Install / Run Falcon 4 / BMS on Linux
-
Hello.
I’m running Manjaro Linux (NO Windows install). I bought Falcon 4.0 from the Steam application with the hopes to install Falcon BMS afterwards in it…
I can’t even seem to launch the base Falcon 4.0 game as I run into a “No registry Variable”… I’m guessing it’s because it can’t find it under the windows registry ?? I’m clueless here. I thought this was a straight forward kinda thing when installing from Steam. Hope I didn’t pay for nothing…
I was trying to follow this post: https://www.reddit.com/r/falconbms/comments/u4olpm/installing_on_linux_via_steam/
Of course, if I try to install BMS, it’ll say that Falcon 4.0 is not installed, and abort the installation.
What am I missing here?
Any help would be super appreciated.
wine 8.5-1
steam 1.0.0.76-2Regards,
Patrick -
@ravenlost
I’m not familiar with Steam+Wine, but does Steam creates dedicated wine prefix? Each prefix is like separate windows install with own registry, so if steam install F4.0 in one prefix and you’re trying to run it from default/another then it’s gonna fail at finding proper registry keys.
See what’s under ~/.local/share/wineprefixes/
I’ve made sort of tutorial.
https://forum.falcon-bms.com/topic/20392/unofficial-running-bms-on-linux-wine-with-opentrack-howto?page=1
It’s not very up to date atm but should provide some hints. -
@ravenlost Hey, I’m running BMS on Steam. Follow my installation guide and post here if you’re having issues. https://github.com/SquadFM/Falcon-4-BMS-Linux
-
@ravenlost
I run BMS 4.37.2 on macOS Monterey (Intel) and it runs really nice with good performance using CrossOver 22 (costs someMoney) and don’t have any issues. Which means it SHOULD just run on Linux with CrossOver.I also run TacView, Mission Commander, WDP etc with it and have no issues. The original Falcon 4.0 installs but fails to run so I would just install the required Falcon 4.0 and then install Falcon BMS.
-
@Xeno - WINE info:
-
Thanks for your reply, AND for that installation guide. It all also leads me to believe it’s an issue with WINEPREFIX or something.
In your guide:
That is just the thing: I’ve initially set the compatibility to use Proton 8.x:
THEN only I installed within Steam. Or at least, I think it did…
Now, if I try to simply run Falcon 4.0 once, I run into the errors
… then
I can’t even launch it once
-
@ravenlost I tried both Proton 7 and 8 and both versions successfully start Falcon 4.0, however I saw the rundll32.exe error with Proton 8 too (never saw it with Proton 7). Whenever you come across the rundll32.exe error just press “No” to ignore it. I think for now just select Proton 7 since it just works and you can simply follow my guide. (Proton 8 should be okay too but I haven’t done any testing yet.)
Since you are getting a registry error I think at this point just start over. In Steam go to your Library and find Falcon 4.0 and remove it (right click on Falcon 4.0 > Manage > Uninstall).
Then find the 2 installation folders and delete those too. They should be under:
/home/x/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/Falcon 4.0/
/home/x/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/compatdata/429530/
(replace /home/x/ with your home directory)At this point maybe check that you have the latest Steam version running (I use the Steam beta client) and although not necessary, a restart cannot hurt.
Then use my BMS installation guide to install Falcon 4.0, set Proton 7 and start Falcon 4.0 once to write the registry key. Then run the BMS installer with the provided commands and it hopefully just works. Good luck and let me know of any other issues you come across.
-
@ravenlost if the standalone installer from GoG is any help, for linux/wine folks, get it today – word is that it will disappear later this week.
-
@airtex2019 this it?
https://www.gog.com/en/game/falcon_collectionThanks
-
@Munster I just tried uninstalling Falcon / Emptying out those folders you mentionned…
-
uninstall within Steam
-
clear out folders:
cd ~/.local/share/Steam/steamapps
rm -Rf “common/Falcon 4.0”
rm -Rf “compatdata/429530” -
launch Steam
-
config to use Proton 7.x, and hit install :
- Now hit the play to launch it once at least:
It created the compatdata folder, but again, same error:
Is it a matter perhaps of having to set some wineprefix within Steam or something?
This is the steam / wine I have installed:
Anything you see that could raise a flag?
Arghhh! I just wanted to be a kid and play again!!! lol. So annoyed by this
Million thanks for your time for this. It’s really appreciated!
Pat.
-
-
@ravenlost yeah you have to grab it out of the extras / downloads
https://forum.falcon-bms.com/topic/6808/gog-falcon4-to-bms-for-dummies/23
-
@ravenlost Sorry Steam is throwing you a curveball. On my system only the “Steam (steam) 1.0.0.76-2” version is installed. Other than that nothing odd stands out. You don’t happen to use multiple Steam libraries on different drives (this has caused me some grief with other games in the past)?
Since you’re using Manjaro too, you could check if any of the packages I list in my doc here are missing: https://github.com/SquadFM/Gaming-on-Linux
If all else fails, and you can get a non-steam version of Falcon 4.0 (e.g. from GOG), you can also install Falcon through Wine directly (Lutris is a good front end which I use). I started writing a guide on that which I could post if you need it. It’s still a little work in progress but it should do.
