Elex (411300)

[master-caster]

The game works like a charm.
The only issues for me right now are some weird facial animations during
dialog. But nothing you can't stand for a while.

I played the game for four hours now and it didn't crash and is set to the highest
quality settings.

If it's possible to fix the animations you can whitelist the game ;-)
(So I never played it on windows so maybe it is a game bug?)

[nstgc]

This came up in a search. Does it look like this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGNk8Z-mIKg

[master-caster]

no it's definitely some sort of glitch.
i may take a screenshot tomorrow.

it looks like the moving parts get teared/stretched in the wrong direction
i couldn't find an example in a quick search on the net so i think i have to attach one

[master-caster]

Ah okay here we are
https://youtu.be/xWj5X97_XcE?t=1799

In this dialog look at the eyebrows.
For me it's okay but i wouldn't say you can whitelist it

[nstgc]

Ah okay. I was just trying to rule would a bug in the game itself since you said that you hadn't played it on Windows. I have that same issue with some games.

[hasezoey]

The only issues for me right now are some weird facial animations during
If it's possible to fix the animations you can whitelist the game ;-)
(So I never played it on windows so maybe it is a game bug?)

I played it on Windows ~80 hours, and this never happened to me (i played since the game came out)

[kisak-valve]

Hello @master-caster, please copy your system information from steam (Steam -> Help -> System Information) and put it in a gist, then include a link to the gist in this issue report.

[master-caster]

Hello kisak-valve,

here are my system information

[master-caster]

I tested the game with the new appeared Proton version 3.7-4 Beta and the glitches remain.

[master-caster]

on 3.7-5 the same

[master-caster]

I played the game for 79 hours now and finished the main quest and lots of side quests.

I faced 5 hang ups during the whole game.
The current software version steam play/nvidia driver even fixed the glitches from the start.

So ready for whitelist xD

[ekkia]

I'm unable to run it in Kde Neon, proton 3.16 beta (same with other versions) and Nvidia 970 with 396.54 drivers.

Only black screen after intro videos.....

Any suggestion??

[master-caster]

@ekkia I didn't choose a special proton version i just left it set to default and I'm running it
on Ubuntu 18.04.

Maybe it's some sort of compositing issue?
Have you tried to turn compositing off in the kde settings?

[ekkia]

Very curious...i discover that i get black screen only if i've steam controller plugged.
No problem, without controller...i can play with mouse and keyboard (i don't like...but at least is playable for me)

@master-caster ...thanks for suggestions.

[DPTJKKVH]

Please see my bug report below that kisak-valve moved here from my original ticket. I deleted my other posts to avoid redundancy.

[kisak-valve]

ELEX AppID: 411300 / Game locks up from spawning particle effects

Issue transferred from #1964.
@DPTJKKVH posted on 2018-11-14T17:06:18:

Compatibility Report

• Name of the game with compatibility issues: ELEX
• Steam AppID of the game: 411300

System Information

• GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680
• Driver/LLVM version: NVIDIA 410.73
• Kernel version: 4.18.0-11-generic
• Link to full system information report as Gist: https://gist.github.com/DPTJKKVH/ac3925811dbf1730099adfa35744ba1b
• Proton version: 3.16-4 Beta

I confirm:

• that I haven't found an existing compatibility report for this game. // There is none following this template and acknowledging this bug while giving precise information and log files.
• that I have checked whether there are updates for my system available.

Proton log:
steam-411300.log

Additional error logs produced by the game itself with potentially interesting graphics card information:
ELEX_35.log
ELEX_36.log

I also have a DMP file produced by the game but I cannot decode/read it to check if it contains sensitive information. If you want @kisak-valve i will send it to you over a non-public channel.

Symptoms

The game runs fine as long as no particle effects are shown/spawned. When using the jet-pack, firing an energy weapon or doing other activities repeatedly that spawn particle effects the game quickly locks up. The music continues to play normally but the sound effect tied to the particle effect (e.g. rocket blast of the jet-pack) loops continuously. The game (or wine) must be closed forcefully with ALT+F4 and then confirming a force close. Here is a picture of one of the particle effects in question:

Reproduction

The quickest way to reproduce the bug is to start the game and fly around with the jetpack repeatedly. After 10 to 15 minutes tops the game will lock up in the above described way.

