Steam/Proton games crash immediately on Hyprland - fix: gamescope

[sebishogun]

Problem

Steam games using Proton crash immediately after launching (2-3 seconds, no window appears). Affects multiple games (EU5, CS2, etc.).

Environment

• Omarchy with Hyprland (Wayland)
• AMD GPU

Root Cause

Proton/Wine games expect X11 window management semantics (fullscreen handling, input grabbing, etc.) that Hyprland/Wayland doesn't provide directly. Games fail to initialize and crash silently.

Solution

1. Install required packages

sudo pacman -S vulkan-radeon lib32-vulkan-radeon lib32-mesa lib32-gnutls lib32-libpulse gamescope

2. Add launch option to Steam games

Right-click game → Properties → Launch Options:

gamescope -W 1920 -H 1080 -f -- %command%

Adjust resolution to match your monitor.

Why this works

Gamescope creates a nested compositor that:

• Provides a proper XWayland environment games expect
• Handles fullscreen mode translation between X11 and Wayland
• Manages input grabbing correctly
• Acts as a compatibility layer between Proton/Wine and Hyprland

Related

• Discussion Opinionated Steam Game Scope TUI #3602 (W.O.P.R. gaming launcher - includes gamescope)

[JakePi3]

Although I used gamescope initially to fix my problems I found it wasn't necessary in the end. Got all the problematic games working without it using:

unset SDL_VIDEODRIVER; %command%

Try it out, this fixed Arc Raider and Absolum for me.

Gamescope introduced other problems for me, such as mouse events not being handled correctly, and Steam overlay permanently losing focus. I think they are fixable but you really have to tweak gamescope options beyond just setting resolution.

[Tsurgcom]

I have never experienced this issue on an NVIDIA graphics card. This must be an issue exclusive to AMD graphics cards and not all of hyprland.

My `fastfetch`

┌──────────────────────Hardware──────────────────────┐
 PC: Tsurg
│ ├: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-14700F (16+12) @ 5.40 GHz
│ ├: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 [Discrete]
│ ├󱄄: 1920x1080 in 23", 60 Hz [External]
│ ├󰋊: 125.35 GiB / 929.50 GiB (13%) - btrfs
└────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

┌──────────────────────Software──────────────────────┐
 OS: Omarchy 3.3.3
│ ├󰘬: master
│ ├󰔫: stable
│ ├: Linux 6.18.3-arch1-1
│ ├: Hyprland 0.53.1 (Wayland)
│ ├: ghostty 1.2.3-arch2
│ ├󰏖: 1184 (pacman)
│ ├󰸌: Flexoki Light ●●●●●●●●
└ └: JetBrainsMono Nerd Font (9pt)
└────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

┌────────────────Age / Uptime / Update───────────────┐
󱦟 OS Age: 7 days
󱫐 Uptime: 6 hours, 19 mins
 Update: Wednesday, January 07 2026 at 21:41
└────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