PUBG 578080 fails to launch: navagio.sys loads but ZwLoadDriver fails under Proton

Proton version

GE-Proton 11-3
Wine-Staging 11.0

Distribution

CachyOS x86_64

Kernel

Linux 7.1.x-cachyos

Desktop environment

KDE Plasma / Wayland

GPU

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12 GB

NVIDIA driver 610.xx

Game

PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS

Steam AppID: 578080

Problem

PUBG fails to launch under Proton.

The failure appears to occur during PUBG's anti-cheat initialization. The PUBG anti-cheat driver navagio.sys is successfully found and loaded by Wine as a native Windows driver image, but Wine subsequently fails to create/load the corresponding Windows driver service.

The critical error is:

ZwLoadDriver failed to create driver
L"\Registry\Machine\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\navagio":
c0000001

After this failure, belauncher.exe starts, followed by TslGame.exe. The game then produces multiple SIGSYS events and terminates with:

EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION
code=c0000005

This appears to indicate that the anti-cheat driver initialization is failing before normal game execution can proceed.

Reproduction

1. Install PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS through Steam.
2. Launch the game using Proton/GE-Proton.
3. Steam starts the Proton environment normally.
4. PUBG's anti-cheat initialization begins.
5. navagio.sys is loaded.
6. ZwLoadDriver fails.
7. belauncher.exe starts.
8. TslGame.exe starts.
9. Several SIGSYS events occur.
10. TslGame.exe terminates with EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION (c0000005).

Relevant log

The most important section of the log is:

222219.877:01c0:01cc:trace:loaddll:build_module
Loaded L"C:\\Program Files\\Common Files\\PUBG\\navagio.sys"
at 0000000100400000: native

222220.240:01c0:01cc:err:ntoskrnl:
ZwLoadDriver failed to create driver
L"\\Registry\\Machine\\System\\CurrentControlSet\\Services\\navagio":
c0000001

222220.857:01e0:01e4:trace:seh:sigsys_handler
SIGSYS, rax 0xffff, rip 0x600000000005

222220.858:01e0:01e4:trace:loaddll:build_module
Loaded L"c:\\windows\\system32\\belauncher.exe"
at 0000000140000000: builtin

222221.208:01f4:01f8:trace:seh:sigsys_handler
SIGSYS, rax 0xffff, rip 0x600000000005

222221.213:01f4:01f8:trace:seh:sigsys_handler
SIGSYS, rax 0x33, rip 0x1580862e0

222221.213:01f4:01f8:trace:seh:sigsys_handler
SIGSYS, rax 0x4a, rip 0x1580862b0

222221.213:01f4:01f8:trace:seh:sigsys_handler
SIGSYS, rax 0xf, rip 0x1580862e0

222221.213:01f4:01f8:trace:seh:sigsys_handler
SIGSYS, rax 0x28, rip 0x1580862b0

222221.213:01f4:01f8:trace:seh:sigsys_handler
SIGSYS, rax 0xf, rip 0x1580862e0

222221.213:01f4:01f8:trace:seh:sigsys_handler
SIGSYS, rax 0xffffffff00000050, rip 0x1580862b0

222221.214:01f4:01f8:trace:seh:sigsys_handler
SIGSYS, rax 0x50, rip 0x1580862e0

222221.217:01f4:01f8:trace:seh:dispatch_exception
code=c0000005 (EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION)
addr=000000015856B4BD

Additional information

A registry query was performed against the PUBG Proton prefix:

WINEPREFIX="$HOME/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/compatdata/578080/pfx" \
~/.local/share/Steam/compatibilitytools.d/GE-Proton11-3/files/bin/wine \
reg query 'HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services' | grep -i navagio

No navagio service entry was returned.

This may indicate that the driver service was not successfully registered, although I cannot determine from the available information whether this is expected behaviour for Wine's driver emulation or a consequence of the failed ZwLoadDriver call.

Other driver-related error

Earlier in the same log Wine reports:

222212.840:00a8:00b4:err:ntoskrnl:
ZwLoadDriver failed to create driver
L"\\Registry\\Machine\\System\\CurrentControlSet\\Services\\winebth":
c0000142

This appears to be Wine's winebth Bluetooth driver and occurs before PUBG's navagio failure.

I do not know whether this is related, but it is included for completeness.

Observations

The following parts of the startup sequence appear to work:

• Steam launches the Proton environment.
• Wine initializes successfully.
• PUBG starts its anti-cheat initialization.
• navagio.sys exists in the expected location.
• Wine successfully maps navagio.sys as a native module.
• Wine reaches ZwLoadDriver.
• belauncher.exe starts.
• TslGame.exe starts.

The failure occurs specifically when attempting to turn the loaded navagio.sys image into a functioning Windows kernel driver:

navagio.sys
    ↓
ZwLoadDriver()
    ↓
c0000001
    ↓
driver initialization failure
    ↓
belauncher.exe
    ↓
TslGame.exe
    ↓
SIGSYS events
    ↓
EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION

This does not appear to be a missing-file or basic game-launch failure.

Questions

Could the Proton/Wine developers clarify whether:

1. navagio.sys is expected to be loadable through Proton?
2. The ZwLoadDriver → c0000001 failure is expected for this driver?
3. Wine currently implements the Windows kernel functionality required by navagio.sys?
4. The subsequent SIGSYS calls correspond to unsupported Windows/NT functionality used by the anti-cheat?
5. The final EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION is a consequence of the failed anti-cheat driver initialization?
6. There is a known Proton limitation preventing this PUBG anti-cheat implementation from functioning?

If this is fundamentally a limitation of PUBG's current anti-cheat configuration rather than a Proton implementation issue, confirmation of that would also be useful.

Full log

The complete Proton/Wine log is available as:

~/steam-578080.log

Diagnostic files:

~/pubg-diagnostics/20260810-020441/

The relevant PUBG Proton prefix is:

~/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/compatdata/578080/pfx

Expected behaviour

PUBG should pass anti-cheat initialization and continue to the game.

Actual behaviour

navagio.sys is loaded, but ZwLoadDriver fails with c0000001. PUBG subsequently starts belauncher.exe and TslGame.exe, but the game terminates with EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION (c0000005).

Additional note

I am aware that anti-cheat support on Proton can require game-developer-side enablement/configuration. This issue is primarily intended to document the exact behaviour observed in Wine/Proton and determine whether the navagio.sys/ZwLoadDriver failure is expected or represents a Proton/Wine compatibility problem.