Anyone got it working under SteamPlay aka proton?

[Death Approaches]

We linux / osx have it the same as you windows types, in that it won't start up at all, just get the little "starting Hitman Absolution..." box which goes away after a second or so. I have tried all 5 proton versions (well, 3 versions + 2 beta versions of the same ones)

Checking the steam log, it's all the same - complain about the 64-bit environment being incorrect for the game. Apparently there's no way to force 32-bit mode only. There are various posts on both the github where proton resides, as well as reddit, on how to delete the 64-bit wine bottle and recreate a WINEARCH=win32 one, and copy back the proton stuff... I did it but doesn't seem to work for this game.

What's annoying is while neither Absolution nor the Sniper Challenge little demo work, but Blood Money is completely fine and plays without incident, and it's the same age and 32-bit only also.

So that's my next step - I'm going to copy the proton settings from BM in the ~/steamapps/compdata/ tree over and see if that works. I'll also try running wine and Absolution directly without the steam client.

But any assistance getting it to work via steam UI is appreciated.
Thanks for reading.

[Kunovega]

Originally posted by Death Approaches:

We linux / osx have it the same as you windows types, in that it won't start up at all,.

The game (currently) works just fine in Windows 10 without any issues and it worked just fine in Vista which I had before that (many years ago)

[Death Approaches]

well looking at the other posts in the comments, your experience is not that same as evertyone else. Happy for you, though!

[Kunovega]

Originally posted by Death Approaches:

well looking at the other posts in the comments, your experience is not that same as evertyone else. Happy for you, though!

You mean threads like this?
https://steamcommunity.com/app/203140/discussions/0/1692659135903613468/?ctp=2

Where the problem was solved because he wasn't running the game as an administrator?

Running as admin and/or checking compatability modes solves the majority of issues like this with older games in windows

One of the biggest changes with windows 10 is that you don't run programs as admin by default (unless you go in and manually change the setting). Older games often simply expected you to be the admin to your computer. If you forget to launch them as admin, they will not work. That's not an Absolution problem, that's pretty standard for any game made pre windows 10 and it's a simple fix.

Originally posted by Assail:

So I don't know if you have fixed it by now, but I had the same problem on my PC, what I did was to go into the files of the game and open the "Properties" window for the "HMA.exe" file, in there you go and turn it to compatibility mode with win 7, and under that you put it to administrator, apparently this game LOVES to be administrator

[Death Approaches]

running a game as administrator just because you can't figure out what the issue is, is why unix people and windows people cannot get along. Giving a game administrator permissions is just insane.

It's probably a holdover because the game was from the early days of XP when, all software installed was granted administrator privileges... there's a reason 99% of all computer viruses trojans and the like are Windows when unix/linux/osx usually only have to worry about targeted attacks.

I understand wanting to play the game, but that's crazy.

Well, if you knew anything about wine/proton, the abstraction layer does indeed emulate (although as everyone knows W)ine I)s N)ot an E)mulator) administrator rights.

No I clearly outlined what it is, in this case, the 64-bit modernity is kafutzing (industry term) with an ancient 32-bit executable. I'm sure I'll figure it out. thanks though.

[Chaython]

play the gog version

[Death Approaches]

You know what? I will! I have a GoG account and what's $8.99... ah crap it's at $19.99 right now. It's not like I don't have 4 other working Hitman games, it's just frustrating that the one I remember most fondly is being ♥♥♥♥♥♥.

Course the servers are gone for contracts, so that part is never coming back unless IO gets the licensing back, which apparently they don't care about? Who knows? Maybe Valve or GoG will pick it up...

[Kunovega]

ioi has the franchise rights to the game, they never owned the servers as they belonged to the publisher at the time (Square)

ioi can't do anything with the servers unless square releases them. Square shut them down because they didn't feel like making the (tiny) fix required to make them comply with the GDPR laws in the EU

https://www.ioi.dk/hitman-absolution-service-message/

https://eugdpr.org/

[Death Approaches]

Lovely. Thanks for the details, I didn't see the whole story, only that Polygon blurb about IO didn't have the rights to them, but said content of the servers was IOs but really a matter for legal debate, and neither company cares that much about a 13-year old game...

Who knows? Some clever fan might make a patch before those two ever get around to doing it, and we can peer-to-peer contracts with all the cheaters.... although if 2016 HiTMAN™ and 2018 HiTMAN™ 2 have contracts mode, one would assume IO could host it if squeenix would do the right thing. But when have they ever? :-)

[Kunovega]

Originally posted by Death Approaches:

Lovely. Thanks for the details, I didn't see the whole story, only that Polygon blurb about IO didn't have the rights to them, but said content of the servers was IOs but really a matter for legal debate, and neither company cares that much about a 13-year old game...

Who knows? Some clever fan might make a patch before those two ever get around to doing it, and we can peer-to-peer contracts with all the cheaters.... although if 2016 HiTMAN™ and 2018 HiTMAN™ 2 have contracts mode, one would assume IO could host it if squeenix would do the right thing. But when have they ever? :-)

Both the new Hitman games have vastly improved contracts modes that are superior to Absolutions. They were also updated to comply with the GDPR law changes within days of the change requirements.

If you have any interest in contracts mode, I suggest Hitman 2 (as you can also get the legacy pack DLC for it which contains all of the Hitman (2016) maps)

Information on DLC structure is here:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1580201161

There is monthly new content, tracked here:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1581951243

There are tons of things to unlock:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1564548508

And many people contribute to make new contracts, I post mine here:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1582003916

Absolution is a blip in the history of this franchise with a linear self contained story. Hitman 2 is what the franchise was always evolving towards with sandbox gameplay closer to Blood Money but on a much larger scale.

[Death Approaches]

Update: It's freakin' Valve's fault. As usual. :-) So while they remove the need for DRM, they then replace stuff like SecuROM with their Custom Executable Generation (CEG), so there's no way to run a steam game without it being authorized by your user account and helps prevent piracy so every steam user can't just copy their entire library to their friends...

so these older games, especially ones that need the Windows abstraction for us linux gamers, can get stuck in a state where it can't authorize with the steam servers.

I guess technically they owe me and hundreds of other people refunds, since they SOLD it to us in good faith that we could play it... I'm sure they would, but I'd much rather it worked. But I do know other people are working on it, and there's even a couple (risky) workarounds...

Here's one: (GitHub) proton: Games with Valve's CEG DRM won't launch[github.com]

While annoying, it's good to know why...

[asdf]

https://www.protondb.com/app/203140

they say it works with an DRM FREE .exe
if this game is on gog cant they just upload the DRM FREE gog version on steam

they did the same with sherlock holmes
https://www.protondb.com/app/350640