[Linux expert help needed!] How to make Linux opensource driver work?

[zenisar]

I ran EU4 on Linux / Ubuntu 14.04 with proprietary nvidia drivers version 304.117/331.38 so far without any problem. But since yesterday, I have crashes of either GPU HW or nvidia driver where the screen picture breaks into colorful pieces whenever I start any graphics application, even plain Firefox crashes. So I will probably have to put the PC in service repair.

Then I noticed when I uninstall proprietary nvidia driver and I run the PC using open source driver xserver-xorg-video-nouveau the PC itself works fine without a single crash. Even game EU4 runs! The only problem is that the map does not display any textures of terrain, rivers, borders on any map - terrain, political, religion. While terrain map is colored dark red, all other maps are colored white. It looks like the map actually consists of some layers where the top layer is missing (see picture).

How can I make the open source driver work with textures again?
Are there any settings and config files that would reduce the load on graphics card?
In fact, I would be quite happy to use much simpler graphics on the map like it is on political map, just states colored differently ...

Thx!

View attachment 115780
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[AndrewT]

I'm no Linux expert, but I'm not aware of any way of using the OS drivers - they just do not support OpenGL well enough for the game.

 

[zenisar]

I am well aware the OS drivers are not as good as proprietary nvidia drivers but to my positive surprise I just tried and found that many of my older Windows games actually run on Wine/open source drivers, which has not been the case before, and they run almost perfectly, only with some minor glitches (Oblivion, Civilization 4 and many others). Even some newer games like Skyrim (on Wine) run perfectly, there is only some loss of performance (less FPS) than with proprietary drivers. Also Linux version of Crusader Kings 2 runs almost perfectly only with one minor glitch. So it looks like the OS drivers made good progress recently, because in the past I could not run any 3D games on OS drivers. Being positively surprised with the results in other games, I am curious whether there are any settings or configuration files where by changing values of some parameters one can turn off advanced graphics features, so that EU4 may not look so splendid but be playable?

 

[AndrewT]

I am curious whether there are any settings or configuration files where by changing values of some parameters one can turn off advanced graphics features, so that EU4 may not look so splendid but be playable?

Those are all held in /home/$USER/.paradoxinteractive/Europa\ Universalis\ IV/settings.txt , feel free to play around. Please let us know how you get on, as I'm sure others will want to know too.

 

[zenisar]

I tried the file as specified above. I turned on/off every variable that seem relevant, like:

force_pow2_textures=no
mapRenderingOptions=
{
draw_terrain=yes
draw_water=no
draw_borders=yes
draw_trees=no
draw_rivers=no
draw_postfx=no
draw_sky=no
draw_bloom=no
draw_tooltips=yes
draw_hires_terrain=no
draw_citysprawl=no
draw_shadows=no
draw_reflections=no
draw_ambient_objects=no
draw_particles=no
moving_units=yes
}

Unfortunately, none of these variables has any impact on my problem with the map.

Currently, the game runs, stable and fast, as if it uses proprietary drivers, performance is the same. All menu work perfectly, tooltips as well. The only thing that is corrupted is the map, see pictures above.

I would be quite happy to use simple 2D map colored by nations, surely I would have almost the same fun, just how to get it ...

 

[AndrewT]

All I can then offer is to use a low-res map mod from the User Mod forums here (or in Steamworks). And I've modified the thread title, perhaps that will draw in someone better qualified than I to help.

 

[zenisar]

Thanks for the tip again! So I downloaded from Steam and tried about a dozen of mods over the weekend that simplify graphics, particularly of the map (flat map, 2D map etc.). However, none of them has any impact on my issue, the map is still broken as before.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Gah, it's been a while since I ran this on Linus OS drivers (and now that 1.6 and later broke MP for Linux, been doing more on Windows than Linux other than achievement runs). I had something like this on OS before going back to proprietary. The blackish screen in the 1st picture in particular.

There's a setting you can change in Linux IIRC. One of my viewers posted it on my first Benin video I think. If I remember when I get home I'll give that a look.

 

[zenisar]

@ TheMeInTeam: That would be great! In the meantime, I checked your channel on Youtube but could not find there anything about Linux drivers settings.

 

[ChildeR]

The Nvidia open source drivers aren't so hot, especially with new GPUs, but they've improved. The main thing to try is upgrading kernel + xorg to get a newer driver, but it's not guaranteed to help at all. To test, you could install the alpha/beta of Ubuntu 14.10 (side by side) or the xorg-edgers PPA (more risky).

Of course, a newer proprietary driver is also an option. Not sure if there's an -updates one for NV, but either of the above options also includes a proprietary version newer than yours.

I know this doesn't really answer your question but I haven't seen the game settings make a difference in my tests.

 

[zenisar]

Just letting you know that I put my PC in service in the meantime. Most likely, the old GPU was broken from overheating so I replaced it with a fresh new nvidia Geforce GTX770 model. Everything in the game works fine as intended with the exception of shadows that make some kind of "curtain" over the upper-left corner of the screen. This issue was also present when running the game on the previous Geforce GTX280 model. When I turn off shadows in the in-game options menu, the shadows disappear from the game map and the curtain disappears as well. I use proprietary nVidia driver version 331.38 for Linux.

 

[AndrewT]

The shadows bug exists for all Linux and Mac machines, unfortunately. Just turn them off.

 

[Zoness]

Can confirm the shadow issue across all Linux distros that I've tried; disabling them resolves the problem and helps overall performance which is good because I find it to be pretty lackluster compared to the Windows client.

 

[ChildeR]

The shadows bug exists for all Linux and Mac machines, unfortunately. Just turn them off.

Is it Nvidia-specific? I've never noticed it.