APB Reloaded Linux/SteamOS Configuration Guide

This guide gives detailed step-by-step instructions on running APB: Reloaded on any Linux distribution, providing workarounds for issues that prevent direct compatibility at this time. In addition to this, known issues for Linux users are described in detail.

Introduction

As a few of us Linux users have discovered in the 1.30 Open Beta forum thread, since APB’s 1.30 update it has been possible to successfully run APB:Reloaded on the Linux operating system, thanks to Little Orbit cleaning up old code that was causing crashes with previous versions.

This is accomplished with a tool like Valve’s Proton that, to put it simply, translates APB’s DirectX9 API calls to Vulkan and Windows system calls to Linux equivalents in real time. The following guide shows how to accomplish this with a few minor tweaks, all within the Steam client.

This guide is taken from my forum thread here:
https://forums.gamersfirst.com/topic/20780-apb-130-on-linux-including-guide/

Setting up Proton

The easiest way to run APB on your Linux distro of choice is by using Steam and a Proton compatibility tool. You can use one of Steam’s bundled Proton versions but I recommend the Proton-GE variant by GloriousEggroll. You can find downloads and installation instructions for Proton-GE here: 

https://github.com/GloriousEggroll/proton-ge-custom

Don’t forget to set Proton-GE as your compatibility tool of choice in the game's properties ("Compatibility Tab"). In general, setting the latest version of Proton-GE there is what you want.

Setting up BattlEye

The next step is installing the Proton BattlEye Runtime. This is installed via Steam and you should be looking for it in your Library, not the store. Use the Library’s search function to find it, as shown below: 




The default installation options should work fine. Once you have set up the BE Runtime, you can proceed to install APB Reloaded from the Steam Store as you would on a Windows PC, or skip this step and use a previous installation if you have already done so.

Fixing the Launcher

If you try to run the game in this state, you’ll find that the launcher is able to update APB, but ironically not capable of launching it. This can be resolved with a command to paste in the game’s Properties, in the “Launch Options” text field:




The command to paste in your launch options is the following (it is just one line):

%command%;  $(echo %command% | sed -r "s/proton waitforexitandrun .*/proton waitforexitandrun/") "$STEAM_COMPAT_INSTALL_PATH/Binaries/APB.exe" -nosteam

This is based on a script to run different executables inside the game’s Proton environment. First Steam runs the launcher, then once the launcher closes (because the Start button was pressed) it launches the game executable. It will be launched without Steam integration, as this currently crashes the game and is not essential.  

Note that this has the side effect of breaking the launcher’s close button as it will launch APB regardless. If you want to update the game but not play it right away, simply press Stop in Steam’s APB library page once it’s done updating. 

With these steps done, you should be able to press Start and have the launcher close and APB itself start up. If you installed the BattlEye runtime as described in this guide you will be able to log into your account and join districts normally. If nothing happens if you press Start the Launcher may have frozen, so you can fix this by hitting Stop on APB's page and trying again. If your launcher keeps freezing, closing it with the X button rather than pressing Start may be a more reliable way to launch the game.

Known Issues

Even though I consider APB completely playable on Linux since the latest series of patches, there are still some rough edges here and there that might be fixed either with future patches to Proton or APB, or with community help. Here is a list of those I found:

Login screen load times

APB’s login scene takes quite a while to load compared to Windows, which is a minor annoyance as it can feel like the game has frozen when trying to load it.

Mail

System mail (such as Armas items) is rendered incorrectly when running under Linux which can make it harder to, for example, redeem account wide purchases on a new character. I am still not aware of what causes this but every other Linux APB user I’ve talked to seems to be experiencing the same issue. 

Game crashes (“General Protection Fault”)

Sometimes, especially during long play sessions, the game crashes showing a “General Protection Fault” error message. I have yet to encounter this on Feb 15th’s patch so it may have been tied to the memory leak mentioned in the patch notes. Also this happened more often when using Fullscreen (which isn’t actual fullscreen under Linux), so I suggest using Fullscreen Windowed ingame for more stability. This error was reported to the Dev team during beta testing for APB 1.30.

Conclusions

All in all, as a now single-boot Linux user I consider the release of 1.30 a great step forward to APB since compatibility went from zero to essentially fully playable just by cleaning up APB’s aged codebase. Hopefully, this compatibility will be preserved or even improved upon in future releases of this game. Also, looking forward to hear from more players who attempted this or a similar method to run APB on their Linux machine!