this post was submitted on 01 Aug 2025
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17
Games no longer launching with same gamescope command (lemmy.zip)
submitted 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) by Blxter@lemmy.zip to c/linux_gaming@lemmy.world
23 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

My normal command is

gamescope -f -W 2560 -H 1440 -r 144 --force-grab-cursor --mangoapp -- %command%

and games would work just fine. as of yesterday or so games would no longer launch no matter the game. If I remove gamescope it launches fine. I would Like to keep using gamescope but I did some research and apparently there used to be problems with NVIDIA and gamescope. I have used gamescope for many many games with no issues till now

I originally tried on my Endeavour OS install that I have been using for some time but then since I have been meaning to try out cachyos I then tried same thing there and it still does not work with gamescope. I have looked through the proton logs but if im being honest no idea what im looking for. Any help would be appreciated :)

  • GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080
  • NVIDIA driver 575.64.05
  • OS: CachyOS x86_64

Edit: I have tried proton versions

  • Experimental
  • Experimental bleeding edge
  • 9.0-4
  • 10.0-2 (beta)
  • proton-CachyOS (native package)

Edit: pastebin for steam + games https://pastebin.com/4Rs7mHhi opening Mass effect https://pastebin.com/0NuUr6qd

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[–] mranderson17@infosec.pub 6 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

I see you made a comment in https://github.com/ValveSoftware/gamescope/issues/1913 . Did you try vkcube like someone earlier in that issue? And the other workarounds like --expose-wayland?

Also what version of gamescope? And you don't happen to be running steam as a flatpak do you?

EDIT: they JUST released a new version https://github.com/ValveSoftware/gamescope/compare/3.16.14...3.16.15 . So if you are having issues downgrading might be worth a try, but I haven't been able to reproduce the issues you are having.

Also, I know it sounds weird for a linux machine, but update and restart just to rule anything weird out. I've had steam and steam related applications leave around weird state, processes, etc. before and restarting is an easy way to clear that all out and start fresh, eliminating variables.

[–] Blxter@lemmy.zip 2 points 2 weeks ago

I have tried --expose-wayland. I have tried normal gamescope and u roled back to an old version. I also tried gamescope-git (I think it's called). I will retry the expose Wayland again today though with other versions as I did not do that.

[–] Zaphod@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I have the problem. I usually just downgrade one or two versions

[–] Blxter@lemmy.zip 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I have tried other versions such as 3.15.5-1 and 3.16.14-1 and gamescope-git

[–] Zaphod@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 2 weeks ago

Hm give the latest 3.14.x or 3.13.x a try. I think those worked for me

[–] rtxn@lemmy.world 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

The Wayland backend has been fucky for a while. Try running it with --backend sdl.

[–] Blxter@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

huge thanks!!! these seems to have worked

Edit what does this do exactly do you know? I dont see it on the arch wiki

[–] rtxn@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Gamescope is a compositor, a self-contained graphical session, meant to run a single application. When it's running in a nested context, i.e. as a window inside another graphical environment, it needs some kind of interface to be able to render the picture onto a window's surface, and to receive inputs from it. The --backend ... option defines which interface will be used to achieve that.

  • The wayland backend uses some native Wayland protocols, but it's been broken for a while.
  • The sdl backend uses SDL, which is a standalone rendering library often used by Linux-native games like Factorio and Stardew Valley. It simply captures Gamescope's output and renders it onto a window without any Wayland protocol fuckery.
  • The drm backend is used when Gamescope runs in a rootful context, i.e. it is the only graphical environment, like big picture mode on the Steam Deck. It uses the Linux kernel's Direct Rendering Manager interface to render directly to the output device.
  • The headless backend runs Gamescope without opening a window or showing its output. Everything happens in the background.
  • The default is auto, which tries to guess the most optimal backend based on the runtime environment.
[–] Blxter@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 week ago

Nice thank you so much. It appears to not work for every game but works for others so that makes sense. The finals opened and played fine but mass effect didn't exactly open haha. Thanks again for all the info

[–] kewjo@lemmy.world 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Gamescope

might go through some of those troubleshooting steps and make sure you have drm kernel modeset.

one other thing you might try (at end of the page) by setting LD_PRELOAD=”” with the command which can at least rule out features that sometimes break on certain games. I've had game recording and overlay cause similar issues and could only launch after disabling those in game settings.

also might not need gamescope? mesa 25.1+ and proton 10+ have a lot of the features built in and I've not noticed much if any performance difference. now i only use gamescope if i run into issues and usually only if protondb shows consensus that you need to use gamescope or specific workarounds.

