Withdrawn: Skyrim Redoran - Omni-guides/Wabbajack-Modlist-Linux GitHub Wiki
"This is House Redoran territory. You'd do well to remember that."
From the Modlist GitHub: Redoran is a modlist designed to be utilized with Skyrim's Anniversary Edition Upgrade, featuring high-quality quest-based content, followers, and generalized vanilla improvements, all while being optimized for performance. The AE content included in this pack has been fully integrated into the world of Skyrim. Most quests have either been reworked, removed, or expanded upon to enhance the experience.
Instructions
The following has been tested on Redoran v1.01
These steps will need to be carried out in Desktop mode, but once complete you will be able to launch the Modlist and play the game from Game Mode. For the Redoran Modlist, you will need to own the Anniversary Edition of Skyrim, and have launched the vanilla Skyrim game to download the Creation Club content.
Step 1 - Create the directory
Once Wabbajack has successfully completed the download and installation of the Modlist on your Windows system, create a new directory on the Steam Deck to house the required files - this can either be on the internal storage, or with the use of a specific launch parameter described below, can live on the SD Card. Open up Konsole and run only one of the following, depending on where you want to store the Modlist:
Create Directory on Internal Storage:
mkdir -p /home/deck/Games/Skyrim/Redoran
OR
Create Directory on SD Card:
mkdir -p /run/media/mmcblk0p1/Games/Skyrim/Redoran
(Note: Valve plan to change the default mount point of SD Cards within SteamOS soon, I'll update this guide once that chance is in place)
Copy the Modlist directory from Windows into this newly created directory. There are many ways to do this. I chose to enable ssh on my Deck, and then use rsync to transfer. There are too many options to discuss here, but it should be relatively easy to search for methods. I copied the Modlist directory to /home/deck/Games/Skyrim/Redoran/Redoran-WJ - the reason for this structure is that it helps if you want to have multiple Modlists installed at the same time.
Do not include any spaces in the directory path at this level - it does not play well with the Proton/mo-redirect/MO2 combination even with the spaces being escaped, for whatever reason..
Finally for this step, it's best to make sure that the newly copied files have sufficient permissions for your user. Run only one of the following for each action (owner and permissions), depending on where you want to store the Modlist:
Change the owner and permissions of the directory on Internal Storage:
sudo chown -R deck:deck /home/deck/Games/Skyrim/Redoran/Redoran-WJ
sudo chmod -R 755 /home/deck/Games/Skyrim/Redoran/Redoran-WJ
OR
Change the owner and permissions of the directory on SD Card:
sudo chown -R deck:deck /run/media/mmcblk0p1/Games/Skyrim/Redoran/Redoran-WJ
sudo chmod -R 755 /run/media/mmcblk0p1/Games/Skyrim/Redoran/Redoran-WJ
Step 2 - Steam Redirector
Next we need a nifty little program called steam-redirector. Information about this program can be found on the github page for the more general Linux Mod Organizer 2 installation by rockerbacon. You can download a version I have pre-compiled from here (tested on Arch and Fedora but should work on others) using one of the commands below. If you prefer, you can choose to build from source yourself following the instructions provided on the on the steam-redirector github page.
To download the version I have pre-built, run only one of the following commands in Konsole, depending on your storage location.
Download the pre-built mo-redirect.exe to Internal Storage:
wget https://github.com/Omni-guides/Wabbajack-Modlist-Linux/raw/main/mo-redirect.exe -O /home/deck/Games/Skyrim/Redoran/mo-redirect.exe
OR
Download the pre-built mo-redirect.exe to SDCard:
wget https://github.com/Omni-guides/Wabbajack-Modlist-Linux/raw/main/mo-redirect.exe -O /run/media/mmcblk0p1/Games/Skyrim/Redoran/mo-redirect.exe
This mo-redirect.exe is a wrapper app that basically points to the real location of your Modlist's ModOrganizer.exe and nxmhandler.exe. It does this based on the contents of two files that have to live inside a specific directory called modorganizer2. This directory has to exist in the same directory mo-redirect.exe lives. So we need to create a directory, and then create the two files mo-redirect.exe is expecting.
Run only one of the following commands in Konsole, depending on where you are storing the Modlist.
