5. Using external applications
The manager makes it easier to run some external applications used to mod games. This is very common is Skyrim modding where we sometimes need to run things like xedit, pgpatcher, dyndolod etc.
The problem with these applications on linux is, while they do work, they expect the game to be installed in a windows enviroment and will not be able to find the games install path unless we manually set it
The manager helps by automatically running these applications with the arguments the applications need to find the installed game or by modifying the applications config to add the install path so we don't have to add it manually.
As of 1.1.7. These applications can be quickly set up and used via the wizard menu,
Simply open the menu via the wizard button, run the application you want to use. It will prompt you do download the applcation where it will then install it into the games staging applications folder.
These will also install any dependancies need for the application to work.
The methods shown below will still work but are not needed
xEdit has an annoying quirk where it will delete the original plugin you edited when saving before it replaces it with the new one, This breaks the hardlink/symlink of the plugin. The manager solves this by "detecting" if a plugin has been edited and when restoring it will move it back to the correct location within the staging directory.
- Download the application and place it into the applications folder in the staging directory, Click the folder icon in the run exe section to quickly open this
- We are going to need change our windows version to xp in the winecfg. Without this certain xEdit features may not work such as dragging and dropping records when patching conflicts.
- To do this click the proton button > run winecfg > change from windows 10 to windows xp Remember to change this back once you are done with xEdit
- Make sure your modlist is deployed or xEdit will not see the files in the data directory
- Run the program via the dropdown, Refresh first if it is not there
- It should use our data directory as the command line argument -d: is set automatically when we launch the application
- Use xEdit as you normally would and remember to save when finished
- Press restore on the manager, Any edited plugins or newly created plugins will be returned to the staging directory
- Change windows version back to windows 10 in winecfg if you changed this earlier
Currently 4.2.0 seems to be bugged and does not accept the --output flag, use a previous version
- Install Pandora as a mod like you would in Mo2
- Create an empty mod, Right click > create empty mod below > Call it Pandora
- Deploy your modlist
- Refresh the exe list in the run exe section
- Find pandora behaviour engine in the dropdown
- Click the settings button next to the dropdown
- Here you can change the output to the empty mod we made in the output dropdown
- Run it, It will be pointed to the data directory and the output will be added to the empty mod
- Deploy again so that the contents of the output go to the data folder
- This has a couple of requirements before we can use it
- First you will need protontricks installed
- Press the proton button and press install d3dcompiler_47.
- After that has installed go back to the proton window and select .net > Download .net 8
- Go through the setup process
- Now download pgpatcher and add it to the applications folder in the staging directory
- Refresh the exe list and run pgpatcher.exe
- The data directory and output folder should be automatically generated, Make sure None is selected for conflict resolution.
- Use the program as you normally would, the output gets added as a mod called pgpatcher
- This method is similar to pandora.
- Install it as a mod
- Deploy your modlist, It wont show in the exe dropdown otherwise since it has to run from the data.
- Refresh the exe list and run the program you want.
- The output will be generated in the Data directory. Press restore to move it back to the overwrite folder in staging
- Download an extract to the applcations folder in the staging area
- Deploy your modlist
- refresh the exe list
- Select either the .bat file or vramr.exe (vramr no longer uses a .bat file but the other 2 do)
- Run the application (The .bat and .exe don't actually run, this just triggers our wrapper script)
- The logging for these applications is streamed to Amethysts log so you can see progress
- The output will be added as a mod
Disclaimer: Since these applications still run under proton they can be fairly slow
I won't get into the specfics on how to use Dyndolod and its settings but I'll explain how to run it from the manager. Dyndolod is very error prone so if you get any errors there's a high chance it's not something to do with the manager.
Requires dotnet6 desktop runtime installed into the prefix. Download. Install by pressing proton on the top bar > Run exe in this prefix. Also run the vcredist installer if you haven't already
- Download and place the main Dyndolod application folder in the applications folder.
- Install The DLL and Dyndolod resources as a mod, Enable them
- Right click and create 2 empty mods, 1 called texgen and another called dyndolod
- Deploy your modlist
- In the run exe dropdown select texgen.exe
- Click the config button next to this dropdown
- Change the output from overwrite to texgen, Click save
- Run texgen and go through the setup process. Select the game at the start (We don't automatically apply this argument)
- The output will be added to the textgen mod we created earlier, or overwrite if you did not change this
- If the output is zipped, extract the zip to the texgen folder. This contains the Billboards dyndolod needs
- Deploy your modlist again so the texgen output is sent to the Data directory of the game
- In the run exe dropdown select Dyndolodx64.exe
- Click the configure button again. Set the output to the empty Dyndolod mod we made earlier
- Run Dyndolod and go through the setup process, Select the game at the start.
- If you get any errors at the start, It may be dotnet6 or vcredist is not installed into the prefix or you didn't deploy after adding the texgen output.
- If you want support for a thrid party application where you think the manager could help, Add it as a Suggested Feature.