Linux Support (Beta)

Ask here if you experience technical problems with X4: Foundations.

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sgtnasty
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Re: Linux Support (Beta)

Post by sgtnasty » Mon, 4. May 20, 15:56

I will try to record a video to show that no matter what fullscreen or borderless combination I selected I just can't change the resolution at all.

red-dragon
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Re: Linux Support (Beta)

Post by red-dragon » Mon, 4. May 20, 15:57

Additional information to my freeze up issue

version 3.10 english
unmodified
complete freeze up a few minutes after starting the game on all saves and new starts
Linux Ubuntu 19.10
nvidia geforce gtx 1050Ti 4GB

not sure what other information you would need. however im willing to provide any information you ask for

CBJ
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Re: Linux Support (Beta)

Post by CBJ » Mon, 4. May 20, 16:00

As I said before, there is a sticky thread right at the top of the forum that tells you what you need to provide. If you have a particular savegame that exhibits the freeze then you need to include that.

red-dragon
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Re: Linux Support (Beta)

Post by red-dragon » Mon, 4. May 20, 16:17

its happening on all of my saves and new starts, i am recieving no errors or anything. i have provided everything i know to access that was listed in your linked post

Alan Phipps
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Re: Linux Support (Beta)

Post by Alan Phipps » Mon, 4. May 20, 16:25

@ red-dragon: It's interesting that it's the same graphics card (and driver?) as with sgtnasty above. Still, you are not getting the VRAM error messages that they are and you get a freeze and not a CTD.
A dog has a master; a cat has domestic staff.

red-dragon
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Re: Linux Support (Beta)

Post by red-dragon » Mon, 4. May 20, 16:53

i just tried running with steam proton 5 and got same freeze up a couple minutes in so im really confused. i aplogise for not being too helpful i'm rather new to linux

EDIT i just checked im on same driver version as sgtnasty

Alan Phipps
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Re: Linux Support (Beta)

Post by Alan Phipps » Mon, 4. May 20, 17:21

I would provide a link to a vanilla save made a bit before it will usually freeze for you and let somebody else play on from that save and see.
A dog has a master; a cat has domestic staff.

red-dragon
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Re: Linux Support (Beta)

Post by red-dragon » Mon, 4. May 20, 17:43


Imuniser
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Re: Linux Support (Beta)

Post by Imuniser » Wed, 6. May 20, 09:07

https://pasteboard.co/J752fQz.png

Report and required files sent by e-mail (E-mail subject: X4 beta 3.20 linux crash report)

Thank you.

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Re: Linux Support (Beta)

Post by Imuniser » Wed, 6. May 20, 19:27

"Rasters" on the edge of sectors:

https://streamable.com/3c1e7d

seen on Ubuntu 19.10 and 20.04, nVIDIA 440 driver.

Imuniser
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Re: Linux Support (Beta)

Post by Imuniser » Wed, 6. May 20, 20:37

Out of curiosity, is it normal for the game to run so "fragmented" on these specs?
Video: nVidia GeForce GTX 1060 Mobile 16GB dedicated
RAM: 32GiB System Memory @ 2400 MHz (0,4 ns)
CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-8750H CPU @ 2.20GHz (boost at 4.1GHz)
SSD: Western Digital 1TB
Game settings: High preset @ 1920x1080

This is a continuous move forward, notice how it pauses every ~2s (this is a new game, started building a station, player owned ships: 12):

https://streamable.com/6nivco

Are there any settings I can tweak? As I continue playing and expanding, the game will become almost unplayable (the reason I've started a new one actually)

Thank you in advance!

wasted90
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Re: Linux Support (Beta)

Post by wasted90 » Thu, 7. May 20, 18:06

@ NIIcK
i have a desktop pc but also had an issue when walking on stations. i fixed it with disabling ambient occlusion (SSAO). Also using FXAA instead of SSAA can help with general performance issues. And all the other stuff like disabling screen-space-reflections, use map filters (disabling show orders, etc).
And since you're playing on a laptop, is your CPU throttling because of hitting thermal limits? if so there isn't much you can do about it besides making sure there is good ventilation for your hardware and its not choking in dust. X4 is very cpu heavy.

A (unmoddet) savegame would be helpful to ensure there's nothing going wrong inside of it.

Imuniser
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Re: Linux Support (Beta)

Post by Imuniser » Thu, 7. May 20, 20:52

@wasted90

Thank you for your reply!

The CPU sits at about 89 degrees C @2.8GHz (most of the time) - I'm using Tuxedo Control Center for fan speeds control and monitoring.

Antialising is completely off. I have tried lots of different approaches, including starting a savegame from Linux into Windows running on the same hardware; Windows does have a tendency to lag a bit but nothing as drastic as under Linux.

Tried:
- installing the nVIDIA driver from nvidia.com
- running on a single monitor (disabled internal display)
- running Steam from Big Picture
- starting the game with nice -n -20 ionice -c 1
- echo "high" > /sys/class/drm/card$/device/power_dpm_force_performance_level
- vm.swappiness=1 in systctl.conf (even though it is kind of futile since the system doesn't use SWAP at all)
- checked whether the system is set up for SSD (deadline on cat /sys/block/sda/queue/scheduler)
nothing works. I can play Windows based games on Steam for Linux at high FPS however X4 is just starting lagging after ~10minutes playing and it continues to degrade to a point where it is not worth playing anymore.

