Batman Arkham Asylum refuses to boot after reimage.. is my hardware damaged?

[ladsladslads]

Hello all,
Earlier this week I had Batman: Arkham Asylum up and running perfectly buttery smooth on steam deck using GE-Proton. I played it for about 3 hours. The game launched and worked perfectly every time as did all the Batman arkham games.

For unrelated reasons I had to completely reimage my steam deck and I started again with a completely clean drive. After the reimage, I can not get this game to start no matter what. The default launcher never even opens, and if I use a community made launcher the game throws an error when I try to launch it. The other arkham games still work correctly, but arkham asylum does not. I know it is technically unsupported but lets be real we all know how many unsupported games work perfectly fine. I had a friend with a steam deck buy arkham asylum just to test it out, and his game worked perfectly when he used the same GE-Proton version. I have tried multiple different proton versions, tried all sorts of community hacks like deleting save data and disabling cloud saves, and manually configuring ini files, and the game simply does not boot. Other proton games do work, it seems to be only this game as far as I've tested so far. This game runs and plays fine on my desktop pc with the same cloud save that came from my steam deck.

If the game had never worked at all, I wouldn't think much of it. But the fact that after 2 reimages and multiple reinstallations I can never get even the launcher to open while everyone else on deck can is very concerning. I have to think something must be wrong with my hardware internally or something. I tell you when I tried everything i really mean it, I used protontricks to install d3dx9 and d3dcompiler_43 manually, and I tried all the community launcher options I could find.

Please help,, I am worried something is wrong with my steam deck. I will try anything to get this game to boot again.

[MaximusX800]

Have you tried launching the game from Desktop Mode instead of Gaming Mode? Sometimes this helps with first runs.

[ladsladslads]

Originally posted by MaximusX800:

Have you tried launching the game from Desktop Mode instead of Gaming Mode? Sometimes this helps with first runs.

Yes I have many times. I've even tried deleting all proton files and doing a fresh install and launch from desktop mode but it didnt do anything. The furthest I was able to get in hours was getting the community made launcher to open, but then the game throws a "General protection fault!" Error. Online it seems related to save games but Its definitely not in my case

[MaximusX800]

Very strange, tried different GE versions I assume?

[ladsladslads]

Originally posted by MaximusX800:

Very strange, tried different GE versions I assume?

Yes when it was working for me GE 7-31 was what I used, and I tried that 7-31 and 7-33. My friend used 7-33 on his fresh install and it booted up first time no problem at all. I feel like I've covered all possible areas and I just do not know what else to do. How much further can you possibly go than a full reimage + re-installation of game?

[Turbo]

Yeah, needs GE Proton 7-33.

[ladsladslads]

Originally posted by Turbo:

Yeah, needs GE Proton 7-33.

No, it doesn't. I know it works as back as 7-27, and it was working for me on 7-31. I have tried 7-33 anyway but it doesnt work. Something is seriously messed up but I dont know what

[Turbo]

Well, 7-33 was the latest when I installed the game and it worked. That's all. Might work with earlier versions.

[GuRu Asaki]

Batman Arkham Asylum refuses to boot after reimage.. is my hardware damaged?

Your better off playing Arkham Asylum
on Consoles, no joke...

The Computer Edition, was poorly ported...

#1 Major issue, is this?

First time In-Game Setups:

Don't work with any Controls at all,
entirely jenky, & are pre-locked to
defined keys that are nearly impossible
to figure out...

Once in Game, your Menus are locked
to I think Garbage FPS, while rest of the
Game runs up to 9999 FPS, with few
tweaks here, & there...

Controls are not as fluid as PS3 ones,
either... Outside of that? It's your best
Arkham Game on PC today...

What I mean is:

You can totally tell the Game was
made for Console, & not for PC...

But yes, Visually it looks Amazingly
good on any System you play it on...

[ladsladslads]

Originally posted by GuRu Asaki:

Batman Arkham Asylum refuses to boot after reimage.. is my hardware damaged?

Your better off playing Arkham Asylum
on Consoles, no joke...

The Computer Edition, was poorly ported...

#1 Major issue, is this?

First time In-Game Setups:

Don't work with any Controls at all,
entirely jenky, & are pre-locked to
defined keys that are nearly impossible
to figure out...

Once in Game, your Menus are locked
to I think Garbage FPS, while rest of the
Game runs up to 9999 FPS, with few
tweaks here, & there...

Controls are not as fluid as PS3 ones,
either... Outside of that? It's your best
Arkham Game on PC today...

What I mean is:

You can totally tell the Game was
made for Console, & not for PC...

Bad port or not it doesnt change the fact that it was running perfectly on my steam deck and now it never will open at all. It was working perfectly with the deck controller buttons, just showed xbox buttons like most games.

[MaximusX800]

Has to be some kind of software dependency that is missing, not allowing it to run. It is a UE3 game, so there should be log files that you could check.

[ladsladslads]

Originally posted by MaximusX800:

Has to be some kind of software dependency that is missing, not allowing it to run. It is a UE3 game, so there should be log files that you could check.

How would I go about checking that?

[MaximusX800]

Been a long time since I look at that, but if I remember correctly, check the prefix folder for the windows documents folder, and there should be logs there. Hopefully there will be some useful info. Look for information about DirectX or .Net Framework. You could even just try to rerun those dependence from the redis folder in the Batman game DIR.

[The F1ghter]

I'm in the same boat here. Cannot get the launcher to show up. Really wanted to play this one....

Edit. Got it to work. See here https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/comments/uc9dk8/batman_arkham_asylum_goty_edition_not_working_on/

[ladsladslads]

Originally posted by The F1ghter:

I'm in the same boat here. Cannot get the launcher to show up. Really wanted to play this one....

Edit. Got it to work. See here https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/comments/uc9dk8/batman_arkham_asylum_goty_edition_not_working_on/

Thanks but for anyone wondering what got the game to work for me was installing another game, specifically fallout 3. This triggered steam to download "Steamworks common redistributables", and once this installed i was able to get the game to launch. I played it beginning to end on deck and it was flawless.