Mac/Linux (Recently) Crashing Constantly

[uwa~]

I have played this game for years but for the past few months it has been constantly crashing on both Linux and MacOS.

When I contacted Feral I was told it was an issue which existed in the original Windows game and nothing could be done.

This is strange as I played it for years on both Linux and Windows with no issues. Has anyone experienced this and is there anything that can be done?

The crashes happen randomly after battles, when ending turn, when accessing the tax or diplomacy tab, and when preparing for an avatar campaign battle.

I have tried it with fresh installs on multiple PCs (Asus G750 laptop to Mac Mini M1 to custom built tower) with the same issue. There have been no other performance issues and their other CA ports seem to work fine.

Any help is appreciated.
Thanks

[enigmatic]

I only was able to get it running on windows (When I was still using it) When they removed Adobe Flashplayer. Than I could run it.

On linux no issues with even mods.
I am running devuan.
AMD card.
Feral did a good job with this port. Even to the point Unit models I can get everything max detail for some reason before it was stuck on low. But yeah runs great for me.

[Malkiah]

What distro are you using? So far the only crashes I had was when I tried to enter the steam overlay while the game is loading or processing something like an end turn thing.

At most I guess you could try to play with steam overlay disabled if it still crashes while you aren't doing anything. You could also try steam beat client as well to see if ti helps.

PS: I think it has to do with how the game tries to pause itself in those situations, so I guess alt tabbing could also cause that.

[uwa~]

Thanks for the replies. On Linux I'm using Opensuse Leap. Its very strange because the game has been great for years. I've tried with no steam overlay and the game still crashes.

[uwa~]

Update. I've noticed that once it crashes it seemingly refuses to keep game settings. No matter how much I change the unit size it returns to large or ultra... not sure if that can help point to the issue

[Malkiah]

The unit size set before starting a campaign is the one that stays in that campaign regardless if you change it later on.

Have you tried to play on default Ultra settings with nothing else enabled? after the last update a few days ago with the chat room removal update. Some people have experienced problems and stutter. I experienced a bit more of that in settings that weren't default overall ultra settings. So I just put default ultra settings with nothing else on and it has been stable for me ever since but yeah the chat removal did indeed bring some weird performance behaviors into the mix.

[uwa~]

What I mean is before starting a campaign, when still in the main menu, I'll set the graphics settings but when I go back to the settings menu it will have changed the unit size.

I've tried at every graphics preset with no luck.

It also seems that after a crash it sometimes sets all the graphics settings to random values. This started before the latest update.

Its unfortunate because I really like the game but its virtually unplayable now with the frequency of the crashes

[Malkiah]

have you tried steam linux runtime? it is on the compatibility tab in the game's properties mixed proton but helps with running linux native versions. That's all I can think of that might help.

[uwa~]

No, I haven't tried running the Windows version in Linux through Proton but I'll try that today.

I was hoping to be able to run it natively in Linux and especially Mac (where I can't use Proton).

I just check through the many crash reports I've gotten and the error is a segmentation fault/ bad access error in all of them, so something in the code which I have no way of fixing. However, it is strange that only a handful of people seem to be having the problem (judging from the forums).

I'll definitely try running it through Proton but I guess theres no hope for the ports.
Thanks for trying to help )

edit: the error is SIGSEGV on Linux and EXEC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGACCESS) on MacOS

[Malkiah]

It isn't proton. Steam linux runtime is basically running the native linux version in a contained linux environment developed by valve. It helps sometimes with running older linux games that require some specific older libs to run among other stuff.

But yeah, even though it is Linux contained environment, it is in the same place as proton is as an option in the compatibility tab.

[Malkiah]

And no, the windows version doesn't work through proton due to adobe flash plugins among other stuff that prevents it from running properly. Also the windows version is inferior to the linux version in many aspects, including loading times.

[uwa~]

Thank for the reply. As you said, the Windows version in Proton just has a blank screen. Steam Linux Runtime still crashes for me, unfortunately