[SOLVED] Victoria III - Game hangs on launch

[Pl4t0n1c]

Short summary of your issue
Game hangs on launch

Game Version
build id: 10826657 (can't enter the menu to check exact version)

What OS are you playing on?
Linux (other non supported distro)

Do you have mods enabled?
No

Have you tried verifying your game files?
Yes

How much "pain" is this causing you?
10

Please explain the issue you experienced in the most condensed way possible
Steam installs the game and the launcher boots up just fine, but when trying to actually launch the game (through the launcher or standalone binary) the program attempts to open a transparent window, displays the pocketwatch cursor, and then hangs until I manually instruct the process to terminate.

Please explain how to reproduce the issue
Launch game from Steam or direct binary, wait for game to hang while launching.

Is there anything else you think could help us identify/replicate the issue?
I am running the game on an NVIDIA Optimus laptop (i.e. one that switches between the integrated intel chip & the NVIDIA GPU, which notoriously acts up and has issues, but should theoretically be capable of functioning)--I highly suspect that its configuration/drivers relative to the X display is causing the issue (currently running NVIDIA drivers 525.89).

I am using Debian linux--I know Ubuntu is the only supported distro, but considering Debian is upstream I don't anticipate that necessarily being the issue.

Verifying file integrity, running the binary standalone, and switching to Proton all fail to resolve the issue.

Opening the binary through the console (while Steam is running) outputs the following:

Setting breakpad minidump AppID = 529340
Steam_SetMinidumpSteamID:  Caching Steam ID:  76561198091761738 [API loaded no]
Warning: 8 log categories not defined in log_settings_live.json
cw_network
cw_ecs
cw_graphics
cw_gui
cw
Game State Validity
Game AI
Game Tests

Can't open bumblebee display.
Fossilize INFO: Overriding serialization path: "/home/brett/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/shadercache/529340/fozpipelinesv6/steamapprun_pipeline_cache".
X Error of failed request:  BadMatch (invalid parameter attributes)
  Major opcode of failed request:  149 ()
  Minor opcode of failed request:  4
  Serial number of failed request:  261
  Current serial number in output stream:  269

The mention of a bumblebee display is interesting because it continues to appear even after I have removed bumblebee (an Optimus utility) from the system. Hearts of Iron IV and EU4 both run fine on my system, as far as Clausewitz goes this appears to be an issue peculiar to Vic3.

I have attached all logs which contain any data from my latest attempt to launch the game.

I have attached a save game
No (couldn't get into the game to provide one)

Upload Attachment
File(s) attached - logs

 

[Pl4t0n1c]

Realizing that HOI4 & EU4 run but VIC3 does not, I decided to give CK3 a whirl, considering the engine similarities, and see if it had a similar result, and it did--CK3 also hangs on launch, and running the standalone binary outputs:

Setting breakpad minidump AppID = 1158310
Steam_SetMinidumpSteamID:  Caching Steam ID:  76561198091761738 [API loaded no]
[virtualfilesystem_physfs.cpp:801] Mounted Data: /home/brett/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/Crusader Kings III/clausewitz

[virtualfilesystem_physfs.cpp:801] Mounted Data: /home/user/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/Crusader Kings III/jomini

[virtualfilesystem_physfs.cpp:801] Mounted Data: /home/user/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/Crusader Kings III/game

Can't open bumblebee display.
Fossilize INFO: Overriding serialization path: "/home/user/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/shadercache/1158310/fozpipelinesv6/steamapprun_pipeline_cache".
X Error of failed request:  BadMatch (invalid parameter attributes)
  Major opcode of failed request:  149 ()
  Minor opcode of failed request:  4
  Serial number of failed request:  253
  Current serial number in output stream:  261
double free or corruption (fasttop)
Segmentation fault

So there's something that this version of the engine requires that I don't have--I know for a fact the hardware I'm running (rundown available in the "system" log attached above) can run all these games on Linux, since I had Xubuntu installed for a while and it did just fine, leading me to believe that there's some specific configuration that I'm missing to avoid these BadMatch/Segmentation faults.

 

[Pl4t0n1c]

Potential progress, though not yet solved--despite CKIII suffering the exact same issue, I was able to get it to launch properly by going into the launcher's "Game Settings" page and selecting "OpenGL" as the renderer (rather than the default Vulkan renderer).

Regrettably, the Vic3 launcher does not appear to have this option available. Does Vic3 support the OpenGL renderer? If so, is there a way to force the game to use it?

In the meantime, looks like I need to figure out how to configure Vulkan properly on my system. From what I understand (which might be incorrect), Vulkan is a part of the Mesa driver--I appear to have both the propriety NVIDIA driver 525.89 and a variety of Mesa-common packages/libs installed, if anybody knows exactly how to make sure they are configured/enabled that would be greatly appreciated.

EDIT: maybe I don't have Mesa installed after all!

$ > glxinfo | grep Mesa
$ >

Hmm.

 

[Pl4t0n1c]

SOLUTION

While investigating the lack of Mesa/Vulkan on my system and other users on this forum, I came across THIS POST with an exact solution, which you can use to run the vic3 binary through cli while in the game's "binaries" directory:

VK_ICD_FILENAMES=/usr/share/vulkan/icd.d/nvidia_icd.json ./victoria3

This worked! By ensuring that $VK_ICD_FILENAMES pointed to the exact path above, it forced the use of the Vulkan renderer (apparently), and I could play the game.

Considering that my system is capable of running it, I figured this was just plain old misconfiguration--as a matter of routine I decided to run an apt upgrade:

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade

It so happens that in the past week since I last updated there's a new version of the NVIDIA driver available in the Debian repos (525.109 I think) that, when upgraded, apparently pulls in the right set of dependencies/libs to straighten out the misalignment of symlinks/env variables/whatever was failing to link up the renderers correctly--which was almost certainly a failure on my part to begin with.

Not sure if it matters but I also allowed the "Compiling Vulkan Shaders" popup to complete before launching the game from Steam.

Considering this solved for now--mods feel free to pull it down or keep it up for others at your convenience.

 

[PDX_Sosanna]

Hi! Happy to see that you managed to resolve your issue
To our knowledge Victoria 3 does not support OpenGL renderer. Moltenvk/Vulkan is used instead.

 

[SinisterPig]

I think i'm having this issue too... It's very annoying because steam won't let the game launcher work. I can run the exe just fine but it gives me this error code when I try to launch it. I've verified game files at least three times and have uninstalled and reinstalled the game but it still gives the same error code.