HGL
xenial-black
Returnal fails to launch/stay running
This is with Returnal purchased on EGS.
Log at https://0x0.st/8xhT.log
This was with a fresh prefix (had just removed the directory before trying again). Heroic shows the game as 'Playing' ('Stop' rather than 'Play' label on the button) for 6-8 seconds, nothing visible happens, and then back to the 'Play' button label.
In an attempt to ensure I'd not mis-configured something on this old (as in it's been installed for years, going through various Debian upgrades) stable/bookworm system I installed Pop!OS 22.04, with nvidia drivers, on a spare drive, installed Heroic and tried in that. Same thing happens (logs looked very similar).
I have the Wine prerequisites installed already:
apt install -y wine64 wine32 libasound2-plugins:i386 libsdl2-2.0-0:i386 libdbus-1-3:i386 libsqlite3-0:i386 shows nothing to do.12 Replies
adverse-sapphire•6d ago
what file system is this drive?
/mnt/emilia/games/xenial-blackOP•6d ago
ext4. I'm using it so that I'm not using the NFS mounted $HOME . I also have ~/.config/heroic (installed from the .deb) symlinked to /mnt/emilia/games/Heroic-config for the same reason.
The Heroic install in general is "validated", i.e. I installed and can run Godfall (also from EGS) using it as well.
adverse-sapphire•6d ago
can you refresh/update GE-Proton-latest? It looks like you're still on 9
xenial-blackOP•6d ago
Ah, silly me, I thought Heroic was auto keeping that up to date. Updated it, showing a Release Date of 2025-05-20 now. No difference, other than first launch taking a bit longer to fail. Heroic won't let me upload a new log, thinks it's not changed or something.
adverse-sapphire•6d ago
there should be subtle changes. try uploading the text to pastebin.com
xenial-blackOP•6d ago
Ah, it worked now (I manually removed Proton-GE-Latest and reinstalled just to be certain it was up to date): https://0x0.st/8xh7.log
adverse-sapphire•6d ago
hmm. perhaps try disabling umu
xenial-blackOP•6d ago
I'll try that once done with this Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor run.
No change: https://0x0.st/8xFp.log
adverse-sapphire•6d ago
maybe forcing dx11 using launcher argument
-dx11 might help. turn back on umu as it doesn't appear to be blocking youxenial-blackOP•3d ago
Disable umu - unchecked.
Game Arguments = -dx11.
No change: https://0x0.st/8xFg.log
Btw, also did a Verify and Repair, which I might have done sooner, but I'd only recently installed the game at all. With or without -dx11 it still doesn't launch.
Still no progress, but two more data points:
1. I updated my Windows 11 Pro install, installed Returnal from scratch in it, it works fine there.
2. Comparing that install to the Linux one, the only differences are:
But for good measure I'm now going to tell Heroic to use that Windows version of the game. After that is seeing if deleting/zero'ing out the "logo" video splashscreens helps at all.
Still, at least it confirms that the game is fine with this hardware still. Nvidia GPU version in Windows is 576.52 - a version not at all available in Linux. Closest would be the beta 575.51.02, which I'll try if the splash screen thing makes no difference.
Nope, no dice with Wine-GE-latest or Proton-GE-Latest (latter without or with NVAPI), nor latter with the Logos*.mp4 movies moved out of the way. Time to make a wine/proton bug report I guess.
Just tried with the newly released "Latest New Feature Branch Version:575.57.08" NVIDIA drivers, no change.
Now, Re: making a bug report.
Where? Could this be Heroic not handling some EGS/Launcher integration, and thus it's a Heroic bug and should be reported there ?
Or is this going to be versus Proton of some form, so report to Valve on their github ? Are they going to be antsy about this being the EGS version of the game run via Heroic, rather than a Steam version run via the Linux Steam client ?
I'm leaning towards a Heroic/EGS/EOS problem, because...