Create the Directory on Internal Storage:
mkdir /home/deck/Games/Skyrim/Redoran/modorganizer2
OR
Create the Directory on SD Card:
mkdir /run/media/mmcblk0p1/Games/Skyrim/Redoran/modorganizer2
Create the two required files, firstly ModOrganizer.exe. Run only one of the following:
Internal Storage:
echo "/home/deck/Games/Skyrim/Redoran/Redoran-WJ/ModOrganizer.exe" > /home/deck/Games/Skyrim/Redoran/modorganizer2/instance_path.txt
OR
SD Card:
echo "/run/media/mmcblk0p1/Games/Skyrim/Redoran/Redoran-WJ/ModOrganizer.exe" > /run/media/mmcblk0p1/Games/Skyrim/Redoran/modorganizer2/instance_path.txt
and then nxmhandler.exe. Again, only run one of the following:
Internal Storage:
echo "/home/deck/Games/Skyrim/Redoran/Redoran-WJ/nxmhandler.exe" > /home/deck/Games/Skyrim/Redoran/modorganizer2/instance_download_path.txt
OR
SD Card:
echo "/run/media/mmcblk0p1/Games/Skyrim/Redoran/Redoran-WJ/nxmhandler.exe" > /run/media/mmcblk0p1/Games/Skyrim/Redoran/modorganizer2/instance_download_path.txt
At this stage, the /home/deck/Games/Skyrim/Redoran directory (or SD Card equivalent) should contain the following two directories and one .exe file:
modorganizer2 mo-redirect.exe Redoran-WJ
with the modorganizer2 directory containing the two created files:
instance_path.txt
instance_download_path.txt
Step 3 - Add the redirector as a Non-Steam Game
Next step is to add mo-redirect.exe to Steam as a non-steam game. In Steam, click Games, then "Add a Non-Steam Game to My Library".
Click Browse, and then adjust the "Look in" and "File type" drop-down menus as in the image below, then click Open:
Once added, edit the properties of the new mo-redirect.exe entry. You can give it a more sensible name - I used "Skyrim - Redoran" for example, and then in the Compatibility tab tick the box for 'Force the use of a specific Steam Play compatibility tool', then select the Proton version - I chose Proton 7.0-5 which was the latest stable Proton version at time of writing..
IMPORTANT FOR SD CARD USERS - You must add the following to the Launch Options for the mo-redirect.exe Non-Steam game, otherwise the Proton environment won't have access to your SD Card contents:
STEAM_COMPAT_MOUNTS=/run/media/mmcblk0p1 %command%
Like so:
Click Start on this new Non-Steam Game entry - it will fail to load correctly, but we need to launch the entry once so that it registers fully in Steam, and allow Protontricks to interact with it in the next Step.
Close any error windows, or MO2 if it launched, and move on to the next step.
Step 4 - Enable Visibility of dot(.) files and folders
Redoran requires MO2 to point to the vanilla Skyrim install in Steam. To enable this, we need to perform a few steps to allow MO2 visibility of our vanilla Skyrim directory, which will probably exist in your /home/deck/.local directory (this may differ if you have installed vanilla Skyrim to the SD Card or other location). By default, Wine/Proton applications do not have visibility of .(dot) files and folders, so we need to tweak it via Protontricks.
If you don't already have it installed, ProtonTricks can be installed via the Discover store as a flatpak:
To enable the use of protontricks via the command line, open Konsole if it isn't open already, and run the following command to add an alias:
echo "alias protontricks='flatpak run com.github.Matoking.protontricks'" >> ~/.bashrc
then close and reopen Konsole. We can now invoke protontricks from the command line. Next, we need to allow protontricks access to the filesystem location (adjust as needed if you used a different path):
sudo flatpak override com.github.Matoking.protontricks --filesystem=/home/deck/Games
To add the ability to see dot files and folders inside the Proton prefix, open up the Protontricks gui for our Redoran instance (replace "Redoran" with the name of your Non-steam game entry, if you called it something else):
APPID=`protontricks -l | grep "Redoran" | awk {'print $NF'} | sed 's:^.\(.*\).$:\1:' | tail -1` ; protontricks $APPID --gui
Keep the 'default' selection highlighted, and click Next:
Select the 'winecfg' entry, and click Next.
This should open up a little windows style Properties box. From there, click the Drives tab at the top, and then check the box for showing 'dot files':
Click Apply and then OK. To exit winecfg, click Cancel, and then cancel again. With this setting now in place, MO2 will have visibility of the required .local directory path to point MO2 at when you first launch it. When running wine commands in Konsole, it usually mangles the terminal a bit - text you type wont be shown (though it technically is still being printed in the terminal) - to get out of that state, either close and reopen Konsole, or just type 'reset' and hit enter, even if you can't see the characters.
