Arch Linux

Vectorlocity

Member

Registered: 2018-04-15

Posts: 132

[SOLVED] TF2 crashing upon startup

I keep having TF2 crashing upon startup now. It would get to the papery-coloured loading screen and just hang there for a bit and close itself. Sometimes it throws a "Out of address space. Maybe your texture quality is set too high" error and then closes.
I've tried removing all the .cache files in my tf/ directory but that didn't help. Verifying the integrity of the game files didn't help either. I am using Steam Native on a Ryzen 3 1200 + GTX 1050 Ti.
Another thing I've noticed is that TF2 uses barely an VRAM (about 130 MB compared to normally 750 MB) when loading but used up to 4 GB of system RAM, something I hadn't seen before (it used to only use ~2 GB).

How could I fix this? I've also tried reinstalling the game but that didn't help either.

Last edited by Vectorlocity (2019-12-10 16:36:16)

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 21,660

Re: [SOLVED] TF2 crashing upon startup

Try: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php … 9#p1875179 there seems to be a bug in nvidia's memory allocation in the newest driver.

Vectorlocity

Member

Registered: 2018-04-15

Posts: 132

Re: [SOLVED] TF2 crashing upon startup

There's been a driver update. Do I need to reboot for it to apply?

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 21,660

Re: [SOLVED] TF2 crashing upon startup

Yes, but that was just a rebuild against the kernel that is unlikely to help if there's an actual issue within the driver (The driver version didn't change, the last number is a rebuild for the new kernel without actually having done any real changes to the driver itself)

iPaq

Member

Registered: 2019-12-06

Posts: 4

Re: [SOLVED] TF2 crashing upon startup

This has also happened to me, running kernel 5.3.11.1-1 & nvidia driver 440.31-2.

I haven't done an upgrade in a month or two but have been playing every night just fine.

I took a zfs snapshot and tried `pacman -Syyu` just in case and rebooted, but after many package upgrades... (Including linux=5.4.1.arch1-1 & nvidia=nvidia-440.36-4 )no change. Rolled back.

My only lead is this: https://steamdb.info/app/440/graphs/

Last Record Update:     a day ago (December 4, 2019 – 20:28:54 UTC)

An update for TF2 was very recently (And quietly) deployed. I presume this has something to do with it.

I've seen two other posts in the past 24h on reddit in /r/tf2/ with other linux users (Even PopOS mentioned) having the same problem with the exact same error message.

I suspect this is NOT an Arch related problem.

iPaq

Member

Registered: 2019-12-06

Posts: 4

Re: [SOLVED] TF2 crashing upon startup

The official answer I got from from John S at Valve is to try deleting this file from your steam library

steamapps/common/Team Fortress 2/tf/glshaders.cfg

.

I did, and it instantly got past the "Out of address space. Maybe your texture quality is set too high" screen and into the main menu my next launch.

Could you give that a try for me?

Vectorlocity

Member

Registered: 2018-04-15

Posts: 132

Re: [SOLVED] TF2 crashing upon startup

Yep, no problem mate!

Did he say that verifying the integrity of game files would add that file back? (NO, IT IS ALREADY AUTOGENERATED UPON GAME STARTUP)
Or would it be autogenerated again upon game startup? (CONFIRMED)
Does this fix hinder game performance?

EDIT: Worked instantly! Verifying integrity of game files returns "All files successfully validated" after launching the game. Launching the game with glshaders.cfg deleted seems to automatically regenerate it.

Last edited by Vectorlocity (2019-12-09 21:40:14)