Humankind
Hello @andreas-bulling, this reads like a video driver issue, ~and a recent regression from using bleeding edge mesa~. Can you how the game behaves with a point release of mesa, either from ~Ubuntu's main repos or~ (Edit: testing with mesa 21.0.3 is probably not worthwhile) kisak-mesa? Also, please share a screenshot of the rendering artifact.
From the log:
X connection to :99.0 broken (explicit kill or server shutdown).
X connection to :99.0 broken (explicit kill or server shutdown).
free(): corrupted unsorted chunks
This looks like X is crashing out from underneath the game.
I had version 21.0.3 running before (this is the version currently available in Ubuntu) and experienced the same issues. That was the reason I tried the oibaf version in the first place.
As I wrote - I can still change to a text login terminal and shutdown the system. And I can switch back to the X screen (although not use it). So not sure if X has really completely crashed - maybe this log entries are from me rebooting from the command line?
Hi @kisak-valve
I installed kisak-mesa and tried again. Same behaviour, i.e. upon loading the save game the game crashes immediately. I can still move the mouse but can't click anything anymore. I can change to the command line and reboot as before. It seems X is crashing but restarting repeatedly - at least I get sent to the login screen and, each time it tries to restart, on the command line I noticed another error message:
drm:amdgpu_cs_ioctl [amdgpu]] ERROR Failed to initialize parser -125!
System info:
OS: Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS
KERNEL: 5.11.0-34-generic
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 4750U with Radeon Graphics
GPU: AMD AMD RENOIR (DRM 3.40.0, 5.11.0-34-generic, LLVM 12.0.1)
GPU DRIVER: 4.6 Mesa 21.2.1 - kisak-mesa PPA
RAM: 31 GB
New log file attached.
steam-1124300.zip
Concerning screenshots: They wouldn't show much anyway but I can try to explain more:
Currently the game crashes immediately upon loading the save game, i.e. I can see the UI but the animation where one "flies into" the game field through the clouds simply stops. The artifacts before were, as I wrote, flickering/stuttering, i.e. the city and UI icons (e.g. to finish the round) were properly shown but only briefly. Then they disappeared again, became visible again etc.
@andreas-bulling Are you still able to reproduce with latest Mesa?
Compatibility Report
- Name of the game with compatibility issues: Humankind
- Steam AppID of the game: 1124300
System Information
- GPU: RTX 2070
- Video driver version: nvidia 580.82.09
- Kernel version: Linux 6.16.8-arch3-1
- Link to full system information report as Gist: Gist
- Proton version: Experimental
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
Current Proton Experimental appears to have a regression with Humankind. Launching the game plays an opening pre-rendered video. Letting the video run to completion or clicking to skip past the video see the game crash and unable to reach the main menu. The game had been running perfectly fine prior to the latest Experimental update from 9/19/25. Previous Proton versions 10.0-2(beta) and 9.0-4 are still working for me as of today.
Reproduction
- Launch Humankind
- Either wait for the opening video to finish or click to skip past video
- Game crashes before reaching main menu
Hello @skulwicki, as a quick test, can you also check how the game behaves with the bleeding edge Proton Experimental build?
The bleeding edge beta branch appears to have everything working as expected. I was able reach the main menu and start a game as expected. Do you have any ideas what changed between current experimental and the bleeding edge that might have broken and then fixed this issue?
Compatibility Report
- Name of the game with compatibility issues: Humankind
- Steam AppID of the game: 1124300
System Information
Distro:NixOS 26.11 (Zoker) unstable
Kernel:7.1.4-zen1
RAM:15 GB
dGPU: RTX 4070 (mobile) 8gb
GPU DRIVER: 595.84
CPU:AMD Ryzen 7 8845HS with Radeon Graphics
Steam Play Proton 9,10,11,experimental
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
The game shows terrain-deformations, looking like small mountains - this only applies if run on the dgpu on Nvidia. Where as when launching via the amd igpu it is working as expected.
I tried multiple proton versions, from 9 - experimental.
I am unsure wether this is a unfixable nvidia driver issue.
Going to chime in here to confirm that I’m seeing this terrain issue as well. Based on some other comments I’ve seen online it appears to be restricted to Linux Nvidia users.
Outside of this rendering issue, all other aspects of the game appear to still be functioning properly after several hours of gameplay.
Distro: Arch Linux with KDE
Kernel: 7.1.5
GPU: RTX 2070
GPU Driver: Nvidia-open 610.43.03
CPU: Intel i7 8700K
Small Update: The current Proton Experimental + open nvidia driver 580 seems working again. I will check more up to date Nvidia Drivers in a couple of days.
Adding to this, current Proton Experimental + nvidia-open 610.57.04 is still showing the rendering issue.
For me Proton Experimental + 610.57.04 is working as well. I have Kernel 7.1.9-zen1 now.
Interesting, it seems that Proton Experimental had an update this morning and I'm no longer seeing the terrain issue. I'm currently running Proton Experimental updated as of this morning + Nvidia-open 610.57.04 on Arch Linux kernel 7.1.10. Curious what changed in Proton. @kisak-valve might be worth adding to the change log that this regression was fixed or do we not have enough info on the root cause for it to be part of the change log?
Proton versions
proton experimentalx6 2026-08proton 6.3-6x1 2021-09
Compatibility Report
System Information
Distro:Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS
Kernel:5.11.0-34-generic
RAM:31 GB
GPU DRIVER: 4.6 Mesa 21.3.0-devel (git-27f2c9d 2021-09-07 focal-oibaf-ppa)
GPU: AMD AMD RENOIR (DRM 3.40.0, 5.11.0-34-generic, LLVM 12.0.1)
CPU:AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 4750U with Radeon Graphics
Steam Play Proton 6.3-6
I confirm:
Symptoms
I had problems with this game from the very beginning. At first, I "only" encountered a very annoying flickering of the avatars in the diplomacy screen. This flickering then, however, often continued in the main screen where units, UI changes etc would "stutter", i.e. elements would briefly disappear and reappear. I could still play the game by reloading autosaves for about 50 rounds. I tried many things (different Proton versions including experimental and the version from GloriousEggroll, fullscreen vs. window mode, disabling the steam overlay, add -force-vertex as reported elsewhere) but nothing helped. Other people seem to be having very similar problems from what I can tell after reading through reddit and other forum posts.
Something then changed because since about two days ago the game simply crashes completely at random points in time. Sound still plays, I can move the mouse, but I can't click anywhere and I also can't tab out to Ubuntu. I have to change to a console and reboot the system - sometimes even a hard reset is necessary. I've started multiple new games and I could all play them fine (sometimes even without the annoying flickering/stuttering) but only for a certain number of rounds.
One game I played until round 30 before it crashed. This game I can't load at all anymore now - the game crashes instantly upon finishing loading. That is, I can see the game UI but the icons on the map and the UI flicker and I can't click anywhere.
Logfile
steam-1124300.zip