I recently installed CachyOS and tried playing Final Fantasy XIV, but I encountered some weird issues. When I launched XIVLauncher, I saw green squares everywhere in the game, which got me worried that my graphics card might be failing just four months after I bought it. I replaced cables, switched from DisplayPort to HDMI, and even rolled back my kernels, but nothing worked. Then I thought maybe the problem lies with CachyOS, so I wiped my drive and installed Fedora, yet the issue persisted.
A user on Discord suggested testing it in isolation to determine if the GPU was the issue or if it was related to MESA or Vulkan. So, I ran the XIVLauncher FlatPak and to my surprise, the graphics glitches disappeared. Currently, I’m on Fedora 41, using MESA 25.0.0 and Vulkan 1.4.303, and I suspect that one of these is causing the problem.
2 Answers
It sounds like you might have stumbled onto a known issue with MESA 25.0.0. There’s an active bug report about this on GitLab. Honestly, I’ve had similar problems; for me, downgrading to MESA 24.3.4 (with Vulkan 1.3.275) fixed everything. I’d recommend trying that out if you haven’t already. Just keep in mind that a lot of folks recommend updating MESA drivers only from the .0.1 versions onwards to avoid these bugs.
Have you thought about using a more stable distribution? Running a non-bleeding edge version can really help with gaming stability. Sure, you might lose a couple of frames per second, but it can save a lot of headaches in the long run.
That’s a good point! Debian users might pitch it like it’s the best high, they always tout the stability. Sometimes it really is worth it for a smoother experience.
I totally get it! It really feels like your hardware is failing when you see those glitches. I had a panic similar to that with my card, but thanks to Flatpaks, you can isolate issues like these much easier. Glad to hear you’re finding some sanity with those!