View Issue Details
| ID | Project | Category | View Status | Date Submitted | Last Update |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0013385 | Dwarf Fortress | Technical -- General | public | 2025-12-19 14:53 | 2026-02-14 17:04 |
| Reporter | BurningAmber | Assigned To | |||
| Priority | high | Severity | crash | Reproducibility | always |
| Status | new | Resolution | open | ||
| Platform | Steam | OS | Nobara (Fedora) | OS Version | 43 |
| Product Version | 53.08 | ||||
| Summary | 0013385: Constant memory increase until crash | ||||
| Description | After launching the game, system monitor reports a constant memory increase from dwarf fortress. After an hour of usage, stock DF is using over 20gb of memory, and will continue to use more until the OOM Killer runs. This appears to get worse with DFHack enabled. The memory usage is visible only staying on the title screen, and gets much, much worse after loading a fort. after quitting the fort back to the main menu, memory usage does not decrease. The program must be closed before memory usage drops to normal, if i want to avoid a crash. | ||||
| Steps To Reproduce | Open the game, and wait. intensifies after loading a save. | ||||
| Additional Information | possibly related bug tracker post: https://dwarffortressbugtracker.com/view.php?id=13378 DFHack Issue Tracker post: https://github.com/DFHack/dfhack/issues/5689 | ||||
| Tags | linux, memory, SIGABRT | ||||
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I can reproduce this issue. I tried forcing the legacy 1.0 linux Runtime in Steam and that did not solve the problem. However, if I force the windows build of DF with Proton Experimental, then the issue is resolved. In that scenario, I think Proton is using the linux Runtime 3.0 so, I suspect that the linux build of DF needs to be compiled/built against a newer version of the Steam Runtime. See the github for details: https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-runtime I could be wrong about the root cause but, that's my best guess. Please note that my save file is in the Linux build and I cannot access it when I switch over to the windows build with Proton so, I'm stuck playing for like 45 minute stretches until my RAM fills up. |
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I can reproduce this on Arch linux as well. Changing the PRINT_MODE to 2D does not help. |
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I can reproduce the same issue running CachyOS (arch-based) with the native Linux version. Workaround: switching to proton at the cost of FPS and a not so smooth migration of save files. |
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Can confirm same behavior on up to date arch linux 20-25gb of memory eaten in an hour or so running proton experimental compat layer resolve the issue at the cost of performances tested with vanilla and with dfhack |
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What type of GPU are you using, and what driver version? |
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Hi! Same issue, I'm using Nobara too, but I have seen people from many distros having the same issue as it seems to be driver related, DFHack developers have replied to this issue here: https://github.com/libsdl-org/SDL/issues/14874 |
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I can reproduce this on my AMD Ryzen 7040 laptop running Arch. My driver versions:
Kernel: Linux malakandra 6.18.5-arch1-1 0000001 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Sun, 11 Jan 2026 17:10:53 +0000 x86_64 GNU/Linux rannon: You can create a symlink to your Linux DF saves directory in the DF saves dir used by Proton. I removed the "Dwarf Fortress" directory in ~/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/compatdata/975370/pfx/drive_c/users/steamuser/AppData/Roaming/Bay 12 Games(Proton saves) and made a symlink to /home/<user>/.local/share/Bay 12 Games/Dwarf Fortress(Linux saves) in its place; now I can switch between native and Windows versions and have my saves. |
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I commented over in 0013378 that I had never experienced this, but I just have for the first time. The only thing that's changed for me is that I updated and recompiled a bunch of things (notably moving from glibc-2.41 to 2.42). My kernel remains the same from when I didn't ever experience this. When it happened, I had my world loaded in Dwarf Fortress but had it paused and was in the in-game escape menu while I was watching a movie in another window, so nothing new was happening in-game. I noticed it was happening when the movie I was watching started skipping and the audio started crackling. I paused and unpaused the movie several times, then looked at my other running (desktop) applications; I only had five terminals sitting idle, Steam, and Dwarf Fortress running. dmesg says it began like this: [91741.133963] steamwebhelper invoked oom-killer: gfp_mask=0x140cca(GFP_H IGHUSER_MOVABLE|__GFP_COMP), order=0, oom_score_adj=300 [91741.133973] CPU: 5 UID: 1000 PID: 624 Comm: steamwebhelper Tainted: G S OE 6.18.7-gentoo-x86_64 0000001 PREEMPT(voluntary) [91741.133978] Tainted: [S]=CPU_OUT_OF_SPEC, [O]=OOT_MODULE, [E]=UNSIGNED _MODULE followed by pages and pages of subsequent oom-killer messages, and ends like this: [91863.765013] oom-kill:constraint=CONSTRAINT_NONE,nodemask=(null),cpuset =c1,mems_allowed=0,global_oom,task_memcg=/c1,task=dwarfort,pid=21675,uid= 1000 [91863.765052] Out of memory: Killed process 21675 (dwarfort) total-vm:37 725668kB, anon-rss:4694956kB, file-rss:432kB, shmem-rss:3060kB, UID:1000 pgtables:71788kB oom_score_adj:0 Strangely I don't think the oom-killer actually killed anything. I manually closed the game from within the game while experiencing extreme lag, and suddenly everything was fine like nothing had happened. Dwarf Fortress is the only program I closed. Afterward I'm left like so: $ free -m total used free shared buff/cache available Mem: 32025 18428 12660 210 1602 13596 Swap: 8191 1154 7037 I'll see if I can get it to do it again, and if so, I'll try to compile a few packages I just upgraded and see if any of them caused it, since I've played for hundreds of hours without experiencing this until just today. |
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After testing, the problem seems to go away for me and DF is perfectly stable again after downgrading mesa back to 25.2.8. With mesa 25.3.3, I was experiencing the memory issues within 20 minutes of letting DF idle paused in my world. |
| Date Modified | Username | Field | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025-12-19 14:53 | BurningAmber | New Issue | |
| 2025-12-19 14:53 | BurningAmber | Tag Attached: linux | |
| 2025-12-19 14:53 | BurningAmber | Tag Attached: memory | |
| 2025-12-19 14:53 | BurningAmber | Tag Attached: SIGABRT | |
| 2026-01-02 11:03 | rannon | Note Added: 0043079 | |
| 2026-01-03 11:43 | mattvt3 | Note Added: 0043081 | |
| 2026-01-06 07:26 | RiverOmega | Note Added: 0043091 | |
| 2026-01-18 07:25 | oazo_deter | Note Added: 0043140 | |
| 2026-01-21 07:11 | Quietust | Note Added: 0043146 | |
| 2026-01-21 18:38 | bricciooo | Note Added: 0043149 | |
| 2026-02-10 10:28 | imyavetra | Note Added: 0043166 | |
| 2026-02-10 10:30 | imyavetra | Note Edited: 0043166 | |
| 2026-02-10 10:31 | imyavetra | Note Edited: 0043166 | |
| 2026-02-10 10:32 | imyavetra | Note Edited: 0043166 | |
| 2026-02-10 10:34 | imyavetra | Note Edited: 0043166 | |
| 2026-02-10 10:34 | imyavetra | Note Edited: 0043166 | |
| 2026-02-14 13:04 | wowmage95 | Note Added: 0043170 | |
| 2026-02-14 16:59 | wowmage95 | Note Added: 0043172 | |
| 2026-02-14 17:04 | wowmage95 | Note Edited: 0043172 |
