Bug report: Fedora 43 causes black screens in most Proton games

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Hello,
I recently updated my PC (NVIDIA GPU) from Fedora 42 GNOME to version 43, and since then I’ve been having problems with Steam games running on Proton not working properly.

Problem description: Since the update, most games start with a black screen and sound, if anything. Some also display an error message regarding a resolution change (tested with: Ember Knights, The Evil Within, Manor Lord, Noobs are Coming, The Outlast Trials which all worked on Fedora 42).

Special cases: A few games continue to work, e.g., Faster than Light (Native) and Vampire Survivor (Gold), but I don’t know why that is.

Solutions that didn’t work:

  • Restart
  • Reinstall Steam
  • Check graphics card drivers
  • Add start option for games DRI_PRIME=1 %command%
  • Explicitly select the external graphics card via the “GPU Supergfxctl Switch” extension
  • Tried different Proton versions (Hotfix, Experimental, 10.0-2, 9.0-4, 8.0-5)

Workaround: Start Steam via the terminal by using the command steam. Then all games will work as before without any further configuration being necessary.

Update: During my research, I discovered that this is because the environment variable VK_LOADER_DRIVERS_SELECT=*intel* is set. This should actually be VK_LOADER_DRIVERS_SELECT=*nvidia*. I don’t know why it worked with Fedora42, but this is set for the GNOME application and not for the terminal.

1 Like
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what nvidia driver do you have?

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Driver Version: 580.95.05

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I’ve been dealing with this exact same issue and finally figured it out after weeks of troubleshooting.

What’s happening: Steam’s desktop file has PrefersNonDefaultGPU=true and X-KDE-RunOnDiscreteGpu=true in it, which are supposed to help laptops use their discrete GPU. But on systems like ours where Nvidia is already the main GPU, GNOME interprets this as “use the OTHER GPU” and sends everything to your Intel integrated graphics instead. That’s why you’re getting black screens.

Why terminal works: Launching from terminal bypasses GNOME’s desktop launcher entirely, so it just uses what your system is actually configured for (Nvidia).

The fix that worked for me:

cp /usr/share/applications/steam.desktop ~/.local/share/applications/
nano ~/.local/share/applications/steam.desktop

Find these two lines and comment them out with a #:

# PrefersNonDefaultGPU=true
# X-KDE-RunOnDiscreteGpu=true

Then:

update-desktop-database ~/.local/share/applications/

Log out and back in. That fixed Steam for me.

Note: GNOME wasn’t picking up my changes from the local file, so I ended up editing the global /usr/share/applications/steam.desktop file instead. Just be aware that package updates might overwrite this.

Per-game quick fix: If you just need one game working right now, you can also right-click the game in Steam → Properties → Launch Options and add:

VK_LOADER_DRIVERS_SELECT=*nvidia* %command%

Blender issue: I also ran into the same problem with Blender when using its Vulkan renderer. Just commenting out PrefersNonDefaultGPU=true wasn’t enough - I had to also explicitly force Nvidia in the Exec line:

nano ~/.local/share/applications/blender.desktop

Comment out the flag:

# PrefersNonDefaultGPU=true

And change the Exec line from:

Exec=/path/to/blender %f

To:

Exec=env VK_LOADER_DRIVERS_SELECT=*nvidia* /path/to/blender %f

Then clear cache and log out/in again. Seems like any 3D application with this flag runs into the same issue.

This is apparently a known bug that affects both GNOME and KDE on dual-GPU systems. Pretty frustrating that it made it into Fedora 43.

1 Like
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The tags on this have Wayland listed. I’m using KDE, with Wayland and experience no issues with gaming. , so I’m inclined to remove Wayland from the tags; I don’t think it’s involved in this issue.

Someone stick it back in there if the consensus is against this.

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Thank you so much @lordypandaz
I’ve been struggling with this for hours.