[–] Blxter@lemmy.zip 3 points 2 weeks ago

The biggest reason why I wish to keep using gamescope at the moment is because I have an external capture card I use. My main monitor is 1440P I wish to render in 1440P but the capture card when I set to replicate my main (and only monitor besides capture card) it for some reason forces all games to render in 4k and if I try to change it it just breaks and is no longer full screen and notifications (steam and such) pop up in the middle of the screen. If there is another way to do this would love to know gamescope is just how I 'solved' it myself.

[–] bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Does it launch when you don't use any commandline arguments? If yes you can then add them back one by one to find which one is making problems.

[–] Blxter@lemmy.zip 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Yes it launches with no commands. but it does not with just

gamescope -f -W 2560 -H 1440 -r 144 -- %command%
[–] ogeist@lemmy.world 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

What happens if you just do

gamescope -- %command%

[–] Blxter@lemmy.zip 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Same thing games do not launch

[–] ogeist@lemmy.world 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I see you paste some logs but they have expired, did you run steam through the terminal and got them? If you do so, you'll get a log of steam trying to launch the game.

Some time has already passed, so try to uodate your system again, it will probably fix it.

[–] Blxter@lemmy.zip 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Updated my system today still does not work. not sure why the logs were expired already here are new ones https://pastebin.com/F6C3gLtY

[–] ogeist@lemmy.world 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

There are a couple interesting things:

[gamescope] [Error] vulkan: vkGetPhysicalDeviceFormatProperties2 returned zero modifiers for DRM format 0x38344241 (VkResult: 0)

[gamescope] [Error] vulkan: vkGetPhysicalDeviceFormatProperties2 returned zero modifiers for DRM format 0x38344258 (VkResult: 0)

Yet the final straw seems to be:

[gamescope] [Warn] xwm: D-Bus call to get unit corresponding to pid 2291408 failed!

sd_bus_call(g_dbus, message, UINT64_MAX, NULL, &reply)failed with ret -30

[Gamescope WSI] Creating Gamescope surface: xid: 0x2a0005e

[gamescopereaper] [Info] reaper: Parent of gamescopereaper was killed. Killing children.

[gamescopereaper] [Info] reaper: Parent of gamescopereaper was killed. Killing children.

[Gamescope WSI] Failed to get Wayland objects (EE) failed to read Wayland events: Connection reset by peer Game Recording - game stopped

[gameid=2073850] Removing process 2291192 for gameID 2073850

It seems there are some Nvidia drivers and gamescope compatibility issues, so you will most probably need to match Nvidia drivers with gamescope versions.

[–] Blxter@lemmy.zip 2 points 2 weeks ago

I kind of came to the same conclusion... Maybe I will just wait a week or so and keep updating and trying again and see if it gets patched somehow as I'm not really sure how to fix it myself and since game still 'work' without it. Thank you so much for helping me look into this issue.

Maybe I will try to downgrade nvidia drivers tomorrow instead of gamescope

[–] bisby@lemmy.world 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Out of curiosity, what happens if you try to run gamescope from the terminal to just run anything (not even having proton in the mix).

For example:

gamescope -f -W 2560 -H 1440 -r 144 --force-grab-cursor --mangoapp -- glxgears

If this doesn't run, you should get some log lines at least to let you know whats on fire with gamescope.

[–] Blxter@lemmy.zip 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

this loaded fine (pretty cool never even knew I could do this...)

Looking at the logs thought I see two errors even though it ran.

[gamescope] [Error] vulkan: vkGetPhysicalDeviceFormatProperties2 returned zero modifiers for DRM format 0x38344241 (VkResult: 0)
[gamescope] [Error] vulkan: vkGetPhysicalDeviceFormatProperties2 returned zero modifiers for DRM format 0x38344258 (VkResult: 0)
[–] bisby@lemmy.world 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Well sorry. If it works for glxgears there is probably some other weird interaction happening with Steam + Gamescope + Game launching. (you could try to add glxgears as a non steam game to further push the boundaries of if anything will run from steam).

I don't have an nvidia GPU so I couldn't even possibly comment on the state of that situation, but I wish you the best of luck.

[–] Blxter@lemmy.zip 2 points 2 weeks ago

Thanks for trying :)