I know I don't have the latest cutting edge hardware on the market but the game should be able to run decently on what I have (the reason I am stating this is that I have a PC with a i7-4770 and a nVIDIA GTX 760 @2GB RAM and it runs with no issues on low under Windows).

Maybe there is something I didn't think of, that I can tweak, OS wise? It is NOT a GPU issue.

Cheers!
Last edited by Imuniser on Sat, 9. May 20, 07:20, edited 1 time in total.

Rastuasi
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Re: Linux Support (Beta)

Post by Rastuasi » Thu, 7. May 20, 21:28

NIIcK wrote:
Thu, 7. May 20, 20:52
I know I don't have the latest cutting edge hardware on the market but the game should be able to run decently on what I have (the reason I am stating this is that I have a PC with an i7-4770 and a nVIDIA GTX 760 @2GB RAM and it runs with no issues on low under Windows).
Cheers!
Not possible, the game is setup so that it will launch with blackscreen or simply crash if under 4GB of VRAM.

We'd need to know more info about your setup though as I can run X4 on a GTX770 on a 43" 4k monitor at 45+ FPS with Medium+ settings in a modified Arch kernel. I only turn off AA and shadows.

Alan Phipps
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Re: Linux Support (Beta)

Post by Alan Phipps » Thu, 7. May 20, 21:38

"Not possible, the game is setup so that it will launch with blackscreen or simply crash if under 4GB of VRAM."

That is not quite the case and the game certainly wasn't set up to do that although such a situation is indeed more likely.

The game can actually run on some cards with only 2GB VRAM but pretty much only on lowest settings and even then it will struggle in quite a few common game situations. The cpu will have to do more preparatory work to compensate for the lack of gpu capacity which might make freezes or CTDs more likely, and there will be a marked increase in the use of slower system RAM usage as shared graphics memory which will probably be seen in-game as pauses or stutters.

Certainly 3 GB dedicated VRAM is the minimum amount specified with 4 GB or more recommended.
A dog has a master; a cat has domestic staff.

Imuniser
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Re: Linux Support (Beta)

Post by Imuniser » Thu, 7. May 20, 23:00

Will prepare a short screen capture with the mentioned system in the morning and post it here.

wasted90
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Re: Linux Support (Beta)

Post by wasted90 » Fri, 8. May 20, 01:48

NIIcK wrote:
Thu, 7. May 20, 20:52

The CPU sits at about 89 degrees C @2.8GHz (most of the time) - I'm using Tuxedo Control Center for fan speeds control and monitoring.
the cpu clock rate stays at 2,8 Ghz for all the cores while playing? make sure you display cores/threads saperately.

this could be the reason why the game isn't performing well in comparison to your other cpu since the cpu governor on laptops mostly just tries to be as powersaving as possible. you could try setting the cpu governor to performance mode (+ little test if the change got applied) and look if the game then runs better.

for setting the power sheme for the nvidia card you could also use 'nvidia-settings' (<- launch from terminal)

Imuniser
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Re: Linux Support (Beta)

Post by Imuniser » Fri, 8. May 20, 08:29

Rastuasi wrote:
Thu, 7. May 20, 21:28

Not possible, the game is setup so that it will launch with blackscreen or simply crash if under 4GB of VRAM.

We'd need to know more info about your setup though as I can run X4 on a GTX770 on a 43" 4k monitor at 45+ FPS with Medium+ settings in a modified Arch kernel. I only turn off AA and shadows.
As promised, the short video with the Windows system @2GB VRAM:

https://streamable.com/76x3mn

Imuniser
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Re: Linux Support (Beta)

Post by Imuniser » Fri, 8. May 20, 08:31

wasted90 wrote:
Fri, 8. May 20, 01:48
...
this could be the reason why the game isn't performing well in comparison to your other cpu since the cpu governor on laptops mostly just tries to be as powersaving as possible. you could try setting the cpu governor to performance mode (+ little test if the change got applied) and look if the game then runs better.
...
Thank you for the time taken to respond!

What I didn't mention on my other post regarding tweaks is that I have also set:

Code: Select all

echo "performance" > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu$/cpufreq/scaling_governor
where cpu$ -> cpu0,cpu1 ...cpu11 for each CPU core (in my case 0-11) however it doesn't get changed. It defaults to powersave due to the intel_pstate driver. I've disabled it via grub and it loaded the ahcpi driver which I find it worse (couldn't change the governor with this driver either :) ).

I can clearly see the CPUs boosting to 3.9GHz when the game starts so I assume it auto-switches to performance "ondemand" (I have disabled the ondemand service as well to no avail).

Maybe one just needs a desktop to properly play the game :)

***Later edit***
Short video on cpufreq, thermals and CPU cores usage from game start until it fully loads the save (game sound can be heard on the background):

https://streamable.com/4wumyi
Last edited by Imuniser on Sat, 9. May 20, 07:24, edited 1 time in total.

wasted90
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Re: Linux Support (Beta)

Post by wasted90 » Fri, 8. May 20, 20:39

expand cpu monitoring with

Code: Select all

watch -n1 "cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep \"^[c]pu MHz\""
so u can see the frequencies of every single core and look if the core with the 100% load you see in 'Resources' gets slowed down in frequency. since u have already the tools for screencapture ready you can make a video for reviewing the measurements.

so at first it looks like thermal throttling to me but not 100% sure.

additionally you could try deactivating compositing effects and turning steam overlay off. feral gamemode is something you could also check out but i never tried it. check if the game is using the right gpu.

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