I can reproduce the same issue. steam-700600.log

System Information

• GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti
• Driver/LLVM version: NVIDIA 460.67
• Kernel version: 5.11.7-051107-generic
• Link to full system information report as Gist
• Proton version: Proton Experimental

I can also reproduce this issue, though I notice my backtrace is different:

Backtrace:
=>0 0x000000007b45318c GetFirmwareEnvironmentVariableW+0x17c() in kernel32 (0x000000000022f3e0)
0x000000007b45318c GetFirmwareEnvironmentVariableW+0x17c in kernel32: leaq	0xfffffffffffffff0(%rbp),%rsp

I get the impression that GetFirmwareEnvironmentVariableW is a nop in Wine, which the other backtraces seem to confirm.

System Information

• GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970
• Driver/LLVM version: NVIDIA 460.67
• Kernel version: 5.11.10-200.fc33.x86_64
• Link to full system information report as Gist
• Proton version: Proton 5.13-6

Bypassing the launcher...

cd ../Steam/steamapps/common/Evil Genius 2/Launcher
mv eg2.exe eg2.exe.sav
ln -s ../bin/evilgenius_vulkan.exe

I did actually get the game to produce a snippet of sound a few times before it barfed. Lately, I get an actual popup from what seems like the game saying that it failed to run.

Using Proton 6.1-GE-2 and bypassing the launcher by linking it to ../bin/evilgenius_vulkan.exe has let me play the game perfectly fine, though it doesn't exit cleanly and has to be stopped through Steam afterwards.

Using Proton 6.1-GE-2 and bypassing the launcher by linking it to ../bin/evilgenius_vulkan.exe has let me play the game perfectly fine, though it doesn't exit cleanly and has to be stopped through Steam afterwards.

I've tried this, but I still get failures akin to what @sidrew reports (including with 6.1-GE-2 specifically).

Using Proton 6.1-GE-2 and bypassing the launcher by linking it to ../bin/evilgenius_vulkan.exe has let me play the game perfectly fine, though it doesn't exit cleanly and has to be stopped through Steam afterwards.

Can confirm this does get it to work. However it changes scaling to 200% on gnome for me, it caused my screen to freak out a little too unless I set it to boarderless rather than full screen. I'll have to try it later tonight to see if I can replicate it without an external display. I was able to play for about 30 min without any other problems.

Bypassing the launcher was sufficient for me. I didn't even need to change the Proton version.
steam-700600.log (from before it worked)
system information

I eventually ran it with Proton 6.5-GE-1 and bypassing the launcher. Worked perfectly, including closing the game and external display. It did flicker a bit during launch but otherwise playable.

Bypassing the launcher...

cd ../Steam/steamapps/common/Evil Genius 2/Launcher
mv eg2.exe eg2.exe.sav
ln -s ../bin/evilgenius_vulkan.exe

I did actually get the game to produce a snippet of sound a few times before it barfed. Lately, I get an actual popup from what seems like the game saying that it failed to run.

Doing the same, but using Proton 5.13-6 makes it work nearly perfectly on my Debian GNU/Linux testing system (running on Ryzen 4800H + Radeon 5500M hardware).
The only issue is the mouse cursor being very laggy in the menu. But that problem goes away when I check the "Disable mouse lag" option in the graphics settings.

Ok, so the game is playable if we work around the crappy launcher. What do we do with this issue then? Close it as there is a workaround or keep it for launcher issues?

@PatTheSilent afaik unofficial game compatibility issues do not get closed on this tracker, even if the game works flawlessly.

Bypassing the launcher...

cd ../Steam/steamapps/common/Evil Genius 2/Launcher
mv eg2.exe eg2.exe.sav
ln -s ../bin/evilgenius_vulkan.exe

I did actually get the game to produce a snippet of sound a few times before it barfed. Lately, I get an actual popup from what seems like the game saying that it failed to run.

It seems we're the only ones the workaround doesn't work for so far. I'm on i3/gentoo/nvidia proprietary drivers/my monitor is 4k.

Do any of these match up with you?

@class101 wow 😮

@GloriousEggroll do you think this kernel32.dll fix can be added to the next GE release or do you foresee side effects?

