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Running games on linux.

KTrash

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Recently ran in to some games that did not want to run properly trough wine and i noticed that you can add non steam games to steam to use proton.
So posting here in case anyone bumps in to one of the games that just refuse running through wine, go to Steam and press Games/"Add a non Steam game to my library" and navigate to the exe.
After adding right click the game Properties/Compatibility and tick "Force the use of a specific steam play compatibility tool"
I'll also note that i installed GE-Proton using ProtonUp-Qt to get some smoother gameplay.
Good luck!
 
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You can also use lutris, not needing to use use steam
 
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Thanks! I've been slowly moving to linux, so this will definitely help.
 
You can also use lutris, not needing to use use steam
I have failed using lutris time and time again, if wine does not run the game i want, then lutris usually fails as well... the best failsafe way i have come up with is to use steam as game loader :p
 
Most RenPy games also come packaged with a .sh file that'll run natively on most Linux distros so you don't have to use a compatibility layer.
 
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i run games almost exclusively on linux (nearly 1000 so far). for renpy, this is easy, as most games will already include linux binaries or are trivially runnable under vanilla wine. most windows unity games work ok as well. some engines like RPG Maker MV are not very good.. but sometimes work.

the thing i ran into the most problems with was japanese VNs, so i will provide some tips.

for extracting archives that aren't utf-8 (say, shift-jis for older archives), you can tell unzip to translate:

before:
Code:
$ unzip -t RJ01088802.zip | sed 2q
Archive:  RJ01088802.zip
    testing: û│ìCé╚Å¡Åùé╠ë─ïxé▌ver1.06/audio/   OK
with translation from shift-jis:
Code:
$ unzip -O shift-jis -t RJ01088802.zip | sed 2q
Archive:  RJ01088802.zip
    testing: 無垢な少女の夏休みver1.06/audio/   OK

for running japanese VNs, you usually want to run in a japanese locale. on windows this is done with either a system level setting or with the well known locale emulator.

in linux and wine, you can just change the locale with an environment variable :)
to do this you need to make sure you have japanese locales generated on your system.. see or refer to your distro's documentation.
for EUC-JP or SHIFT-JIS, it's a little more uncommon but possible with more work. see

you will also likely want to install the right font support for a japanese locale as well. additionally, i usually make a separate wine prefix (by hand, without steam or lutris):

Code:
$ mkdir game; cd game
$ export WINEPREFIX="$(pwd)/game"
$ export WINEARCH=win32 # change if 64-bit game
$ wineboot
$ winetricks fakejapanese
$ winetricks fakejapanese_vlgothic
$ env LC_ALL=ja_JP.UTF-8 wine /path/to/game_or_installer.exe

if needed you could also setup DXVK for better graphics performance (lutris can do this), but for most games the performance of the graphics is acceptable.

if you combine this with (which you must run in the same WINEPREFIX) you can get a decent setup for playing even untranslated windows-only japanese VNs only on linux.
 
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[…] some engines like RPG Maker MV are not very good.. but sometimes work.[…]
For RPGM MV/MZ games, I just replace the binaries shipped with the game and instead, which works most of the time. If the game assets are included/obfuscated in the .exe files, you might have to use something like first to extract them.
 
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For what its worth for anyone that's looking into getting games from this forum working on linux, in my experience 8/10 games work out of the box with wine or native linux support, 1/10 need some fiddling (like the NW.js for rpgmaker like mentioned above), and about 1/10 that just flat out don't work (and I have not put the time to get working).

Would recommend people give it a shot!
 
Most RenPy games also come packaged with a .sh file that'll run natively on most Linux distros so you don't have to use a compatibility layer.
In some case you need to manually make them executable though, either through the file permissions in the UI, or through the CLI.
 
I highly suggest bottles over lutris for any of the lewd games, light weight and sandboxed
 
another gotcha with using nwjs ( ) is that files are case-insensitive in Windows (which devs may take for granted) but not for Linux. Usually have to play through the game and create symlinks for missing assets.

Ie, get warning about missing image `IntroB.png`, search www/ and find `Introb.rpgmvp`, cd to dir and create symlink with `ln -s Introb.rpgmvp IntroB.rpgmvp`
 
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RenPy is just Python, it runs just fine on Linux. I've used Wine to run some unity games with mixed success (some older games had issues).
 
another gotcha with using nwjs ( ) is that files are case-insensitive in Windows (which devs may take for granted) but not for Linux. Usually have to play through the game and create symlinks for missing assets.

