflict.

[jagged knot]

he said GMod doesn't run

[paper anchor]

the thing is, this is my second run with the OS, both times fresh install nothing worked

how have I broken more things trying to fix steam, I didn't even do anything

[jagged knot]

I think you can just press Add to reuse the old folder

[paper anchor]

that just brings me back to the file selection

[jagged knot]

/home/sonny/.steam/debian-installation

btw IF you want you can remove the steam folder by typing rm -rf ~/.steam (ALWAYS check commands which start with rm as they are used for removing directories)

[paper anchor]

ill try that and install steam... again

[jagged knot]

don't

it's basically telling you that there is already an existing steam folder

just delete your .steam folder located in your user folder (right click to enable hidden files)

[surreal tartan]

Since you do have an Intel 13th gen, have you done the Intel BIOS updates for the instability issues?

[jagged knot]

I haven't and I am with a 13th gen too

[paper anchor]

I believe so, incase I didn't, where would I get that?

[paper anchor]

nope

didn't work either

[surreal tartan]

Check your OEM for a BIOS update

[jagged knot]

usually I wouldn't recommend updating the BIOS but this is a very strange case indeed so idk

[paper anchor]

I have the most recent version

can't be that either

this entire situation has me convinced the Adeptus Mechanicus is right

maybe I need to buy incense and just start praying to my laptop

[surreal tartan]

The other thing to try along with the incense is grab a crowbar (baseball bat, hammer, whatever) and just lean it up against the computer so it gets the idea of the direction things are going.

[jagged knot]

The machine spirit is not happy with the way you've been treating it

[paper anchor]

the machine spirit should not be threatened

lest I get a visit from a certain 'terminatus'

[paper anchor]

I have treated it VERY well

what a sassy machine spirit

aside from the superstition

I am completely out of options, as in I have tried everything suggested to me and other users with the same problem

[surreal tartan]

So...going back to the beginning beginning...have you deleted all the partitions and formatted the drive fresh with Ext4 and installed?

[paper anchor]

yep

[surreal tartan]

Hmmph.

Well if we can't threaten it, maybe bake it a cake and put a bottle of wine next to it 😂

[paper anchor]

that'd hurt...

[surreal tartan]

Does everything run normally aside from games?

[paper anchor]

yeah

no issues with discord, firefox, Gparted, everything except steam

[peak warren]

does this demo run well?

sorry didnt meant to tag-reply to Mr. Bones.

but rather asking if the web graphics demo runs smoothly and no crashes for @paper anchor

[paper anchor]

ill try that one too

[paper anchor]

still on test 8/20

[peak warren]

the first one i did was like some cgi of a giant still monster robot parked near a warehouse building

did it run well for u?

[paper anchor]

yeah

ope it's done
aaanndd no issues

:/

[surreal tartan]

Just curious what was your score on that stress test?

And do you have Windows on this PC?

[paper anchor]

yeah on a different partition

[surreal tartan]

Everything work in Windows?

[paper anchor]

yep

[surreal tartan]

So at this point I'm just brainstorming b/c doesn't seem like your problem makes any sense anyway.

Have you tried the Open Source or Noveau or whatever drivers instead of the Nvidia ones?

[paper anchor]

No I haven't...

[surreal tartan]

Ok...so that's something. Have you tried with the iGPU at all?

Or this:

[peak warren]

i didnt see onboard gpu

in the inxi info

[surreal tartan]

Yeah some of the new intel chips don't have them...k-series I think? I'm not 100% up on the new intel stuff.

[peak warren]

ref.

[paper anchor]

I did but I disabled them in BIOS to force games to use my dGPU

didn't work clearly

[surreal tartan]

I mean at this point it's just spaghetti. Try new drivers, try old drivers, try the open source drivers, double check bios settings, enable rebar/disable rebar, disable SMT, disable e-cores, etc. Just anything really >.<

This is at the point of "Well this shouldn't happen" x_X

[paper anchor]

I tried nouveau and now everything is frozen

[peak warren]

disable windows fast startup too

cuz that causes lingering issues on dualboots

[surreal tartan]

BIOS probably has a fast start up that can be disabled as well.

[paper anchor]

I'll try both

[peak warren]

they're two separate beasts, but yes

[paper anchor]

Alright it's getting really late here I'll try something in the morning and update you guys on what happens next

[surreal tartan]

Set out the incense over night >.>

[paper anchor]

disabled both, and it didn't work either

Ok, I have made a decision.
Since this is such an odd edge case and nothing seems to be able to fix it... I have decided to completely wipe everything 'linux' from my drives, and reinstall for a third time, preferably I would like input on what to do afterwards so I 100% don't screw up this install, unless someone else has a solution I will continue with this decision

[jagged knot]

What I suggest is after you reinstall the OS, make a timeshift instantly

that way you won't need to reinstall every time

[paper anchor]

@peak warren @surreal tartan @jagged knot thank you three for your help so far but it seems unless Linus Torvalds himself can diagnose my issue then im basically screwed

[paper anchor]

good Idea

[peak warren]

ya idk what's wrong

[surreal tartan]

That sucks dude 😦

[jagged knot]

don't we have a person who knows a lot about drivers we could ask?

[peak warren]

idk u've been following this ticket more than I have

is it really a driver issue?

[jagged knot]

honestly idk I am stumped

my last idea is to just GPT it and see what it spits out if it could help me with figuring out something 💀

[peak warren]

wdym?

