[SOLVED]: the issue was not Linux 7.1, it was Proton Experimental. I just updated to latest bleeding edge (which is needed to run Arc Raiders with Denuvo anti-cheat), and issue fixed.
The game crashed to a blank screen when launched via Steam due to a “critical driver pipeline fault on the Radeon RX 7900 XT”. If I made the game unfocused - e.g. hit command key - the game was visible.
Under Linux 7.1, the amdgpu driver and Mesa layers require explicit compute compiler paths to execute Unreal Engine 5 shader pipelines. Because the global desktop session lacked these paths, the driver hit a context fault and dropped rendering textures.
Launching via the Ghostty terminal made the game display correctly because it inherited the fish shell environment where the ROCm binaries were already exported.
Key Results
- Driver & Compositor Faults: Monitoring
dmesgandjournalctlunder Linux 7.1 exposed explicit Vulkan memory context drop errors (Could not delete texture because no context is current) tracking back to the hardware execution layer. - Environment Disparity: Confirmed that
ROCM_PATH=/opt/rocmand the corresponding binary paths were present in the terminal environment but entirely absent from the desktop service layer.
The Fix
Steam launch options:
ROCM_PATH="/opt/rocm" PATH="/opt/rocm/bin:/usr/bin:/bin" %command%
or typical launch options:
ROCM_PATH="/opt/rocm" PATH="/opt/rocm/bin:/usr/bin:/bin" PROTON_LOCAL_SHADER_CACHE=1 PROTON_ENABLE_WAYLAND=1 MANGOHUD=1 game-performance %command%
The game now displays and runs but is suffering massive lock-ups lasting 10 to 30 seconds, very bad stutter, plus low FPS (80 versus 110 that I usually get). This is running Proton Experimental bleeding edge, needed for the $%^&*! Denuvo anti-cheat.
Summary
It seems gaming, for Arc Raiders at least, is FUBARed.
Note: apologies for the LLM slop, but it did provide the correct fix - after a lot of direction from me!