Quoting: chimpyNot completely relevant to the article, but does anyone know how to install a non Steam DLC to a Steam Proton game? Specifically Mass Effect; Steam doesn't have any of the DLC available but they are available for free as executibles on the EA site. Tried to install by adding it like you'd add a non Steam game to Steam, but when it looks for where Mass Effect is installed it can't find it.

The solution given by Trias should work, but I made a tool for doing things like this, based on my Wine/Proton wrapper scripts (see here at the bottom of the post - look for SteamPlay Menu). Extract it somewhere and run the start.sh script; you can either specify the AppID with the argument appid=<appid> or you can search through your installed games/select it from a list.

From the menu, choose the "Run..." option and select the installer, then just click through to run it. You can also run Winetricks and configure various Wine settings using the script.

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Quoting: Comandante ÑoñardoCan I install my steam games OFFLINE from backups using this Goldberg Emulator?

Yes, as long as the game has no proper DRM. The Goldberg emulator is basically an open source reimplementation of the Steam API.

It was reported about on GOL previously if you want to take a look at it - https://www.gamingonlinux.com/articles/the-goldberg-steam-emulator-has-a-new-release-marking-one-year.14787

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I decided to test the few Feral-ported games I have in my Steam library:

• XCOM: Enemy Unknown: Binaries will try to launch Steam if SteamGameId and SteamAppId environment variables are not set. After setting those it subsequently quits after SteamAPI_Init() fails. I was able to get this working using the Goldberg emulator with the default setup I use for that (set it to offline mode & generate steam_interfaces.txt).


• Total War: Medieval II: The start script performs a crude check to see if it has been started from Steam and will try to start the game through Steam if it has not. This can be bypassed by either setting SteamAppId or editing the check out but the game quits after SteamAPI_Init() fails. As with XCOM, using the Goldberg emulator with it was successful.


• Tomb Raider: Same as above.


• F1 2015: Same as above.


• DiRT Rally: This quits with SteamAPI_Init() failing even with the Goldberg emulator library.


• Total War: Shogun 2: Same as above, but it also attempts to start Steam.

So from this it looks like Feral's newer games are likely to be more strongly DRM'ed than their older games...

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Could someone with Feral's games on Steam check if any of them are actually DRM-free please?

Close Steam, go to the game directory and try running its executable/start script directly - if it runs and has full single-player/offline functionality, then it's DRM-free. Some games might require certain tricks to run without Steam e.g. creating a steam_appid.txt or providing a command-line argument. There's a list of many such games here: https://steam.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_DRM-free_games

Failing that, the "DRM" on many Steam games is often more of a laziness or accident thing than real DRM (either throwing an error message & exiting when SteamAPI_Init() returns 0 or not taking it into account and subsequently crapping out when the API doesn't respond as expected) and in such cases these games will at least run with something like the Goldberg emulator. Proper DRM requires more significant effort to implement and its presence would suggest that Feral does actually care about DRM... so even if they're not outright DRM-free will any of Feral's games at least work with an emulator?

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Quoting: HamishLaunching them still requires some patience, as they all seem prone to false starts...

Try starting them with: taskset 0x1 <command>
(make sure to disable CSMT before doing this)

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Quoting: GuestOn this subject I can heartily recommend Jim Sterling. He's done some good videos on this very topic, with some proper research and thought out points on the matter.

People should watch this one in particular:

The Addictive Cost Of Predatory Videogame Monetization

There's also this video about it by YongYea: CEO Keynote On Tricking Players Into Mass Spending Highlights Deplorable Truth of Microtransactions

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Quoting: Comandante ÑoñardoI played the DEMO and I didn't see anything controversial in the game...
Is the typical retro FPS game....

The controversy is covered on Know Your Meme along with screenshots of the offending content/comments: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/subcultures/ion-fury - personally I think people are way overreacting to it

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Know Your Meme also has a page up about the controversy and has screenshots of the allegedly "transphobic"/"homophobic" comments and ingame text that a few people started the shitstorm over: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/subcultures/ion-fury

Anyway, drama aside it's a good game from what I've played so far. Also worth noting that this isn't merely a case of using low-res/pixellated graphics; it actually uses a retro game engine - the same engine used by Duke Nukem 3D, albeit a heavily updated version... you can even use eDuke32 with it :)

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It should also be possible to spoof the GPU vendorid/deviceid by using a custom dxvk.conf and placing it alongside the game's executable - un-comment these lines and set the values accordingly (the values for my RX480 are deviceid 67df, vendorid 1002):

# dxgi.customDeviceId = 0000
# dxgi.customVendorId = 0000

Edit: Never mind - as Liam pointed out it uses Vulkan natively rather than go through DXVK so this won't work.

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Installed it on my main system yesterday & updated my Linux Mint beginner's guide today, all good so far :)

Quoting: UltraVioletIs there any way to change to a older kernel that you've installed if you can't press f8 at boot up for advanced options ?

Press Escape quickly just before it boots into Mint to access the GRUB menu on UEFI systems. If you hold it down too long (or press it after the menu appears) you'll get a console - if this happens just type "normal", then press enter then quickly press escape once to get back into the menu.

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