protonscr

Darkest Hour: A Hearts of Iron Game

protonopen appid 73170Game compatibility - UnofficialRegression.NET
ValveSoftware/Proton#3338 · opened 2019-12-19 by IanTrudel · updated 2025-07-05 · 5 comments · github · game page · search this game
IIanTrudel 2019-12-19 github

Compatibility Report

  • Name of the game with compatibility issues: Darkest Hour: A Hearts of Iron Game
  • Steam AppID of the game: 73170

System Information

  • GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660M
  • Driver/LLVM version: NVIDIA 435.27.07
  • Kernel version: 5.3.12
  • Link to full system information report as Gist:
  • Proton version: 4.11-10 (not working), 4.2-9 (working)

I confirm:

  • [x] that I haven't found an existing compatibility report for this game.
  • [x] that I have checked whether there are updates for my system available.

Symptoms

Proton 4.11-10:

  • The default resolution required is 1024x768 but this version of Proton only lists my system resolution (1920x1080). This leads to several errors and the game doesn't load.

steam-73170.log

Proton 4.2-9:

  • The game loads and renders properly but tend to crash rather often while playing a game or even during the tutorial.

steam-73170.log

Reproduction

  1. protontricks 73170 -q --force dotnet20sp2 gdiplus directplay winxp
  2. Launch the game, launcher will show up, uncheck play intro and then click launch.
  3. Click tutorial and select any tutorial.
  4. Crash and burn.
Kkisak-valve maintainer 2019-12-19 github

Looks like this game would also benefit from support for Quartz maturing.

IIanTrudel 2019-12-19 github

Looks like this game would also benefit from support for Quartz maturing.

Most likely. It's on the older side and components required to run it are dating (such as dotnet 2.0).

On a side note, setting the resolution to my native resolution in the launcher and creating a virtual desktop using winecfg seem to prevent the game from crashing.

RRaduAvramescu 2025-07-05 github

On my system, the game fails to work on Proton 10.0-1 (beta) or Proton Experimental due to an error. Proton 9.0-4 appears to be the last version that works, so it looks like there's some kind of regression here.

The error that appears upon launching:

Your computer appears not to support any of the game resolutions. At least 1024x768 resolution is required. This minimal resolution will be set for the game, however it may not run properly.

After that, the launcher of the game opens, with 1024x768 listed as the only possible resolution. Clicking "Launch" from the launcher results in an error: "Fatal error: Could not initialize Video"

System Specifications:

OS: Fedora Silverblue 42
Kernel: 6.15.4
GPU Driver: 575.64
GNOME Version: 48
Windowing System: Wayland
Processor: AMD Ryzen 7 9800x3D
GPU: Nvidia RTX 5080
RAM: 2x16GB DDR5 6000 CL30
Display: LG C2 42"
Resolution: 3840x2160

Note: On Proton 9.0-4, the error doesn't appear, and the launcher has multiple options for resolution, including 3840x2160.

Kkisak-valve maintainer 2025-07-05 github

Hello @RaduAvramescu, please add PROTON_LOG=1 %command% to the game's launch options, reproduce the regression, and attach the generated $HOME/steam-$APPID.log to this issue report as a file. (Proton logs compress well if needed.) Also, please copy the contents of Steam Runtime Diagnostics from Steam (Steam -> Help -> Steam Runtime Diagnostics) and put it in a gist, then include a link to the gist in this issue report.

RRaduAvramescu 2025-07-05 github

Hello @RaduAvramescu, please add PROTON_LOG=1 %command% to the game's launch options, reproduce the regression, and attach the generated $HOME/steam-$APPID.log to this issue report as a file. (Proton logs compress well if needed.) Also, please copy the contents of Steam Runtime Diagnostics from Steam (Steam -> Help -> Steam Runtime Diagnostics) and put it in a gist, then include a link to the gist in this issue report.

Hello, and thank you for coming back to me so quickly.

I've actually done a bit more testing and I think the issue is a bit more nuanced. It may not be directly a Proton issue itself, but more of a Proton fork issue (GE-Proton).

Here were my steps when trying to initially get the game to run:

  1. My default Proton set on Steam was GE-Proton10-8
  2. I installed the game
  3. Noticed the error was happening
  4. Changed to Proton 10.0-1 (beta), the issue persisted
  5. Changed to Proton Experimental, the issue persisted
  6. Changed to Proton 9.0-4, the issue did not persist

However, I noticed an interesting thing. Once I deleted ~/.steam/steamapps/compatdata/73170 (this should be the ID of the game), and restarted the game with Proton 10.0-1 (beta) as the selected Proton version, the issue did not occur anymore.

I don't have much knowledge here, but what I can point out is that GE-Proton sets up a virtual desktop for this game:

util.protontricks('vd=1280x720')

So, I would guess that switching Proton version keeps this virtual desktop intact potentially, because when selecting Proton 10.0-1 (beta) after GE-Proton10-8 for instance, the app has window borders and a "Wine Desktop" title. This is not the case after deleting the prefix.

After clearing the prefix, I managed to play a bit with Proton 10.0-1 (beta) without issue. I think what I'll do here is I'll make an issue report (or make a PR myself) to remove the fix from GE-Proton that sets a virtual desktop for this game, as it seems it's no longer needed.

Here's the Proton log, in any case:
steam-73170.log

And the gist: https://gist.github.com/RaduAvramescu/e6ef4c0f33f0abe930f40a0e4cf9b34c

Proton versions

Launch options