Linux Port – Feedback, Known Issues, and FAQ

Update: I tested the game with kde manjaro running kernel 5.15.65-1

Originally I had the same performance as with kubuntu, but now the game works! no idea what I did but it works, I also discovered that when running windowed mode I had much better FPS than at fullscreen (20 fps), the reason seems to be that the game is eating all my vram in linux, at low settings with partial shadows it is using almost all the vram of my 1060 3GB.

I think that what made it work was that I tried to run the game with KDE+wayland instead of X11, tried... because the game performed even worse with wayland, however after switching back to x11 now it works fine?!?

Here's a small comparison vs windows, the game actually performs better in linux already, just that I could not get OBS hardware acceleration to work when recording in linux and that results in about 20 fps less for the linux version.

 

It crashes when running it

 

0.26 Steam Deck feedback
First, as others have said, cannot run in GameScope (no controls), only desktop. However, this version has perhaps 5fps better rate than Proton, depending on scenario, cars etc. Also lets me play scenarios that do not work in the Proton form. Not all scenarios obviously, it’s a Steam Deck
Really wish I could get tru fullscreen because this mode works remarkably well. No problems with sound, textures etc btw. Looking forward to an update to permit play in Game mode.

 

The latest build is very stable, I hardly experience crashes anymore. Graphical performance seems lower than with proton, but other than that the game is very stable. I've tested a half dozen maps as well as dozens of cars and configurations, and everything seems to just work. My Xbox controller also automatically maps and orients itself nicely.

Great work to the team!

Update: the track texture for procedurally generated tracks shows NO TEXTURE

Code:

OS: Fedora Linux 36 (Workstation Edition) x86_64
Host: 20XF004VUS ThinkPad T14s Gen 2a
Kernel: 5.19.11-200.fc36.x86_64
Uptime: 7d 3h 31m
Packages: 2726 (rpm), 54 (flatpak)
Shell: bash 5.1.16
Resolution: 3840x1080
DE: GNOME 42.5
WM: Mutter
WM Theme: Adwaita
Theme: Nordic-darker-standard-buttons-v40 [GTK2/3]
Icons: Nordic-Darker [GTK2/3]
Terminal: gnome-terminal
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5850U with Radeon Graphics (16) @ 4.5GHz
GPU: AMD ATI 05:00.0 Cezanne
GPU Driver: amdgpu
Memory: 9.06GiB / 30.19GiB (30%

 

well, nice that it runs that great for you, for me, (just tried again) it crashes after a few seconds on the OGC map. With 0.25 I feel like it was even a bit more stable... *
also, it only runs at ~10fps on normal settings when just launching it (radv_debug=zerovram ./BeamNG.drive.x64) (my dGPU is getting utilized, but only draws ~75W)
but when running with DRI_PRIME=1 radv_debug=zerovram ./BeamNG.drive.64 it runs at ~120fps on Normal settings (I don't remember I had to do this on 0.25..., it's neccessary for some other games though)

note 1: Just tried again on Small Island and it was much more stable, only crashing after I tried to set the Graphics to Ultra.
note 2: Just tried again on Utah and it was even more stable, this time I set it to Ultra before loading a map, and it ran with 120+fps, with traffic ~90-100fps (MUCH better than with proton**/wine and I have insanely high traffic settings), it only crashed after a few minutes when I spawned in a T75-Destroyer to have fun with the traffic, but then it crashed when touching the first traffic vehicle...

* in some circumstances, e.g. the OGC map (or ECUSA) crashed while loading, always at 1 specific resource, that's now gone, but in every other way it's more unstable, but it's very random, on some occasions it can run for multiple hours just fine, and on other occasions, as described, it may crash just after a few seconds.

** with proton (any version newer than 6.3-8, 6.3-8 works fine, but has more problems with ffb and even worse performance) it shows the launcher, but pressing play there just instantly crashes...
interestingly, with wine, everything works perfectly fine
also, even more interesting, it runs fine with proton (even with the newest bleeding-edge) on my Laptop (Acer E5-575g, i5-6200U, GTX 950M)

my setup is as described in my signature or whatever it's called (the thing under each of my messages) with a 1440p monitor, I mostly play in a maximized window, for better alt+tab compatibility

btw I think the Crash reporter may not work on the native version, in the log it always says that the .dmp files couldn't be found, maybe another case-sensitive path issue?

 

It's working perfectly here!

Linux Manjaro
12700h
3080ti
32GB Ram

To open a heavier map, I just had to bump the number of files a process is allowed to open:

/etc/security/limits.conf

Code:

*               -       nofile          10000

btw, can a BeamNG dev take a look at this, please?

