Linux known issues and workarounds

[Evil1nside]

Hey Cerims,

If you’re gaming on Linux through Steam + Proton, you’ve probably hit a few weird roadblocks(just like me).
Below is a quick roundup of some common Proton-related issues I keep seeing, along with their fixes and workarounds.
So without any further blathering here’s a list of some of the things I found so far.

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1. Game does not start at all

Symptoms:

• You hit Play, Steam thinks for a second, then nothing happens.

Fix:
This is often caused by leftover Proton files from older versions.

Steps:

1. Open Steam

2. Go to Settings → System → Enable Developer Mode

   

3. Right-click(PS4/5 controller Share button) the game and select Developer → Delete Proton Files

   

This clears the Proton prefix, cache, and old leftovers so the game can rebuild a clean environment on next launch.

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2. Missing in-game screen resolutions

Symptoms:

• Resolution options are missing or limited

• Game defaults to odd aspect ratios

Fix:
Use Proton-GE and explicitly tell the game it’s not running on a Steam Deck.
-This can be done via a plugin called “Decky Loader” which adds this extra menu option.

From there, you click on that “Store” icon on the top right next to the cogwheel and you will see a list of all additional add-ons you can install, and amongst them there’s an add-on called “WIne Celler” which can help you download, install, and manage all different versions of Proton with just a click.

Steps:

1. Install Proton-GE

2. Set the game to use Proton-GE (Force compatibility tool)

   

3. Add this to the game’s Launch Options:

   SteamDeck=0 %command%
   
   

So it should look like this:

This forces proper desktop resolution detection by basically telling the game “you’re not on a Steam Deck”.
(You’d be surprised how many times this fixes things)
This is caused due to the Proton layer which is originally designed to work around the limitations of the actual Steam Deck hardware and by presumption it “thinks” that everything that is using it is a Steam Deck.
Thankfully, there’s a custom Proton version(Proton-GE) that resolves just that + man y other things, and it is generally recommended for everything as it also uses the latest dxvk, d3d, and wine instructions.

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3. Unable to claim Twitch.tv drops on SteamOS / CachyOS / Bazzite / or other “Game Mode” enabled distributions.

Symptoms:

• Twitch drops won’t link or claim

• Login page doesn’t load or fails silently

Why this happens:
In Game Mode, Steam opens its integrated browser, which Twitch does not like, or support.

Fix:

1. To exit GameMode, go Power → Switch to Desktop

   

2. From desktop open your browser of choice and log into Twitch

3. Launch the game from Desktop Mode(don’t enter GameMode yet)

4. Go to the in-game NPC/menu(right now it’s the Captain who gives you the daily quests, and challenges) and connect Twitch to claim the rewards

Once linked, rewards will sync correctly.

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4. Unable to scroll in-game when using a mouse

Symptoms:

• Mouse wheel doesn’t scroll menus

• UI behaves like a controller is forced

Fix:
Disable Steam Input and again tell the game it’s not on a Steam Deck.

Steps:

1. Right-click the game → Properties

2. Disable Steam Input for that game

3. Add this to Launch Options:

   SteamDeck=0 %command%
   
   

This should restore a proper mouse behavior.

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Few extra notes

A lot of Linux gaming issues come from:

• Old Proton prefixes

• Steam Deck detection

• Steam Input conflicts

• Steam’s embedded browser

If you’re troubleshooting something weird, these are great things to check first, at least until the game becomes Linux native.

Hope this saves someone a few minutes or hours of head-scratching.
Feel free to add more fixes, and workarounds below!

[YavindPew]

FOR BETTER PERFORMANCE IN ALL YOUR GAMES

On CachyOS you should use the built-in game-performance for your Steam games.

Set this in Steam launch options for your game:
game-performance %command%

This ensures the PC switches to performance mode when the game starts and automatically returns to powersave when the game closes.

To verify that this is working, launch a game and then run this command in the terminal (before and after starting a game):

cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_governor

It should say performance when you have started your game; and it should go back to powersave when you have exited your game.