I just got the game working by:
1. making a separate wine prefix, using Proton - Experimental from my Linux Steam install:
1. export WINEPREFIX=pwd/EGS export WINEARCH=win64 export WINEESYNC=1
2. export STEAM_COMPAT_CLIENT_INSTALL_PATH=/mnt/emilia/games/steam-client
2. In this I then installed the EGS Launcher:
1. wine /usr/local/dist/Games/EpicInstaller-18.5.0.msi - yes, this was initially using the system level wine (10.8 from winehq)., although it "hiccuped" initially on updating itself, trying again got that to work. During this I killed the EGS Launcher process and re-launched it using Proton - Experimental:
2. /mnt/emilia/games/steam-client/debian-installation/steamapps/common/Proton\ -\ Experimental/proton run /mnt/emilia/games/EGS/drive_c/Program\ Files\ \(x86\)/Epic\ Games/Launcher/Portal/Binaries/Win32/EpicGamesLauncher.exe
3. It then also didn't want to actually install EOS from the popup prompt about it being missing. But that got fixed by:
1. .../proton run /mnt/emilia/games/EGS/drive_c/Program\ Files\ \(x86\)/Epic\ Games/Launcher/Portal/Extras/EOS/EpicOnlineServicesInstaller.exe
Then I just had to sit through yet again downloading/installing Returnal, but using this EGS Launcher within this specific prefix.
Now, it's mostly working. I seem to be missing either some codecs or libraries because videos don't play. But it put me straight into the in-game run I was last in when checking it still worked on Windows.
So, this is a Heroic bug with EGS/EOS support, right ? It's failing to ensure something is set up and working in order for whatever Returnal requires to run.exotic-emerald•3d ago
sent it up to someone who might know
thanks for the info !
xenial-blackOP•3d ago
Of course then I tried to solve the videos problem, starting by installing vcrun2019 as I vaguely recalled a mention of this game needing that, and then EGL started crashing on start, and then I realised my
STEAM_COMPAT_DATA_PATH was wrong, and I'd been running/installing things to a path under STEAM_COMPAT_CLIENT_INSTALL_PATH rather than my WINEPREFIXwhich explained why I couldn't find where it was installing the game to in order to short-circuit an already downloaded copy in there... and now EGL is being antsy about completing post-install update.
Once I have the thing working again I'll validate the shortest path to doing so.
Yeah, managed to work it out now. For some reason the EGL update won't complete within the initial prefix, using either wine (10-8 from winehq) or proton. Trying to do it all with proton ends up with an update loop (the update process downloads, claims to install, tries to verify, then there's a Vulkan error).
But at that stage if you use proton with a STEAM_COMPAT_DATA pointing other than into this initial prefix to run EpicGamesLauncher.exe from the initial prefix, it will download and install the update and you get the EGL login screen. Login works, it'll offer to install EOS, but this will fail.
At this stage you can pull a "start to install, cancel, find where it was installing to, copy in a full version of the game, resume the install, it'll verify the files, not download more" trick and get the game installed. Then running it works.
It's a bit laggy, likely due to "only" using Proton - Experimental ? And possibly not all the correct DLLs installed, and ENV vars to ensure it's running optimally. Also, the videos don't play, you get a testcard up for video, although hear the audio.
So, it's janky, but the game can definitely work, just not perfectly due to this cobbled together install method. I'll look at it more tomorrow, maybe I can get it all working from scratch with GE-Proton-Latest, with correct env vars and DLLs (as per what Heroic would attempt).
I think, even with using proton, the EGL installer problem might be because it's using win32 binary in a win64 prefix ? I did try with WINEARCH=win32 in a new prefix from scratch, and that got it installed and running, but of course had the warning about "future versions of the Launcher will require Windows 10 (64-bit) or newer".
Oh, but now I notice that after doing that split-prefixes trick I do have a Win64 version of the launcher in the initial prefix.
I can also now run this using the Heroic-provided GE-Proton-latest, and performance seems a bit better. Videos still not playing though.