any way to import folder paths to proton launch options?

[[deleted]]

Here is what I am trying to do:
Launch Origin.exe from Program Files (x86)/Origin/Origin.exe from my Solid State (Operating System) drive on C:/ from Proton.

Find EA_Games_Library folder on D: or Z: (depending on what Proton calls it, in this case, Proton calls it Z).

Here is what Proton is currently doing wrong:
Can see Z:/SteamLibrary
Can see C:/Origin path
Can see my cdrom D: and other devices (cool!)
Can't see EALibrary folder with SimCity (2013) inside it.

aka I want it to see SIMCITY so I can play.

Reitteration of question:
How to show Proton extra permissions?

Do Note: These permissions are likely differed from Steam Folder Permissions...

[Bloo Alien]

Z: in Proton (or WINE) generally is linked to the root of the filesystem (/) for easier access to paths outside the Proton (or WINE) "prefix" (the folder where the entirety of the "fake Windows" for a particular application or set of applications lives).

C: in Proton (or WINE) will refer exclusively to the "fake Windows" folder within the specific "prefix" of the game it's installed in, where in the case of Origin, you probably installed that from outside of Steam, so it'll be an entirely different folder from the one within Steam, as each game in Steam using Proton creates a private prefix for each specific game.

D: in Proton (or WINE) is often linked to the first optical (DVD/CD/etc) drive found, probably to ease installation of games which come on optical disc (as most games did before things like Steam and broadband internet killed physical game sales).

I'm not sure what "extra permissions" you're talking about, but you're apparently trying to run an Origin based game from within Steam using Proton? Is this game installed on a Windows-formatted (NTFS) partition/drive, or on a Linux (EXT3 or 4 for example) formatted drive? You're trying to save the bandwidth of downloading it again? One way you might be able to do this would be to start the install/download in Steam (to create the base folder structure) then pause/stop that download, copy the correct files from your other partition/drive into the proper place in the new folder, then verify the game (causing it to download only those files which differ from Steam's version, or which are not in the Origin version you already have). That might do what you hope.

[Bloo Alien]

Originally posted by IvYWing:

Yes Z is the root of the file system but the file system in Linux has a mounts folder or media folder which is where you're going to find your Z:\mnt\namesofDisks such as an extra storage hard disk. So for example, I made Steam to add Z:\mnt\disk1\SteamLibrary from the Steam Downloads Setting -> Add Library, which is on a Windows Filesystem storage disk.
disk1 is just a mounted form of /dev/sda partition 2 or whatever on the 2Terabyte Hard drive.
No, this game isn't in the Steam Store, this is a non-Steam game being run through Steam Compatibility Mode.
I got it to run, by the way. Came back to share my results.

The results are not improved from running the game in Ordinary Regular Old Wine, however, so I'm not sure how good this information is.

Running on Linux Mint 20.1 Ullysa 64-bit, through Steam Proton 5.0. Steam is running from the Aptitude's Steam package, not flatpak, though I doubt this would fix it. I tried through Glorious Eggroll first, and that worked until the dreaded "game is already installed, but Proton can't find it" problem. I then ran Proton from Experimental and downward until 5.0 worked, and 5.0 Proton actually found it. Interesting, eh?

Now here is where there are still issues. In regular Wine, SIMCITY 2013 still has certain interface buttons which cause the mouse to disappear, though it's mostly playable. Have spent 2 days playing without it happening, and just learning which buttons cause it.
Next, the Origin In-Game Overlay causes the game to start in a black screen. Disabling it allows us to play in Linux, but this also breaks in-game chat in multiplayer. Not cool, but can be gotten around by using Windowed Borderless and a different chat program. Still, not good.

So that about wraps things up on my end for the thread. I got it to run in an entirely different way today, using Steam Proton, but it doesn't appear to have improved things at all, and seems equivalent to running it in Wine.

Some people on a different site got irritated that we were trying this today, and asked why we weren't trying it in Lutris. I told them I might try it, but wanted to try it this way first.

Congrats on accomplishing your goal. Glad to hear you had some success there.

Lutris is actually a rather convenient little tool for runnin' stuff like this, but it doesn't always give you quite the same convenience as Steam does, so it's nice to be able to get those external games added into Steam properly sometimes. Can't at all blame you for wantin' to try. Glad you did get it running, but Proton ain't always the "magic bullet" solution any more'n Lutris is… Not sure why them folk would be annoyed at you trying something else besides Lutris. I mean, it's your game, and your computer. Only seems logical that if you wanna run it in Proton on Steam, that shouldn't be all that bizarre.

Sometimes there's other things you can do to improve performance in WINE/Proton games though. Is sometimes worth researching on WINE HQ and Proton DB to see what other folk may have done which helped them improve things for a particular game. Regarding "a different chat program", I've had fairly decent luck just using Discord for everything. Might be worth trying, although it doesn't help with "in game" text chat, it can be nice to just talk to folk you're playin' with and not need to type while you're trying to play a game.

[Bloo Alien]

Originally posted by IvYWing:

Might be possible to run it in something like VirtualBox or KVM.

I didn't try Origin's "Thin Setup". Lutris uses that. I could try it.

"Thin Setup" is what the Battlefield games (1, 3, and 5) installed when I ran those in Proton. It was buggy and annoying at first, but once I did get it goin' right it all ran fine from then on out. Beat all three (single player campaigns) beginning to end entirely in Proton without issue.

I've never personally tried VM with GPU passthrough, but from what I hear it's about as close as you can possibly get to running on "bare metal" Windows while still staying in Linux and sandboxing your Windows to a VM. I just really don't want Windows on any of my machines at all anymore, even in a VM, so it's not really tempted me to try it, but everything I hear says you should have great success with those games which cannot run at all in Proton/WINE for whatever reasons (DRM/Anti-Cheat, mostly). If you have a working copy of Windows and proper hardware to do the thing, it's certainly a perfectly valid option to consider for those few (increasingly rare) games.

[Marlock]

a warning about the VM idea:

while great, if you intend to run games with anti-cheat, you should set them up not only with GPU pass-through, but also with USB pass-through (probably only possible from an add-on board) and the VM's own keyboard and mouse plugged to the dedicated USB ports...

not doing so means the VM-mediated input can be detected by some AC solutions as an attempt to intercept and modify your input, somenthing commonly used by cheaters too

[galanthus]

Was able torun SimCity 2013 in Lutris, but disabled epollfd synchronisation in options. This helped with black screen.