I have just recently reinstalled and remodded skyrim with MO2! I chose MO2 specifically because it has a linux version which I downloaded off the github.

I have found that MO2 has a lot of functionality built in that just isn’t well explained in the tutorial. and it can be quite daunting to start.

For one, you don’t have to worry about skse. it comes with that when you choose Skyrim as the instance of MO2 you want to make. MO2 will then launch every time you launch Skyrim. And once it launches, you have all the options!

From MO2, you can choose to run different versions of skyrim. it can run the vanilla PC launcher for you if you want to manually set your graphics settings.

It can launch directly with SKSE, which is what you’ll need for most mods. (if you’re playing modded skyrim, you’ll likely be launching from here most times unless there’s specific settings in the basic launcher you want to change)

It also comes with LOOT (which is a load order optimizer) already preinstalled. You just have to click the button to have it sort your load order for you. The load order is usually decent enough for most modlists (depending on size) but there are many guides to load orders for skyrim if you’re interested in changing things around to be better optimized for your needs.

my advice is honestly sit down and take some time to kinda go over where everything is. Before MO2 I was a vortex person. I am considering never going back.

if you have any specific questions, I can maybe try to help.

It started with me manually downloading a mod and shoving the files into the Steam game directly.

Then I installed the windows version of Nexus Mods Manager using Wine and pointed it to the Skyrim in Linux Steam that runs as a Flatpak.

Yes, it is a dumb hack. But it works.

I have done things to this game that morals prohibit.

Like copying a whole Skyrim main folder modded with Nexus Mod Manager from a laptop to a steam deck and “managing” this with MO2. Bonus obscenity: couldn’t run the new Skyrim version instalmed on Steam Deck with the old SKSE from the laptop install, so I had to update SKSE, break compatibility with the load order, and then manualy find which of the mods to update for it to run. Do note that I have 250 mods and an historic 70+ level build on this instance.

I guess what I am saying is “you can go pretty wild with this”. Start anywhere, end up anywhere, mod the shit out if it.

I would advise on following one of the “FULL OVERHAUL NOTHING UNTOUCHED” modding guide, just because why not. Most of them have some form of attention to performance that will help with your issue.

I followed lexy’s : https://lexyslotd.com/

May I ask what kind of performance problem you have on what hardware ?

I used mo2 from this installer https://github.com/rockerbacon/modorganizer2-linux-installer.
Both on Nvidia and AMD it’s been great. Older version had a bit laggy mo2, but now that is gone. Only issue I have is that ModOrganizer itself needs to be installed to main drive, otherwise it wouldn’t work, but maybe it’s also fixed now.

perforöance is worsr thsm I would lşke aswell but it “works” modded fallout 4 works better

Here are the super special keywords if you know what you’re doing with Wine: Wine 9.0+ (otherwise the newest MO2 doesn’t work), winetricks vcrun2022 dotnet48 faudio, install .NET 7.0 SDK manually with the exe. Set up a prefix with those components and you can run all the modding tools. Don’t bother with the convoluted MO2 installer script.

Synthesis was having issues compiling patches using the latest Kron4ek wine builds, so I started using the latest Proton-GE and that resolved it. I’m not sure if Wine-GE would have fixed the same problem, but Wine-GE is no longer being updated, and we need at least 9.0+. Install Proton-GE for Steam through e.g. ProtonUp-Qt, and then Lutris can select it as a runner option and will run it through the new UMU project.

I use Lutris to create and run the prefix, and I have an isolated copy of Skyrim that is patched with Goldberg emulator because I find that easier to manage so it’s not at risk of being auto-updated by Steam. If you use a Steam copy directly you probably just need Protontricks and do the same thing.

To capture NexusMods links to MO2, I made an application in my start menu and told Firefox to use it to handle nxm links:

Env Variables: WINEESYNC=1 WINEFSYNC=1 'WINEPREFIX=/mnt/Games/The Elder Scrolls V - Skyrim/Prefix/'

Program: /home/user/.steam/steam/compatibilitytools.d/GE-Proton9-7/files/bin/wine

Arguments: '/mnt/Games/The Elder Scrolls V - Skyrim/Prefix/drive_c/Games/ModOrganizer2/nxmhandler.exe' %u

Note that allowing the nxmhandler.exe call to start MO2 is bad because it won’t start with the special UMU launcher framework, but if MO2 is already running it’s fine.

