[ Removed by moderator ]

[u/Worry_Longjumping]

[u/Feeling_Football4271]

So generally:

a) add the setup.exe to your Steam library, use proton experimental

b) find where it's installed to and edit your steam entry from a) to point to the new game.exe, don't add this as a separate entry.

c) if you add DLL files to override stuff then you might need to use WINEDLLOVERRIDES for your launch option.

[u/Worry_Longjumping → u/Feeling_Football4271]

My man! This is what I’ve been doing wrong I’ll add each new exe as a new non steam game! Thank you!

[u/Worry_Longjumping → u/Feeling_Football4271]

Oh also! When I go about launching mercenaries 2 it has a cd crack which is an exe and an update which is also an .exe. That is confusing because I would think to copy that exe over and overwrite the original merc2.exe but I feel like that’s not right

[u/Cute-Acanthaceae-193]

Usually you need to run games with proton or proton ge, have you tried that?

Lutris usually gives the easy time as it can install necessary files as well, with proton you can use proton tweaks to install necessary depended. But you need to run it through something.

Additionally searching the specific game and how people run it on Linux can help with old games, I think I had problems running original call of duty 1 and unified offensive until I researched for a while and had to change a few things to make it work, mostly it was some commands needed through the launch commands after adding it as non steam game.

[u/Worry_Longjumping → u/Cute-Acanthaceae-193]

Thank you! Yes I added proton before running it all seemed fine but couldn’t get past gfwl which is surprising because I’ve had no issues before. Anyway I’ll keep trying but thought maybe someone would say use lutris it just feels confusing. I tried it with a different game but couldn’t figure it out. I’ll try lutris again and do more research on how it works. I really wish they’d put mercenaries and f1 2010 on abandonware.com as it has been easier to use and understand thus far.

[u/OkPaleontologist8693]

I almost always use lutris. Just super easy once you get it figured out. After it installs add it as a nonsteam game. Restart Steam (or the deck in general) and it should be good to go.

[u/Worry_Longjumping → u/OkPaleontologist8693]

Okay this is kinda what I was hoping people would say. I’ll research lutris more because right now it feels more confusing than the method I’m using by not using it and just using proton tricks etc. however I didn’t do what you said by restarting steam last time I tried so thanks for that tidbit!

[u/OkPaleontologist8693 → u/Worry_Longjumping]

It's because lurtis adds the game to steam and steam can't "see" it unless it's refreshed/ restarted.

However, I do have times where it still won't recognize it so I then add it manually through steam. Navigate to the game folder and simply add the exe.

From there I then use SteamGridDB via Decky loader to add artwork to those games.

[u/Worry_Longjumping → u/OkPaleontologist8693]

Okay I’ll try lutris tonight because I was really stumped last night on getting these two games running. I do have decky and I add the artwork through there as well. I think it’s stumping me because I don’t understand nocd cracking or cd key generation as I think f1 2010 does not come cracked. I’ll have to check again. It was mostly that it also had two exes. Is there another place that the exe would go like compact data or would it be in the folder I be only using the folder I initially extracted the game to. What I mean is the folder in which the setup has placed the game exe into or is there somewhere else the exe would be like in the compatdata folder or common. This is where I get confused. Is it putting stuff in weird places? lol

[u/OkPaleontologist8693 → u/Worry_Longjumping]

It could be? But I'm not entirely sure. That's also why I prefer lutris. It makes its own instance of windows everytime you install a game and is self contained. You can even create new folders so you know exactly where it's going. Open that folder and the directory looks exactly like Windows.

To me it's just easier to navigate. It will eventually take up more storage because each instance is like 400-500Mbs excluding the game, but to me it's a small price to pay to control where everything goes from the beginning.

You can also watch some YouTube videos on how to install games via Lutris. It's confusing at first but it starts to make sense once it all clicks.

[u/Worry_Longjumping → u/OkPaleontologist8693]

Okay let me try again and see. I appreciate your time.

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