[solved] Proton - Serial key error?

[muellerman]

I bought this game via Matrix Store. On Windows System it runs fine. With Proton under Steam it does show an serial key error, after starting up the game. Although the right key was entered during the setup and is in the txtfile in the steam-game-folder.
Maybe something which will be fixed when the game will be released on steam. But for linux-users out there maybe worth a hint for those and the developers.

[VeitikkaStudios]

AB1 has been reported to run on Proton. AB2 is built on the same SDK so there should be no issues, but I don't know how the Matrix installer works with Proton. AB runs on Linux+Wine (no official support).

https://www.protondb.com/app/1089840

[strykerpsg]

Following. Curious too

[muellerman]

Also tried to install it on my steam deck, but stuck with the same error.

[muellerman]

Just to clarify for the developer:

The error on start-screen is:
Error: invalid serial number

Although the textfile in the folder contains the right (copy/paste) serial number from matrix store.

[strykerpsg]

Maybe a blank space before or after the cut/pasted serial number?

[muellerman]

Originally posted by strykerpsg:

Maybe a blank space before or after the cut/pasted serial number?

No, I checked it several times. No blank spaces. And the serial does work with Windows.

[VeitikkaStudios]

Originally posted by muellerman:

Just to clarify for the developer:

The error on start-screen is:
Error: invalid serial number

Although the textfile in the folder contains the right (copy/paste) serial number from matrix store.

The game or the installer fails to write or read the registry. Or perhaps the registry is different on Proton.

I don't know much about Proton, but isn't it usually for Steam releases? This is a Matrix release so it's different. Have you tried the AB1 Matrix version on Proton?

[muellerman]

Originally posted by VeitikkaStudios:

The game or the installer fails to write or read the registry. Or perhaps the registry is different on Proton.

I don't know much about Proton, but isn't it usually for Steam releases? This is a Matrix release so it's different. Have you tried the AB1 Matrix version on Proton?

no, I haven't tried the installer. As I mentioned in my 1st post, maybe it will be fixed when released on steam.
But as I understand, the serial is in the game directory in the main folder of the installation. And so the registry might be not the reason.

I am fine waiting for a steam release, but maybe others would like to play the game earlier. And I thought this might be helpful as steam deck is also affected by this.

Proton by the way is more easy to use with steam. Just add a "non-steam game" to your library. First the installer. After that, the .exe. Does work with serveral non-steam games.
And beside the error of the missing/not found serial, I am sure that AB2 will also work when you say, that the same SDK was used.

[the_korben]

Hey, so originally I wanted to actually wait until the Steam release, but for my fellow Linux comrades I can't really pass a chance to make a game work. :D Just bought the game on Matrix, downloaded it, installed it and ran it without any issues on my Linux machine.

The only thing I can think of is that people perhaps installed the game under Windows and then tried to run it from Linux using Proton. Of course, this won't capture any registry entries that were created during installation, because each Proton game has its own virtual version of Windows with its own registry. Or perhaps they did but did not follow the usual guide of how to install something with an installer using Proton from scratch. So I'll provide a short guide below of how I made it work (it's really easy).

These are the steps I followed:

1. download and unpack the installer

2. in Steam, click on "add a Non-Steam game"

3. select the installer .exe, this should add a game called "ArmoredBrigade2-SetupRelease-v1.577"

4. in the compatibility tab for the new game above, force to use Proton (I used GE-Proton9-19 but any recent version should do)

5. start the installer by clicking "Start" in Steam

6. go through the install process with default values for the install path and use your serial as copied from the Matrix website (FYI: .Net was already preinstalled in GE-Proton9-19)

7. after finished installing, look at your Linux steam directory (by default, this is probably /home/<yourusername>/.local/share/Steam or /home/<yourusername>/.steam/steam) and look for the most recent directory created under steamapps/compatdata/. You should find a new directory with a 10-digit number. The number is randomly created for non-Steam games. For the sake of this guide, let's assume it's 1111111111. This is the prefix Steam created for Armored Brigade 2. If you want, you can try to verify this by looking for the Matrix Games/Armored Brigade 2 folder in the Program Files (x86) directory.

8. modify the properties of your "ArmoredBrigade2-SetupRelease-v1.577" game in Steam and change the "target" in the main properties window. Select AB2's launcher by navigating into this 1111111111 directory, then into pfx/drive_c/Program Files (x86)/Matrix Games/Armored Brigade 2. There select "Launcher.exe".

9. for the second line in the Steam properties ("start in" or something like that), select the "Armored Brigade 2" directory mentioned in step 8.

10. to make sure that the paths are properly recognized, add quotes around the full path in "target" and in "start in". So one quote at the start of each path, and one at the end of each path. This way, spaces in the path will not be misinterpreted.

11. in the properties for the game, rename "ArmoredBrigade2-SetupRelease-v1.577" to "Armored Brigade 2" in the Steam properties if you want.

12. Click "Start" and enjoy the game. :D

As mentioned above, the game runs beautifully for me. Hope this helps!

[muellerman]

Thanks @the_korben
This is the way to get it working. Sees as my fault was, to add the lauchner.exe after the install-process. But modifying the exisiting one did the trick. Thanks a lot!

[the_korben]

Glad you got it working! The game is amazing, have fun!

[Bleibeidl]

Seems like the game is incorrectly detected as the Matrix Games version when using Proton.

[VeitikkaStudios]

Originally posted by Blei:

Seems like the game is incorrectly detected as the Matrix Games version when using Proton.

That's the fallback if the Steam check fails.