Some games crash the entire device (solution found)

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Skibidi Sigma 18 Aug @ 12:22pm

Some games crash the entire device (solution found)

First, sorry to be this blunt but this needs to be said.
I've been a Valve supporter my whole life but this is getting embarrasing.

______________________________________

SOME CONTEXT

FYI: I bought the LCD first, and also the OLED. I have both.
My LCD's warranty was voided because I messed with it (thermal paste change for a graphene pad trying to make it cooler, which the LCD model highly needed) I ended up paying the price. Fine, moving on.

I then got my OLED.
I was happy with it, the machine works well overall, nice battery duration too with less power usage. I started messing with it a bit (not like with my LCD, no CryoUtilities, no BIOS changes, not even changing the case, nothing) by just trying my Steam library.
______________________________________

THE ISSUES

Last Epoch. Regularly getting memory Leaks (after 15 minutes) with some specific graphic option making it worse. Forced to play on low. Ok. Dug deeper and... https://forum.lastepoch.com/t/steam-deck-game-crashing-in-10-min/65302/2 lots of us getting this. I didn't mind, probably devs having bad C++ memory management, bad wrapper, whatever. Stopped enjoying the lowest graphic preset (looks horrible imo). Moved on.

Eventually played the whole Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines with the LATEST Unnofficial Patch. Finished the whole thing, no crashes or errors. Flawless. Stable 90 FPS too.

Zenless Zone Zero was launched one month ago. Installed the .exe from desktop mode, setup the proton 9.0 compatibility mode. Flawless 60 FPS. No crashes, stable.
ZZZ 1.1 patch launched. Broke my install. Nothing could be done to fix it.
Reimaged the whole thing. Installed Heroic Game Launcher, made an account (I HATE HAVING TO DO THIS). Installed ZZZ, boom, working again. Happy... until it crashes again after 15 minutes.

Literally the same thing happening as with Last Epoch. Memory starts raising, some times slower, some times faster, until it crashes the whole device.

______________________________________

MY CONCLUSSION

Makes no sense to me that some OLD games have no errors using proton, and the newest ones have so many. Probably older games have poor implementations/optimizations.
I know newer games recently release in "not-so-good" conditions (early access or straight up unfinished, terrible optimizations in general).

I'm not a Wine/Proton developer but this happening regularly makes the device look terrible. Obviously (I don't even think I need to say this but I will anyway), I tried every single proton layer with almost every game I wanted to play. Ran lots of tests for many of them.

I'm sick and tired of constantly trying to make it work.
This device is not a PC handheld, nor a console. You open it - you lose your warranty. You want to play some games - they usually don't work that well.

Why can't we have a widespread fix for these stupid memory leaks?
Why can't we have a widespread fix for these stupid memory leaks?
Why can't we have a widespread fix for these stupid memory leaks?

______________________________________
(update)
THE SOLUTION

SteamOS has a 1GB default swapfile. Changing it to a higher value will solve almost every similar problem of these.

These are the commands I used to do it:

passwd
sudo steamos-readonly disable
cd /home
sudo swapoff -a
sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=swapfile bs=1G count=4
sudo mkswap swapfile
sudo swapon swapfile
sudo steamos-readonly enable

In this case, you will get a 4GB swapfile. If you want more than 4GB just change "count=X".

I recommend you use 4GB if you have the 256GB model, 8GB with 512GB and 16 with 1TB but you CAN use 16GB with the 256GB model if you're willing to sacrifice a bit of disk space, it's absolutely worth it. I'm no longer having crashes and it also improves the overall stability on a lot of games and you will get less frame spikes.

I should add, updating SteamOS likely will change the swapfile to its default, so you'll start having these problems again. May be smart to take this into account.

Last edited by Skibidi Sigma; 20 Aug @ 10:19am

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Showing 1-15 of 22 comments

@R+5 18 Aug @ 12:31pm

i think you are confusing or mixing hardware issues with software issues.

Zef 18 Aug @ 12:48pm

My conclusSion is that you should get a kiddystation 5.

