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How can I transfer non-steam games between Linux devices.
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this post was submitted on 30 Jun 2024
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I use Lutris and set up my directories a "GameName" and then 2 subdirectories "game" "prefix" and point Lutris to these.
All of the game files go in "game" and the prefix is created in "prefix" when I press play in Lutris. Any extras dlls that are needed can be installed with winetricks within Lutris to that specific prefix
This way you can just compress and decompress "GameName" folder and point Lutris to these locations on whichever machine.
You can choose which prefix version you want in Lutris and it will download that version for you. ~~I'm pretty sure it saves the version to somewhere in ~.local/share/lutris I'm not at my PC now so not 100% sure of the path.~~
It saves it to ~.local/share/lutris/runners/wine and you can put a custom wine build here and Lutris should recognise it when configuring the runner options
So you could copy this over to the corresponding location on the deck and Lutris will automatically detect this version as installed and won't have to download it again but its not necessary unless you don't have internet on the deck, or you're like me and want to keep an archive of the working prefix for the future in case the prefix version is no longer available for whatever reason and other version just won't work.
If you're new to Lutris, I wrote a step by step guide on how I use Lutris on a different community
https://sopuli.xyz/comment/9858101
I just use the same prefix for every game. That cause any known issues? Also awesome comment thanks. Saved.
I've run into issues where a game will work with a specific version of wine but then not work with a newer version but then other games that don't work with the older version, work with the new one.
Theres also potentially issues of dependencies for one game breaking another game. Separate prefixes just make it easier to troubleshoot a game not working since you can just install/uninstall whatever dependencies that it might need without worrying about messing up other games.
Its also just easier to delete the entire prefix when you realise you've installed too many useless dlls and you've finally found the one thing you do need to make the game work lol
I also like to archive games I like since companies can just decide to remove their games from existence whenever they want. So I just add the separate prefix that has any extra dlls or tweaks to the archive so that the game should still work in 3 years without having to try and download dependencies that may not be as easy to find in the future
But if you don't have issues I don't think its a big deal and if you do have issues with a game, you can just make a separate one for that anyway.
Wow. You wrote a guide on it. I'll try to find time to read it tonight! I do have a question, what if a game makes use of the windows registry? Would that change the prefix?
Guide is maybe not the right word lol, it just exactly what I click to set up the majority of my games
I'm not 100% sure, but from my understanding yes the regisrty in the "prefix" folder would be changed. You can manually edit the wine prefix registry with regedit https://www.winehq.org/docs/wineusr-guid%3Cbr%20/%3Ee/using-regedit and Lutris supports this, just click the arrow that brings up the winetricks option and its under Wine Registry
Sounds like a guide to me ☺️
The registry is one of the reasons I was thinking I would need separate prefixes that I can copy. But, I also understand that games that actually use the registry are few and far between. If I actually come across one that needs registry edits I can just pack that differently.