About GPU Compatibility Issues (OpenGL – AMD Radeon & Intel ARC)

Distortions runs on OpenGL, and some GPUs — particularly AMD Radeon and Intel ARC — may have limited or unstable support for this graphics API.

The game was developed using an engine called C4 Engine, which has been discontinued since 2016. On top of that, we built our own custom tools within this engine, making updates and compatibility fixes more complex.

In recent years, changes to AMD Radeon drivers have caused Distortions to malfunction on certain Radeon GPUs. Despite our efforts, we were unable to identify the root cause of the issue. We reached out to AMD for support but unfortunately received no response.

Intel ARC GPUs also have limited OpenGL support, which may lead to crashes or visual issues when launching the game.

We understand how frustrating this can be and appreciate your patience. For those affected, we’ve included a possible workaround using the Zink OpenGL-to-Vulkan layer (see post above).

A special thanks to demitriusbelai for discovering this workaround.

🛠️ Compatibility Tip – Distortions (OpenGL Issues on Some GPUs)

If you're experiencing issues running Distortions — such as black screen, crashes, or graphical glitches — this may be due to limited OpenGL support on some GPUs, including Intel ARC and certain AMD cards.

A possible workaround is to use Zink, an OpenGL-over-Vulkan layer that can improve compatibility on these systems.

For Windows:
You can find a Mesa3D build with Zink support here:
https://github.com/pal1000/mesa-dist-win/releases

For Linux:
If you're using Mesa drivers, you can enable Zink by launching the game with the following environment variable:

MESA_LOADER_DRIVER_OVERRIDE=zink %command%

This might help if the game doesn’t start or behaves incorrectly with your default drivers.

Use only if you're having issues — no changes are needed if the game runs fine on your system.