Linux support thread

[memtha]

Crashs on startup after a clean install.
Screenshot and details on the rebirth reddit.
https://www.reddit.com/r/XRebirth/comme ... nce_after/

This is primarily for informational purposes. After the horrible time I had last time I tried to play if (technically functional but very buggy) shortly after release, and considering recent reviews are still largely bad, I am not willing to put much effort into making it work. You should patch it, and I'll check back at some future timem to see if it begins working.

[Alan Phipps]

@ memtha: Well as you can see above in this thread and elsewhere in the forums, others on Linux are indeed playing X Rebirth (not that I am saying it is free of all in-game issues, but it plays) and so you may need to look closer to home for the issue. I would start by verifying your game installation.

[memtha]

@Alan Phipps. I am not an idiot. I ran through the usual steps, even reinstalling. I am also an independent game developer, so the error being "EOF inside comment" tells me the shader has an intrinsic bug, or else a compatibility issue with the os or driver (because perhaps ending the file mid-comment is allowed by some other driver). I most definitely am not going to be installing a bunch of different os and driver versions to try to find a combo that works for this half-baked garbage game. I'm playing x4.

If you/egosoft cares about compatibility for what now must be a legacy product, they will try to replicate the error by testing it on xubuntu 20.04.3 lts. I will not put any additional effort into it until I see that you have at least tried to reproduce it.

[Alan Phipps]

Ah well, I took your undetailed statement 'I am not willing to put much effort into making it work." at your word. As far as I know you are the only one reporting this issue so far, but I could be wrong. I am a player/volunteer moderator and not an Egosoft dev, so trying to reproduce it in an OS I don't have is beyond me.

[memtha]

@Alan Phipps another redditor, who obviously cares more about rebirth than I do, sent me a link to another forum where others have reported the same problem, and have posted the code diff that patches the shader.

https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=258020

> Apparently, the compiler from the latest drivers is no longer condescending to such errors.

Yeah that's not the oses fault, and "upgrading" to a os that includes a driver that tolerates blatant shader code errors is not the answer.

Which brings me back to the original point of my post: the error message requested that I report the problem to egosoft. Not only am I reporting the problem, but providing the patch (credit to hhrhhr) that egosoft could release, to make the game work on the lts version without relying on drivers that allow obviously flawed shader code. Since the issue tracking tool (that is linked by the first post of this thread) apparently no longer accepts anonymous reports, nor allows account creation without invitation, this forum is the best I can do. Hopefully you have some level of contact with egosoft to relay the community-provided fix for their product, or else they are watching this forum for themselves.

For the record, I am not wasting any further time on this issue, nor am I re-downloading rebirth to try this fix. I am trying to play a game, not provide egosoft with free labour in fixing their product.

[Unbekanntes Feindschiff]

As far as I know you are the only one reporting this issue so far, but I could be wrong

This affects everyone using a 600 series or newer nvidia GPU on Linux(sorry, just discovered the thread as I don't frequent the XR forums). nVidia's shader compiler became more strict over time and this issue is obviously just a typo which older versions of the shader compiler let slip which is why nobody noticed until nvidia got more strict,(pre-600 series gpus are only supported by a driver package where the shader compiler is still more lenient). It's just that there are very few people still playing Rebirth while using this forum.

[Alan Phipps]

Thanks. The devs have acknowledged the issue and will seek to correct it in any future XR update or hotfix.

[lahtis]

If the X rebirth demo version doesn't work then you can even expect it from the purchase version. How to get shaders working.

Demo version.

A fatal error has occurred and X cannot recover:
Shader::Compile(tag.f) '0(610) : error C0151: EOF inside comment'
Version: 4.00 - Code revision: 208346
Please inform EGOSOFT GmbH technical support.

Using Ubuntu 18.04.6 LTS Nvidia GTX 770, 470.103.01 drivers. 8 gb ram (8 gb swap)
by the way: X4 foundation 4.20 version working, it has some bugs. But working.

test log say ERROR: ld.so: object '~/.steam/ubuntu12_32/gameoverlayrenderer.so' from LD_PRELOAD cannot be preloaded (wrong ELF class: ELFCLASS32): ignored.

[CBJ]

Shader::Compile(tag.f) '0(610) : error C0151: EOF inside comment'

This suggests an incomplete file. Please try a full file verification.

[Grundik]

Shader::Compile(tag.f) '0(610) : error C0151: EOF inside comment'

This suggests an incomplete file. Please try a full file verification.

Two years have passed, and this bug is still there. No, thats not an incomplete file: its an error in shader file: viewtopic.php?p=4979651#p4979651. There are even a patch in subsequent comments.

[beko]

I only noticed it yesterday for the Steam version: My joysticks didn't show up any more. It worked just fine before and I still have a valid keymapping config from the last time.

I disabled Steam Controllers (Input) for this game via override and all started showing up again. I guess Steam made a virtual gamepad out of it (AGAIN ) hiding the real thing resulting in zero found joysticks.

Note: "Real" joysticks as in with plenty of buttons, not gamepad controllers or something.

[Uraael]

Shader::Compile(tag.f) '0(610) : error C0151: EOF inside comment'

This suggests an incomplete file. Please try a full file verification.