TheKrapfcat 18 Aug @ 1:19pm

https://www.protondb.com/app/899770?device=steamDeck
most people who got Last Epoch working used Cryoutilities you should always have a look on protondb when having trouble and see if others have the same issue and if / how they fixed it. I had a similar problem helping a friend getting Battlefield V running, running out of RAM and crashing
the Steam Deck should be considered a first gen device with lots of early adopter jank.
Valve should really make it clear that while most games work OOTB but you are going to almost inevitably stumble some trouble sooner or later, while the Store page is all positive "your games everywhere" should have a few *

Last edited by TheKrapfcat; 18 Aug @ 1:26pm

Haruspex 18 Aug @ 1:40pm

Originally posted by Suicide:
Makes no sense to me that some OLD games have no errors using proton, and the newest ones have so many.

It makes perfect sense. Proton is a wrapper that converts Windows API calls into Linux API calls. It's like a translator who stands in between two people who speak different languages and allows them to communicate. Older games have been around longer. How they work is better known and more documented. So Proton understands what these games are saying and translates them perfectly into Linux. In fact, I've noticed that Linux via Proton has better compatibility with many old games than even modern Windows does.

Newer games speak the same language as older games, but they might be using different tech, middleware, or ways of doing things. Proton might not understand some of these new things immediately, so it can't translate them, meaning they don't work. Thankfully, Proton itself is constantly being updated and improved, so what doesn't work today may very well work fine tomorrow. It's an ongoing effort. Also the games that don't work seem to be minority at least. Most of what you can throw at Proton will "just work", barring certain aggressive anti-cheat or kernel level DRM.

Originally posted by Suicide:
I'm not a Wine/Proton developer but this happening regularly makes the device look terrible.

I can't tell you how to use your Deck, but I think if you're going to approach it with a console mentality, it might make more sense to use it like it's a console. On a console, the games that are available are the games that are available, and there's no playing Halo on the Playstation, for example. You can't play Super Mario World on the Sega Genesis. With the Steam Deck, if you stick to just "Steam Deck Verified" titles and never leave game mode, you'll get that console-level experience with very few if any roadblocks at all. There are thousands of verified titles at this point, so you won't run out of things to play, and they add to that list every day.

Outside of treating it like a console and just sticking to verified games, you will be expected to do a little tinkering, adjusting, fiddling, etc. Most of the time this is enough to play what you want, but not every time. Some games just won't work at all, or won't work well enough to enjoy. Maybe Proton will update to fix that. Maybe it won't.

Originally posted by Suicide:
This device is not a PC handheld, nor a console.

Right. It's a PC, and sometimes with a PC you're expected to put a little more work in and have a little more patience. If this isn't something you can handle, you should have bought a Nintendo Switch instead.

Originally posted by Suicide:
You open it - you lose your warranty.

Incorrect. You only lose your warranty if you specifically break something as a result of having opened it.

Originally posted by Suicide:
You want to play some games - they usually don't work that well.

Usually they do, but sometimes you have to make some adjustments. And seldom the game just won't work at all.

Originally posted by Suicide:
Why can't we have a widespread fix for these stupid memory leaks?

Because the problem you're experiencing isn't one problem you can apply one fix to. It's several problems specific to the games you're trying to play. A Proton update might fix it later, or the developer needs to fix something.

I swear, maybe there should be a kind of "Is the Steam Deck right for me?" questionnaire at purchase so they can discourage people with incorrect expectations from buying one. There are plenty of devices out there better suited for your use-case. It's not Valve's fault you failed to properly research what you were buying.

Skibidi Sigma 18 Aug @ 2:01pm

Originally posted by @R+5:
i think you are confusing or mixing hardware issues with software issues.

yes dude, that's why i solved so many problems of this device. i don't know what i'm doing.