Ie, get warning about missing image `IntroB.png`, search www/ and find `Introb.rpgmvp`, cd to dir and create symlink with `ln -s Introb.rpgmvp IntroB.rpgmvp`
I use a fileysystem with casefold enabled for this. That way I can just run on a directory so the contents are now case-insensitive due to the F flag being set as well as inheriting these attributes when creating new directories and files inside of that directory due to the x flag. To enable casefold, on an ext4 filesystem, one can use on an unmounted filesystem or .

If it worked, it should look like this:
Code:
# Checking if the xF flags are set in directories
$ lsattr . www
--------------e-xF---- ./www
--------------e-x----- ./package.json
--------------e-xF---- www/fonts
--------------e-xF---- www/audio
--------------e-xF---- www/js
--------------e-xF---- www/save
-----------I--e-xF---- www/movies
--------------e-xF---- www/img
--------------e-x----- www/package.json
-----------I--e-xF---- www/Character Generator
--------------e-x----- www/index.html
--------------e-xF---- www/icon
--------------e-xF---- www/data

# Checking if file lookup is indeed case-insensitive
$ file www/img/faces/Actor2.png WwW/iMg/FaCeS/aCtOr2.PnG
www/img/faces/Actor2.png: RIFF (little-endian) data, Web/P image
WwW/iMg/FaCeS/aCtOr2.PnG: RIFF (little-endian) data, Web/P image
 
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Thank you guys for this thread!
I have seen some Ren'Py games without the .sh script, and no linux-x86_64 folder. It works OK launching the .exe using Wine (it even uses the default linux .renpy folder for savegames, so backups are a breeze), but is annoying nonetheless. Other than asking the developer to compile also for Linux, I assume there is no workaround other than Wine, isn't there?
 
Thank you guys for this thread!
I have seen some Ren'Py games without the .sh script, and no linux-x86_64 folder. It works OK launching the .exe using Wine (it even uses the default linux .renpy folder for savegames, so backups are a breeze), but is annoying nonetheless. Other than asking the developer to compile also for Linux, I assume there is no workaround other than Wine, isn't there?
If game was not compiled to run on linux natively wine/proton only way to play the game. I recommend to not use vanilla Wine, use "manager" instead like Bottles(easier), Lutris(more customizable and can run emulators) and possibly Flatpak to not mess with the /home filesystem and sandbox any not so truth worthy software.
 
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If game was not compiled to run on linux natively wine/proton only way to play the game. I recommend to not use vanilla Wine, use "manager" instead like Bottles(easier), Lutris(more customizable and can run emulators) and possibly Flatpak to not mess with the /home filesystem and sandbox any not so truth worthy software.
Thanks! I will look into Lutris and Proton. I heard about them but never got to it...
At the moment I just dual-boot for AAA titles or use VirtualBox / QEMU or Wine for less demanding ones. Anything that is less overkill will be welcome.
Thanks again!
 
Easiest way to play non-steam windows games would be Bottles, all you need is create bottle (tinker little bit if needed (check on protondb/winehq)) and run executable/installer. In addition recommend to install gamemode(makes game top prior to system), mangohud(overlay to show fps, system usage), gamescope if u have low-tier pc(it makes possible game to render in lower resolution and upscale it after).
If u want to have more customizable experience use Lutris it can also run emulators(never used that).
In addition to all tools recommend to use Protonup-qt very useful tool to download proton and other "bundles" to Steam, Bottles and Lutris.
 
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Thanks! I will look into Lutris and Proton. I heard about them but never got to it...
At the moment I just dual-boot for AAA titles or use VirtualBox / QEMU or Wine for less demanding ones. Anything that is less overkill will be welcome.
Thanks again!
proton is included in steam so all you need to do is add it to steam under "games / add non steam games to my library"
if for some reason that fails i had this happen once just use protonup-qt and try another proton version and change the game settings under "properties / compatibility" and select the proton version you downloaded
Easiest way to play non-steam windows games would be Bottles, all you need is create bottle (tinker little bit if needed (check on protondb/winehq)) and run executable/installer. In addition recommend to install gamemode(makes game top prior to system), mangohud(overlay to show fps, system usage), gamescope if u have low-tier pc(it makes possible game to render in lower resolution and upscale it after).
If u want to have more customizable experience use Lutris it can also run emulators(never used that).
In addition to all tools recommend to use Protonup-qt very useful tool to download proton and other "bundles" to Steam, Bottles and Lutris.
Yep all these are valid ways to do it, however i do need to say there is zero tinkering involved adding it to steam it will just run using proton, i have only come over one game that did have issues and i had to change proton version, but other than that it always works if it doesn't just "work" with wine.
 
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