The Finals has seen immense popularity amongst gamers across every platform, however, an interesting bug has surfaced on Linux which won't let users play the game on an Intel Arc GPU unless the vendor is hidden.
Intel-Based Linux Gamers Would Now Have To Hide Their GPU Vendor To Play The Finals & Other Titles Which Leverage XeSS By Default
Based on a report by Phoronix, The Finals runs on Linux through Steam Play, and continuous updates within the open-source MESA drivers have made playing the title on Intel Arc GPUs a possibility. Although the portion of gamers playing The Finals on Linux is quite small compared to Windows, a bug has appeared while running the game, which is surprising and is present due to the lack of Team Blue's software technologies on Linux.
It is reported that while running The Finals through Steam Play on an Intel Arc GPU, the game is stuck on a black screen and then terminates itself, hence users are unable to play it at all. A fix has been devised, but the root cause behind the bug is something bothering Linux gamers. It is disclosed that while running the title, Intel XeSS is automatically enabled as the game detects Intel GPU onboard, and since the platform's resources currently don't support the upscaling technology, performance disruptions are to be seen.
However, the interesting part is the fix for it. Phoronix reports that setting a "force_vk_vendor=-1" environment variable hides the graphics vendor from the game title, which means that in this case, the game doesn't know what type of GPU it is running upon. This is indeed disappointing for Intel Arc gamers on Linux but for those facing this issue, we suggest implementing the temporary fix unless a permanent solution appears.
Since the Intel Arc GPU series is relatively newer in Linux compared to competitors, the resources haven't reached the "maturity" state yet, and even lack support in some instances. Intel has been putting in effort, especially with the recent Xe Kernel GPU driver update, so it won't take long before users on Linux witness a seamless experience.
News Source: Phoronix