[Bibamus0268]

@DPTJKKVH if not already solved, i got the exact same problem: Created dxvk.conf in the same folder of the DXVK log files and inserted the line: "dxgi.deferSurfaceCreation = True", after that everything worked fine. You could add "dxgi.syncInterval = 1" to the dxvk.conf file, which force Vsync, to test if DXVK uses your dxvk.conf file. For more information: https://github.com/doitsujin/dxvk/wiki/Configuration
Hope that will solve your problem.

[DPTJKKVH]

@Bibamus0268 I will try this out today and will report back if it works for me. I will also read your refrence then. Thank you very much in advance.

PS: If it works we should both post this solution to protondb.com so others can enjoy this game as well.

EDIT: Will try it tomorrow. Had no time today.

[Bibamus0268]

@DPTJKKVH After some time playing i could say, that the game crashes not so often as before. Without the dxvk.conf my game crashes as soon, as i start my Jetpack. With it i could use it at least for some time, but after a while it still crashes, so its better but not perfect.
I am using wine, because i never get my controller worked under proton, but tested it today with proton, same there: For Proton just drop your dxvk.conf in your ELEX folder, not the system folder where the .exe is.

EDIT: I'd tried other versions of dxvk and it seems that i found a stable one: v0.53 works fine, no crash so far, but with this version the face animations are a bit broken. I will test it tomorrow for a longer time period and with proton too

[Bibamus0268]

@DPTJKKVH sry for the delay, but i was a bit busy the last days.
For me the game works now very well with DXVK v0.53, played over 8h with no issues so far, tested the JetPack and the Mg-light very often and no crash, have no weapons, which using particle effects, so couldn't test that, but should be fine as well. But i have to say that i am using wine and not Proton, but will test that in the future.

At first i installed the v0.94 of DXVK and then v0.53: https://github.com/doitsujin/dxvk/releases after that i just started the game with the DXVK HUD enabled
The strange thing is, that everything works fine, when the DXVK HUD is on (DXVK_HUD=devinfo,fps,version) without the HUD it still crashes, i am still very new to Linux and Wine, so i cant say why the game have this strange behaviour, hopefully anyone else could explain this.

But anyway, if the HUD shows up in the upper left corner, everything should be fine and you could enjoy this awesome game. When you dont know how to use wine, i will give more introductions or feel free to ask if something isnt clear. And as mentioned above i will test this on Proton, where it should be easier, as you only have to copy paste the right .dll's in the DXVK directory and turn the HUD on

[DPTJKKVH]

@Bibamus0268 Hey thanks for coming back and adding new information on this.

I actually had not time to test it myself so no harm done. ☺️

Do I understand this correctly: You downgraded to a lower DXVK version and activated the HUD to make it run stable? I thought they added the full HUD just recently with the newest DXVK release?!

If DXVK really is the issue (or solution 😜 ) then getting this to work with proton should be easy. Steam allows for custom Proton/Wine setups after activating it in Steam options.

Still, it is strange why displaying the debug HUD should make a difference. Also if DOWNgrading DXVK actually improves compability then there must be a regression in newer releases that needs fixing.

I will report as soon as I have time to test around with it. If you could try to produce some log files the crashes that happen without the HUD that would be great. Are there DXVK specific logs or is their debug info logged within Wine/Proton logs?

[Bibamus0268]

@DPTJKKVH Tested it today with Proton: Burned a full mg-light and used the Jet-Pack around 15 times and no crash like in Wine
I just renamed the d3d11.dll and dxgi.dll and copied the .dll's from the downloaded DXVK v0.53 file in
/home/username/.steam/steam/steamapps/common/Proton 3.16 Beta/dist/lib64/wine/dxvk
every wine prefix in proton uses these .dll's, its the easiest way, you could replace the dll's in the prefix for ELEX itself, but then you have to change the user.reg to use these dll's as native.
And then i enabled the DXVK_HUD through the game launch parameter in steam: "DXVK_HUD=devinfo,fps,version %command%"

