Troubleshooting

Microlandia uses WebGPU by default. If something looks broken, the fixes below cover the most common cases. For the full launch-options reference, see the bottom of this page.

Common issues

The game won't launch

1. Update your graphics drivers. Most "won't launch" reports are driver bugs that have already been fixed upstream.
2. On Linux, right-click Microlandia in Steam → Properties → Compatibility. Make sure "Force the use of a specific Steam Play compatibility tool" is off. We ship a native Linux build — running it through Proton produces an unsupported stack that typically fails in confusing ways.
3. On Linux with an RTX 50-series Nvidia GPU, the first launch on a new install can stall while Steam pre-compiles its shader cache against brand-new silicon. Just relaunch — the second attempt usually succeeds.
4. Try --webgl as a launch option to skip WebGPU.
5. Last resort: --disable-gpu turns off hardware acceleration entirely. Very slow, but works on any system.

Black screen — menus visible, no city

The 3D renderer started but its output isn't being composited. Try these in order:

1. --webgl switches the 3D renderer to WebGL2. Same visuals, broader driver compatibility — the first thing to try.
2. --disable-gpu-compositing bypasses Chromium's GPU compositor.
3. On Linux with Nvidia, --use-gl-angle routes the GPU process through ANGLE + desktop OpenGL. Helps on systems where Chromium reports (gl=none, angle=none).
4. Update your graphics drivers.

Periodic freezes during gameplay

Freezes that last 10–60 seconds and then resume are usually the GPU process crashing and restarting.

1. --webgl avoids the WebGPU code path entirely and resolves most freeze reports.
2. Update your graphics drivers — WebGPU is more sensitive to driver bugs than WebGL2.
3. If you have --in-process-gpu set, remove it. That flag puts all GPU work on the renderer thread and makes freezes much worse.

Poor framerate

Open in-game Settings → Graphics:

• Check which renderer is active (top of the Graphics panel). If WebGPU runs poorly on your system, try --webgl.
• Lower Render Scale to 0.75 or 0.5.
• Disable Shadows.
• Set Anti-aliasing to FXAA or Off.
• Lower Particle Quality.

Steam overlay glitches (Windows)

Try --disable-direct-composition. If only the video parts of the overlay are broken, the more targeted --disable-direct-composition-video-overlays may be enough on its own.

How to set launch options

Steam

1. Right-click Microlandia in your Steam library → Properties.
2. Under General, find Launch Options.
3. Type the flag(s), e.g. --webgl. Multiple flags are space-separated.

Standalone (itch.io / direct download)

From a terminal: ./run.sh --webgl. On Windows, edit a shortcut and append flags to the target field.

City backups

Microlandia automatically saves up to 10 rolling backups of each city. If a save becomes corrupted or you want to revert, you can restore from a backup.

Backup locations

Backup files are named <city-id>.<timestamp>.microlandia, sorted newest-first by the timestamp.

Restoring a backup

1. Close the game.
2. Open the backups folder for your platform (above).
3. Pick the most recent backup whose timestamp predates the problem.
4. Copy it into the db folder (sibling of backups) and rename it to match the original city file (drop the timestamp portion).
5. Relaunch the game.

All launch options

Flags are added in Steam → Properties → Launch Options, or appended to ./run.sh on standalone builds. Anything not listed here is unsupported.

Still stuck?

Join our Discord and describe your issue — we're happy to help.