Nothing works for me so more digging is needed.

@steve7233 if you do not attach the Proton log, I doubt anyone will be able to help you.

<!-- Please add `PROTON_LOG=1 %command%` to the game's launch options and drag
and drop the generated `$HOME/steam-$APPID.log` into this issue report -->

@leinardi Thank you :)

@steve7233 I think if the simple renaming method does not work for you, it is not necessary to test what I posted because it will not do any magic and you will come across the same error after the launcher.

What I posted just allows to run the launcher as expected, so the futur Evil Genius 2 updates will not overwrite the changes, but the Proton updates will overwrite the change anyway, so it is far from perfect anyway.

You should post your log indeed as leinardi wrote so everyone can help you to run it

Bypassing the launcher...
cd ../Steam/steamapps/common/Evil Genius 2/Launcher
mv eg2.exe eg2.exe.sav
ln -s ../bin/evilgenius_vulkan.exe
I did actually get the game to produce a snippet of sound a few times before it barfed. Lately, I get an actual popup from what seems like the game saying that it failed to run.

It seems we're the only ones the workaround doesn't work for so far. I'm on i3/gentoo/nvidia proprietary drivers/my monitor is 4k.

Do any of these match up with you?

I'm on Ubuntu 21.04, Intel Xeon, nVidia/Intel (Dell Notebook)... anyone with nVidia getting this to work?

My error log:

steam-700600.log

@sidrew 2080Ti here, it starts fine for me:

I can't do more tests right now but, if you don't even reach this screen, this should be a confirmation that not all the Nvidia users are affected. Btw, I tested with GE 6.5.

@sidrew I'm running a 1660s with latest proprietary drivers and I've played it for 7 hours yesterday.

@sidrew I'm running a 1660s with latest proprietary drivers and I've played it for 7 hours yesterday.

Meh... okay... I'm on a Quadro RTX 5000 in my lappy... it just doesn't want to play along. :)

Proton-6.5-GE-1

Editing the kernel32.dll doesnt work for me :(

EDIT: With log
http://ix.io/2URy

Proton-6.5-GE-1

Editing the kernel32.dll doesnt work for me :(

@noahrama

<!-- Please add `PROTON_LOG=1 %command%` to the game's launch options and drag
and drop the generated `$HOME/steam-$APPID.log` into this issue report -->

Bypassing the launcher...

cd ../Steam/steamapps/common/Evil Genius 2/Launcher
mv eg2.exe eg2.exe.sav
ln -s ../bin/evilgenius_vulkan.exe

I did actually get the game to produce a snippet of sound a few times before it barfed. Lately, I get an actual popup from what seems like the game saying that it failed to run.

Worked with the exception that the link command needs to be named eg2.exe as well for it to work for me.
ln -s ../bin/evilgenius_vulkan.exe eg2.exe

Replying to https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/4708#issuecomment-812822791

Yeah... of course, looks like I truncated my paste. Woops.

I redid the link command with ln -s ../bin/evilgenius_vulkan.exe eg2.exe This got the game working and when I excited it closed correctly just took a few seconds to get the green steam play button to light up. Going to conquer the world now! Haaaaaa *Evil laugh 😈

I forgot to add Proton 6.3-2

It seems we're the only ones the workaround doesn't work for so far. I'm on i3/gentoo/nvidia proprietary drivers/my monitor is 4k.

Do any of these match up with you?

@GBeauregard absolutely same config. 2070 Super with nvidia-drivers-465.19.01 and kernel 5.11.11.

It seems we're the only ones the workaround doesn't work for so far. I'm on i3/gentoo/nvidia proprietary drivers/my monitor is 4k.
Do any of these match up with you?

@GBeauregard absolutely same config. 2070 Super with nvidia-drivers-465.19.01 and kernel 5.11.11.

I did eventually get it working... for a while... on my Ubuntu 21.04 (beta) box... until a new mesa and/or nvidia driver package came out and blew it up. So... seems like on my nvidia quadro rtx 5000 notebook system... it's very touchy with drivers. Had similar issues with BG3 ... worked for a while... then nothing.

I wonder if AC might be a similar problem.

