Summary
Steam Game Recording causes Deadlock running under Proton (DX11 via DXVK → Vulkan) to crash instantly when opening UI menus on AMD systems using RADV. Crash is caused by an assertion failure when Steam attempts to load libnvidia-ml.so.1.

System Information

• OS: Ubuntu 24.04 LTS (Linux)
• GPU: AMD Radeon™ RX 9070 XT (RADV / Mesa)
• Driver: Mesa 25.3.1 - kisak-mesa PPA (RADV)
• Desktop: GNOME (Wayland)
• Steam client: Stable
• Game: Deadlock (AppID 1422450)
• Runtime: Proton
• Graphics API: DirectX 11 via DXVK (Vulkan backend)

Steps to Reproduce

1. Enable Steam Game Recording
2. Launch Deadlock
3. Open any UI / text menu (e.g. press Escape or attempt to queue)
4. Game crashes immediately

Expected Result
Game continues running normally when opening menus with Game Recording enabled.

Actual Result
Game crashes instantly.

Relevant Log Output

src/public/tier1/interface.h (271) : Assertion Failed: Failed to load "libnvidia-ml.so.1"
assert_20251217003947_9.dmp[56281]: Uploading dump (out-of-process)

Workaround
Disabling Steam Game Recording for Deadlock or globally prevents the crash entirely.

Additional Notes

• This appears to be Steam overlay / recording code unconditionally probing NVML on non-NVIDIA systems.
• The crash does not occur if Game Recording is disabled.
• This previously worked correctly, suggesting a recent Steam regression.