[RESOLVED] Changed output adapter in user settings while running on Proton, now boots to black screen and can't change back

[sunshine]

Putting this here in case it helps someone else. I'm running RDR2 on Pop!_OS Linux using Proton, so users on other linux boxes such as Ubuntu or Linux Mint might run into a similar issue. (Actually, for all I know it could happen on Windows too, and the fix could work the same way; just the settings folder would be in a different path on Windows).

In the graphics settings, the first option is to select your "Output Adapter" (graphics card). My game showed two options available, so i was wondering what would happen if I switched to the other one - did that, restarted the game, and then the game would no longer boot, except to a loading bar and then a black screen. This meant that I had no way to revert the setting back and make the game bootable again.

I tried various solutions - switching Proton versions did work. After reading through afrothundaaaa's help thread (which seemed a little out of date, as the game had worked perfectly with no tinkering required except to turn on Proton when I'd set it up at first), I found the following Terminal command which, when I ran it, did fix things by deleting my user settings:

rm -rf ~/.steam/steam/steamapps/compatdata/1174180/

(Actually, I ran

mv ~/.steam/steam/steamapps/compatdata/1174180{,.bak}

, which saves the old data in a new folder called

1174180.bak/

instead of deleting it; but it's deleted from the point of view of the RDR2 application.)

Two more important points about removing (deleting or moving) this config folder: (a) it didn't delete my save file, and (b) it didn't delete the actual 100GB of game data and require an hour to re-download. Apparently it's just user settings.