I've put together a Wine wrapper for Oblivion, allowing it to be played on Linux almost like a native game & with no Wine knowledge required.

Simply run the build script to create the wrapper. If the installer files are not alongside the wrapper build files then the path to them will need to be specified either by passing it as an argument to the build script with -respath="<path>" or by setting an environment variable named WINEWRAP_RESPATH containing it. You can change the path to build the wrapper in and the name of the wrapper directory with the -buildpath= and -dirname= arguments. The build path can also be set with the WINEWRAP_BUILDPATH environment variable.

The output will be a directory containing the game set up within a preconfigured Wine prefix, along with its own copy of Wine, extracted game icons, documentation, and start script(s). From there simply run the start script to play. The start script also includes options for creating a shortcut, configuring the wrapper etc.

(to uninstall simply delete the game directory and any shortcuts you created, and the game's user data directory in ~/.local/share if you don't want to keep your saves & settings)

User data is stored under ~/.local/share/oblivion

Full details are in the readme.txt and release notes. Here is the download link:

oblivion_wine.tar.xz
(40 kB, SHA256: 60a49f4dead3b91d8e61fcb9c1f68d3894d1b4352325ce76e48f6f46b9bd888e)

Last updated 2021/07/11

The wrapper uses Wine 6.0 + DXVK. Wine and Winetricks will be downloaded automatically if not present; to avoid redownloading for other scripts the downloaded Wine package will be stored in ~/.cache/winewrap

In addition to Wine and Winetricks, Wine Mono will also be downloaded. This will be stored in ~/.cache/wine to save having to redownload it if it's needed again for something else.

If anyone runs into any problems then post in this thread, Adamhm's Linux Wine Wrappers - News, FAQ &amp; Discussion and/or The "Judas&trade; does this run in Wine" thread v1.173.

Using Oblivion Script Extender (OBSE)

The start script includes options for running custom commands and creating custom shortcuts for mods, tools/utilities etc. such as OBSE. To use OBSE with this wrapper:

- Install OBSE into the game's directory inside the Wine prefix as you would on Windows (this can be found at <wrapper dir>/prefix/drive_c/Oblivion)
- You can then launch it by running the start script with the argument: runwine=obse_loader.exe
- You can create a shortcut to use OBSE automatically. Run the start script with no arguments to bring up the menu, select the option to create a shortcut, and set the shortcut arguments to: runwine=obse_loader.exe

This approach can be used for running other launchers & mod managers etc. Read the release notes for more details on the various launch options and script features.

For more of my Linux Wine wrappers check out post 3 in this thread: Adamhm's Linux Wine Wrappers - News, FAQ &amp; Discussion

If/when Skyrim releases here I'll look into making a wrapper for that too :) For Morrowind, I recommend OpenMW

Could you make one for Fallout: New Vegas too? :) (assuming that it works with wine...)
(oh you already did... oops)

They should both work about the same (ultimately they're both just running the game through Wine - might be some differences depending on any configuration differences), although this should be easier to set up & is meant to provide a more "native"-style experience.

My wrapper also redirects game settings, saves etc. into its own directory under ~/.local/share - or optionally you can keep everything contained to within the game directory by creating a subdirectory named "userdata"

Thank you very much for making your Wine wrappers! They are what I've been looking for for a pretty long time. Your scripts are the ones that actually are simple to use! :)

How long does it take you to make a new wrapper once you know how the game can be gotten to run?
I would like to learn how to make my own- I've actually made my own Fallout wrapper using the GOG Baldur's Gate wrapper but I don't know how to program and your scripts seem like a much better place to start. Your scripts are more clear and are actually intended for installing a game and making a tarball. However, it would take me a lot of trial and error to find out what has to be done differently for each game (apart from the name of the installer, obviously).
Could you make a tutorial on how to make these wrappers or answer some questions about that?

Anyway, your wrappers are greatly appreciated and I hope you'll continue making them!

Thank you so much for the time and effort that went into creating this. I sincerely appreciate it!

I had a question for adamhm,

I was able to get everything working fine using the instructions that you posted, however I am unable to get the launcher to see any additional .esp files that I put in the Data directory. I've been trying to install the Unofficial Oblivion Patches, but no matter what I do they never appear in the list.

Do you have any advice on how to get mods recognized.

P.S. I've also tried to install Wrye Bash - I was able to get through the installation wizard (for the python version) and when I run "c:\Python27\pythonw.exe c:\Oblivion\Mopy\Wyre Bash Launcher.pyw" I get an error about missing files.

I was able to get the game to launch with OBSE (per your instructions).

Thanks for any assistance you can offer!

How long it takes to put together a wrapper varies quite a lot.

