Taking the Linux Plunge (As a Gamer)

Just tested ICEY again to check some of these logs. ICEY ran for just about 7.5 minutes, crashing at 00:09:28 exactly (I know because the screen froze at that point). I checked every log file I could see and didn’t find any entrees related to that time stamp.

The weird thing was that the game actually froze/sound started repeating itself like a broken record about 3-4 seconds prior to the total system freeze. Very weird. What do you think that means?

Anyway, if I can learn how to properly use these logs, I can just use this method of testing to pinpoint exactly where to look in the logs and from there I can forward the logs to someone who knows wtf they’re doing.

How many games have you got to work on Linux? So far, I have only had one run 100% stable: a 2D platformer called Sun and Moon.

I have gotten a bunch of games running, around 30 or so. Both native linux games and Wine/Proton games.

I have had my system lock up like you describe a few times. When I was first setting up my system, I had my ram set to it’s XMP profile and it was causing memory errors. Those would cause a similar lock up.

After running memtest and turning my memory down to 3466MHz from 3600MHz, I have only had my system lock a few times.

It was usually caused by either my graphics driver crashing, or my bluetooth driver crashing. Although sometimes a game would crash and bring the system down with it. ( ex. Helium Rain )

For me it was never consistently repeatable.

Did/does Windows run without issue on this machine?

If no/haven’t tried I would say to run memtest and see if it has any errors.

If it does, then it’s most likely a software issue and the answer most likely lies somewhere buried in your logs or configuration files.

It could always be some other hardware issue as well, like bad GPU memory.

It’s very hard to say for sure what is going on. It may be worth it, if possible, to try swapping out some hardware ( GPU or Memory is where I would start ).

Sorry if this is a bit ramble-y, it’s late and I am tired.

Hope something in there helped you.

I don’t think it’s a hardware issue. Windows works perfectly fine.

Alright, then it’s probably software.

Have you tried any native linux games to see if they freeze as well?

Or maybe try testing with a synthetic load, like glxspheres or glxgears and see if those run without issue. You could use something like furmark too, depending on if gputest is available in your package manager. Or you can download it directly.

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@duncanyoyo1 I’m testing Portal 2 now (says it will run natively via Steam).

@SesameStreetThug I just had a weird system crash. Screen started lagging really badly but audio was mostly still working. I brought the system down using REISUB and it worked. That tells me that the system freeze playing games is going as deep as screwing up the kernal… I think. Is that what that means?

This is the kern.log readout of the time around the crash. I don't know if anything here would help.

Apr 17 21:18:10 Danky-McDankface kernel: [33272.263530] sysrq: SysRq : This sysrq operation is disabled.
Apr 17 21:18:10 Danky-McDankface kernel: [33272.868605] sysrq: SysRq : This sysrq operation is disabled.
Apr 17 21:18:11 Danky-McDankface kernel: [33273.759714] sysrq: SysRq : This sysrq operation is disabled.
Apr 17 21:18:13 Danky-McDankface kernel: [33275.201892] sysrq: SysRq : Emergency Sync
Apr 17 21:18:13 Danky-McDankface kernel: [33275.202053] Emergency Sync complete
Apr 17 21:21:43 Danky-McDankface kernel: [ 0.000000] Linux version 4.18.0-17-generic (buildd@lcy01-amd64-022) (gcc version 8.2.0 (Ubuntu 8.2.0-7ubuntu1)) #18-Ubuntu SMP Wed Mar 13 14:34:40 UTC 2019 (Ubuntu 4.18.0-17.18-generic 4.18.20)
Apr 17 21:21:43 Danky-McDankface kernel: [ 0.000000] Command line: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-4.18.0-17-generic root=UUID=ace45fdf-8c90-466a-912d-0b432b593c46 ro quiet splash vt.handoff=1

This is the syslog readout of the time around the crash.

Apr 17 21:17:01 Danky-McDankface CRON[23203]: (root) CMD ( cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.hourly)
Apr 17 21:18:10 Danky-McDankface kernel: [33272.263530] sysrq: SysRq : This sysrq operation is disabled.
Apr 17 21:18:10 Danky-McDankface kernel: [33272.868605] sysrq: SysRq : This sysrq operation is disabled.
Apr 17 21:18:11 Danky-McDankface kernel: [33273.759714] sysrq: SysRq : This sysrq operation is disabled.
Apr 17 21:18:13 Danky-McDankface kernel: [33275.201892] sysrq: SysRq : Emergency Sync
Apr 17 21:18:13 Danky-McDankface kernel: [33275.202053] Emergency Sync complete

EDIT: Yes, Danky-McDankface is my desktop’s name, in case that causes any… confusion… lol
Oh, the only programs I had running were Discord and Chromium

theres nothing important in those logs, just shows you doing sysrq REISUB

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I think my journalctl settings are all messed up then. Because htose two are the only two logs that I’ve found that I can actually access and has trans-boot logging.

journalctl has this functionality, but you have to specify the previous boot that you want to see.