Step 5 - Start and Configure ModOrganizer2
Click play on Non-steam game - "Skyrim - Redoran" (or whatever you renamed it to) in Steam, and all being well, a little terminal window will appear - this is the steam-redirector doing it's job. If the terminal window just pops up for a second and vanishes, double check the contents of the instance_path.txt and instance_download_path.txt files as above, and that they are present in the correct directory - e.g. /home/deck/Games/Skyrim/Redoran/modorganizer2/instances_path.txt, or check that the Proton version you have selected is 7.0-5 (or whatever the latest Steam-supplied stable version is) and make sure that there are no spaces in the path - for some reason mo-redirect.exe doesn't like that, even if you escape the spaces in the text files.
Depending on the path on Windows that you copied the Modlist files from, you may see an error pop-up about your account lacking permission:
To fix this, we just need to strip the now incorrect download directory from the ModOrganizer.ini file:
sed -i "/download_directory/c\download_directory =" /home/deck/Games/Skyrim/Redoran/Redoran-WJ/ModOrganizer.ini
If you had this error, fix as above and then re-run "Skyrim - Redoran" from Steam.
Another error box will appear, complaining that it "Cannot open instance 'Portable'. This is because we copied the Modlist directory (inclusive of the built-in MO2) from Windows, so the path has changed:
To fix this, we need to point MO2 to our new location. Click OK, and then Browse. The path we are looking for is:
/home/deck/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/Skyrim Special Edition
The splash screen for Redoran should hopefully now display:
You may also get a pop-up asking if you want to Register for handling nxm links, like so:
I usually just hit "No, don't ask again" as I wont be downloading any new mods via this version of MO2.
Getting close now. Next, we have to ensure that ModOrganizer2 is pointing to the correct new location for the required executable. In MO2, click the little two-cog icon at the top, which will bring up the Modify Executables window (please note that this icon may differ for some Modlists that use custom icon sets):
For the Redoran executable, we need to point MO2 at a file that doesn't actually exist (but it will exist, once GameRoot does it's thing when you click launch - and is then removed again when the game closes).
The path you need for the Redoran application will be:
Z:\home\deck\.local\share\Steam\steamapps\common\Skyrim Special Edition\skse64_loader.exe
with a 'start in' path of:
Z:\home\deck\.local\share\Steam\steamapps\common\Skyrim Special Edition
If you installed vanilla Skyrim to an SD Card, then you will have to replace with the equivalent path in /run/media/mmcblk0p1.
Step 6 - Disable ENB
While ENB can work under Linux, it is likely going to badly impact performance on the Deck so I would advise you just disable it. However, if you do want to, you can see my guide to do so here
To disable ENB for Redoran, we just need to disable all the mods under the 'ENB - Options' category in MO2:
It's also a good plan to make sure that there are no Game Root leftovers. Click the Tools menu at the top of MO2, then select Tool Plugins, Root Builder, then Clear:
Step 7 - Fix Missing Audio
There is an issue with missing NPC Voices - apparently this is an issue with Proton, so it may ultimately be resolved in time with a newer version of Proton without needing these steps. For now though, we need to install xact and xact_x64 to the Wine/Proton environment Steam created for our "Skyrim - Redoran" (mo-redirect.exe) entry. The easiest way to accomplish this is to use ProtonTricks, which should be installed already from Step 4 earlier in this guide.
Adding some of the required packages can be done via the ProtonTricks gui, but perhaps the easiest way is via command line. You can run the following one-liner to do it for you, or if you prefer, you can manually run the individual steps noted below (replace "Redoran" with the name of your Non-steam game entry, if you called it something else):
APPID=`protontricks -l | grep "Redoran" | awk {'print $NF'} | sed 's:^.\(.*\).$:\1:'` ; protontricks $APPID xact xact_x64
Alternatively, If you prefer to run this manually, first find the AppID of the Non-Steam Game we added for mo-redirect.exe. In a terminal run:
protontricks -l | grep "Redoran"
Replace "Redoran" if you have renamed the Non-Steam Game added earlier. The output should look something like below, though your AppID will differ from mine:
Non-Steam shortcut: Skyrim - Redoran (3595949753)
With the AppID now known, install the required xact and xact_x64 packages into this Proton environment (use your own AppID from the command above):
protontricks 3595949753 xact xact_x64
This may take a little time to complete, but just let it run the course. Again, when running wine commands in Konsole, it usually mangles the terminal a bit - text you type wont be shown (though it technically is still being printed in the terminal) - to get out of that state, either close and reopen Konsole, or just type 'reset' and hit enter, even if you can't see the characters.