Solved my Problem with my gamepad too, which i mapped with x360ce --> just edited the user.reg in the wine Prefix for ELEX to load the "xinput1_3.dll" native. Now i could use my gamepad too in Proton

To answer your questions: Yes, i just downgraded it and turned the HUD on. I tested a lot of different DXVK-Versions till i found one which worked. As i replicated all steps the new prefix still crashed! I had no clue what went wrong, till i turned the DXVK HUD on, surprise: It just works :-)

Think you talking about that line: "DXVK_HUD=full can now be set to enable all HUD elements (#842)" the option for turning on all HUD-Elements, in previous versions the HUD was already available with different options see: https://github.com/doitsujin/dxvk

Yes that with the HUD is extremely strange and i have no idea why it works like this, but i tested it five times and always the same result, my system could be the reason, but i don't know, you could test it with or without, maybe for you it works without the HUD.

In the logs are nothing strange when i do not use the HUD, tried various WINEDEBUG channels. The game does not really crash, it just freezes, with one kernel of my cpu 100% used, music is still playing

EDIT: I still use the fix from my first post too, so will test it without it too in the future

[doitsujin]

@Bibamus0268 can you test whether the game is stable for you with wined3d?

Unfortunately I'm unable to even start the game on Linux, which makes debugging it impossible.

[Bibamus0268]

@doitsujin with the normal wine d3d11.dll the game starts: Show the THQ Logo with very low fps, at least for the first start-up, but after the Piranha Bytes Intro i get a black screen, so no, for me it doesn't work. With the DXVK it works fine as long as i don't use a Jet-Pack, but i solved this problem, as mentioned in the previous posts.

Be careful: Even with DXVK the game crashes after the Piranha Bytes intro, when you are running an driver, like xpad or xboxdrv, for your gamepad, when you killall them, it should work. I am using xboxdrv and forced the xinput1_3.dll in wine as native, with that i could use my gamepad too.

EDIT: Sry, i didn't recognize your name. Shame on me! Thank you very much for your effort and contribution!

debug log (used always the same savegame):
v0.94 with HUD till the game freezes:
ELEX_d3d11.log
ELEX_dxgi.log

v0.53 without HUD till the game freezes:
ELEX_d3d11.log
ELEX_dxgi.log

v0.53 with the HUD (DXVK_HUD=devinfo,fps,version) --> stable version
ELEX_d3d11.log
ELEX_dxgi.log

To reproduce the freeze, you need some item which uses particle effects (Jet-Pack, Magnesium-light, or a particle weapon) for which you have to play 5 min or so, when you need a savegame i could post one.
If you need something more just ask

[doitsujin]

Thanks for the tip with disconnecting the game controller, with that I'm able to start the game. Will investigate.

[doitsujin]

@Bibamus0268 I tested this on both my RX 480 and a GTX 670, and on both systems, I can use the jet pack and magnesium torch just fine. I used the Nvidia driver version 415.27.

Is there anything special needed to reproduce?

[DPTJKKVH]

@doitsujin I totally missed as well that it is YOU! Thank you so much for picking this up!

Other than for @Bibamus0268 my game does not crash immediately when using the jetpack or other items with particle effects. I have to use them repeatedly to crash the game but it is absolutely reliably reproducible! It usually takes no more than 15 minutes of repeated jetpack usage to crash the game. If I use it conservatively I can get up to 2 hours of gameplay no problem. I also noticed that the game can crash when NPC are spawning particle effects, e.g. in the clerics base where patrolling guards are using jetpacks.

I want to volunteer helping you debug this issue together with @Bibamus0268 .

Here are my specs and my crash logs: #855 (comment) I upgraded to the newest stable Proton and NVidia drivers meanwhile but everything else is the same. Maybe they are useful for you now or later.

So just tell us what to do and we will deliver you the data. 👍

btw: Without modified .dll files and wined3d flag I get the same results like @Bibamus0268

[poVoq]

Can confirm that it only works with the controller unplugged. But also the Keyboard input is quite buggy... when controlling the character seems it is often not registering inputs of gets stuck on running forward etc. Also in the menu it seems to only register every second enter-button press etc. Mouse input works fine though.