Originally posted by TheKrapfcat:
https://www.protondb.com/app/899770?device=steamDeck
most people who got Last Epoch working used Cryoutilities you should always have a look on protondb when having trouble and see if others have the same issue and if / how they fixed it. I had a similar problem helping a friend getting Battlefield V running, running out of RAM and crashing
the Steam Deck should be considered a first gen device with lots of early adopter jank.
Valve should really make it clear that while most games work OOTB but you are going to almost inevitably stumble some trouble sooner or later, while the Store page is all positive "your games everywhere" should have a few *

>sell pc as console
>can't change setting in your bios, or the thermal paste, do it and you will lose your warranty
>have tons of problems, even with playable/verified games
>expect the user to go to protondb to solve his problems
>expect the user to void his warranty with cryoutilities
>expect the user to do it every single time he finds a problem because the user is a software engineer
yeah, no. this device doesn't work as a console does, it behaves like a pc (surprise surprise, because that's what it is).

Originally posted by Haruspex:
Originally posted by Suicide:
Makes no sense to me that some OLD games have no errors using proton, and the newest ones have so many.
It makes perfect sense. Proton is a wrapper that converts Windows API calls into Linux API calls. It's like a translator who stands in between two people who speak different languages and allows them to communicate. Older games have been around longer. How they work is better known and more documented. So Proton understands what these games are saying and translates them perfectly into Linux. In fact, I've noticed that Linux via Proton has better compatibility with many old games than even modern Windows does.

Newer games speak the same language as older games, but they might be using different tech, middleware, or ways of doing things. Proton might not understand some of these new things immediately, so it can't translate them, meaning they don't work. Thankfully, Proton itself is constantly being updated and improved, so what doesn't work today may very well work fine tomorrow. It's an ongoing effort. Also the games that don't work seem to be minority at least. Most of what you can throw at Proton will "just work", barring certain aggressive anti-cheat or kernel level DRM.

Originally posted by Suicide:
I'm not a Wine/Proton developer but this happening regularly makes the device look terrible.
I can't tell you how to use your Deck, but I think if you're going to approach it with a console mentality, it might make more sense to use it like it's a console. On a console, the games that are available are the games that are available, and there's no playing Halo on the Playstation, for example. You can't play Super Mario World on the Sega Genesis. With the Steam Deck, if you stick to just "Steam Deck Verified" titles and never leave game mode, you'll get that console-level experience with very few if any roadblocks at all. There are thousands of verified titles at this point, so you won't run out of things to play, and they add to that list every day.

Outside of treating it like a console and just sticking to verified games, you will be expected to do a little tinkering, adjusting, fiddling, etc. Most of the time this is enough to play what you want, but not every time. Some games just won't work at all, or won't work well enough to enjoy. Maybe Proton will update to fix that. Maybe it won't.

Originally posted by Suicide:
This device is not a PC handheld, nor a console.
Right. It's a PC, and sometimes with a PC you're expected to put a little more work in and have a little more patience. If this isn't something you can handle, you should have bought a Nintendo Switch instead.

Originally posted by Suicide:
You open it - you lose your warranty.
Incorrect. You only lose your warranty if you specifically break something as a result of having opened it.

Originally posted by Suicide:
You want to play some games - they usually don't work that well.
Usually they do, but sometimes you have to make some adjustments. And seldom the game just won't work at all.

Originally posted by Suicide:
Why can't we have a widespread fix for these stupid memory leaks?
Because the problem you're experiencing isn't one problem you can apply one fix to. It's several problems specific to the games you're trying to play. A Proton update might fix it later, or the developer needs to fix something.

I swear, maybe there should be a kind of "Is the Steam Deck right for me?" questionnaire at purchase so they can discourage people with incorrect expectations from buying one. There are plenty of devices out there better suited for your use-case. It's not Valve's fault you failed to properly research what you were buying.

correct, i've tried emulators too. not supported means it's not supported, yet they all still work kinda well. still no excuse when some playable/verified games have problems that lock your system (if you don't shut it down it can physically hurt the APU. it's complex, but super dissappointing nonetheless.

