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Rockstar Games decided to update the Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition which includes Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and Grand Theft Auto III but it seems you'll need this quick fix to run it now on Steam Deck.

Various players have been reporting a "Fatal error" being encountered when trying to play any of them. However, there's two workarounds I know of to get around it. What's interesting is that this might be specific to the Steam Deck OLED, as it's to do with HDR not working. So you can try this launch option first:

DXVK_HDR=0 %command%

To do this. Go into the game in your Steam Library, over to the little cog icon on the right for the Properties, and put that in the Launch Options box.

Another potential workaround is to force DirectX 12 for it:

%command% -dx12


Pictured - Grand Theft Auto III – The Definitive Edition

An update for DXVK was merged that should fix this so it's likely to land in Proton Experimental sometime soon. After that, Valve will probably then switch the three games in the collection to default to it until a new main version of Proton is released. At least until then, you can use those workarounds to play each game.

According to Rockstar the update for the collection contained:

  • Numerous fixes and improvements.
  • Added Classic Lighting mode which restores the look and feel of the sky in the original games.

The trilogy is available to buy on Steam.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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7 comments

BlackBloodRum about 20 hours ago
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Just play the original version(s) with the community HD patches, they're better.
wvstolzing about 18 hours ago
This is tangentially related, but Rockstar formerly *broke* dxvk support for GTA IV *on windows* in an update. With the same update, (not sure if due to the same changes, but still) proton performance under Linux also tanked.

Forcing dxvk on windows on GTA IV had finally rendered the game playable at a consistent framerate for me, but now it's back to its stuttery state; and I won't even bother trying it under proton. I wonder if it'll ever get fixed, such a disgrace of a pc 'port'.

Quoting: BlackBloodRumJust play the original version(s) with the community HD patches, they're better.

Yeah that's absolutely true, though I believe they've already pulled a George Lucas on the trilogy, and delisted the original versions on digital platforms. I'm glad I got mine in boxed releases back in the day -- the only original boxes I currently own.

This YT channel has some detailed guides as to applying mods: https://www.youtube.com/@TJGM
on_en_a_gros about 16 hours ago
Quoting: wvstolzingYeah that's absolutely true, though I believe they've already pulled a George Lucas on the trilogy, and delisted the original versions on digital platforms.
In case someone is interested, I think that you can find the original releases on the internet archive.
CatKiller about 11 hours ago
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Quote%command% -dx12

Correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is that arguments are assumed to be appended, so if, as here, you're just sticking something on the end, you don't need the %command%. That's for when you (potentially also) have things at the front, so the client can parse which bits go where.
chickenb00 about 8 hours ago
Quoting: BlackBloodRumJust play the original version(s) with the community HD patches, they're better.
I was going to say: is this version worth playing yet? Arguably not.
officernice about 2 hours ago
Don't ever give Rockstar money for that travesty.
hardpenguin about 2 hours ago
Quoting: BlackBloodRumJust play the original version(s) with the community HD patches, they're better.
I actually tried doing just that but constant crashing and other bugs made me decide to move to Definitive Edition. Plus the Definitive Editions actually look superior now, as opposed to when they were first released.
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