Hi guys.
I’ve finally returned to Linux gaming after a year hiatus back on Windows but currently have been unable to play anything due to Steam’s shader caching. Trying to launch a game means I have to sit and leave my PC on for hours (I gave up after 2) just whilst the progress bar slowly goes up. I made sure background caching was on in the settings and even added a config file to enable more threads as I saw suggested online but after leaving Steam open overnight I’m still unable to play any games.
This wasn’t an issue when I was dailying Linux a year ago so I’m assuming something in Proton must’ve changed?
At this point graphics driver optimizations have made the steam shader caching feature obsolete. I would recommend disabling it in the steam settings.
I experienced this with Boulders Gate 3. Shader caching window popped up and 20 minutes later it was at 5%. I haven’t tried again since them because it’s running fine on my desktop.
I don’t know what the issue is; but something to try if you haven’t already is to go through the setup instructions on the Arch Wiki, paying special attention to making sure that you have the correct 32-bit graphics dependencies installed.
Oh, I forgot to do my fanboy plug. I’ve had the easiest time setting up Proton dependencies on NixOS. It unifies configuration with package management, so the Steam configuration module can reference your installed hardware, and load the appropriate graphics packages automatically.
Basically you opt into unfree packages, and put programs.steam.enable = true in your NixOS config, and that’s it.
Is there anything else going on in the background? Is something else using up your drives or CPU/GPU time?
I’ve been exclusively on Linux for a while, and I know shader caching happens, but I’ve never noticed it happening. AFAIK it should be very quick and seamless for the most part.
Are you perhaps using the Flatpak version of Steam?
what distro? What’s your gpu?
Happened on Arch last night and this morning switched to openSUSE Tumbleweed with the exact same issues. GPU is a GTX 1070 with nvidia drivers installed.