Show all kernel logs from previous boot:

journalctl -k -b -1

From the journalctrl man page

But for me, this just brings up the same log as journalctrl with no arguments.

I think it depends on how you have your /etc/systemd/journald.conf set up. It’s behavior can also be changed by systemd unit files, so it’s kind of strange.

Would recommend giving the man pages a read and looking around to see how your system is configured.

I’ll definitely read over that after I’ve slept because it seems like some stuff that will help my understanding of how the OS works. There’s a lot that is more hands on compared to how I usually used Windows. I know that ultimately I will be more satisfied with what I can do and control with Linux, but it is overwhelming to problem-solve starting out.

I actually got dragged into an important meeting tonight so I didn’t get around to testing Portal 2, but I did test Unigine Heaven/Valley and they both worked great. 45ish FPS at ultra, no crashes, and was still talking to people via Discord during the testing. That rules out some problems. Testing Portal 2 will give me more things to consider in tracking down the culprit.

Someone in Discord mentioned memory leaks as a possible reason for the crashes. I can see that being a possibility because I’ve dealt with memory leaks before (TES IV: Oblivion, I’m looking at you), but I don’t think that a memory leak is the problem here. The reasoning is that 1) the crashes happen on the main menu of Starcraft and Path of Exile. I would think that a memory leak wouldn’t be able to crash a system that fast. And 2) the game that I did get to run for a long while, ICEY, which I have been able to get working for as long as 7.5 minutes, is a very lightweight 2D sidescroller. We’re talking VRAM usage measured in megabytes, not gigabytes. FFS, the minimum required graphics for the game is Intel’s integrated graphics. Maybe I don’t understand how memory leaks work. Idk.

Fired up Portal 2 and played it for an hour no crash (forgot how much I love this game).

Yeah… definitely a WINE/Proton/Lutris settings issue with my other games freezing the system.

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I have Borderlands GOTY Enhanced working on Arch Linux without much trouble under Steam Proton 4.2.2 with DXVK on the AMDGPU drivers for my RX 580. I had to rename the launchers for the game as shown in this Reddit post, and then run the setup script for DXVK after install, as shown in the the comments of the DXVK-bin AUR package for Arch. DXVK install and setup will differ by distro.

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I wiped the non-steam stuff off my gaming drive so I could reinstall stuff and pay very close attention to each step this time.

I went with Path of Exile as the first thing I’ll try to get working, since that’s my daily-driver as far as games go. If I get at least that one game to work, that will make a massive difference in me spending more time Linux for all other applications that already work (like my writing/art/etc). The biggest issue is restarting the computer just to swap OS because I finish some work and want to take a break or visa versa. With PoE working on Linux, that’ll be a huge push to get Linux properly incorporated into my daily lifestyle.

I used this guide…

Following it, I indeed got the standalone version to properly install and load up correctly. I started playing it and was honestly surprised at how butter smooth it was. No lagging issues like I had with the Steam version back on Windows.

And then it froze the system 4.5 minutes later. Sooo… Learned quite a bit about the Linux filestystem hierarchy and a lot of stuff about WINE/Lutris getting this far, but next hurdle will be learning Linux logging so I can recreate and track these crashes so I can post them here for debugging.

Once I do that, though, I think I’ll have completed the basics on moving over to Linux full time. I got the sound problems with Discord fixed, I got the desktop itself tweaked, etc.

Speaking of discord, I ran into a weird problem: you know how you can click on an image to blow it up for preview and it has an “open link/original” option at the bottom? Yeah, if I click on that “Wine Browser” opens up with an error. If I want to save an image, I have to copy/paste the link of the image into google bar and download from there. I have the same problem if I want to click on a URL in discord to open in Google. It doesn’t; it goes to that Wine Browser with the error too.

@RyderDev How is the RX580? I have the 480. It’s been a pretty good fit for my Ryzen 2700x I think.

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Sounds like you are using a Windows version of Discord.

Try finding one from your package manager, and use that instead.

They even provide Linux builds, in .deb format for Ubuntu and .tar.gz for everyone else that you can download directly.

Nah, it’s not Windows version, although I do think that was the problem first time around. The discord files are actually where they’re supposed to be under Linux. Maybe there’s something extra weird going on, though.

EDIT: also, it’s installed via package manager.
One thing that has happened is a ton of wine browser windows opening over and over. I mean a new one every .1 seconds or so. It’s happened twice with Discord and once with Path of Exile before I fixed the wine settings

That is strange.

Make sure, for whatever reason, it’s not set as the default browser.