Trouble with Windows compatibility layers for non steam games through Steam

Issues & Assistance
1

Hello,

I’m trying to play (and install) Windows games to play them with proton. I am finding myself stuck though, because when I try to run non-steam games with proton through Steam, it just loads for a minute or two before giving up and not giving me anything, not even an empty window. I tried vanilla proton, GE-Proton, and Proton-cachyos. None of them work with non-steam games, but they do work with normal steam games.

I ran ‘prime-run steam’ in my terminal in case I’d be able to see the problem, and I only saw that it called the integrated GPU the default one, so I thought it could have been a problem of dGPU/iGPU selection, but considering normal steam games, both recent and old, run as expected with proton and custom versions, I’m not so sure anymore. I tested that theory by adding ‘prime-run %command%’ in the launch options box, and it still gave me the same outcome, so I’m assuming it’s not the problem.

I am currently following this tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SthbhW69Dsg, to install the mentioned game. I can run the installation software just fine through GE-Proton, but once that’s installed, if I try to run the game’s exe file, it just gives me nothing.
Previous game I was trying to add to steam as a non-steam game was Fear & Hunger, and it behaved identically.
Through wine, both F&H and Silent Hill 3 start and play okay. I just can’t get them to launch through steam, as non-steam games, and I don’t know why that is.

Here is the result of **‘**sudo cachyos-bugreport.log’

Thanks in advance everyone

2

Seriously? SH3 is abandonware. Be happy you can play it through wine.

3

I know. How is this relevant? I did say more recent games failed to work in the exact same way. The problem doesn’t come from SH3 being old and badly supported if at all, but from either steam behaving weirdly with non-steam games, or from maybe proton being configured/installed incorrectly, or any other reason. Besides, if you look for “silent hill 3 on linux” anywhere online, many people have done so easily.

My issue is that I can’t run any non-steam game through Steam and run them with proton or any of its variants.

4

Could you post the output from

inxi -G
5

If Steam fails for whatever reason, you could try to install your games using Heroic Games Launcher. It has an option to add a game to Steam (which will launch via Heroic in the background) so you can still use Steam features.

I install all non-Steam games that way. It’s cool Steam has its own system to launch non-Steam games but Valve is prone to adding weird bugs every now and then and this might be one of those cases. Heroic in general has amazing support for Windows games.

6

Sure! Here it is:

Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel Kaby Lake-H GT2 [HD Graphics 630] driver: i915 v: kernel
  Device-2: NVIDIA GP107M [GeForce GTX 1050 Mobile] driver: nvidia
    v: 580.159.04
  Device-3: Cheng Uei Precision Industry (Foxlink) HP Wide Vision HD Camera
    driver: uvcvideo type: USB
  Display: x11 server: X.org v: 1.21.1.23 with: Xwayland v: 24.1.12 driver:
    X: loaded: modesetting,nvidia dri: iris gpu: i915 resolution: 1920x1080~60Hz
  API: EGL v: 1.5 drivers: iris,nvidia,swrast
    platforms: gbm,x11,surfaceless,device
  API: OpenGL v: 4.6.0 compat-v: 4.6 vendor: intel mesa v: 26.1.2-arch2.1
    renderer: Mesa Intel HD Graphics 630 (KBL GT2)
  API: Vulkan v: 1.4.350 drivers: intel,nvidia surfaces: N/A
  Info: Tools: api: eglinfo, glxinfo, vulkaninfo de: xfce4-display-settings
    gpu: nvidia-settings,nvidia-smi x11: xprop,xrandr

Thanks, I’ll try that!

7

Can you try using this environment variable in your Steam launch options?

DRI_PRIME=1 %command%

This should force the use of your second GPU to run the game. That may not be the problem here but it’s possible.

8

Doesn’t it? Do you think Proton just works automagically?

9

I don’t believe Proton works automagically but Proton has run a ton of really old games for me.

To prove the point:
Toy Story 2, Rayman 2, Worms 2, Worms 3D, Worms 4 Mayhem, Worms Forts, Donald Duck: Going Quackers, Atomic Bomberman, Super Bubsy, various Tetris games, The Incredibles, Sheep Dog ‘n’ Wolf, Rat Attack, m&m’s The Lost Formulas, Grand Theft Auto, GTA San Andreas, Re-Volt, Hogs of War, Hangaroo, Disney Pixar Cars, Tom & Jerry in Fists of Furry, Disney’s Tarzan, LEGO Island Extreme Stunts, Freedom Force, Populous The Beginning, Madagascar, Titeuf Mega Party, Driver Parallel Lines, Champion Sheep Rally…

I could list at least three times as many examples still as I’m just going through my list of old games I played on my Steam Deck but I think that’s enough. I also installed all of those directly using Steam, even though I use Heroic on CachyOS.