 

Try a patchbay editor like Carla or Helvum

 

Another issue I just discovered. The performance benchmark seems to be broken. Pressing the button flashes "in progress" and then returns to it's original state without reporting anything. Here's the log:

Code:

 56.45172|D|GELua.core_hardwareinfo.hardwareinfo.runPhysicsBenchmark| runPhysicsBenchmark()
 56.45252|D|GELua.core_hardwareinfo.hardwareinfo.onBananaBenchReady| onBananaBenchReady: bananabench.json
 56.46911|I|CEF.MainGEUI#local://local/ui/modules/options/options.js:2199| undefined
 56.48503|E|CEF.MainGEUI#local://local/ui/lib/ext/angular/angular.js:13920| TypeError: Cannot read property 'tests' of undefined
    at $scope.$evalAsync (local://local/ui/modules/options/options.js:2203:57)
    at Scope.$eval (local://local/ui/lib/ext/angular/angular.js:17682:28)
    at Scope.$digest (local://local/ui/lib/ext/angular/angular.js:17495:31)
    at local://local/ui/lib/ext/angular/angular.js:17721:26
    at completeOutstandingRequest (local://local/ui/lib/ext/angular/angular.js:5964:10)
    at local://local/ui/lib/ext/angular/angular.js:6243:7

 

Thanks, when I posted that audio issue I didn't even know there was Linux support for BeamNG, so it was more of a Windows issue. I'll give it a try when playing on Linux, though, I have a dual boot and usually turn from Linux/work to Windows/gaming at evening

 

mind sharing what that is?

 

Testing on Ubuntu 22.10 Kinetic Kudu, I get the following issues;

• Exiting BeamNG.Drive under any circumstance results in a Bug Reporter prompt to appear. This can be solved rather easily by setting the main menu exit button to level zero. If the exit level is 1-255, show the Bug Reporter prompt.
• BeamNG Bug Reporter does not send a push notification to remind the user of pending/unsent bug reports (though it's not a big problem).
  
• Any maps with terrain or trees result in severe frame drops. I don't understand the cause of this one. Gridmap V2 runs perfectly fine at 120fps for me; but if I run Utah or any maps with real terrain, the frames drop to a point of making the game unplayable, regardless of graphics setting.
• Switching between graphics settings while a session is running (i.e. Normal to Ultra) results in crashing or freezing.
• If the game crashes while at a specific window size, the next launch of BeamNG.Drive results in a window with the previous window size along with large black borders around a larger window. This behaviour persists until forced into fullscreen, borderless, or is manually restarted.
  
• On rare occasions, many 'particle'-related textures are solid colour (either white or black). This is likely related to some kind of texture transparency issue.

I believe that continuing development on the Linux binary will be useful to many. I've noticed much better FPS on my machine rather than on a Windows or WINE environment. I appreciate all the work that's gone into it.

Specs:

Code:

dabiathenord@marjo-ubuntu
-------------------------
OS: Ubuntu 22.10 x86_64
Host: HP Pavilion Gaming Laptop 15-dk1xxx
Kernel: 5.19.0-23-generic
Uptime: 3 hours, 40 mins
Packages: 3593 (dpkg), 27 (flatpak), 21 (snap)
Shell: bash 5.2.2
Resolution: 1920x1080
DE: GNOME 43.0
WM: Mutter
WM Theme: Adwaita-dark
Theme: Adwaita-dark [GTK2/3]
Icons: Yaru-dark [GTK2/3]
Terminal: gnome-terminal
CPU: Intel i5-10300H (8) @ 4.500GHz
GPU: Intel CometLake-H GT2 [UHD Graphics]
GPU: NVIDIA 01:00.0 NVIDIA Corporation TU117M
Memory: 7100MiB / 15801MiB

 

Howdy, I dunno if you will see this post since it's been so long but in case you do, or if anybody else running the Linux Port on a Steam Deck finds this thread I believe the workaround Notepass is using to get the Deck's controller working is here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/comments/veevpd/guide_using_kde_wayland_inside_game_mode/
As a quick tip: when adding startplasma-wayland as a non-Steam game make sure the file selector can see all the files otherwise you might not see it in the folder. This truly is super hacky way to fix the controls but it does work.

Dunno if this helps but I can only assume this has something to do with not being able to launch the Linux port from Steam? A similar thing also happens when I use my Steam Controller to play BeamNG without Steam running, it defaults to this basically unusable control scheme.

 

were there any changes with Vulkan/Linux on 0.27?

 

seems like it hasn't gotten much more stable as it just crashed after ~20 minutes of playing...

 

Now BeamNG saves the screen settings between sessions, that's good! the big screenshots are still broken though, and the game always crashes for me when I press quit.

Apart from that it runs beautifully and a lot faster than on Windows.

Is the any reason why the native version is still not integrated with Steam? running it from the file manager is not logging things like my play time.