Okay... I've gotten this to work on my Ubuntu 21.04 nvidia Quadro RTX 5000 setup... using Proton Experimental and the dx12 binary... doesn't seem to want to work with Vulkan though.

It seems like this might be an issue with Intel/nVidia prime stuff.... I can get the game to launch and play properly if and only if I have a monitor connected via HDMI... if I'm on my built-in lappy screen only... it barfs and segfaults...

Hey all,

so i had it working with GE-6.4 and the renaming fix. now, after a few weeks i cant start it anymore. i installed GE-6.5 and getting this error:

here is the log file:
steam-700600.log

My System:
https://gist.github.com/D1Ck3n/92f38760c7b7d23858208411bacf2f49

@D1Ck3n GE is a third party version of Proton and should be reported to its author, it is not a product by Valve.

Else on the topic of Proton

Current version of Evil Genius 2 works fine with Proton 6.3-3

I have verified that Proton 6.3-3 fixes all the above problems and now the launcher is showing perfectly without any file modification required.

Thank you guys for working on it !

@class101 yeah i know but it also does not work for me with Proton 6.3-3, sadly.

if i try to run it with this proton Version nothing happens only the steam button change from "running" to "play"

here is the log with proton 6.3-3:
steam-700600.log

There was a new Update for EG2 (1.3) maybe this breaks it again?

As i see on protondb, i'm not the only one where 6.3-3 is not working

@D1Ck3n Ty for the proton log

My version is EG 1.3 too and both Vulkan and DirectX12 mode works as intended.

I have compared your output compared to mine, and you seem to crash after

 trace:loaddll:build_module Loaded L"C:\\windows\\system32\\d3d11.dll"  native
 trace:loaddll:build_module Loaded L"C:\\windows\\system32\\nvapi64.dll"  builtin

Here if I start the game in Vulkan mode, there is no trace of d3d11.dll in my log being loaded, and nvapi64.dll does not exist at all in my proton prefix, and you crash straight after that

Edit: I have added my startup log in case you want to compare
steam-700600.log

OS: Arch Linux x86_64 
Kernel: 5.12.1-zen2-1-zen 
Resolution: 1920x1080 
DE: Cinnamon 4.8.6 
CPU: Intel i7-4770K (8) @ 3.900GHz 
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 

thats very strange!

i did a second test on my Dell Precision 5520 but got the same result:

steam-700600.log

My Dell: https://gist.github.com/D1Ck3n/5b96c6f18b71a9eeec27c84581eeaae1

@D1Ck3n

or

WINEDLLOVERRIDES="*amd_ags_x64=d"

On your Dell with no AMD Gpus you seem to crash after the load of amd_ags_x64, so there is probably something wrong around this, I was crashing too if I remember before 6.3-3 and after loading this file.

Your first computer configuration seems a bit different because you have both Nvidia and AMD gpus on this one. Maybe in both cases, this "AMD" file is your trouble

@class101 i'll try this variable!

Yeah i forgot to mention that the nvidia GPU is for my GPU Passthrouth to my Win10 VM 😅 normally the Nvidia GPU should not be detected by my host system.

Hey @class101, sadly the variables doesn't change anything.
I can't get my head around this: I played the game with Proton for 12 hours and suddenly it doesn't run at all. Slowly I run out of ideas.

small update:

this fixed my Dell but i still have the Problem on my main PC :(

okay, i fixed my issue!

i had this Standalone Vulkan Driver installed and dont know why anymore :D

removed it and it work now like before <3

@class101 thanks for the answers anyway!

I've tried everything in this issue, and a lot of different proton versions, but still no success. Running Linux mint (kernel 6.5.0) and with GTX 1650 dedicated graphics (using prformance mode in nvidia prime). I noticed that when I switch to nvidia on-demand, the game runs with my iGPU (intel), and works with ~10 FPS.
When I force the use of the dedicated GPU, I get a very unhelpful error:

steam-700600.log

Does anyone have an idea how to fix this?

Ah thanks :)
I will try tomorrow.

Next day and... nothing
EG2 opens up with a black screen, and crashes shortly after.
steam-700600.log
My system:
System info.txt