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Oblivion On linux Via Proton
By Silvery158
This guide covers information in regards to running oblivion using proton on linux. WIthout some config changes some stuff will not work with proton. This focuses on modding based issues.
   
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Created by
Silvery158
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Category: Modding or Configuration
Posted
Updated
9 Aug, 2020 @ 5:39pm
9 Aug, 2020 @ 5:44pm
350 Unique Visitors
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Guide Index
Overview
Introduction 
General Path information 
Installing OBSE 
INI Tweaks 
File Structure Notes 
Credits 
Comments
Introduction
Hello, If you are reading this guide you likely have realized not everything is working perfectly with proton and Oblivion. I do not know if this extends to the vanilla game, but proton has some problems with modding setups.

This will consolidate and cover the information I found to fix some of these issues.

Warning: Some OBSE based mods will not function at all no matter what I have tried
-This seems to be related to how proton handles paths and where the DLL's point to

Lastly for reference, This was tested on my Linux Mint 19.3 with kernel 5.3
General Path information
Oblivion INI File:
(Steam Library Location)/Steam/steamapps/compatdata/22330/pfx/drive_c/users/steamuser/My Documents/My Games/Oblivion/Oblivion.ini
Install Folder:
(Steam Library)/Steam/steamapps/common/Oblivion/
Installing OBSE
For installing OBSE,
-There is one Special step after the normal installation instructions
-Download and follow the install instructions provided https://obse.silverlock.org/

Once installed open your terminal of choice:
cd <Oblivion Launcher Location) printf '\x90\x90\x90' | dd conv=notrunc of=obse_loader.exe bs=1 seek=$((0x14cb)) printf 'obse_loader\x00' | dd conv=notrunc of=OblivionLauncher.exe bs=1 seek=$((0x1347c))

In summary this does the following
-Move to the installation folder
-makes the oblivion executables point to OBSE for loading

Without this change OBSE will never load due to how proton launches the game



INI Tweaks
One step that will be required for any OBSE mods that utilize Keybinding is editing two lines in the INI.

In the Oblivion INI:
Edit These two lines to the values listed
bBackground Keyboard=1 bBackground Mouse=1

This will enable OBSE scripts to see keyboard events.
File Structure Notes
This can be extended to non proton installations

This section covers some perils related to folder structures and oblivion modding.
Oblivion mods live in the data folder, with their loose files living in folder within the data folder.

Interestingly, Oblivion seems case insensitive to the folder names, which creates an issue if two folders have the same name with different cases.
if two folders have the same name with only a case difference, Any mods relying on either will not be able to load their resources

This is simple enough to fix by merging the two folders into one, however this also applies to subdirectories.

Unfortunately based on what I have seen there was no concensus on the best practice of this leading to Mods from different authors using folder names such as "Textures" while others used "textures".

While installing mods, pick either Uppercase or Lowercase on your folder names and convert/merge folders as needed.
3 Comments
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Marcus Astronomius 2 Nov, 2023 @ 12:22pm 
You should also add a note about Anisotropic Filtering. This game does not natively support it and we don't have Nvidia/AMD control panels to force it in our proton games.

However, I found online that you can force Anisotropic Filtering if you are running with Proton. Just create a "dxvk.conf" file in the Oblivion folder (where Oblivion.exe is located) and then in it add the line:

d3d9.samplerAnisotropy = 16

Credit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/comments/tvi49s/any_way_to_force_16x_anisotropic_filtering_in/

This is especially useful for people who want Anisotropic filtering but don't want to use Reshade or other mods.
.kkringe 💪🐘RUS 25 Mar, 2023 @ 5:29am 
Thank you :3
Wizard 23 Nov, 2022 @ 8:02pm 
OMG FINALLY, i have been trying to get OBSE working for so long thank you so much
THANK YOU