Need some help from Linux gamers.

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Sacksquatch, Jul 7, 2020.

  1. Sacksquatch

    Sacksquatch Captain

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    Linux gamers know a thing or two about tweaking lol. Getting windows games to run on Linux isn't always easy but it's getting better all the time. So before I ask my question I'd like to share my findings for Empyrion. I get the best results by running EGS straight from Steam with Proton 5.0-9 and Feral Gamemode on. This gives me a stable and very smooth 60 fps on MX Linux with the XFCE compositor on (not Compton). I've tried wine-staging, wine-devel, d11vk, etc, in various combinations (vcrun2015 dotnet40), with or without Lutris, and the simple example above is the best result so far.

    That said, my question is something I cannot figure out. Why can I setup a co-op server to play with my brother on MX Linux, but not on Manjaro? Manjaro runs the game just fine, but I cannot get it to load a co-op game. Other distros where I have successfully set up a co-op game are Pop OS, and Mint. Manjaro connects to the local server, but craps out after loading planets.

    What am I missing with Manjaro? Any help would be appreciated because I REALLY like Manjaro lol.
     
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  2. freejack

    freejack Lieutenant

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    I run a Dedicated Server on Linux Mint 19, I use Steam in Offline mode on that system and run the Dedicated Server, I have also run the Coop. I used to use Manjaro till everything I was doing would bork due to an update.I went to Mint and have had no issues since.
     
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  3. Sacksquatch

    Sacksquatch Captain

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    Oh wow. I couldn't even get dedicated server to launch. How did you do it? Just offline mode?
     
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  4. freejack

    freejack Lieutenant

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    I tried the commandline proton and it would not run, so I set up a steam UI and put it in offline mode. All it does is run the dedicated server. I wrote Steam about the issue and have yet to receive a reply. Also told them having to click 20 times to send them a message about something that is not in the FAQ is quite rude also. Wonder if that is why I have not heard back yet.

    I think it is more they don't want to give control to the user on the dedicated tools they still want control.
     
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  5. Sacksquatch

    Sacksquatch Captain

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    I just figured it out. Go into properties > General and force the use of proton. Funny how I hit that roadblock early on and never tried further as it just "seemed" more difficult. :D This opens up more possibility so thank you for having me take another look.

    Also, did you have any issues with heat and fan speed on Mint? I gave up on 19 for that issue, but perhaps it was the default kernel? My bios maintains fan speed, so I found that odd.
     
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  6. freejack

    freejack Lieutenant

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    If you had an issue with heat and fanspeed, I would put that to the driver. When I run into that I try the latest and work my way back till I find a driver doing things right. May not have all the features I want to play with but, it runs. Also the server I am running is an I3 Quad Core with 12GB's of ram and support 8 players without issue so far. No heat issues either. My desktop has not had any either, I have noticed with gamemode the heat has increased by 7 degrees at normal. So you may be seeing the increase because of gamemode. When I ran it with PROTON_USE_D11VK=1 %command% and had no issues. Trying game mode and will let you know if there are any issues or differences.
     
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  7. Sacksquatch

    Sacksquatch Captain

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    My issue with Mint was not related to Empyrion. My fans would be loud after boot at idle with and without nvidia driver installed. I did not try a different kernel with it.

    I plan on trying Mint 20 and/or LMDE 4 possibly today, I'll let you know. But yea let me know if gamemode increases heat for you substantially. I don't have any issue with MX, but it would be good to know what you find.

    I imagine there would be some heat increase as gamemode is removing CPU governors to provide better performance.

    Edit: So Mint 20 has a newer kernel, and it indeed fixes my fan issue! Playing around with Mate in a live boot :D
     
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    Last edited: Jul 7, 2020
  8. freejack

    freejack Lieutenant

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    I will almost guarantee it was the video driver causing it.
     
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  9. Sacksquatch

    Sacksquatch Captain

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    Maybe. I just tend to think it wasn't because it was doing it on a live-boot before nvidia drivers were installed. I noticed Mint 20 does have a newer nvidia driver too though.

    The good news is that I'm having really good performance on Mint 20 cinnamon, and I haven't even installed dxvk or gamemode yet. Impressed!
     
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  10. Cömmander_Aslan

    Cömmander_Aslan Lieutenant

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    Thanks for this thread, I was having issues running empyrion on my ps4 running Arch linux. I gave up on it for a while cause I assumed it was a problem with the openGL drivers that the guys at psxita got running on the ps4. But recently I’ve been working on it again due to people at my apartment gaining interest in the game and wanting to play co op. After doing some digging on these forums posts like these really helped me get the game and dedicated server running. I might run a permanent dedicated server on it now just to put this server is running on a ps4 in the description :).
     
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  11. freejack

    freejack Lieutenant

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    Dedicated server should run fine on it. I am having a support discussion with Valve about the using steamcmd with proton and how it can be done properly since to run the gui you have to put it in offline mode or it thinks your running 2 games from your account at the same time, even though the dedicated server falls under tools. So far I got the normal we are sorry this doesn't run under proton nor is supported. SO I went back and explained as I did in my first email it is not about the dedicated server which does run but how I have to run it and would like some more information on steamcmd and proton to run this from commandline. Which in turn got me the response of it is not officially supported under proton and that they can not support it. Again I replied back this has nothing to do with something that runs 100% fine under proton, it has to do with proton and steamcmd and how to use proton from the commandline. I guess they are told to stay out of that area, but I have always been the one to push in to it.
     
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  12. Sacksquatch

    Sacksquatch Captain

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    Cool! Glad it worked out for you. Did you have any issues running co-op on Arch, or did you go straight for dedicated?

    I still have the issue of framerate dropping suddenly after 1+ hours and need to restart the game. Not sure what's up with that but it's happened on every distro I've tried.
     
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  13. Myrmidon

    Myrmidon Rear Admiral

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  14. freejack

    freejack Lieutenant

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    Framerate is the Alpha part, it seems that something is not cleaning itself up well enough to allow steady framerates. It usually occurs after changing playfields a couple of time, it also clears up when changing playfields sometimes.
     
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  15. freejack

    freejack Lieutenant

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    Wou
    ld be nice if there was an easier way to edit our previous info in the DB than having to go back through and add a whole new one.
     
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  16. Myrmidon

    Myrmidon Rear Admiral

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    Anyone interested to dive a little deeper, here is a rich guide.

     
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  17. freejack

    freejack Lieutenant

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    Chris is a good source, he is rooted with a bunch of the core people involved and have been for a long time in the community.
     
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  18. Cömmander_Aslan

    Cömmander_Aslan Lieutenant

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    Hey freejack, I was wondering if you've found a better fix for empyrion and the dedicated server open at the same time. I didnt have problem with co op, but now I'm hosting a server on my ps4 and when I want to try to get on it from my main computer it wants to shut down the server for having 2 games open at once. For whatever reason its only doing this when the server and game are open on 2 different machines for me. I know you said offline mode for steam, but I was wondering if you've found another solution. If not I might try compiling proton from source without using the steam runtime to see if I can open programs with proton without steam recognizing it as a steam game, but honestly I don't know too well what I'm really doing so idk if that's how it works. I would be trying that now, but I forgot that I was connecting over a VNC and turned off internet to get steam in offline mode only to remember I'm kicked off from accessing it until tonight.
     
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  19. Myrmidon

    Myrmidon Rear Admiral

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    #19

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