Last edited by Skibidi Sigma; 18 Aug @ 2:02pm

Skibidi Sigma 18 Aug @ 2:11pm

So funny seeing all these comments telling me I should've bought something else. That's why I have 2 Steam Decks and I've been messing so much with it, because I clearly hate it.
I won't stop, it's was nice getting to play World of Warcraft with it.

That said, so many games still have so many problems that I can't fix. THAT should change.
And yes, I think a widespread fix for the memory leaks on the operating system level CAN BE DONE.

My first PC was a 486. The Steam Deck is amazing but has MANY FLAWS you seem to refuse to see.

Cheers.

Last edited by Skibidi Sigma; 18 Aug @ 2:12pm

TheKrapfcat 18 Aug @ 2:30pm

Originally posted by Suicide:
>sell pc as console
>can't change setting in your bios, or the thermal paste, do it and you will lose your warranty
>have tons of problems, even with playable/verified games
>expect the user to go to protondb to solve his problems
>expect the user to void his warranty with cryoutilities
>expect the user to do it every single time he finds a problem because the user is a software engineer
yeah, no. this device doesn't work as a console does, it behaves like a pc (surprise surprise, because that's what it is).

I never said it should be a console, the Deck is a first gen device and and SteamOS is still needs a lot of polish and features and the user should expect to encounter Jank,
if you only use Steam games you could be lucky and everything works but as soon as you are going outside Steam you better learn a bit how Proton works and the whole Prefix thing, cause I see a lot of people nuking their install by remoing the non-steam game from steam expecting the game was "installed" not knowing that doing that it deletes the Prefix along with the game on the "C:\" drive.
and as I said before Valve should really make it clear what getting a Deck means,
it's both the easiest way to game on PC and the hardest cause as soon as you step out of the "console-like" experience of Gamemode you are thrown into an Immutable Arch distro and removing the readonly protection and messing with it with no linux knowledge it's very easy to bork something and have to reimage the deck.
but in their defense, they are not selling the Deck in a supermarket for the casual audience and I have never seen any kind of marketing for the Deck out in the wild, they problably thought that the usual Steam user being a PC gamer is used to some Windows Jank, and just have to adapt to Linux Jank

As far as voiding Warranty if you don't cause the damage when swapping SSD / Paste I doubt Valve would care too much, and AFAIK cryoutilites doesn't damage the deck in any way

Haruspex 18 Aug @ 2:31pm

Originally posted by Suicide:
So funny seeing all these comments telling me I should've bought something else. That's why I have 2 Steam Decks and I've been messing so much with it, because I clearly hate it.

I'm glad you like yours. I certainly am enjoying mine. From the tone of your post however you can't fault someone for thinking that you can't stand the thing.

Originally posted by Suicide:
The Steam Deck is amazing but has MANY FLAWS you seem to refuse to see.

I see them plain as day. The Steam Deck is far from perfect. My goal isn't to defend the Deck as some perfect and flawless device. My goal is to encourage people to research the device before they buy one so they understand it's flaws, it's strengths, and it's capabilities to ensure that it will actually meet their needs and expectations before they buy one. If more people did this, we would see fewer complaints on the forums.

As much as I am a fan and advocate for the Steam Deck, I don't shy away from recommending something other than the Deck to many people. I love my Deck OLED. I use it daily. It meets my needs and expectations. It exceeds them in many regards, but that might not be true for someone else. No matter how good the Deck is. No matter what it's virtues and and features, if someone wants to play... say... Call of Duty, or Fortnite, or Destiny 2 on it, they're not going to be happy with it. I genuinely want people to be happy with their Steam Deck, so I steer those I suspect won't be happy with it away from it.

Unfortunately, usually, I'm too late. They've already spent the money, and they're already unhappy. This is something that could easily have been avoided by just doing the tiniest modicum of research before plopping down the minimum $400 to get one, but alas.

PopinFRESH 18 Aug @ 3:15pm

Originally posted by Suicide:
...That said, so many games still have so many problems that I can't fix. THAT should change.
And yes, I think a widespread fix for the memory leaks on the operating system level CAN BE DONE....

