How to get Fallout 4 working on Steamplay and Ubuntu 18.04

[Dr. Sloth]

Steam has done a great job to support and include Native Linux versions of many games, but some still are only available for Windows. That is being somewhat remedied by the incorporation of Proton, a translation tool that allows Windows games to be played in Linux. Unfortunately, it's not as seamless as most of us want it to be yet. So here are instructions to get Fallout 4 working for your on your Ubuntu Linux machine.

You will need to enroll in the Steam Beta program and enable Proton for Windows games. Instructions for that can be found https://steamcommunity.com/games/221410/announcements/detail/1696055855739350561

Just to be clear, these instructions are not mine. They were taken from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HbR9FsqOXY and all credit goes to the guy that made it.

They are useful to get Fallout 4 to work under Ubuntu 18.04 and I couldn't find anything here in the forums, so here it is.
These are necessary in order to make sound work in the game, and to make the mouse stop jumping around when moving. It will also take care of some visual glitches in the game (but not all of them).

Open a terminal and follow the steps:

#1 Install winetricks this is an app that is necessary for some configuration changes

sudo apt-get install winetricks

#2 Install xact this is needed to install audio libraries (I think)

 WINEPREFIX=$HOME/.steam/steam/steamapps/compatdata/377160/pfx winetricks --force xact 

#3 Run wine config This will open Winetricks configuration GUI

WINEPREFIX=$HOME/.steam/steam/steamapps/compatdata/377160/pfx winecfg

#4 Create xaudio overrides
On the utility window that should have opened with the previous command, click on the Libraries tab. Enter xaudio2_6 in the box and click Add, and enter xaudio2_7, click Add, and set them both to native. If you have questions about this step watch the video.

#5 Add Mouse configuration
On your File Manager, search for the files Fallout4Custom.ini, Fallout4.ini and Fallout4_Default.ini (Just to be sure)
Edit the file to include/add the lines to the section:

[Controls]
bBackgroundMouse=1

Save and close

#6 Disable some visual flair that causes some weird glitches
On your File Manager, search for the file Fallout4.ini
under the [/b][Display][/b] section add the following line:

bNvGodraysEnable=0

On your File Manager, search for the file Fallout4Prefs.ini. You may have more than one. You can change them both.
Add or change the following line under [Display]

bVolumetricLightingEnable=0

Save and Close.

Start the game and see if it works for you.

That's what I did to get it to work for me. I hope it works for others too.

Cheers!

PS: Known issue - game crashes on exit. You may need to open a virtual terminal (CTRL+ALT+F2), login, and use the following command to get it to quit.

sudo killall Fallout4.exe

One workaround for that is to quit to the game's main menu and from there quit to Desktop. If you quit the game directly to Desktop it will hang and you will have to do the above.

[Ness]

Thanks for this. I had to restart the game a few times for the mouse to finally work correctly, and there are still some graphics glitches (most notably, everyone has multiple eyelids or something), but for the most part it's working pretty well.

[Dr. Sloth]

You can download the latest kernel version (with embedded drivers) with Ukuu, and the latest Mesa through some PPAs. I would recommend getting both, especially if you're using AMD GPUs.

You can find instructions for them

https://launchpad.net/~paulo-miguel-dias/+archive/ubuntu/pkppa

and

https://www.ostechnix.com/ukuu-an-easy-way-to-install-and-upgrade-linux-kernel-in-ubuntu-based-systems/

[Valvoja_Allu]

Thanks Dr.Sloth this almost fixed everything. But still after some time playing the character refuses to turn right (mouse). The movement ability kinda gets cropped.

i4770k 3,7GHz
16GB RAM
GTX980TI

[Dr. Sloth]

I noticed that it usually happens to me right after a dialog screen. Try centering the mouse during the dialog to prevent this.

[Valvoja_Allu]

I gave up. The sound also disappears mostly. But I bought Metro Last Light dedux which i can highly recommend.

[Stinky]

If you've got time to play videogames and post garbage, your time is worthless.

[TwoTall]

Hi,
I am having the exact same issue as Allu,

"Thanks Dr.Sloth this almost fixed everything. But still after some time playing the character refuses to turn right (mouse). The movement ability kinda gets cropped."

I tried to move my mouse closer the the center of the screen or anywhere on the screen in menus.

[Dr. Sloth]

I'm sorry, I can't help you with that. I don't know what the cause of the problem is. I believe that it's some inner working for proton that causes it to do it.

[TwoTall]

This issue was corrected you meant the dialog screen when the settings and play options come before the game is actually loaded. it happened to me because my native desktop is 1080p and the game was set to 720p and a little 720p window is drawn in the top left quadrant and the arrow needed to be in the center of that... OR just change the game to have the same native resolution as my desktop (1080p).

[Neumond]

With Proton 3.16-6 game works pretty good. The only fix I needed to apply is #5 the mouse fix. Without the fix mouse was too much sensitive and randomly jumping even from small movement. After the fix mouse works properly, but I still got a minor issue. It feels like it hits the edge of the screen or something, and I can't rotate camera to that direction anymore. I had this issue with Grand Theft Auto 5 and my solution was to switch mouse input from RAW to Windows. Maybe there is some way to fix this for Fallout 4 too?