[Bibamus0268]

@DPTJKKVH you cant break anything, you just rename the d3d11.dll and dxgi.dll (like d3d11.dll.bak) in your steam folder for the proton version you are using (see the path in my previous post) and copy the .dlls from the DXVK v0.53 into the same folder. To undo the changes just delete the d3d11.dll and dxgi.dll from the folder and rename the old versions.
When something went wront you can just delete your YourSteamFolder/steamapps/common/YourProtonVersion/ folder, then steam just create a new one, your games aren't touched because steam uses for every game a separate wine prefix (which you could find under YourSteamFolder/steamapps/compatdata/SteamGameNumber).
In the prefixes for ELEX (SteamGameNumber: 411300) you could force the d3d11.dll and dxgi.dll through the user.reg, but that is much more complicated, especially without winetricks :-)
You could rename your Proton folder too and let steam create a new one and change the dll's there or just save your folder by renaming it and copy it and work with the copy...

[Bibamus0268]

@poVoq got the same issue, because i am using xboxdrv for my gamepad, which does not support plug and play (or at least i haven't configured it to work with plug'n play), so it does not stop, when i am unplug my controller, but when i manually kill the driver for my gamepad everything works fine.
I could use my Xbox360 controller, when i map it with x360ce and force elex to use the xinput1_3.dll as native --> https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-games-33/howto-getting-steam-wine-game-controllers-working-together-4175618012/

[Bibamus0268]

@JanGalek Hi, could you specify what you mean when you say that it crash, when it should show the menu: Do you mean the main menu of the game or the in game inventory for the game and what kind of crash: blackscreen, freeze?

[JanGalek]

@Bibamus0268 I mean the main menu, it freeze (blackscreen) and wine show under game error with task if I want open dumps. I played before, but I'm not sure on which version of wine I used.

I tried with lutris (use wine, when you can setup configurations) and I set turn off dxvk and turn off esync, Than main menu open, but game shut down.

@Bibamus0268 sorry for 2 days response, I will check it every day ;)

[Bibamus0268]

@JanGalek I had this problem with the dumps (wanted to open these dumb dumps, but always got the message, that i have not declared a program for these files )too under Proton, think that that was a problem with my gamepad, to check this just unplug your gamepad and kill the program for your gamepad too and try again.
The first start needed some time to load the main menu, some other people declared, that that is an issue with the shaders, which have to load for the first time, but after the second start the main menu should show up soon after the intro.

I am using Proton 3.16 Beta, but think that it should work for other versions too.
Tested it with wine rc3.0 and rc5.0 and DXVK too and had no problem to start the game. I haven't tested it with the newest wine 4.0 and DXVK 0.95 version but should be no problem too.
Didn't try Lutris, but as it is only an overlay, which sets up some settings for wine, it should work too.

When the workaround with the gamepad does not work, just report back, then i try to reproduce this issue once more on my system and will try to find another solution

[JanGalek]

@Bibamus0268 Oh thanks, I uninstalled xboxdrv and now it works. Very much thanks

[Bibamus0268]

@JanGalek Np, you could still use your controller when you are using this workaround: https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-games-33/howto-getting-steam-wine-game-controllers-working-together-4175618012/
I had to start xboxdrv with the option "--mimic-xpad" to use my Xbox360-gamepad ingame
Have fun

[Oschowa]

@aeikum Since you where interested in fixing controller related issues recently, ELEX still 100% reliably crashes when a controller is plugged in with Proton 4.11-6. Steam Input enabled/disabled makes no difference.

Here is a log with +timestamp,+pid,+tid,+seh,+debugstr,+loaddll,+mscoree,+xinput,+dinput,+rawinput,+plugplay,+hid,+hidp,+setupapi and a DS4 connected:

steam-411300.log

[aeikum]

Here's our problem:

23540.651:0031:0032:trace:xinput:XInputGetState (index 0, state (nil))!

We don't check for NULL in XInputGetState. I've fixed that and my controller works now, but the game doesn't react to button presses, just the axes. I'm looking into it.