In most cases it should work. Proton isn’t magic but it’s pretty dang advanced.

10

And one could make just as long a list of games which don’t yet work with Proton.

You are aware of ProtonDB? A great big list of games in categories from Platinum down.

None of the games you mentioned are abandonware because, as you say, you installed them through Steam. There is a big difference between simply being old and being abandonware.

Anyway, my point was that if you can play such a game through wine then why worry about Steam and Proton?

11

Well that worked! I had tried ‘prime-run %command%’ and other similar things in the launch options so I really thought it wasn’t a GPU selection issue.

The Heroic Launcher method worked well too, although it is a slightly different process for slighly different needs.

Thanks to you two!

Because even though Wine runs it, Wine isn’t optimized for video games and has issues for some of them. For example, Wine fails to load some of the FMVs in SH3, compatibility layer softwares aren’t one size fits all. But if you couldn’t believe current machines to be able to run 20 year old games, I can understand why this is a difficult concept to you!

13

Can’t say for sure but I believe this is a product of Steam failing to identify the “prime” GPU for some reason, so it needed to be manually specified.

So I just saw the inxi -G output and said “well, we want to use the second GPU and it’s probably trying to use the first, despite trying prime-run.”
And DRI_PRIME=0 would be first GPU, and DRI_PRIME=1 is the second.

Just for future reference. Glad it got fixed.

I also try to stay away from Steam as a launcher for non-Steam games and use Heroic instead, though I’ve got my bones to pick there too.

14

I doubt it. I didn’t go out of my way to only install games that I knew worked with Proton beforehand. Those are old games of mine that I wanted to replay and I’ve gotten every single one to work with Proton. Granted, needing community patches and configuration tinkering in some cases.

None of the games you mentioned are abandonware because, as you say, you installed them through Steam. There is a big difference between simply being old and being abandonware.

Huh? What does that even mean?

I use Heroic on CachyOS, that doesn’t make much of a difference. I just used Steam on my Steam Deck because I originally just ran everything through Steam.

Anyway, my point was that if you can play such a game through wine then why worry about Steam and Proton?

I presume they wanted to use Steam features like the overlay and all of its capabilities.

I’ve run games much older than 20 years. Current machines can certainly run old games - but that is only because someone has optimised those games to run on modern machines! By definition a game that ha been abandoned…

No…? A lot of old games do just work with Proton. No optimizations needed.

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_Thread locked so I have to edit_

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You don’t understand what i said about the games you have on steam and abandonware? If a game is on Steam, it still has people working on it and it has people who own it, produce and licence it. If a game is abandonware, the developers have gone and no one owns it - it has been literally abandoned. There might be individuals out there patching the game with varying success and trying to keep it playable.

It makes sense I didn’t understand it because the OP and I were talking about installing games through Steam like installing them through Heroic. No one ever said anything about them being on Steam. I installed most of those games from my old discs.

You doubt it? There are thousands of games that don’t work on linux. There thousands that don’t work on windows any more. That’s a fact, not an argument.

Weird that I’ve gotten every old game I own and wanted to play to work. I’m curious where you’re getting these statistics. Maybe I should buy a lottery ticket?

But if you think games from 20 years ago just work today without updating, i don’t know what to say

I don’t know what to say to that either because the majority of 20-year-old games I played on my Steam Deck didn’t need updates. Idk where you’re getting this idea.

15

You doubt it? There are thousands of games that don’t work on linux. There thousands that don’t work on windows any more. That’s a fact, not an argument.

You don’t understand what i said about the games you have on steam and abandonware? If a game is on Steam, it still has people working on it and it has people who own it, produce and licence it. If a game is abandonware, the developers have gone and no one owns it - it has been literally abandoned. There might be individuals out there patching the game with varying success and trying to keep it playable.

But if you think games from 20 years ago just work today without updating, i don’t know what to say. You might not have had to do any optimisation to get your old games working but lots of other people at valve and wine and proton did have to do that work.