[Ness]

Originally posted by Adomas:

I had this issue with Grand Theft Auto 5 and my solution was to switch mouse input from RAW to Windows. Maybe there is some way to fix this for Fallout 4 too?

This was the minor mouse issues I mentioned in the first comment. Restarting the game generally fixed it, though sometimes I had to restart it a few times.

I ended up crashing back then as I met Preston outside the museum, so I shelved the game. Going to give it another try now, see how it's going (I also have updated video drivers, so hopefully no multiple eyelids ).

---

Finally got around to trying it out again, using Proton 3.16-4, and it's running much better. Sound occasionally crashes for me (just the sound, not the whole game), so I have to restart the game, but I can live with that. The only Proton related fixes I did were the winetricks xact and the related native xaudio2_6 and 2_7.

As for the game's INI files, I just ran the launcher and set everything to ultra, then, based on what I was reading elsewhere, I made a tweak to lower shadow distances. With it set to high or ultra, which are 14,000 and 20,000, respectively, I was getting seemingly random FPS dips from 60 down to 30-ish and some smaller ones down to 45-ish. I dropped it to 4,000 and I've had nearly rock solid 60 FPS since. The lines for that are fDirShadowDistance and fShadowDistance in the Fallout4Prefs.ini in the "steam/steamapps/compatdata/377160/pfx/drive_c/users/steamuser/My Documents/My Games/Fallout4/" directory. I might play around with that to see if I can get a higher distance without tanking my FPS again. I also did the background mouse thing, though I don't know that I needed to do so, I just did so as part of setting it up since I had to last time.

[Aare]

Originally posted by Ness:

I ended up crashing back then as I met Preston outside the museum, so I shelved the game. Going to give it another try now, see how it's going (I also have updated video drivers, so hopefully no multiple eyelids :cozybethesda:).

Hey Ness, was just wondering if you had found a fix to that multiple eyelids glitch? I just switched from Windows to Ubuntu a couple of days ago, and I can't seem to a solution to this issue...
Dr. Sloth, thank you, I didn't have any sound in game until I came across your fix.

[Ness]

Originally posted by Aare:

Hey Ness, was just wondering if you had found a fix to that multiple eyelids glitch? I just switched from Windows to Ubuntu a couple of days ago, and I can't seem to a solution to this issue...

Ugh, sorry, Steam has been really, really bad at notifying me about replies.

I forgot to update the above after trying it out, but it is fixed. I think the fix is using newer nVidia drivers than what's available by default on Ubuntu. If you don't want to go figuring out how to compile and install them yourself, you can add the Graphic Drivers PPA and install them from there using whatever your usual package installation method is (I use the command line). If you're not using an nVidia card, I can't help. I also use Kubuntu, so I can't be entirely sure of what might be different from plain Ubuntu.

My best guess at how to do this using the GUI:

Remove old nVidia files. Open up your package manager, search for "nvidia" in your installed packages, remove any results that start with "nvidia".

Add the Graphics Drivers PPA[launchpad.net]. This step I'm unsure of. Your package manager probably has an option in a menu somewhere to add a PPA or a source, so use that. The PPA info can be found at the link. The PPA is:

ppa:graphics-drivers/ppa

It may be necessary to tell your package manager to do a refresh after doing this.

Install nVidia drivers. There should be something like a "Driver Manager" or "Additional Drivers" or something along those lines in your "control panels" or "system settings". Find that and run it. Once it finishes scanning your system, pick the nVidia driver version that you want to use. Generally, the highest number is the best option, but if it's buggy, go down from there until you get something that's stable. 410 is the current "stable" release, but there are also 415 (which I use; it was the highest choice at the time) and 418 to choose from.

Alternatively, you may be able to install the drivers with your package manager. Search for "nvidia-driver" and install the one you want, for example, "nvidia-driver-418".

Reboot.

-------

Console/Terminal:

Get rid of old drivers:

sudo apt-get purge nvidia* && sudo apt-get autoremove -y

Add the PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:graphics-drivers/ppa

That should have also auto-updated the cache, but if not:

sudo apt-get update

Install nVidia drivers. Start typing the following, but do not enter it yet:

sudo apt-get install nvidia-driver-

Now, press tab twice to get a list of all available drivers. Pick the one you want and finish typing it, then enter it. Example:

sudo apt-get install nvidia-driver-418

Reboot.

[osced86]

Hi, I've recently purchased the game and followed your guide here.
Unfortunately I can't even get the game to launch, I'm using ubuntu 19.04 though, but have the latest NVIDIA drivers installed. Have been looking through every guide I can find and have not yet found any way to get it to work. As I don't own any windows computer I would like to use the game. Do you have any idea what I can do to make it work?

[ISMAEL]

ubuntu for play games.... nice.... brain not found