Loader.exe is awesome!

[Vepar]

Thanks for making it easy to run VTMB on Linux! Works perfectly!
I tried the new plus patch feature - went straight to chinatown, very hard lol, weapons keep reloading constantly, no ammo haha. I'll spec for melee next time.

Now i just have to figure out how to run it with reshade or sweetfx. I assume Loader.exe also would just recognize those dlls right?

Also, what "magic" is this running on? My system wide installed wine version or something else? Is it a native thing and just called "exe"? Cause it's probably not running proton...

And if i were to add Loader.exe in Steam library, Steam would force proton on it right?

[† ßâd•£üç]< Îñç™]

That is great news! Please keep us posted on this, because I am eager to hear more about your experience with it. (Heck, it might make me switch over to Linux for good!) Anyhoo.......

That is actually not a bad idea since you're running it on Proton instead of Wine I am guessing. From my understanding, ReShade and SweetFX should be easy to set up. Additionally, if you add Loader as a non-Steam game shortcut to run VTMB through it, it should also also hook the Steam overlay into it and any games run through it -- similar to my guides regarding Origin and Battle.net game launchers.

Good luck and let me know how it goes!

[Vepar]

Originally posted by † ßâd•£üç< Îñç™:

That is great news! Please keep us posted on this, because I am eager to hear more about your experience with it. (Heck, it might make me switch over to Linux for good!) Anyhoo.......

That is actually not a bad idea since you're running it on Proton instead of Wine I am guessing. From my understanding, ReShade and SweetFX should be easy to set up. Additionally, if you add Loader as a non-Steam game shortcut to run VTMB through it, it should also also hook the Steam overlay into it and any games run through it -- similar to my guides regarding Origin and Battle.net game launchers.

Good luck and let me know how it goes!

Will do! I started a new playthrough, we'll see how it goes.
It still does the thing where it freezes completely upon loading a save first, then you have to press escape, then back to game and it's fine for the rest of the playthrough lol. Idk why it does that, but it's not disruptive.

Yeah, that's why i'm asking about non steam games, to try Proton - new mesa 23 driver just dropped on Arch with some improvements, and some newere GE proton versions can do some fun stuff.

But if adding loader.exe only affects the little launcher application, but the rest of the game works on something else - then that would be pointless adding it hahahah. But i guess it can't hurt to try. If the overlay shows up in game, i guess it works on the actal .exe file then...

I did try adding Reshade once but i couldn't get the overlay to show up. But that was on PopOS, things might work on Arch, i'll have to try.

[Vepar]

Ok, running Loader.exe from Steam as a non-steam game works!

Steam overlay shows up (though, i didn't yet test the controller and BPM overlay), and i even added launch options:

gamemoderun WINE_FULLSCREEN_FSR=1 %command%

Looks a bit crisper, so i think it's working, but it's hard to tell. Gamemode is just some optimisations (that VTMB shouldn't really need as it's an older title), and WINE_FULLSCREEN_FSR is AMD FSR (super resolution).

Yes, you can use FSR on any game in Linux in Proton games and yes it really works lol, i use it on Guild Wars 2, it's much more noticable there.

I didn't force any particular Proton yet, next i'm gonna test ReShande and the controller.

But so far so good. The "vanilla" UP and UPplus experience seems to be working great!

Unofficial Patch 11.3 final version.

[† ßâd•£üç]< Îñç™]

Originally posted by Vepar:

Yeah, that's why i'm asking about non steam games, to try Proton - new mesa 23 driver just dropped on Arch with some improvements, and some newere GE proton versions can do some fun stuff.

But if adding loader.exe only affects the little launcher application, but the rest of the game works on something else - then that would be pointless adding it hahahah. But i guess it can't hurt to try. If the overlay shows up in game, i guess it works on the actal .exe file then...

I did try adding Reshade once but i couldn't get the overlay to show up. But that was on PopOS, things might work on Arch, i'll have to try.

Hence the non-Steam shortcut suggestion, because the overlay hook has - in my experience, branches into other programs other than directly into the intended executable (i.e. the game itself). I guess the task then would be figuring out what it needs to fork into for the Steam overlay to function as well as ReShade/SweetFX, so it would make sense that Loader would be the shortcut you would need.

EDIT: Scratch this. It looks like you posted your results at the same time I posted this! Heh.

[Vepar]

Lol, posted at the same time.

[† ßâd•£üç]< Îñç™]

Originally posted by Vepar:

Ok, running Loader.exe from Steam as a non-steam game works!

