I‘ve checked a few of the resources I found here but I seem to be unable to wrap my head around this.

I want to play one specific game purchased from GoG on my Steam Deck. It only has a windows installer. I don’t need a fancy launcher (at the moment). The game has low hardware requirements so should run fine via emulation/proton…

What’s the easiest way to install and add this game to game mode?

Edit: clarification on the launcher. I don’t necessarily need one. If it is the easiest way to get it done I still would consider installing one.

  • Auster@thebrainbin.org
    3·
    2 days ago

    Adding to that, iirc the user needs to change the EXE on Steam after the install, else Steam will keep trying to open the installer.

    • gustofwind@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      2 days ago

      Funnily enough I tried to do this with battlenet and it didn’t work but if I just run the original added installer on steam it auto runs properly

      • Björn@swg-empire.de
        1·
        2 days ago

        That’s because every time you run a new program with Proton on Steam it creates a new Wine-prefix (fake Windows drive). So when you run the installed battlenet.exe it creates a new Windows environment where Battle.net is not installed.

        But the installer is using the environment where Battle.net is installed and apparently it has a function to run Battle.net when it detects that it’s already installed.

      • Auster@thebrainbin.org
        1·
        2 days ago

        Unfamiliar with Battle.net, but the problem sounds like a case of DRM and the solution sounds like the installer tries to normalize launchers and you are able to leverage it.

        • gustofwind@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          2 days ago

          I think I run guildwars1 off the original installer as well which also just autolaunches properly but I believe that installer has always properly supported launching an installed exe if found

          Battlenet works just fine and I play StarCraft through it perfectly but I was totally stumped why following the instructions failed and running it off the installer works.

          Neither even shows the installer it just directly runs the client