[Oschowa]

Controller input works fine with proton 4.11-12

[jarrard]

Game more or less works fine for me with proton however I've noticed some specific areas where graphical glitches and triangles spontaneously appear. Such as looking at the lavafall outside Castle Ruins outside West of Ignadon.

Mesa-git and 6800XT.. Could be AMD thing. DXVK1.9

I managed to capture one of the glitches, these appear and last for a few ms and are numerous up and down this lavafall. They occur on the pause screen also.

[kisak-valve]

Hello @jarrard, please copy your system information from Steam (Steam -> Help -> System Information) and put it in a gist, then include a link to the gist in this issue report. Also, please share a screenshot of the graphical corruption.

[jarrard]

Sure, these artifacts do appear throughout the game in areas, but this is one of the worst I've seen.

https://gist.github.com/jarrard/41ffce8b19816b5e741eed276d4bd33b

PS. I noticed someone else mentioned this issue here. https://www.protondb.com/app/411300
Switching to p6.3-5 didn't help in my case.

[kisak-valve]

If the hint on ProtonDB is reliable and related to the behavior you're seeing, then Proton 6.3-5 may be too new a reference point to establish a baseline to compare to. Can you test if you see the same graphical corruption with Proton 5.13? If it's reliable with that, then that hints at a possible DXVK regression, otherwise, there might be a video driver issue.

As a side note, having extra vulkan layers (mangohud / vkbasalt) that might be manipulating the rendered image doesn't particularly inspire confidence. It's probably not the root cause of what you're seeing, but is added noise. Also, seeing dri_create_context: glthread isn't thread safe - missing call XInitThreads in the OpenGL section of your system info is abnormal, but again, most likely more unrelated noise.

[jarrard]

RADV_DEBUG=llvm removes the flickering surfaces but creates a different problem where terrain surfaces are blackish.

So the flickering issue may be ACO related. Not sure whats wrong with LLVM.

I'll try 5.13.. Tested. Still happens with 5.13 it seems. (I tested with proton ge's also)

I did have Mangohud and VKbasalt enabled but I disabled them during testing to see if they had caused the issue. Also have reshade but I disabled the dxgi.dll file during testing also. (disabled via env values in launch options, confirmed disabled in-game)

Unsure why LLVM has broken surface shaders which cause terrain surfaces to have this dark shadow on them. (not completely black)

PS. I've been deleting all my mesa/steam/dxvk cache files in between tests. Hopefully that isn't causing issues.

[kisak-valve]

Thanks for testing, can you see if RADV_DEBUG=invariantgeom helps?

[jarrard]

I think that resolved it. I don't see any with 6.3-5 atm. Will keep a eye out but I believe it resolved also the odd flicker you see in the lavalakes.

There is another issue with this game which is in-game video and flashbacks (videos) don't play. They do play with Proton-GE thanks to its video converter thing but not with normal Proton; the flashbacks or videos just instantly skip.

I've installed the mf-cab thingo but haven't tested it yet. It seems this video converter thing GE uses may be a legal way to get around the whole MF issue. (assuming that is the issue here)

[hakzsam]

@jarrard Are you still able to reproduce this?

[jarrard]

@jarrard Are you still able to reproduce this?

You mean the geom issues with lava and some other stuff? I believe that was solved in newer mesa but I haven't loaded ELEX for a LONG time now. I'm assuming its fixed but won't know until I test it out again when I have time.

[hakzsam]

@jarrard Are you still able to reproduce this?

You mean the geom issues with lava and some other stuff? I believe that was solved in newer mesa but I haven't loaded ELEX for a LONG time now. I'm assuming its fixed but won't know until I test it out again when I have time.

Yeah, I'm talking about RADV specific issues. If you can give it a try and confirm that would be highly appreciated, thanks!

[jarrard]

Ugh, it seems my save files never got stored in the cloud and now I think I would need to restart from the start..... Anyone got a savefile link? lol

[jarrard]

Found SaveFile on Nexus.
Looks fixed to me. I'm using latest Mesa-git however so its possible someone with a older config may still have the issue.

As you can see the little volcano nodes that fall off render correctly and there isn't any funky stuff happening in the lava rivers either. steamsystem.txt

[hakzsam]

@jarrard Thanks for confirming, highly appreciated!