Dead Cells starts with no visuals

[alkazar]

Your system information

• Steam client version: latest (can't find version information)
• SteamOS version: N/A (I am using Arch Linux with steamos-compositor 1.35)
• Opted into Steam client beta?: Yes
• Opted into SteamOS beta?: N/A
• Have you checked for updates in Settings > System?: Yes

Please describe your issue in as much detail as possible:

Dead Cells is not playable with the SteamOS compositor. I have also confirmed this on SteamOS in the past (around Nov. 2018) although I am currently using Arch Linux.

Expected result: When I start Dead Cells, the game screen should appear.

Actual result: Dead Cells starts (I can hear the music) but the game window does not appear. Instead I see the loading bar animation indefinitely. I also have to force restart the computer.

Steps for reproducing this issue:

1. Start Dead Cells

More info

Related: https://github.com/ValveSoftware/SteamOS/issues/612

I believe this also affects other games, but have not confirmed this on SteamOS.

I have determined that the issue is that, for whatever reason, Dead Cells is not receiving the STEAM_GAME X window property which is needed for the SteamOS compositor to focus the window. I tried manually setting that property with xprop and the window appeared.

I have also created two projects to work around this issue, one is a script that will focus any game with xprop, and the second project is a fork of steamos-compositor that fixes this issue directly. I include the links to the projects below for reference: https://github.com/alkazar/steamos-fg https://github.com/alkazar/steamos-compositor

The SteamOS compositor patches to fix this are a bit of a hack and probably unlikely to be merged, but do work perfectly.

Link to the diff: https://github.com/alkazar/steamos-compositor/compare/3a82e883918a3f01bbb91b3e62806295c622c023...1.1.0

[sloshdots]

I have the same problem with Dead Cells on SteamOS as alkazar describes. I.e. I hear the music from the game, but all I see is Steams loading animation. A force restart is required to escape. However, the game works fine with Proton 5.07.

SteamOS version: 2.0 update 1:2.195 Steam client build: Apr 27 2020 21:53:21 Steam version: 1588032389