I’ve been having a couple of troubles playing Diablo IV, though they seem to be a lot worse with the new expansion. After a while of playing for a while, the game seems to leak VRAM and makes my desktop pretty unstable. Alt+tabbing occasionally breaks the game, the image freezes but I still hear the noises of the menus opening and such. If I don’t alt-tab the game doesn’t break.
I have found this reddit thread about setting a dxvk file to limit the amount of VRAM available to Diablo. I set up the max VRAM to 8gib but mangohud still reports 10gb being used. I tried setting the DXVK_CONFIG_FILE flag but that also doesn’t seem to work. Mangohud report 10gb VRAM very fast. DXVK file contents:
dxgi.maxDeviceMemory=8192
dxgi.maxSharedMemory=8192
Decreasing the graphic settings just slows down the problem, it doesn’t prevent it.
Launch options: DXVK_CONFIG_FILE=/gamedrive/dxvk.conf mangohud %command%
Specs:
Intel i7-12700K @ 4.900GHz
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 (driver version: 560.35.03)
64GB DDR4
EndeavourOS Linux
6.11.3-zen1-1-zen
Hyprland
GE-Proton9-16
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Diablo IV is a DirectX 12 game. Those don’t use DXVK directly, though I think they might still use the DXGI component that comes with it, even though vkd3d-proton is providing the Direct3D 12 support.
DXVK_CONFIG_FILE is not a flag, but an environment variable. It is for overriding the location where dxvk.conf is expected to be. By default, that file is expected to be in the game’s current working directory when it starts, so you don’t need this environment variable at all if you figure out what directory that is. It’s sometimes the directory where the game executable lives, but not always. (Hint: look for a dxvk or vkd3d log file.) Details here.
Note that one person in that reddit thread says dxvk.conf can be in “any folder of the wine prefix”. As far as I know, that’s just plain wrong. It has to be where DXVK is expecting to find it.
If you can’t figure out where to put the config file, you might try applying those dxgi settings using an environment variable instead. In Steam, the game launch options would be:
DXVK_CONFIG="dxgi.maxDeviceMemory = 8192; dxgi.maxSharedMemory = 8192" %command%Here’s a different possible workaround, to be put in Steam’s game launch options:
PROTON_HIDE_NVIDIA_GPU=1 %command%
Or if using Lutris with a Proton Wine runner, you would add an environment variable to the game (or launcher) profile, with key:PROTON_HIDE_NVIDIA_GPUand value:1.If none of those workarounds help, you’ll want to get involved in these discussions:
https://github.com/HansKristian-Work/vkd3d-proton/issues/1588
https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/7199
Edit: Several people have reported that this VRAM bug doesn’t happen on AMD cards. If you happen to have one, you might give it a try.
I have tried the
PROTON_HIDE_NVIDIA_GPU=1before and I can tell you it definitely helps. The game is unplayable without it, to be honest. The VRAM still fills up but it’s not instantly, it takes quite a while. Makes the problem manageable.Edit: Several people have reported that this VRAM bug doesn’t happen on AMD cards. If you happen to have one, you might give it a try.
Unfortunately I do not. I bought this nvidia card long before I switched to Linux and boy, do I regret it.
I edited my comment again around the same time you were replying. You might want to take a look to see if anything I added helps.
I believe that config needs to be in the working directory context of the game, but maybe I’m misremembering that. I would try setting some other options to make sure it’s actually being read.
I don’t think it’s going to do much to help your problem here though, except maybe crash it. If upon starting your game, it immediately starts using 10GB of vid mem, then that is what is needed by the game to run. Setting this to 8GB is going to magically make it run by using less.
If your main concern is the stability of your machine while using other apps, I would be attacking this a bit differently.
- Try figuring out why your desktop is becoming unstable.
- Maybe check the difference between running in full screen vs windowed.
- See if you can force a specific renderer that is more stable.
- Check ProtonDB for other settings suggestions
- Try running different Proton versions
Things like that.
I believe that config needs to be in the working directory context of the game, but maybe I’m misremembering that.
Yep, I tried that as well. I have the exact same file in
/gamedrive//SteamLibrary/steamapps/common/Diablo IV/If upon starting your game, it immediately starts using 10GB of vid mem, then that is what is needed by the game to run. Setting this to 8GB is going to magically make it run by using less.
But the game does quickly fill 10GB with both low and ultra settings. It hints to me that the game doesn’t need 10GB to run. It just makes use of the available memory. My theory is that using 8GB would at least make my desktop usable. Currently, switching to my browser in the second monitor can break the game. If I never focus out of the game it doesn’t break.
- Problem occurs in both x11 and wayland
- Window vs fullscreen makes no difference
- ProtonDB has some additional flags, I tried them all
- I tried several proton versions from 8 to 9, GE and no GE. Made no difference
See if you can force a specific renderer that is more stable.
What are the available options? I haven’t tried this.
Thanks a bunch!
Looking at ProtonDB, I don’t think it’s worth the trouble. All users seem to be reporting the same issues as you, so it’s probably just the nature of running it in Proton.
With i install and play i get the same issue as you, vram filling up, framerate going down, ground texture going grey and if i alt-tab at that point the game crashes.
What i have done and works - at least in my case - is the following:
- dxvk.conf with memory limit in …/steamapps/common/Diablo IV/
gamemoderun %command%in steam launch options- textures set to medium in game.
- proton GE 9-15
- I also have the high resolution assets disabled in the dlc options in steam.
I can play fine with these, vram never goes above the limit i have set in dxvk.conf. I am doing this on endeavour, default kernel (not zen), 12500H and a 8GB 4060.
The limit i set is at 6GB for the vram. The only difference might be that this is a laptop with igpu so anything else OS related is rendered on the igpu and i don’t use a second monitor. It plays fine and i can alt-tab without issues.