Steam overlay shows up (though, i didn't yet test the controller and BPM overlay), and i even added launch options:

gamemoderun WINE_FULLSCREEN_FSR=1 %command%

Looks a bit crisper, so i think it's working, but it's hard to tell. Gamemode is just some optimisations (that VTMB shouldn't really need as it's an older title), and WINE_FULLSCREEN_FSR is AMD FSR (super resolution).

Yes, you can use FSR on any game in Linux in Proton games and yes it really works lol, i use it on Guild Wars 2, it's much more noticable there.

I didn't force any particular Proton yet, next i'm gonna test ReShande and the controller.

But so far so good. The "vanilla" UP and UPplus experience seems to be working great!

Unofficial Patch 11.3 final version.

Perfect!! I thought this how it would happen with Loader as the primary shortcut. Bet BPM and controller support should work normally too! 🤞

Does this mean you're no longer experiencing any freezing in game?

[Wesp5]

Loader.exe is nothing more than a launcher that makes it possible to choose between all installed mods, but the creator made sure it was optimized to work on Linux!

[Vepar]

Originally posted by † ßâd•£üç< Îñç™:

Originally posted by Vepar:

Ok, running Loader.exe from Steam as a non-steam game works!

Steam overlay shows up (though, i didn't yet test the controller and BPM overlay), and i even added launch options:

gamemoderun WINE_FULLSCREEN_FSR=1 %command%

Looks a bit crisper, so i think it's working, but it's hard to tell. Gamemode is just some optimisations (that VTMB shouldn't really need as it's an older title), and WINE_FULLSCREEN_FSR is AMD FSR (super resolution).

Yes, you can use FSR on any game in Linux in Proton games and yes it really works lol, i use it on Guild Wars 2, it's much more noticable there.

I didn't force any particular Proton yet, next i'm gonna test ReShande and the controller.

But so far so good. The "vanilla" UP and UPplus experience seems to be working great!

Unofficial Patch 11.3 final version.

Perfect!! I thought this how it would happen with Loader as the primary shortcut. Bet BPM and controller support should work normally too! 🤞

Does this mean you're no longer experiencing any freezing in game?

Yeah, i'll test it out soon. :)
Well, last time i played it, it didn't freeze at all so, idk lol.
It's not a freeze mid game or anything, it's just when you first load a save after starting the game. I don't know why it happens. Everything "works" like, you can press escape to bring up a menu, and press escape again or click anything to interact with it, and go back to the game, and then it unfreezes completely and never does this again for the rest of the play session.

Last time i loaded the game it didn't freeze at all so i don't know. If it happens to anyone reading this, just press "esc" twice, and it won't bother you again.

Originally posted by wesp5:

Loader.exe is nothing more than a launcher that makes it possible to choose between all installed mods, but the creator made sure it was optimized to work on Linux!

Ah, so that would mean, it's launching the game using whatever Proton is set on Steam right?

Which gives me an idea, i'll try adding launch options to the VTMB entry in Steam, instead of added loader.exe, to see if they also work then.

[Vepar]

Ok, BPM overlay works!
The new one.

And it feels SO much better than the old janky choppy one, WOW i'm impressed!
They totally butchered the controller configuration UI but the new overlay is extremely well done, like, proper "console" controller experience, so snappy like it should be, seemless!

Also, i have GOT to switch to GNOME from KDE, ugh...

There's a few "quirks" that i think are related to how KDE desktop environment implements Wayland and X11 in its kwin compositor. I'm using Wayland because X11 needs the desktop compositing turned off before playing games otherwise it skips frames. The FPS counter says 60+ FPS so it should be smooth (in general games, not just VTMB), but the actual screen looks very choppy. With desktop compositing turned off, this does not happen, but it (depending on FPS) introduces sometimes massive screen tearing (because vsync is handled by the compositor in linux), and in game vsync doesn't work exactly like it should and it too can introduce frame skipping.

This doesn't happen on Wayland, and games run smooth, however, Steam controller doesn't move the cursor when in desktop mode - and that also means it doesn't move the cursor in game.

And by cursor i mean, the cursor icon. The actual pointer data gets sent, mouselook works and if you move the mouse in the menus (via the controllers trackpad) it will highlight menu options, but it's unusable because you never know where the mouse is.

So... #justlinuxthings i guess hahah.

GNOME implements Wayland better from what i've heard so i'll be trying it out soon. KDE is trying my patience lately...

Hopefully there it won't have those issues.

