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The new Linux port of Metro Exodus sadly came with a rough launch but for AMD GPU owners it's set to get more playable, with a fix in the Mesa RADV driver now merged. I've been following this quite closely, first posting about it on Twitter yesterday after being told about it.

What's the issue then? Well, this Vulkan port caused a lot of RAM to be eaten from a leak, it got real hungry really fast. A bug report was made with Mesa on April 16, and as of April 19 the fix was merged in - a pretty amazing turn around and shows again the power of open source drivers for solving issues.

Since it's merged it will for sure be in the Mesa 21.2 release, and should also be backported to the next stable update to the current Mesa drivers - hopefully the upcoming Mesa 21.1 release too which would be ideal.

For NVIDIA users, making sure your drivers are up to date is a good idea. My own NVIDIA system seemed more stable with Metro Exodus on the latest 465.24.02 release. There's still crashes in the desert area, but after plenty of research this appears to be very common on even Windows. Adjusting graphical settings down to medium for a bit gets around the areas to cause the crashes.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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48 comments
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Xpander Apr 20, 2021
Quoting: DebianUserI'm pretty familiar with Debian, but there is no rolling variant (it is possible to use testing but its seems to be radical, and testing does not receive updates during freezes).

Maybe Arch is the way to go ?

You will have to change your name here then :D Thats the biggest problem.
Debian testing is fine i think, but yeah i didn't know about the update freezes.
Arch might be too much work, if you don't want to go through all the stuff yourself. So maybe Endeavour OS then. Just keep rolling and rolling.
johndoe Apr 20, 2021
Quoting: DebianUserHmmm, i think i have to drop Debian... MESA is the only thing problematic (i can have recent packets via flathub integrated to gnome-software, but MESA is another story).
Maybe Ubuntu... any advice on a good Debian-based distribution, maybe rolling release ?
I can debootsrap on my old Windows partition (not booted from 2017).

I use Debian for decades and its simply the best for me.
You have to compile Mesa... its easy and you can switch to any driver version you want by environment settings, symbolic links, ldconfig, etc... so flexible.
This way you can have many drivers installed... like 20.3.1, 20.3.2, 20.3.4... 21.0.1, 21.0.2... you get it.

Maybe I should write a little docu.
DebianUser Apr 20, 2021
Quoting: johndoe
Quoting: DebianUserHmmm, i think i have to drop Debian... MESA is the only thing problematic (i can have recent packets via flathub integrated to gnome-software, but MESA is another story).
Maybe Ubuntu... any advice on a good Debian-based distribution, maybe rolling release ?
I can debootsrap on my old Windows partition (not booted from 2017).

I use Debian for decades and its simply the best for me.
You have to compile Mesa... its easy and you can switch to any driver version you want by environment settings, symbolic links, ldconfig, etc... so flexible.
This way you can have many drivers installed... like 20.3.1, 20.3.2, 20.3.4... 21.0.1, 21.0.2... you get it.

Maybe I should write a little docu.

Oh, if you write a doc, ill be your first reader !
Dorrit Apr 20, 2021
Quoting: DebianUserany advice on a good Debian-based distribution
MX-Linux, they keep repos and firmware updated. The forums/community is also very helpful and friendly.
Purple Library Guy Apr 20, 2021
Quoting: EikeI don't know anything about the technology, but is my feeling right that the game shouldn't be calling with layout_size=0 in the first place?
I guess it's a very minimalist game?
johndoe Apr 20, 2021
Quoting: DebianUser
Quoting: johndoe
Quoting: DebianUserHmmm, i think i have to drop Debian... MESA is the only thing problematic (i can have recent packets via flathub integrated to gnome-software, but MESA is another story).
Maybe Ubuntu... any advice on a good Debian-based distribution, maybe rolling release ?
I can debootsrap on my old Windows partition (not booted from 2017).