Performance is great, and everything “just works” with MO2. My only issue is that Pandora and Synthesis (at least) sometimes do not seem to end their process appropriately after running, so I sometimes need to manually stop them via a process manager.

I haven’t used it recently, but last time I did, I used MO2 with vanilla WINE, just setting my WINE prefix to the Skyrim Proton prefix. WINE and Proton would convert the registry in the WINE prefix back and forth each time one launched. I haven’t used SteamTinkerLaunch.

Prior to that, I used Wrye Bash, which was a mess to get working in Linux – but could run natively, at least at one point, with some prodding. I’ve also run it under WINE. It took a lot of massaging. I don’t recommend that route unless you can program, know Python and are willing to get your hands dirty.

And I also had a stint where I wrote my own scripts to reconstruct the modded environment from scratch.

My most-recent attempt for Bethesda modding was in Starfield, with a much-simpler CLI mod manager, this. I have gotten some mods working but not others; don’t know if it’s a case-folding issue. Will need more experimentation. It doesn’t have the conflict-diagnosis tools that Wrye Bash does, or I assume MO2 probably does (though I haven’t run into). I don’t think it supports Skyrim, Fallout 4, or Fallout 76; that probably matters at least insofar as mod managers for those need to merge leveled lists. My (brief) impression is that the Starfield modding community is heading down the direction of avoiding needing the mod manager to do that, having a mod that merges that stuff dynamically at game runtime.

the performance is not great.

Uh. The performance of MO2 or Skyrim?

MO2…I don’t recall, it might not have been snappy, but I don’t recall it being especially unusable. Certainly not at the level that I wouldn’t use the software. I was using a reasonably high-end system, but I don’t think that it’s particularly resource-intensive. I was running off SSD, and maybe some of the stuff might have been I/O intensive.

Skyrim was fine from a performance standpoint. I mean, you can obviously kill performance with the right mods, but I assume that you mean “modding at all”.

EDIT: If you put a lot of mods into Skyrim, like, hundreds, it can take a while to launch. IIRC, one problem – not Linux-specific – there is that loose files aggravate launch performance issues. My understanding is that, where possible, use mods that merge files into a .BSA rather than loose files. A number of mods have multiple versions; pick the .BSA one.

EDIT2: Skyrim, Fallout 4, and the Fallout 76 versions of Bethesda’s engine don’t really take much advantage of multiple cores the way the way the Starfield version does. I get buttery-smooth performance in Starfield; Fallout 76 invariably is a bit jerky when loading resources in a new cell. I don’t get a pretty consistent framerate at 165 Hz in Fallout 76 the way I can in Starfield. But I don’t know if that’s what you’re running into, without specifics of the performance issues. And that’s not gonna be a Linux-specific issue or anything that can realistically be resolved short of forward-porting the Skyrim, Fallout 4, and Fallout 76 games to the Starfield engine.

about to chime in with my experience

realise this is a linux instance

start crying in windows user

Thinking of replaying. I hope you get some good tips.

Are you on Nvidia, Intel, or AMD?

one of the few hurdles gaming on linux hasnt fully managed to climb over is modding gamebryo games. Mostly because the mod managers themselves are a pita.

I’ve been playing Enderal (a Skyrim total conversion) with some added QoL mods on my Deck

Got MO2 working with Enderal on wine by using this. The script (and MO2 itself) is a bit janky but it does function. The only thing I couldn’t get working was the nexus mods URL integration thingie, had to download mod packages and add them manually.

The game itself runs like a charm on the Deck (after setting up a control profile anyway).

But there is the catch that being a Total Conversion mod that is available on Steam… Enderal itself points steam to SKSE on launch. Don’t know how it’d work if your starting point is Vanilla Skyrim.

I think there’s a “SKSE for Linux” you can download so that you get it in a separate launcher, but renaming the executable to whatever the original one is will result in that newly renamed executable getting run when you press the play button. This approach works for Skyrim and Starfield but probably others as well.

SKSE works in Linux. I manually install each mod. It’s a pain in the ass but I imagine still less of a pain in the ass than dealing with mod managers. I don’t know who’s teaching new programmers to make their side projects in such a way that it only works on windows but it’s stupid and lame. It’s not as bad as it used to be but there’s always outliers that pop up such as Starfield xedit. You can put your ui in an opengl window. You can use python with wxwidgets. Java has good gui stuff. There are a multitude of ways to do ui besides Microsoft’s bloated toolchain.