How to launch Skyrim SE Launcher [Steam Deck]

[Ayohaych]

Hey all.

Sorry if this has been asked but I couldn't find anything.
I got a Steam Deck recently and was in the process of setting Skyrim SE up with mods.

Right now it actually works, however I can't seem to figure out how to launch Skyrim SE Launcher? I need to change settings so it runs better.

When I open Skyrim from Steam, or use bottles to run Skyrim SE Launcher, it launches MO2. From there I have to select SKSE and hit run and it launches.

If I click the drop down and select Skyrim Special Edition Launcher, it says an instance of mod organizer is already running.

Any ideas on how I can get around this to launch the launcher so I can change my settings?
It seems there is _SkrimLauncher.exe file that must of been automatically created by MO2, however when I run that with Bottles, and make changes, it doesn't seem to have the changes when I run SKSE.

Thanks for any help!

[OneKillaVolt]

Hey there! I’m new to the Skyrim modding scene, and with the steam deck I decided to have a go at modding. This issue of the launcher not coming up was also driving me up the wall. After spending hours getting my mods together, I launched the game and decided i wanted to push my graphics settings a little higher, but I couldn’t figure out how to execute the initial launcher for the life of me to change the graphics settings. I noticed that the main menu after loading SKSE is missing the options submenu.
 

After google searches left me empty handed, I poked around the game directory in desktop mode and remembered that the mo2 Linux installer saves the vanilla SkyrimSELauncher.exe (look for the exe with an underscore in the beginning of the filename). So I renamed the mo2 installed SkyrimSELauncher.exe to SkyrimSELauncher_new.exe, then renamed the vanilla exe to SkyrimSELauncher.exe. It’s important to keep those names straight so you can go back to launching SKSE using the mo2 launcher executable!

Finally, I ran the vanilla exe from desktop mode using Protontricks (right click the exe, go to Open With, then Protontricks launcher), and I selected Skyrim as the prefix (not sure if this matters). And then the initial launcher came up and I was able to change the graphics settings!
 

Literally wasted an hour trying to figure this out, an hour that I could’ve used to enjoy my new mods. Anyways, I hope this helps! It’s a hassle renaming the exes but at least it works.

[z929669]

1 hour ago, Ayohaych said:

Hey all.

Sorry if this has been asked but I couldn't find anything.
I got a Steam Deck recently and was in the process of setting Skyrim SE up with mods.

Right now it actually works, however I can't seem to figure out how to launch Skyrim SE Launcher? I need to change settings so it runs better.

When I open Skyrim from Steam, or use bottles to run Skyrim SE Launcher, it launches MO2. From there I have to select SKSE and hit run and it launches.

If I click the drop down and select Skyrim Special Edition Launcher, it says an instance of mod organizer is already running.

Any ideas on how I can get around this to launch the launcher so I can change my settings?
It seems there is _SkrimLauncher.exe file that must of been automatically created by MO2, however when I run that with Bottles, and make changes, it doesn't seem to have the changes when I run SKSE.

Thanks for any help!

See the System Setup Guide. The entire things should be helpful, but you'll want to read the Steam section to answer your question. Click on the game in the Steam Library to see launch option.

[Ayohaych]

On 8/29/2022 at 5:16 PM, z929669 said:

See the System Setup Guide. The entire things should be helpful, but you'll want to read the Steam section to answer your question. Click on the game in the Steam Library to see launch option.

Thanks for the reply.

However, my Skyrim SE in Steam has no launch options attached to it. I double click it and it opens MO2.

Any other ideas?

[z929669]

3 hours ago, Ayohaych said:

Thanks for the reply.

However, my Skyrim SE in Steam has no launch options attached to it. I double click it and it opens MO2.

Any other ideas?

Right click, select Play?

[DoubleYou]

I am not sure how the Steam Deck works or even if mods are compatible with using one. 

[Ayohaych]

8 hours ago, z929669 said:

Right click, select Play?