I use Debian for decades and its simply the best for me.
You have to compile Mesa... its easy and you can switch to any driver version you want by environment settings, symbolic links, ldconfig, etc... so flexible.
This way you can have many drivers installed... like 20.3.1, 20.3.2, 20.3.4... 21.0.1, 21.0.2... you get it.

Maybe I should write a little docu.

Oh, if you write a doc, ill be your first reader !

OK, stay tuned. Give some time...
DebianUser Apr 20, 2021
Quoting: johndoe
Quoting: DebianUser
Quoting: johndoe
Quoting: DebianUserHmmm, i think i have to drop Debian... MESA is the only thing problematic (i can have recent packets via flathub integrated to gnome-software, but MESA is another story).
Maybe Ubuntu... any advice on a good Debian-based distribution, maybe rolling release ?
I can debootsrap on my old Windows partition (not booted from 2017).

I use Debian for decades and its simply the best for me.
You have to compile Mesa... its easy and you can switch to any driver version you want by environment settings, symbolic links, ldconfig, etc... so flexible.
This way you can have many drivers installed... like 20.3.1, 20.3.2, 20.3.4... 21.0.1, 21.0.2... you get it.

Maybe I should write a little docu.

Oh, if you write a doc, ill be your first reader !

OK, stay tuned. Give some time...

Thank you very much, i have tried right now:
Install libdrm and meson from unstable with apt-pinning... but steam:i386 (and other packages) is linked to the default libdrm-common version and is uninstalled in the process.
I understand i have to set a prefix in meson, but i also have to update llvm.
After all that, i think i have understand that i have to use LD_LIBRARY_PATH and LIBGL_DRIVERS_PATH to select another MESA version.
I have reinstalled default Buster libdrm(-*) and all packages removed earlier, i'm returned to square one.
All that to say i'm not asking without searching first, i think i'm on the right way, but it is definitely out of my knowledge.
Don't hesitate to PM me when you have news on the doc ! :D
Avehicle7887 Apr 20, 2021
Quoting: DebianUser
Quoting: johndoe
Quoting: DebianUser
Quoting: johndoe
Quoting: DebianUserHmmm, i think i have to drop Debian... MESA is the only thing problematic (i can have recent packets via flathub integrated to gnome-software, but MESA is another story).
Maybe Ubuntu... any advice on a good Debian-based distribution, maybe rolling release ?
I can debootsrap on my old Windows partition (not booted from 2017).

I use Debian for decades and its simply the best for me.
You have to compile Mesa... its easy and you can switch to any driver version you want by environment settings, symbolic links, ldconfig, etc... so flexible.
This way you can have many drivers installed... like 20.3.1, 20.3.2, 20.3.4... 21.0.1, 21.0.2... you get it.

Maybe I should write a little docu.

Oh, if you write a doc, ill be your first reader !

OK, stay tuned. Give some time...

Thank you very much, i have tried right now:
Install libdrm and meson from unstable with apt-pinning... but steam:i386 (and other packages) is linked to the default libdrm-common version and is uninstalled in the process.
I understand i have to set a prefix in meson, but i also have to update llvm.
After all that, i think i have understand that i have to use LD_LIBRARY_PATH and LIBGL_DRIVERS_PATH to select another MESA version.
I have reinstalled default Buster libdrm(-*) and all packages removed earlier, i'm returned to square one.
All that to say i'm not asking without searching first, i think i'm on the right way, but it is definitely out of my knowledge.
Don't hesitate to PM me when you have news on the doc ! :D

The llvm team have debian packages on their website which are easy to install. It is also possible to compile it from source but I would advise keeping that as a last resort.
johndoe Apr 21, 2021
Quoting: DebianUser
Quoting: johndoe
Quoting: DebianUser
Quoting: johndoe
Quoting: DebianUserHmmm, i think i have to drop Debian... MESA is the only thing problematic (i can have recent packets via flathub integrated to gnome-software, but MESA is another story).
Maybe Ubuntu... any advice on a good Debian-based distribution, maybe rolling release ?
I can debootsrap on my old Windows partition (not booted from 2017).