Edit: I uploaded the Wine/Lutris installations instructions for the standalone version of Falcon 4.0, which you can get from GOG.
https://github.com/SquadFM/Falcon-4-BMS-Linux/blob/main/README.md#falcon-4-bms-on-linux-with-wine-and-lutris-tested-with-bms-437 -
@Munster Thank you for your reply! And to your documentation!! Great work! I still haven’t made Falcon launch with Steam yet, but I’ll dig some more… Even thinking about re-installing my distro overall. It has been behaving weird for a while (other LVM problems and whatnot).
Meanwhile, I still also bought Falcon Gold and downloaded the Falcon 4.0.exe installer from GoG. Might end just trying that one, but I’d still like to get the Steam one working (by principle… I paid for the damn thing! ).
Is there a difference in performance between running Falcon Steam/Proton vs the GoG one? I know nothing about the Proton stuff… It’s a collection of libs pre-built to run games better from with Steam directly (i.e. DXVK for DirectX, etc. ?)
If I reinstall all, I might end up following your Gaming-on-Linux guide, because yes, I am running Manjaro XFCE too
Quicky for you (sorry, a bit out-of-scope): I have a Radeon RX580 GPU. Any experice working with that one? If so, you know of any good guides ? I know they are two drivers for it (opensource VS proprietary), and then there’s the Vulkan stuff which I’m not sure if I need to do anything regarding that… A pain to read through all and figure out how to get optimal performance out of my GPU under Linux… lol.
-
@ravenlost
WRT performance differences, there should be none, you can still run GoG version under proton, which is wine with few scripts that were supposed to make users life easier. Wine staging + winetricks + dxvk should be perfect.
For gpu drivers I’d stick with mesa (opensource) as they give better performance and causes much less headache. RX580 should be fine for BMS in 1080p. -
@ravenlost I agree with Xeno. Proton or Wine shouldn’t make a difference.
Also, I can’t comment on AMD as I am using proprietary nvidia drivers (I am planning to buy an AMD card in the future though).
A reinstall sometimes makes sense. I also had some troubles on my end which were fixed after I set everything up from scratch. You could try to give the Wine/Lutris installation a try first, which may work better on your system.
-
@Munster @Xeno Thank you both for your returns.
I’ll try the GoG version + wine staging + winetricks + dxvk and see if I can get it working. I’ll update with my findings here later on.
I will still re-install my system at some point soon for other reasons… Currently using
amdgpu
for my RX580 card… So assuming it’ll use mesa for opengl …Although I think I’m still (unnecessarily) loading the
radeon
kernel module as well… I think I don’t need that.
I’ve yet to read about the Vulkan stuff and see if I need to tweak anything regarding that (that other games, etc could benefit from)
Cheers! Pat
-
@ravenlost
It seems so, best way to tell which GPU drivers you’re using is by glxinfo
glxinfo | grep OpenGLMy typical steps for installing sotware under wine is
launch winetricks:- create new prefix (64bit for BMS)
- select created profile run winecfg, enable “Virtual Desktop emulation” and set desktop equal to your display resolution, add drives, one (usually D:) pointing to directory where you want to install your app and another (E:) pointing to dir where I store installation files.
- install dxvk (latest) via “winetricks/install Windows DLL library or component”
- launch explorer, navigate to the drive with installation files (here E:), run game intaller)
WRT Vulkan drivers, if you’re using mesa you don’t have to do anything except installing dxvk as described above.
In general if game has D3D 9/10/11 renderer it’s advisable to use dxvk, unless it is known to have compatibility issues. -
@Munster Hello again SO, I kinda got Falcom BMS install to latest using Lutris + Wine Staging with the GoG installer. Although, there’s something off with my graphics (not smooth at all), and joystick / mouse…
Nevertheless, I just bought a new SSD drive and am about to re-install all from scratch.
Drive A (1TB) : Linux Manjaro
Drive B (1TB) : Windows (will only dual boot for special needs, i.e. maybe MS Flight Sim).I do have a question regarding your Gaming On Linux guide:
Why use the proprietary drivers ? The driver selection is for the GPU right? Is it possible that if you’re using an NVidia card, then better proprietary, but for AMD (my case), opensource seemed to perform better ?
It would be nice if that specification is mentioned in you guide (just a suggestion).
Thanks again for your contribution with all of this
Regards,
Pat -
@ravenlost Great to hear that you were able to install BMS! I hope the performance issues are fixed by using the open source AMD drivers. Thanks for the recommendation to add a note to the guide (i just did and learned something new). Being able to use good performing open source drivers is another good reason (for me) to get an AMD GPU in the future. I hope everything works out with the installation and that you can jump into BMS next.
I am currently running BMS through Lutris too. One thing you might want to consider doing is setting an FPS limit, which could help your GPU to run less hot and consume less power. It can also sometimes help to run a game smoother without micro stutters. In Lutris right-click on the BMS launcher > Configure > System options > FPS limit - I usually set 60 FPS which is sufficient in most games, but obviously you can set any value.
-
@ravenlost
Opensource drivers a re way to go for AMD GPUs .
Was dxvk installed in your Falcon BMS prefix? If not use winetricks to install latest version.
On my old system RX580+ R3 3100, BMS 4.36 training mission #14 (Bad weather AGM-65D) was running minimum 55-60 fps with both TGP and Maveric image on MFDs.