Also, i didn't try the analog stick mouse that other controllers implement, so i can't vouch this will or won't happen with other controllers using Steam input.

And in this session again - i experienced NO freezing at the start. Maybe it's just a one time thing, who knows. Point is, even if it happens again, it's an easy fix.

[† ßâd•£üç]< Îñç™]

Originally posted by Vepar:

Ok, BPM overlay works!
The new one.

And it feels SO much better than the old janky choppy one, WOW i'm impressed!
They totally butchered the controller configuration UI but the new overlay is extremely well done, like, proper "console" controller experience, so snappy like it should be, seemless!

Also, i have GOT to switch to GNOME from KDE, ugh...

There's a few "quirks" that i think are related to how KDE desktop environment implements Wayland and X11 in its kwin compositor. I'm using Wayland because X11 needs the desktop compositing turned off before playing games otherwise it skips frames. The FPS counter says 60+ FPS so it should be smooth (in general games, not just VTMB), but the actual screen looks very choppy. With desktop compositing turned off, this does not happen, but it (depending on FPS) introduces sometimes massive screen tearing (because vsync is handled by the compositor in linux), and in game vsync doesn't work exactly like it should and it too can introduce frame skipping.

This doesn't happen on Wayland, and games run smooth, however, Steam controller doesn't move the cursor when in desktop mode - and that also means it doesn't move the cursor in game.

And by cursor i mean, the cursor icon. The actual pointer data gets sent, mouselook works and if you move the mouse in the menus (via the controllers trackpad) it will highlight menu options, but it's unusable because you never know where the mouse is.

So... #justlinuxthings i guess hahah.

GNOME implements Wayland better from what i've heard so i'll be trying it out soon. KDE is trying my patience lately...

Hopefully there it won't have those issues.

Also, i didn't try the analog stick mouse that other controllers implement, so i can't vouch this will or won't happen with other controllers using Steam input.

And in this session again - i experienced NO freezing at the start. Maybe it's just a one time thing, who knows. Point is, even if it happens again, it's an easy fix.

This is fantastic news!!! I hope you'll write a technical guide here on Steam once you have tested and confirmed all your findings. I know a lot of Linux lovers - myself included, would definitely be appreciative of it! 😍

EDIT: I forgot to ask... since you're using the Steam controller for testing (which is perfect because of its mouse emulation), are you using default controls or a custom one? If you're attempting to use a custom one, there is an old(er) article that explains how to use it on Ubuntu. I'm sure there is a way to apply it to other distros as well... so maybe something here[www.addictivetips.com] might help or perhaps spark some ideas? Just a thought.

[Vepar]

Originally posted by † ßâd•£üç< Îñç™:

This is fantastic news!!! I hope you'll write a technical guide here on Steam once you have tested and confirmed all your findings. I know a lot of Linux lovers - myself included, would definitely be appreciative of it! 😍

EDIT: I forgot to ask... since you're using the Steam controller for testing (which is perfect because of its mouse emulation), are you using default controls or a custom one? If you're attempting to use a custom one, there is an old(er) article that explains how to use it on Ubuntu. I'm sure there is a way to apply it to other distros as well... so maybe something here[www.addictivetips.com] might help or perhaps spark some ideas? Just a thought.

Well, i installed GNOME desktop environment, it's a bit overzealous about what constitutes an "unresponsive application" lol, so upon loading a save, a popup window apprears with "close/wait" prompt, but the game isn't actually unresponsive, i'll have to tweak that later.
But it didn't freeze so there's that...

And sure, when i test this out, i might write a short guide about it. Not that it's really needed beyond just running loader.exe, but i guess some people new to linux might want to know about installing wine, or launch options for the game, i will try out a few of them, see if there's a difference.

But the cursor thing isn't about custom or default controls, it's about Wayland compositor.
It's actual Valve who has to fix this, i can't really do anything about it.
Which is especially weird because - they're using Wayland on Steam deck, and Steam deck is based on Arch linux - you'd think they'd have it done by now but i guess it's a different compositor or something that uses wayland there.
Or - i installed GNOME alongside KDE, maybe some wires got crossed and whatever, but i think it's just how Valve decided to implement this...

I checked the link you provided, but there's nothing in there that really deals with this.
And it might be my hardware, idk. I did send a support email to Valve already once, telling them exactly what the problem is, but they promptly told me that "linux isn't supported" or something and basically told me off.

Steam deck runs linux.
Steam deck runs Arch based linux.
I run Arch linux.

How tf is it not supported???

But whatever, i'll look for a solution, if i find one, i'll post it.