Game won't start

[burningserenity]

Version and language - 7.10 HF3
Whether or not your game is modified using any third party scripts or mods (see note below) - No
Game start being played. - None
Exact nature of the problem, where and when it occurs and what you were doing at the time. - Game will get to first splash screen, then Egosoft intro video, then next splash screen, then it crashes.
Any possibly relevant changes you have made to your game, system, or software before the issue occurred. - N/A
Where appropriate, additional symptoms, error messages, links to saves *, screenshots and crash dump files (see this Wiki entry). - N/A
Your system specifications in the form of a DxDiag report and vulkaninfo (see this Wiki entry).** - https://dpaste.com/ASRZ3TVZY

[CBJ]

With only a vulkaninfo and no other system info it's hard to give much relevant advice. The only thing I can see is that you're using a laptop with multiple graphics devices, and it's a common issue that Vulkan requires the drivers for all of these devices, even ones you're not using to play the game, to have up to date drivers. So make sure that the Intel drivers are up to date as well as the NVidia ones.

To investigate any other possible causes we're going to need more info. A DXDiag would be the most useful, as this covers all elements of your system, but if you're using Linux then you'll need to provide that info manually.

[Alan Phipps]

Also make sure that you verify your game installation in case of corrupted or missing game files.

[burningserenity]

With only a vulkaninfo and no other system info it's hard to give much relevant advice. The only thing I can see is that you're using a laptop with multiple graphics devices, and it's a common issue that Vulkan requires the drivers for all of these devices, even ones you're not using to play the game, to have up to date drivers. So make sure that the Intel drivers are up to date as well as the NVidia ones.

To investigate any other possible causes we're going to need more info. A DXDiag would be the most useful, as this covers all elements of your system, but if you're using Linux then you'll need to provide that info manually.

I'm on Linux. Does glxinfo output help?

https://bpa.st/AIHQ

lspci:
https://bpa.st/INAQ

Any others you could use?

[CBJ]

Neither of those tell us much that vulkaninfo doesn't already tell us. Could you at least provide basic system information, such as what CPU you have, what Linux distro and version you're using, what sound drivers you're on, etc.? There are many other reasons besides graphics card issues that can prevent a game from starting.

[burningserenity]

CPU: 12th Gen Intel i7-12700H (20) @ 4.600GHz
Distro: Gentoo/sway/wayland
Audio: Pulseaudio/Pipewire
RAM: 32 GB
Any more?

[burningserenity]

Well, do you need more information? You told me a few good things I could provide you, but mostly said things like "do it manually," or "etc.".
What more information can I give you? Is there still interest in this ticket?

[CBJ]

A DXDiag includes detailed information about OS and driver versions and dates. We need a similar level of information about your system to have any chance of being able to help you.

[burningserenity]

Drivers of what? You mentioned audio. I guess I could give you the versions of Pipewire and Pulseaudio I'm running:
pipewire: 1.2.7
pulseaudio: 16.1
linux kernel: 6.11
nvidia drivers: 565.57.01-r3
network manager: netifrc 0.7.12
honestly I don't know what else to give you. It seems like you're not really interested in helping me figure this out, which is fine if you don't want me as a customer.

[CBJ]

We are doing our best to help you but it's very difficult to do so when you seem so reluctant to provide any information to work with. You can see the information that other people provide with DXDiag reports; that's what we need - detailed information about your OS setup, graphics and sound drivers, input devices, etc.

Anyway, you've finally now provided something that might be useful once someone with Linux knowledge is back at work on Monday.

[burningserenity]

Someone with Linux knowledge will be able to have this conversation productively, which has unfortunately devolved into mutual blaming. I appreciate you trying, even though we obviously don't communicate together effectively. Talk to whomever Monday.

[PGeyer-Ego]

Hi burningserenity,

I don't have a Gentoo install that I can test against sadly, but I'll see if I can figure something out for you tomorrow.

There are two things I've noticed while skimming this thread - pulseaudio and wayland. In theory X4 should work with both, but we have had an issue with both in the past. They also shouldn't have an affect at the time you're stating, post-intro video. If it would be possible for you to try without these though, just to rule them out.

You could also try renaming the 'X4' executable and replacing it with a symlink to your terminal of choice, so you can see if it gives you any information as to why it's crashing. This is because we're running within the Steam Runtime, so symlinking the terminal will cause it to open with the correct environment, and you can launch the actual game executable from there.

If it's a crash that would be creating a core dump, you can also core file size to unlimited, so we can get the crash dump and investigate.

[xrogaan]

Someone with Linux knowledge will be able to have this conversation productively, which has unfortunately devolved into mutual blaming. I appreciate you trying, even though we obviously don't communicate together effectively. Talk to whomever Monday.

You may want to run a 'lshw -sanitize > hwinfo.txt' and share that file. Or at the very least the output of 'inxi -v2 -A'.

If you are using steam, you also may want to consult the file ~/.local/share/Steam/logs/console-linux.txt and take a look to see if there's any error relevant to X4. When a process segfault, it's usually logged by the kernel. So a trace of the reason must be present somewhere. If you weren't using systemd, I would have told you to look into the /var/log folder. If you are using systemd, I then have no clue (use whatever tool they devised to read non-human written logs).