Two years have passed, and this bug is still there. No, thats not an incomplete file: its an error in shader file: viewtopic.php?p=4979651#p4979651. There are even a patch in subsequent comments.

Hi folks.

ANOTHER two years have passed. Just popping back in 2024 to say I've just encountered this exact issue, the boot crash and the alarmingly ugly error message, that amending shader file common.fh in the solution linked above has totally resolved. You need to snip out literally four characters in that file for the game to work normally again.

This tiny fix should have been done four years ago according to the age of the link above and the ProtonDB reports. Egosoft do look after their older games very well but letting this issue lie for so long threatens to tarnish that very hard-earned reputation.

[Lukin86]

Good morning

I am writing to point out that the gog linux version is not up to date for the game. The windows version is 4.30 and the linux version is 4.10. Is it possible to update the linux version on gog? Thanks in advance.

[jebbyk]

There is lighting issues on Steam Deck!

The game runs well on Deck using proton. Lighitng is ok. But due to compatibility layer there is a siginificant performace impact.
It runs much smoother natively on Deck but has lighting issues at the same time.

I've also tested native build on my computer with rtx videocard in ubuntu (Kubuntu) and there is no such lighting issue. So it is not linux fault itslef, and not a linux game vesion fault.

Could be problem of:
- a specific linux *distro*
- *amd* gpu issue
- video *driver* issue

Searching the interned doesn't help.

Does anyone know a possible fix for it?

[thedavid]

I tried to play Rebirth two years and I could not get the Linux version of the game to run. I ran the windows version of the game with Proton and I got weird behavior and weird colors. Especially the copilot's hair and some weird shadow artifacts.

I installed the windows version of the game on a Windows computer and it wasn't much better. It wasn't a good experience so I gave up on it.

Over Easter weekend I thought to give the game another try and again I could not run the game on Linux. I ran the game with Proton and saw the strange behavior again.

However, recently I'd been a lot more active here on Egosoft's forums instead of the Steam forums. Unlike Steam, there was a solution for the problem here in the forums.

I deleted two instances of /* from a file called common.fh that apparently weren't supposed to be there. After that the game runs very well on Linux. I was getting more than 1300 frames per second. There are no weird color issues and the shadows are looking very good. Like wow. This is a AAA game. And it's fun. It's finally fun. The controls finally work and everything makes sense. When I fly close to a station I can see it instead of it popping in and out of wireframe.

So I want to say to Egosoft, please patch the game. I could have been enjoying this game since I first bought it. At least patch the Linux version because that seems to be a super simple fix. It's only four characters.

As for what's wrong with the windows version, shrug, I have no idea. It runs so maybe the weird colors aren't a big enough issue to take action. But for the Linux version it's the difference between being able to play the game or getting an error message.

Man, this game is so nice now I'm tempted to buy a VR headset just to see how awesome it can be. Does VR work with Linux? If the VR version is good maybe you guys should look to porting it to PS5 VR. Just saying. I'm very impressed with the game now that it works right. So again, I want to say to Egosoft, Please patch the game so the next person who buys it will a fun experience right away instead of having to patch the game on their own.

[Linuxflyer]

Hello there,

found the note for the Linux Patch in steam and got the idea to install it again.

System is Zorin-OS 17.3 what is technically Ubuntu Jammy

Rebirth shows the start logo, followed by the Egosoft animation. Then the start logo with "loading" inside and CTD

So i enabled the logfile from steam and got this.

Logfile started, time Mon Jun 23 19:11:22 2025
[General] 0.00 ======================================
[=ERROR=] 0.00 File I/O: Could not find file './etc\xml\catalog'
[General] 0.00 ======================================
[General] 0.00 ======================================
[=ERROR=] 0.00 FileIORequest::WaitForResult() Failed './etc\xml\catalog' with 3
[General] 0.00 ======================================
[General] 0.00 ======================================
[=ERROR=] 0.00 XLib::XMLInputOpenCallback(): Failed to open the file: etc/xml/catalog
[General] 0.00 ======================================
[General] 0.00 ======================================
[=ERROR=] 0.00 [Movie.LoadFormat] File videos/logo_publisher.mkv: avformat_open_input = -2 'No such file or directory'
[General] 0.00 ======================================
[General] 25.13 ======================================
[=ERROR=] 25.13 [Movie.LoadFormat] File videos/logo_publisher.mkv: avformat_open_input = -2 'No such file or directory'
[General] 25.13 ======================================
[General] 25.13 ======================================
[=ERROR=] 25.13 [Video.Start] Failed to start movie -2
[General] 25.13 ======================================

Okay next idea is to rename the config.xml, to got a new one. In the startup logos a new config.xml is created but results to the same logfile.

Logfile and config.xml was found here
@athena:~/.config/EgoSoft/X Rebirth/78359858$ ls
config-hurzick.xml debuglog.txt progressbar.xml uidata.xml
config.xml inputmap_1.xml save
content.xml inputmap_2.xml steam_autocloud.vdf

So i searched for the ./etc folder from the debug, this is not in .config and not in the game folder itself. Any advice, where it should be? Is /etc/xml/ a missing tool in my setup? Should steam create this folders?

As X4 foundations runs pretty here, the previous version normally should do the same.

Linuxflyer