I start by getting the game running through PlayOnLinux to see if it'll run & how well it runs, identify what special settings & redistributables it needs (if any) and where it puts its userdata, to obtain the registry entries it needs and work out where to get all the game icons (both GOG's icon and the original game icon at least, in some cases additional icons as well).

Next I unpack the installer to take a look at how the game is packaged within it so I can work out what needs to be moved & where.

Then I can use the existing build & start script bases I've made to quickly put together a set of scripts for the game - set the build script to unpack the installer etc. & put everything where it needs to go, set the start script with the relevant details for running the game & creating symlinks for redirecting the userdata and so on. From there it's a process of testing & tweaking them to fix any oversights & get it running smoothly... this can take a long time, especially for larger games.

Some games will need more than the normal customisation, e.g. System Shock Enhanced has some modifications to run and control fluidsynth to provide MIDI playback for it. Also some games expose flaws in the script I hadn't previously identified that I then need to fix (and can apply to the other wrappers too), or otherwise lead to general improvements to the start scripts as I learn how to fix or work around certain issues. It works here - did you extract the contents of the archives to prefix/drive_c/Oblivion/Data ? Also make sure that they weren't extracted into a subdirectory there (some archive tools will create a subdirectory to extract to by default when unpacking archives); the contents of the archives need to go directly into the Data directory.

I think next time I update the wrappers I'll have the build script create a link to the Data directory from the wrapper's root directory to make installing mods easier. I had a quick look, installing the python version took too long & wanted to install too much stuff so I didn't test that but you could try:

./start.sh runwine="c:\Python27\pythonw.exe" args="c:\Oblivion\Mopy\Wyre Bash Launcher.pyw"

For the standalone version (which does appear to work - or at least it starts), use:

./start.sh runwine="Mopy/Wrye Bash.exe"

I see that the standalone version also needs the directory c:\users\$USER\Local Settings\Application Data to exist- I'll modify the start script to create that in the next update.

Thanks for the responses.

I was able to get the ESPs to show up in the data files section, before I was copying them to the root Oblivion folder, not the Data subfolder that you mentioned. The main problem I ran into was the load order. Since GOG repackaged Oblivion the dates of the .ESP files have changed. The Unofficial Patches don't work against the GOG repackaging and you get a CTD. This occurs with the Unofficial Patces for the DLC (the readme specifically states that if they are loaded BEFORE the DLC .ESP you'll get a crash). I had to do some research related to this, but what I discovered is that Oblivion uses dates on the .ESP to determine the load order.

My solution was to copy my entire Oblivion directory over to a windows virtual machine, then run a problem called LOOT which corrected the load order. I then copied the directory back.

I'd imagine that if you use Wrye Bash, this won't be an issue. I'll try your suggestion and manually create that directory so that I can get the standalone version of Wyre Bash to run.

Thanks a lot for your reply. :)
I'm going to read through your scripts a bit more and see if I can figure out everything. Especially System Shock seems to deserve a look. So, didn't it work with the launcher alone, or didn't you try because the launcher didn't run?
If setting the load order doesn't work with the launcher, does it work with any mod manager? I can't imagine that everyone who got the unofficial patches working with the GOG version is using Loot.

I did read something about the file dates in GOG's version causing problems with mods, there are a number of ways around it: http://cs.elderscrolls.com/index.php?title=Oblivion_Mods_FAQ#Archive_Invalidation

Hi Guys,

Just a quick note. As I suspected there are lots of issues here due to the GOG version of the game having different dates for the .ESP and .BSA files when trying to apply the Unofficial Oblivion patches.

I used "touch" to manually update the dates of the .ESP files and .BSA files so that the Unofficial Patches can work with the GOG version. I also had to install the Archive Invalidation Invalidated! mod and also touch the .BSA file that came along with it to be the newest .BSA in the data directory.

I'm thinking about making a simple script that touches all the files with correct dates so that the load orders are correct.

Let me know if you are interested.

End result is that I have Oblivion running with all three Unofficial Patches (Oblivion, Shivering Isles, and DLC).

Thanks!

One more quick question: Have you been able to get "Oblivion Reloaded" working? It does start for me, but there are some serious graphical artifacts. Wasn't sure if you had an tips.

Thanks!

I was thinking of having the build scripts reset the dates, but was under the impression that it was fixable with the mods/tools alone.

I haven't had a look at it (briefly looked for a download link but they insist people registering on their forum before they'll provide the download links... I really hate when they do that). Check for any custom/modified Windows DLLs, e.g. d3dx9_##.dll or d3dcompiler_##.dll, if it provides any then try adding an override for them through winecfg (set to native, builtin). Failing that, you could try installing native DirectX libraries through Winetricks.

What's even worse is that they've taken down the previous version(s) of the mod from the Nexus. That's a really ****ty move. I really have no understanding for the whole thing. And mod teams like SureAI don't require you to register, even though their files are Hugh Mungus.