Step 8 - Install VCREDIST2022
Next up is the requirement of vcredist2022. Unfortunately this isn't available directly through protontricks as per xact, so we will have to install it semi-manually. The following one-liner should do everything you need (replace "Redoran" with the name of your Non-steam game entry, if you called it something else):
APPID=`protontricks -l | grep "Redoran" | awk {'print $NF'} | sed 's:^.\(.*\).$:\1:' | tail -1` ; wget https://aka.ms/vs/17/release/vc_redist.x64.exe -O '/home/deck/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/compatdata/'"$APPID"'/pfx/drive_c/vc_redist.x64.exe' ; protontricks -c 'wine /home/deck/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/compatdata/'"$APPID"'/pfx/drive_c/vc_redist.x64.exe' $APPID
Check the box to agree, and then click install. It should complete quickly.
Alternatively, If you prefer to run this manually, you can do the following. Firstly, we need to download the vc_redist.x64.exe installer inside the Proton prefix. Run the following command, replacing my Game ID (3595949753) with your own which you can get by running protontricks -l in Konsole:
wget https://aka.ms/vs/17/release/vc_redist.x64.exe -O /home/deck/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/compatdata/3595949753/pfx/drive_c/vc_redist.x64.exe
Then we can enter the shell of our Proton environment:
protontricks 3595949753 shell
If successful, it should display a little C: prompt in your terminal window. Your terminal may misbehave after running the wine command - you can regain control by typing 'reset', even if you can't see the characters as you type.
Finally, run the installer:
wine vc_redist.x64.exe
Check the box to agree, and then click install. It should complete quickly.
Again here, when running wine commands in Konsole, it usually mangles the terminal a bit - text you type wont be shown (though it technically is still being printed in the terminal) - to get out of that state, either close and reopen Konsole, or just type 'reset' and hit enter, even if you can't see the characters.
Step 9 - Set Resolution
Next, we should set the resolution and desired Max FPS so that the deck isn't doing more work than it needs to. There's no point in asking Skyrim to render at 1440p, and then have the game squeezed into an 800p screen on the deck. You can also decide to lock the FPS here, or you can leave it and lock the FPS/Refresh via the Steam Deck itself. To do this in MO2, we can double-click the "SSE Display Tweaks - Config File" mod entry in MO2:
Select the "INI Files" tab, click the entry under Ini Files, and then edit in the right pane for your desired resolution and Frame Limit:
Finally, click close and then Yes to accept the changes:
Step 10 - Optional but Recommended
Increase Steam Deck Swap Space, Swappiness and adjust Steam Deck VRAM
This may be optional, but there have been reports of far better stability and performance after increasing the swap space available to the deck when running Modlists. This is an optional step, but if you are experiencing stability issues, it might be worth investigating. How to do so is outside the scope of this guide, but there is plenty of information available elsewhere on how to do it - CryoByte33 has an excellent set of utilities available on github that can take care of this, and more!
Personally I have increased the VRAM in the deck bios to 4GB (see here for details), 16GB Swap space, and a Swappiness of 1 - the recommended settings when you run Cryobyte33's Steam Deck Utilities. In fact, the full video of Cryobyte33 explaining what this all means, is definitely worth a watch!
Conclusion
At last!
If you've read this far, then well done! I'd very much appreciate a Star for this guide, just to show if I'm on the right track. I'm also open to any feedback, positive or negative.
With NPC Voices fixed, and vcredist2022 installed, we should now be ready! Click the Play button in Mod Organizer, and wait....
You may see an error pop-up regarding bink2w64.dll. This is safe to ignore and can also appear on Windows.
The game does take quite a bit of time to start. So long, in fact, that I thought it had crashed and I started killing processes etc. But just wait... It took my Steam Deck approximately 3 minutes and 45 seconds before I could interact with the in-game menu. Once it had loaded though, performance was as expected in the menus.
On Steam Deck, I limit FPS and Refresh rate to 40, and it does a pretty good job at maintaining that in the Redoran Modlist, though I am still testing more performance tweaks. Increasing the size of the swap space available to the deck can definitely help with this. I would love to hear your feedback on performance of various lists, and any tweaks that you made!
More performance metrics, including ReShade and ENB performance to be added soon
As an addition to the disclaimer at the top of this guide, I have no visibility of longer term stability, so save often, and maybe even make backups of your save-games, just in case ;)
If you need help with any of the above, or better yet have another fix, tweak or workaround to help get these Modlists running on Linux, then please do stop by the #unofficial-linux-help channel on the Wabbajack Discord, I should be around so just @ me (@omni) on there!
Enjoy!