Do not rely on KDE’s power profile indicator. Use CachyOS’ game-performance wrapper instead on your Steam games.

Have a nice day!

[InshahallahOscarBobb]

@Evil1nside

4. Unable to scroll in-game when using a mouse

Thanks for the tip. Had no idea what was going on with some of the inputs including the mouse wheel. [Edit: This isn’t working for me. On CachyOS.]

Also, if someone is facing stuttering with an AMD GPU with 8GB or less VRAM then try using FSR4 via OptiScaler. Upscaling from a lower resolution helps with the memory issue. FSR4 because I was getting a lot of shimmering and artifacts with FSR3 (They don’t completely go away with FSR4 but the situation is much better).

[yyg]

are you still having issues with your mouse wheel here? you may be missing the xorg server if you are running an Xwayland session so your udev has no events to reference for your scroll wheel. your hardware as well could be the issue, i have an elecom trackball where half the button events are not fully opened even though i can track the event, which is a driver issue.

a tool like input-remapper may be useful here to manually rebind your mouse keys

KDE Plasma

[Kyle_Rogers]

Have you guys actually tried this on a steam machine or is this just a guess? Because i own one and did all of these things and its still locked out at 800p really disappointing that they don’t seem to care to correct this while im over here playing. Crimson desert, dawnwalker and Onimisha on it just fine showing that it’s definitely not the requirements it’s just a moon mistake they can correct.

[yyg]

how do you know it is on moon’s side and not steamOS’ side?

(edit 1)

have you reached out to the steam team and notified them of the issue?

GitHub - ValveSoftware/SteamOS: SteamOS community tracker

(edit 2)

it also looks like you have access to stock KDE Plasma Applications, in which case Goverlay will be in the Extra’s repository, download it and use it as a compatability layer, it will also come stock with Mango Hud which is really really nice

Steam Support :: Steam Deck and Steam Machine Desktop: FAQ

(edit 3)

if you are unfamiliar with UNIX systems, here is also a great tech-yourself book to use as a reference to learn at your own pace. youll find a lot of powerful ways to interact with your steam machine in this book.

Learning%20the%20bash%20Shell%2C%203rd%20Edition.pdf

[Kyle_Rogers]

Because no other game has that issue that’s how i know it’s on their end a guy fixed it actually changing the games code

[Kyle_Rogers]

I’ve also not reached out to steam they’re well aware of it as the games marked unsupported on steam machine meaning they tested it and it didn’t work.

[yyg]

thats not always how that works, there are always multiple ways to skin a cat, as the saying goes regardless you still have options available to try in the meantime.

edit)

check on the wicked steam page again because its listed as verified

[Evil1nside]

That’s not how it works in this particular situation unfortunately, as it seems part of the game codes is looking for a valve hardware and if detected it automatically “thinks” it’s a Steam Deck.

The main reason for this is because the last patch for Wicked came months before the Steam Machine was a fact, so from Valve stand point of view there’s nothing that needs to be done from their end, which is fair and perfectly understandable.

Also, the game is only marked as Verified only for SteamDeck, but not for Steam Machine, and the status was changed after some talks and investigation was already conducted with Valve.

[yyg]

hmm i didnt take into consideration the recentness of the steam machine, nor do i have a steam deck so im coming from a one sided point of view, regardless however you should still be able to interact with the steam machine via terminal and set to disable hardware detection no? or to use tools like Goverlay to peel back compatibility layers to work around automatic detection

[Kyle_Rogers]

Can’t because it’s running steam os the games code automatically sees it as a deck and locks down the resolution to 800p which is also why my handheld can’t spam it to the tv where it can upscale cyberpunk and death stranding just fine. However if you change the game to the old version in the settings it then works but then you lose all your progress you’ve been making so there’s that.

[yyg]

setting an environmental variable given to the compiler instead of the steam launch option should alleviate that?