So I’m getting the famous gray screen crash on trying to start the game.

I have finally moved to Linux for my main machine and almost everything is running smoothly except this game in particular.

I using Lutris to get to BattleNet. Overwatch 2 works great. But Diablo 4 just shows a gray screen for 2 or 3 seconds and then the window closes bringing me back to whatever was on the screen when it tried launching.

I’ve seen a bunch of mentions of this issue, most are for the Steam Deck or are Windows-related, and I’ve seen a lot of posts about switching Proton versions and VKD3D versions, but I cannot seem to get a working combination to just get into the game.

I don’t have a clue what is wrong or how to even diagnose what else to do here. All of the links I can find that mention anything.

I had to stop after launch because my last machine only had 4GB of RAM and would choke after a few minutes, but this machine should not be having problems.

Edit- Game is still having problems even when launched from Steam.

I cannot get Battle.net to launch with any regular Proton version or Experimental. I also can only get it running with GE after version 8-26. (only 3 versions, 8-26, 9-1, and 9-5)

But every version up to 9-5 has the gray screen for a couple seconds, then the game closes with no error message.

  • d3Xt3rEnglish
    3·
    6 months ago

    I don’t play D4 anymore so I can’t say if this still works, but back when I did, I used to launch it (ie the Battle.net launcher) from Steam, as a non-Steam game.

    I also used the latest Proton-GE as the compatibility tool, so that’s something you could try as well.

    • nhowell77@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      2·
      6 months ago

      Second this comment. I have had minimal to no issues running D4 through Steam. Was never able to get it running via Lutris.

    • wheeldawg@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
      1·
      6 months ago

      That never even occurred to me and I used to do this for non steam stuff all the time. I mean without the added learning curve of Linux but still.

      I’m gonna try that as soon as it finishes patching. If that works it would be so amazing. Almost too simple to actually work.

      Edit- It’s already working better than Lutris. It would have chunks of the UI just turn black sometimes. All the interactable bits would come back if I pointed the mouse at them, but there would be black squares and rectangles all over the place with Lutris and I just chalked it up to a weird quirk that forcing cross compatibility just brought up inherently. Never even questioned it.