That would indicate that in fact you don't understand the problem. There isn't "one fix" for "memory leaks". They are a result of flaws in coding which doesn't appropriately deallocate memory. Not everyone programs things the exact same way. Not everything being programed has been done before and thus has a standardized method. Not every piece of software has the same level of complexity; and the more complex a piece of software is the more prone to unintended errors, such as failure to deallocate a memory resource when it is no longer needed.

I'd love to hear your proposed solution that "CAN BE DONE" at an "operating system level" which solves all memory leaks; It'd be worth quite a bit of money because Windows & macOS need it too.

Last edited by PopinFRESH; 18 Aug @ 3:16pm

Skibidi Sigma 18 Aug @ 5:06pm

Originally posted by PopinFRESH:
Originally posted by Suicide:
...That said, so many games still have so many problems that I can't fix. THAT should change.
And yes, I think a widespread fix for the memory leaks on the operating system level CAN BE DONE....

That would indicate that in fact you don't understand the problem. There isn't "one fix" for "memory leaks". They are a result of flaws in coding which doesn't appropriately deallocate memory. Not everyone programs things the exact same way. Not everything being programed has been done before and thus has a standardized method. Not every piece of software has the same level of complexity; and the more complex a piece of software is the more prone to unintended errors, such as failure to deallocate a memory resource when it is no longer needed.

I'd love to hear your proposed solution that "CAN BE DONE" at an "operating system level" which solves all memory leaks; It'd be worth quite a bit of money because Windows & macOS need it too.

Ok. Since the operating system manages the device's RAM (in fact, the EFI aka BIOS does it), yes. It can be done.
Even more so, probably can be done on Proton, so any game wouldn't get "outside" the correct parameters.

Take a look on how they fixed those games, then come back and say I don't understand the problem. I'm not saying they will fix the games, I'm saying at least the entire device doesn't crash. Do you know what a buffer overflow is? Well, this is very similar.

If a game is asking for 32 GB of RAM, WHY DOES THE DEVICE HAS TO STOP WORKING? Makes no sense. Tell me I need more RAM, tell me the device is not compatible, whatever. JUST DON'T TRY TO RUN IT AND CRASH. Isn't this logical and reasonable? I'm not trying to run Crysis at 4K. I'm just trying to get a stable session of my "officially supported" games. That's it.

#10

deaddoof 18 Aug @ 5:32pm

Originally posted by Suicide:
Ok. Since the operating system manages the device's RAM (in fact, the EFI aka BIOS does it), yes. It can be done.
Even more so, probably can be done on Proton, so any game wouldn't get "outside" the correct parameters.

Applications are not known to tell the OS about their intent. OS and application developers are known to tug and pull for control over system resources.

Take a look on how they fixed those games, then come back and say I don't understand the problem. I'm not saying they will fix the games, I'm saying at least the entire device doesn't crash. Do you know what a buffer overflow is? Well, this is very similar.

Valve can only fix libraries stacks they control. Previous memory bugs affects d3d11 and vulkan calls allocations and Valve can write workarounds in driver. I do not think Valve can fix bugs in the application itself.

If a game is asking for 32 GB of RAM, WHY DOES THE DEVICE HAS TO STOP WORKING? Makes no sense. Tell me I need more RAM, tell me the device is not compatible, whatever. JUST DON'T TRY TO RUN IT AND CRASH. Isn't this logical and reasonable? I'm not trying to run Crysis at 4K. I'm just trying to get a stable session of my "officially supported" games. That's it.

Do you understand how virtual address space works? Applications ask for more RAM than what the system allows all the time. Applications have to limit their ram usage themselves because asking for RAM does not mean it will use all the RAM at once. Like I said, OS does not know how the Application wishes to use system resources.

https://lwn.net/Articles/253361/

Edit: Make a bug report here

https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues

and maybe here too

https://github.com/ValveSoftware/SteamOS/issues

They will debug it and see whether they can do anything.