I use Debian for decades and its simply the best for me.
You have to compile Mesa... its easy and you can switch to any driver version you want by environment settings, symbolic links, ldconfig, etc... so flexible.
This way you can have many drivers installed... like 20.3.1, 20.3.2, 20.3.4... 21.0.1, 21.0.2... you get it.

Maybe I should write a little docu.

Oh, if you write a doc, ill be your first reader !

OK, stay tuned. Give some time...

Thank you very much, i have tried right now:
Install libdrm and meson from unstable with apt-pinning... but steam:i386 (and other packages) is linked to the default libdrm-common version and is uninstalled in the process.
I understand i have to set a prefix in meson, but i also have to update llvm.
After all that, i think i have understand that i have to use LD_LIBRARY_PATH and LIBGL_DRIVERS_PATH to select another MESA version.
I have reinstalled default Buster libdrm(-*) and all packages removed earlier, i'm returned to square one.
All that to say i'm not asking without searching first, i think i'm on the right way, but it is definitely out of my knowledge.
Don't hesitate to PM me when you have news on the doc ! :D

Here comes the first part... compile 64bit driver. 32bit will follow.
https://www.goodbytez.de/howtos/compile-mesa-debian-bullseye
It's a simple text file on my web server you can download or simply open in your browser.

I would not recommend mixing/pinning packages... you will run into problems one day.
Oh, you use Buster... than I have bad news for you... I've run into the same situation because of Metro Exodus.
This game is compiled against libc6 2.29 but Buster ships with 2.28. You NEED to update to Bullseye when you want to play the "native" Linux version. All programs/libs in a linux system are compiled against libc6 (GlibC) and there are no Buster backports for that.
Debian Bullseye is currently in soft-freeze and I can recommend it. It's already "rock" solid.


Last edited by johndoe on 21 April 2021 at 1:04 am UTC
johndoe Apr 21, 2021
Quoting: Avehicle7887
Quoting: DebianUser
Quoting: johndoe
Quoting: DebianUser
Quoting: johndoe
Quoting: DebianUserHmmm, i think i have to drop Debian... MESA is the only thing problematic (i can have recent packets via flathub integrated to gnome-software, but MESA is another story).
Maybe Ubuntu... any advice on a good Debian-based distribution, maybe rolling release ?
I can debootsrap on my old Windows partition (not booted from 2017).

I use Debian for decades and its simply the best for me.
You have to compile Mesa... its easy and you can switch to any driver version you want by environment settings, symbolic links, ldconfig, etc... so flexible.
This way you can have many drivers installed... like 20.3.1, 20.3.2, 20.3.4... 21.0.1, 21.0.2... you get it.

Maybe I should write a little docu.

Oh, if you write a doc, ill be your first reader !

OK, stay tuned. Give some time...

Thank you very much, i have tried right now:
Install libdrm and meson from unstable with apt-pinning... but steam:i386 (and other packages) is linked to the default libdrm-common version and is uninstalled in the process.
I understand i have to set a prefix in meson, but i also have to update llvm.
After all that, i think i have understand that i have to use LD_LIBRARY_PATH and LIBGL_DRIVERS_PATH to select another MESA version.
I have reinstalled default Buster libdrm(-*) and all packages removed earlier, i'm returned to square one.
All that to say i'm not asking without searching first, i think i'm on the right way, but it is definitely out of my knowledge.
Don't hesitate to PM me when you have news on the doc ! :D

The llvm team have debian packages on their website which are easy to install. It is also possible to compile it from source but I would advise keeping that as a last resort.

Yes, this is the right way to do. Backporting LLVM on your own takes hours.
When you are an AMD user you should do that, because radv and radeonsi very often need bleeding edge LLVM.
Also newer libdrm2 is needed more or less.
These are tiny packages which I always backport myself from unstable or experimental when needed. This step is much easier than compiling Mesa but needs you to also compile the 32bit ones before you can install them.


Last edited by johndoe on 21 April 2021 at 1:13 am UTC
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