FAQ

FAQ

This page is a list of questions you might have about SteamTinkerLaunch, and an answer to those questions. This page will be updated as and when more questions are raised that might be useful to include here.

Where are the tabs?

SteamTinkerLaunch's UI is written using the Yad, a GTK3 toolkit for making user interfaces for Bash scripts. At present, Yad on Wayland does not support tabs due to a limitation of Wayland. Since SteamTinkerLaunch attempts to support X11 and Wayland, we can't include tabs in the user interface.

How Can I Install Yad On My Distribution?

Yad is a project entirely independent from SteamTinkerLaunch (GitHub Link). It is what SteamTinkerLaunch uses for its UI. Due to a combination of factors Yad is either unavailable or outdated on several distributions including popular ones such as Ubuntu and derivatives. It is possible to compile Yad yourself from source on any distribution, there is also some guidance available on their GitHub page, and this is the recommended way to get the most up-to-date Yad, should it be unavailable from your distribution/package manager.

If you are not comfortable installing Yad from any of these methods, it should also be possible to install Yad using the SteamTinkerLaunch command line options, steamtinkerlaunch yad ai.

For more information on SteamTinkerLaunch and Yad, see the Yad wiki page.

SteamTinkerLaunch from Discover isn't working

If you installed SteamTinkerLaunch from Discover (i.e., on Steam Deck) you are using the Flatpak SteamTinkerLaunch, which is for users of Flatpak Steam only. The Discover page also explicitly mentions that it is only for use with Flatpak Steam.

If you are not using Flatpak Steam, you'll want to install SteamTinkerLaunch in the appropriate way for your system. For most users, you'll want to install with ProtonUp-Qt.

If you are using Flatpak Steam and you run into an issue, please open an issue. Please note that Flatpak SteamTinkerLaunch is not supported on Steam Deck.

Will you add 'X' feature?

Maybe! Feel free to open an issue for your feature request, giving as much background and justification as possible. Any technical notes would also be appreciated!

We may not be able to add everything but suggestions are always welcome! If you're really passionate about getting a feature added, feel free to open a pull request, keeping in mind the Contribution Guidelines. Opening a feature request beforehand might be a good idea though, to get feedback on implementation and gauge whether or not a feature is desired. You can mention in your feature request that you would like to work on this issue.

SteamTinkerLaunch is primarily a hobby project, available free-of-charge as open-source software, so even if a feature is desirable, it may not be added until someone steps up to add it, or until I have time and motivation to work on it.

Why does 'X' feature not work?

The most common cause of specific features not working is that the tool you are trying to use is not installed. Particularly for native tools like GameScope or MangoHud. SteamTinkerLaunch does not download and install native tools for you, it is a wrapper menu to help you easily configure options within those tools.

It would not be feasible nor desirable for SteamTinkerLaunch to bundle or install all tools, as this means we would have to manage keeping these tools up-to-date and maintaining them on each system. Instead, we expect the user to download these tools and have them setup in the correct paths. SteamTinkerLaunch does not develop these tools, we just allow you to easily configure your pre-installed native tools.

On Steam Deck, some functionality may be missing due to limitations of the read-only filesystem. See the Steam Deck wiki page for more information.

With all of this in mind, if you feel like a feature should be working but it is not, feel free to open an issue.

My mods aren't working!

There could be several reasons why specific game mods aren't working, and unfortunately most of the time it is unrelated to SteamTinkerLaunch. Please keep in mind that SteamTinkerLaunch does the legwork to get the modding tools running on Linux, but it does not guarantee actual mod compatibility. SteamTinkerLaunch is not affiliated with and does not develop these mod tools, and officially these programs are still Windows only. There may be mods that are simply incompatible with Linux.

You can find more information on modding games, caveats, potential workarounds and more on the Modding Wiki Page. If you encounter an issue in your modding process that you are able to fix, please open an issue describing your workaround in detail, and we can get it added to the wiki.

See also the ModOrganizer 2 wiki page and the Vortex Mod Manager wiki page.

Where did Cheat Engine/GameConqueror go?

Previously SteamTinkerLaunch had support for these two tools, but they were removed due to fear that they could cause invasive client-side anti-cheat software like EasyAntiCheat to ban users. This could also potentially lead to SteamTinkerLaunch as a whole being flagged as a cheating program, and having SteamTinkerLaunch installed could risk a ban. As a result, integration with these tools were removed.

Concerns were also raised with the Cheat Engine license not allowing the automatic download and installation, as well as the practices of Cheat Engine. See #618 more information on the discussion and ultimately final decision to remove these tools.

Hedge Mod Manager won't start / 64bit Mod Loaders crash my games!

Hedge Mod Manager and the 64bit game modloaders depend on .NET 4.8, which is installed using Winetricks. On some systems and in particular on Steam Deck, this installation may fail due to a Wine incompatibility. The failure is inconsistent and does not affect very many users, but it has been reported many, many times over.

The main steps to fix this issue are:

1. Ensure Winetricks is up-to-date, running version 20220411-next or newer.
2. Select Proton 5.0 from the SteamTinkerLaunch Global Menu to install HedgeModManager, then switch back to a newer version of Proton once installation has completed.
3. If you install a new game with Hedge Mod Manager support, use Proton 5.0 to launch HMM so that Winetricks will install dotnet48 using this version of Proton for the new game.

More details can be found on the SteamTinkerLaunch Hedge Mod Manager wiki page. As this issue has been reported many times it is encouraged to do some research and testing beforehand to ensure the issue you are experiencing is not related to this .NET issue.

This problem is unfortunate and can only be properly resolved by a fix upstream in Wine. Once the dotnet48 winetrick can be more reliably installed with Proton, this should become a non-issue.