Last edited by deaddoof; 18 Aug @ 5:47pm

#11

invision2212 18 Aug @ 5:49pm

A lenovo legion go would have never treated you this way. Things just work better

#12

Verdict 18 Aug @ 6:25pm

ZZZ works perfectly fine on Steam Deck. So basically you are having an issue with one Indie ARPG game and you are blaming the deck and not the indie devs? interesting lol.

#13

Skibidi Sigma 18 Aug @ 9:06pm

Originally posted by deaddoof:
Originally posted by Suicide:
Ok. Since the operating system manages the device's RAM (in fact, the EFI aka BIOS does it), yes. It can be done.
Even more so, probably can be done on Proton, so any game wouldn't get "outside" the correct parameters.
Applications are not known to tell the OS about their intent. OS and application developers are known to tug and pull for control over system resources.

Take a look on how they fixed those games, then come back and say I don't understand the problem. I'm not saying they will fix the games, I'm saying at least the entire device doesn't crash. Do you know what a buffer overflow is? Well, this is very similar.

Valve can only fix libraries stacks they control. Previous memory bugs affects d3d11 and vulkan calls allocations and Valve can write workarounds in driver. I do not think Valve can fix bugs in the application itself.

If a game is asking for 32 GB of RAM, WHY DOES THE DEVICE HAS TO STOP WORKING? Makes no sense. Tell me I need more RAM, tell me the device is not compatible, whatever. JUST DON'T TRY TO RUN IT AND CRASH. Isn't this logical and reasonable? I'm not trying to run Crysis at 4K. I'm just trying to get a stable session of my "officially supported" games. That's it.

Do you understand how virtual address space works? Applications ask for more RAM than what the system allows all the time. Applications have to limit their ram usage themselves because asking for RAM does not mean it will use all the RAM at once. Like I said, OS does not know how the Application wishes to use system resources.

https://lwn.net/Articles/253361/

Edit: Make a bug report here

https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues

and maybe here too

https://github.com/ValveSoftware/SteamOS/issues

They will debug it and see whether they can do anything.

Thank you, absolutely will do. I will point them out to all of my tests too. Been gathering quite a bit...

Originally posted by invision2212:
A lenovo legion go would have never treated you this way. Things just work better

Likely so. Didn't tried one so I don't really know, but at least that one has genuine windows stability, even tho it consumes much more.

Originally posted by Verdict:
ZZZ works perfectly fine on Steam Deck. So basically you are having an issue with one Indie ARPG game and you are blaming the deck and not the indie devs? interesting lol.

nah, tell me your secret. it doesn't work as well as the 1.0 for me. huge fps spikes plus the silly memory leak too. tried everything.
"playable" is all i got.

(((btw guys, if it works perfectly on your windows pc but not so much in this linux device, guess which one has the problem. hint: it's not the game's fault and the devs can't do anything aside from releasing an official steam deck support as a linux port)))

#14

Skibidi Sigma 20 Aug @ 9:37am

Hi, quick update. Some user on Reddit helped me and found the solution.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ZenlessZoneZero/comments/1ewrixj/steam_deck_issues/

SteamOS has a 1GB default swapfile. Changing it to a higher value will solve almost every similar problem of these.

These are the commands I used to do it:

passwd
sudo steamos-readonly disable
cd /home
sudo swapoff -a
sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=swapfile bs=1G count=4
sudo mkswap swapfile
sudo swapon swapfile
sudo steamos-readonly enable

In this case, you will get a 4GB swapfile. If you want more than 4GB just change "count=X".

I recommend you use 4GB if you have the 256GB model, 8GB with 512GB and 16 with 1TB but you CAN use 16GB with the 256GB model if you're willing to sacrifice a bit of disk space, it's absolutely worth it. I'm no longer having crashes and it also improves the overall stability on a lot of games and you will get less frame spikes.

It's super silly we have to do this (imagine if I didn't know how linux works?) but anyway... PROBLEM SOLVED.

#15

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Date Posted: 18 Aug @ 12:22pm

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