THIS REPO IS NOW OBSOLETE

As of Feb 8, 2019, Proton is now version 5.0, incorporating Wine 5.0 changes. The strftime() changes have been completed as of Wine 5.0. Therefore, vanilla Proton will now support these changes and this repository is no longer necessary.

I will still keep Proton-4.11-12-strftime here, but it will only be available in the proton-4.11-strftime-archive branch. This is to discourage future use of proton-strftime, since a better alternative -- Proton 5.0 -- is available.

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Original Proton README

What is this?

This is a custom build of Proton to fix some issues I found with ESO. Specifically, if any ESO AddOns use os.date() with any of many substitions that are unimplemented by Wine, the result will be nil -- an unexpected outcome for any AddOn. This causes any AddOns that uses these substitutions to crash, resulting in unexpected behaviour.

I submitted a patch to WineHQ (Bug #47809) with a fix for these issues, but due to the politics of Wine development, they are probably unlikely to make it upstream. So, I opted instead to apply my patch to Proton.

This repository's releases contains a build of Proton 4.11 with my patch and upstream patches applied.

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The Easy Way: Install Into Steam

Using this method to install Proton is, by far, the easiest method providing that you have ESO installed in Steam.

NOTE: I do not have ESO installed with Steam, so if my instructions are not clear or are incorrect, please let me know.

1. Create the custom Proton directory (if it doesn't exist): mkdir ~/.steam/root/compatibilitytools.d/

2. Download proton-strftime.tar.xz and extract the whole folder inside into ~/.steam/root/compatibilitytools.d

   Once completed, you should have a folder structure like this:

        ~/.steam/root/compatibilitytools.d/
        |
        |__ proton-[version]-strftime/
        |   |
        |   |__ compatibilitytool.vdf
        |   |__ dist/
        |   |__ dist.lock
        |   |__ filelock.py
        |   |__ LICENSE
        |   |__ proton
        |   |__ proton_3.7_tracked_files
        |   |__ toolmanifest.vdf
        |   |__ user_settings.sample.py
        |   |__ version
        |
        |__ (possibly other custom Proton versions)
   

3. Restart the Steam client

4. Right-click 'The Elder Scrolls Online' in your game library and open Properties...

5. In the General tab, click the checkbox that says "Force the use of a specific Steam Play compatibility tool"

6. From the drop-down menu select "proton-4.11-12-strftime"

7. Run the game, and enjoy!

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The Easy Way: Without Steam

I have provided a script in the extra folder in this repository. It automates the process of downloading proton-strftime, seting up a prefix, running the game, and updating proton-strftime. Download the script from the link, save it, and make it executable by issuing the following command:

chmod +x /path/to/downloaded/RunESO.sh

Setup: Automated Proton setup and ESO Installation

To setup the ESO Proton folder and automatically install ESO use the following command:

./RunESO.sh install

This assumes that your ESO Installer (Install_ESO.exe) is in ~/Downloads/Install_ESO.exe. If it is not, use the alternative command:

./RunESO.sh install /path/to/Install_ESO.exe

By default, this installs Proton and ESO into the ~/.eso folder. To change this, modify the eso_path variable at the top of the script.

Setup: Automated Proton setup only

This use case is useful if you already have the game installed in Wine or the game data files in another location. The basic steps are:

1. Run ./RunESO.sh install --prefix-only
2. Edit the game_dir variable at the top of the script to point to the path of your game data files (usually something like /some/wine/prefix/drive_c/Program Files (x86)/Zenimax Online)

The folder that game_dir points to should have a structure like this:

game_dir
|
|__ Launcher
|   |__ Bethesda.net_Launcher.exe
|
|__ The Elder Scrolls Online
|   |__ game
|       |__ client
|           |__ eso64.exe
|
|__ uninstall
|__ ZosSteamStarter.version

Running the game

Afterwards, to run the launcher you can use the command:

./RunESO.sh

To skip the launcher you can use

./RunESO.sh game

Updating proton-strftime

To update proton-strftime to the latest version, use the following command:

./RunESO.sh update

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The hard way: Run ESO from Proton directly (manual setup)

If, like me, you haven't purchased ESO from Steam, then you have to set up Proton to run ESO outside of Wine. This is a little difficult to understand (even from a seasoned Wine user's perspective), so I'm going to provide my own scripts and methods for running ESO outside of Steam.

1. Create a Proton directory for ESO

In my case, I created a directory called ~/.eso. Make the directory and cd into it.

mkdir ~/.eso
cd ~/.eso

2. Extract proton-strftime to ~/.eso

Extract the folder from proton-strftime.tar.xz to ~/.eso using your favorite archive manager.

For ease of future updates, create a symlink for ~/.eso/proton to ~/.eso/proton-4.11-12-strftime

ln -s ~/.eso/proton-4.11-12-strftime ~/.eso/proton

This way, you can keep multiple Proton versions in the folder and swap between them by simply changing where the symlink points.

3. Copy the Proton prefix

cp -R ~/.eso/proton-4.11-12-strftime/dist/share/default_pfx ~/.eso/pfx

4. Install ESO

STEAM_COMPAT_DATA_PATH=~/.eso ~/.eso/proton/proton waitforexitandrun /path/to/Install_ESO.exe

5. Run manually or with the script

The command line I use to run ESO manually:

STEAM_COMPAT_DATA_PATH=~/.eso PROTON_NO_ESYNC=1 mesa_glthread=true vblank_mode=0 ~/.eso/proton/proton waitforexitandrun "$HOME/.eso/pfx/drive_c/Program Files (x86)/Zenimax Online/launcher/Bethesda.net_Launcher.exe"

I have also provided a script in the extra folder that can be customized to most use cases. Once the variables at the top of the script are set to your needs, run:

./RunESO.sh

or

./RunESO.sh game