There's not really anything useful in that log. Have you tried launching the game manually instead?

QuoteERROR: ld.so: object '/home/j/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/gameoverlayrenderer.so' from LD_PRELOAD cannot be preloaded (wrong ELF class: ELFCLASS32): ignored.
ERROR: ld.so: object '/home/j/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/gameoverlayrenderer.so' from LD_PRELOAD cannot be preloaded (wrong ELF class: ELFCLASS32): ignored.

This makes me think that you use a 64 bit computer without proper multiarch support installed/configured.
Are you running a, let's say, gray version of the game? I ask because steam (if installed through the package manager) pulls in and configures basic multiarch support for i386. If you have some custom steam package, try installing the official one, or if it's a gray version buy it from gog.

Quoting: dvd

QuoteERROR: ld.so: object '/home/j/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/gameoverlayrenderer.so' from LD_PRELOAD cannot be preloaded (wrong ELF class: ELFCLASS32): ignored.
ERROR: ld.so: object '/home/j/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/gameoverlayrenderer.so' from LD_PRELOAD cannot be preloaded (wrong ELF class: ELFCLASS32): ignored.

This makes me think that you use a 64 bit CPU and OS without proper multiarch support installed/configured.
Are you running a, let's say, gray version of the game? I ask because steam (if installed through the package manager) pulls in and configures basic multiarch support for i386. If you have some custom steam package, try installing the official one, or if it's a gray version buy it from gog.

I believe I had similar problem on Ubuntu 17.04 on Intel card. I haven't managed to solve it, however on my laptop with NVidia 540m gt card the gamevruns fine.
Could you provide us some details about PC you're trying to run game on?

Quoting: dvd

QuoteERROR: ld.so: object '/home/j/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/gameoverlayrenderer.so' from LD_PRELOAD cannot be preloaded (wrong ELF class: ELFCLASS32): ignored.
ERROR: ld.so: object '/home/j/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/gameoverlayrenderer.so' from LD_PRELOAD cannot be preloaded (wrong ELF class: ELFCLASS32): ignored.

This makes me think that you use a 64 bit computer without proper multiarch support installed/configured.
Are you running a, let's say, gray version of the game? I ask because steam (if installed through the package manager) pulls in and configures basic multiarch support for i386. If you have some custom steam package, try installing the official one, or if it's a gray version buy it from gog.

I think those messages are pretty normal with Steam. It loads both a 32 and 64-bit version of the gameoverlay library but only one will obviously work for a given program.

PoE only have a 64bit version as I can remember.

Hi all,

firstly massive thanks for all the help! Really great, thanks

running from CLI:
$ ./PillarsOfEternity
Set current directory to /media/games/SteamLibrary/steamapps/common/Pillars of Eternity
Found path: /media/games/SteamLibrary/steamapps/common/Pillars of Eternity/PillarsOfEternity
Mono path[0] = '/media/games/SteamLibrary/steamapps/common/Pillars of Eternity/PillarsOfEternity_Data/Managed'
Mono path[1] = '/media/games/SteamLibrary/steamapps/common/Pillars of Eternity/PillarsOfEternity_Data/Mono'
Mono config path = '/media/games/SteamLibrary/steamapps/common/Pillars of Eternity/PillarsOfEternity_Data/Mono/etc'

Not really much help... Computer config is Intel Cori 7 6th gen with Nvidia GTX 1060 on Ubuntu Gnome 18.04 with Nvidia driver 396.54

any pointers welcome

Player.log should be under ~/.config/unity3d/Obsidian Entertainment/Pillars of Eternity
If it does not provide any clues I would advise to delete the directory and verify the game files via Steam.

Another possibility if you have multiple monitors try to start the game with only one connected.

If that still does not help you could try a total stab into the dark:
GoG lists for some of their games a number of dependencies that also helped me in the past to get one or two steam games running (not sure if PoE was one of them though).

Try:
sudo apt install libc6:i386 libasound2:i386 libasound2-data:i386 libasound2-plugins:i386 libcurl3:i386 libgtk2.0-0:i386 libopenal1:i386 libglu1:i386

Please make sure you do not replace or deinstall anything in the process. (libcurl3:i386 wanted to deinstall some stuff for me so I excluded it from the command on my system)

restart your system and try to start the game

Quoting: SchattenspiegelPlease make sure you do not replace or deinstall anything in the process. (libcurl3:i386 wanted to deinstall some stuff for me so I excluded it from the command on my system)

restart your system and try to start the game

I personally recommend Synaptic for package management, it gives a much better picture when installing packages, can't count the times it saved me from breaking the system.

I would expect it to complain loudly if it was a missing library. At this point I guess running it through gdb to see where it crashes would be helpful.

thanks again for the help:

installing the i386 libraries did not help, reinstalling steam and then reinstalling Pillars did not help.

gdb output leaves me baffled but does not say a lot (first time I used gdb)
Reading symbols from ./PillarsOfEternity...(no debugging symbols found)...done.
(gdb) run
Starting program: /media/games/SteamLibrary/steamapps/common/Pillars of Eternity/PillarsOfEternity 
[Thread debugging using libthread_db enabled]
Using host libthread_db library "/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libthread_db.so.1".
Found path: /media/games/SteamLibrary/steamapps/common/Pillars of Eternity/PillarsOfEternity
Mono path[0] = '/media/games/SteamLibrary/steamapps/common/Pillars of Eternity/PillarsOfEternity_Data/Managed'
Mono path[1] = '/media/games/SteamLibrary/steamapps/common/Pillars of Eternity/PillarsOfEternity_Data/Mono'
Mono config path = '/media/games/SteamLibrary/steamapps/common/Pillars of Eternity/PillarsOfEternity_Data/Mono/etc'
[New Thread 0x7ffff7fde700 (LWP 12275)]
[New Thread 0x7ffff4049700 (LWP 12276)]
[Thread 0x7ffff4049700 (LWP 12276) exited]
[Thread 0x7ffff7fde700 (LWP 12275) exited]
[Inferior 1 (process 12270) exited normally]
(gdb)