[jagged knot]

give it the inxi

[surreal tartan]

Is it a specific error or things just CTD

[peak warren]

oh chat bot

[jagged knot]

basically his games crash or even the pc crashes (I have tested them and they run for me)

[surreal tartan]

Ok wasn't sure if I missed something this is a pretty long thread.

[jagged knot]

Looking at the system information, I notice a potential issue with your graphics configuration. Despite having a powerful NVIDIA RTX 4070 Max-Q GPU, your system appears to be using software rendering (llvmpipe) rather than the dedicated NVIDIA graphics

@peak warren what do you think?

[peak warren]

u know what u could try rn. add a different desktop environment n use it as an alternate to test

[paper anchor]

how do I add a different enviroment?

[jagged knot]

@peak warren
Some of the given potential solutions by the Ai are:

To fix this, you should:

Make sure you're using the NVIDIA proprietary drivers (which you are - v550.120)
Check if NVIDIA Prime is properly configured on your system
Try running Steam with the NVIDIA GPU explicitly:
__NV_PRIME_RENDER_OFFLOAD=1 __GLX_VENDOR_LIBRARY_NAME=nvidia steam
Verify that your NVIDIA settings are properly configured using nvidia-settings

[peak warren]

hang on, something Bones showed is indeed off

Monitor 1 lists as unknown

red flag

[jagged knot]

again I usually wouldn't rely on it LLM but this case is very odd

[peak warren]

pluss the API thing being llvm

[jagged knot]

that is indeed odd ...

[peak warren]

https://tenor.com/view/linux-linus-linus-torvalds-middle-finger-fuck-off-gif-16334894

[jagged knot]

wrong gif

[peak warren]

^ nvidia interview

[jagged knot]

this is the accurate one
https://tenor.com/view/linus-torvalds-linus-nvidia-fuck-you-gif-19475186

[peak warren]

size and modes n/a too. a properly set up vid card/drivers would not say that

[paper anchor]

I always did find that strange... it identified everything else except the screen

[jagged knot]

leme check my inxi

[jagged knot]

what did you say was your inxi command?

[paper anchor]

inxi -Fxz

[peak warren]

scroll to very top

[jagged knot]

mine for comparison

Graphics:
  Device-1: NVIDIA AD106 [GeForce RTX 4060 Ti] vendor: Palit Microsystems
    driver: nvidia v: 550.142 arch: Lovelace bus-ID: 01:00.0
  Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 21.1.11 with: Xwayland v: 23.2.6 driver: X:
    loaded: nouveau unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,vesa failed: nvidia
    gpu: nvidia,nvidia-nvswitch resolution: 1920x1080
  API: EGL v: 1.5 drivers: kms_swrast,nvidia,swrast platforms:
    active: gbm,x11,surfaceless,device inactive: wayland,device-1
  API: OpenGL v: 4.6.0 compat-v: 4.5 vendor: nvidia mesa v: 550.142
    glx-v: 1.4 direct-render: yes renderer: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti/PCIe/SSE2
  API: Vulkan v: 1.3.275 drivers: N/A surfaces: xcb,xlib devices: 2

[peak warren]

opening info, from top of post

it showed dp-2 not unknown then

whaddyall do?

[jagged knot]

@paper anchor after you have reinstalled can you show is the inxi command output again

[paper anchor]

I still think the best course of action is a full reset, my current install is frankensteined together at this point because of all the fixes I tried, and multiple things other than steam are now broken, ill preform the format, reinstall from my USB

[jagged knot]

do that and inform us once you have backed up the new install with Timeshift

[peak warren]

also the og api for openGL showd nvidia for renderer, not LLVM

[peak warren]

yeah then I recommend talk to Satomi about getting the proper Steam before install steam, after the snapshot

[jagged knot]

the one that works for sure is the .deb from their website

[peak warren]

oh

[jagged knot]

it won't update of course but it would ensure that we can know that nothing is wrong with the app

[jagged knot]

• don't forget we could use my hardware as reference as it's almost identical for CPU and GPU

[paper anchor]

@jagged knot question I'm at the driver selection screen and which driver should I use?

Just wanted to make sure since I want a clean install

[jagged knot]

550 after installing it reboot

[paper anchor]

Gotcha

[paper anchor]

ok so installed 550 drivers, used update manager, restarted, made a timeshift, and now I have a fresh install of mint

now in regards to steam, install through the .deb file, install a game that didn't work before, and try it?

[jagged knot]

yeah, you can use the .deb provided from their website

[paper anchor]

YES

[paper anchor]

YES
TBOI WORKS

[jagged knot]

the games launch!?

[paper anchor]

hold on let me try installing TF2 see if that freezes now

[paper anchor]

yeah TBOi was just black screen then crash now its... well, not that

it's working and everything

[jagged knot]

leeess go, so it's solved right?

[paper anchor]

well if TF2 crashes still then it might still be persistent, if not then im home free baybee

[jagged knot]

we can hope

[paper anchor]

still no clue what happened last installation, guess we'll never know...

[jagged knot]

wrong driver perhaps or something went wrong?

[paper anchor]

[jagged knot]

did tf2 download

[paper anchor]

loading vulkan shaders rn

@jagged knot IT WORKS

BY GOD IT WORKS

this thread... is

solved

[jagged knot]

LESS GOO

@peak warren Solved ✅