Earlier there was mention of pulseaudio/pipewire. Which one is it? Both can't exist at the same time, as they try to do the same thing, but pipewire can emulate pulseaudio API.

[burningserenity]

I am running the pipewire daemon, but I have both pipewire and pulseaudio libraries installed concurrently, which I did to get VoIP working correctly. Perhaps I should see if the future is here yet.
I also tried not using wayland and I get the same behavior.
There is no crash dump, nor are there any messages in /var/log/kern.log, or even /var/log/syslog.
Here is my sanitized lshw output: https://bpa.st/SQVQ
I tried symlinking 2 different terminals, foot and kitty, and the launching process died as soon as shaders were finished compiling.

[xrogaan]

You have two VGA compatible controller:

• GA104 [Geforce RTX 3070 Ti Laptop GPU]
• Alder Lake-P GT2 [Iris Xe Graphics]

Are you positive that the game is using the nvidia GPU?

There is no crash dump, nor are there any messages in /var/log/kern.log, or even /var/log/syslog.

Might means that the game exit gracefully, thus not a catastrophic crash.

[burningserenity]

Are you positive that the game is using the nvidia GPU?

Not entirely. I tried using VK_ICD_FILENAMES=/usr/share/vulkan/icd.d/nvidia_icd.json and that didn't help, but I'm assuming X4 runs on Vulkan and can be forced this way.

[xrogaan]

Are you positive that the game is using the nvidia GPU?

Not entirely. I tried using VK_ICD_FILENAMES=/usr/share/vulkan/icd.d/nvidia_icd.json and that didn't help, but I'm assuming X4 runs on Vulkan and can be forced this way.

Given that you have a System76 laptop, this support article may be of help. Though you're not using Pop!_OS, so you might have better chances with Bumblebee. Seems to handle the same kind of tech.

Your original vulkaninfo and glxinfo output are dead, so I can't look at them. They should tell you which graphic mode is being used.

PGeyer-Ego did ask you to symlink to a terminal, and I figured that was so you could launch the game manually and see if there was any error output. The same technique allows you to run the game through strace, or even gdb.

Though it is a bit weird that there is no crash. It implies that something caught a critical error and then the software simply decided to stop without providing any meaningful message.

[burningserenity]

http://dpaste.com/2RP4J6PNK - vulkaninfo, should last 90 days.

When I look at this, it looks like both are being used, but from glxinfo http://dpaste.com/FZSUKD8AV, it looks like NVIDIA is being used.

Most games use the nvidia card by default with my setup, but every once in a while I need to force it. I'll check out the links, though. I remember bumblebee not working with vulkan in 2016. I didn't know people still used it.

[burningserenity]

Any further advice on symlinking the game to a terminal? I renamed the X4 binary and symlinked a terminal. It won't launch from Steam, but I can run testandlaunch and it will launch the terminal. From here, I try to launch the renamed X4 binary and it immediately exits 1 with no output.

[xrogaan]

Any further advice on symlinking the game to a terminal? I renamed the X4 binary and symlinked a terminal. It won't launch from Steam, but I can run testandlaunch and it will launch the terminal. From here, I try to launch the renamed X4 binary and it immediately exits 1 with no output.

I renamed the X4 binary to X4.bin, then symlinked xterm to X4. Launched the game through steam, which opened the xterm software from which I started the game.

Here's the output from the xterm window, my PS1 properly show steam soldier runtime as chroot.

Code: Select all

(steamrt soldier 0.20241118.108551)[28258:28256 0:4001] 23:28:00 03/12/2024 [xrogaan@Regolith:pts/4 +3] /mnt/Games/xrogaan/steamapps/common/X4 Foundations
~$ ll X4 X4.bin
lrwxrwxrwx 1 xrogaan xrogaan       14 Dec  3 23:27 X4 -> /usr/bin/xterm
-rwxr-xr-x 1 xrogaan xrogaan 63900424 Aug 27 00:18 X4.bin
bash: __git_ps1: command not found
pid 28375 != 28258, skipping destruction (fork without exec?)
(steamrt soldier 0.20241118.108551)[28258:28256 0:4002] 23:28:10 03/12/2024 [xrogaan@Regolith:pts/4 +3] /mnt/Games/xrogaan/steamapps/common/X4 Foundations
~$ ./X4.bin
bash: __git_ps1: command not found
pid 28482 != 28258, skipping destruction (fork without exec?)
(steamrt soldier 0.20241118.108551)[28258:28256 0:4003] 23:28:45 03/12/2024 [xrogaan@Regolith:pts/4 +3] /mnt/Games/xrogaan/steamapps/common/X4 Foundations
~$ 

To symlink, you need:

Code: Select all

ln -s /usr/bin/xterm X4

I don't know what you mean by "it won't launch from steam". It works just fine here. Running devuan, a debian derivative btw. Trying to launch X4 from cli will have it start steam first, then launch X4 from steam. That means that it will try to launch the terminal you linked if you're not already within a steam runtime.

If after doing the symlink, running steam and launching X4 from it doesn't give you the expected terminal, then there's something funky with your system beyond any help I can offer. What does ~/.local/share/Steam/logs/console-linux.txt has to say? And for that matter, take a gander at other files in that folder. After it fails to launch your terminal, order them by last modified:

Code: Select all

ls -lt | head

and look in the few files on top