Like I mentioned, clicking Play in steam opens MO2, not Skyrim SE. When MO2 opens I click Run in the top right with SKSE selected.

In the dropdown, if I choose Skyrim SE Launcher instead of SKSE, it runs MO2 again, like it is in a loop.
 

8 hours ago, DoubleYou said:

I am not sure how the Steam Deck works or even if mods are compatible with using one. 

It runs Steam OS which is Linux based.

Mods are compatible, I have them working for Skyrim. I have launched the game and see them in the menu etc, the issue is my FPS is low and I want to change the settings but I can't open the Skyrim Launcher because running Skyrim opens MO2 and I have to run it that way using SKSE. Selecting Skyrim SE Launcher from MO2 says I can't have multiple instances of MO2, so it is like it is stuck in a loop from Skyrim SE Launcher, which seems to be set to run MO2 now.

[z929669]

2 hours ago, Ayohaych said:

Like I mentioned, clicking Play in steam opens MO2, not Skyrim SE. When MO2 opens I click Run in the top right with SKSE selected.

In the dropdown, if I choose Skyrim SE Launcher instead of SKSE, it runs MO2 again, like it is in a loop.
 

It runs Steam OS which is Linux based.

Mods are compatible, I have them working for Skyrim. I have launched the game and see them in the menu etc, the issue is my FPS is low and I want to change the settings but I can't open the Skyrim Launcher because running Skyrim opens MO2 and I have to run it that way using SKSE. Selecting Skyrim SE Launcher from MO2 says I can't have multiple instances of MO2, so it is like it is stuck in a loop from Skyrim SE Launcher, which seems to be set to run MO2 now.

Sorry. I don't know anything about SteamOS ... from what I can tell, it's Linux, so none of the normal 'fixes' to Windows registry settings don't seem to apply.

I have plenty of Linux XP, but I am not familiar with SteamOS and I don't use Debian. My guess is that the MO VFS is 'confusing' SteamOS. There has to be a config file somewhere that defines a path to the game.

I'd suggest looking for help from SteamOS/Steam Deck or official MO support. I have no idea what flavor of MO is required in this environment either, or if Bottles is meant to emulate a Win environment for MO.

[Ayohaych]

2 hours ago, z929669 said:

Sorry. I don't know anything about SteamOS ... from what I can tell, it's Linux, so none of the normal 'fixes' to Windows registry settings don't seem to apply.

I have plenty of Linux XP, but I am not familiar with SteamOS and I don't use Debian. My guess is that the MO VFS is 'confusing' SteamOS. There has to be a config file somewhere that defines a path to the game.

I'd suggest looking for help from SteamOS/Steam Deck or official MO support. I have no idea what flavor of MO is required in this environment either, or if Bottles is meant to emulate a Win environment for MO.

 

No worries.

I'm guessing MO2 created this new SkyrimSELauncher.exe and that points to MO2 when it is run.
I have downloaded BethIni to try and do it, and it seems to run the game if settings are set to Ultra, however if I change the settings to use the High, Medium, Low or Poor settings, it opens in MO2 and closes straight away. No logs I can see to see whats wrong

[z929669]

40 minutes ago, Ayohaych said:

 

No worries.

I'm guessing MO2 created this new SkyrimSELauncher.exe and that points to MO2 when it is run.
I have downloaded BethIni to try and do it, and it seems to run the game if settings are set to Ultra, however if I change the settings to use the High, Medium, Low or Poor settings, it opens in MO2 and closes straight away. No logs I can see to see whats wrong

Yeah, your game path is defined somewhere and pointing to the MO executable, so I would start with Grep:

# grep -nr "path-to-MO-executable" /path-to-wherever-the-files-are

 

[DoubleYou]

1 hour ago, Ayohaych said:

 

No worries.

I'm guessing MO2 created this new SkyrimSELauncher.exe and that points to MO2 when it is run.
I have downloaded BethIni to try and do it, and it seems to run the game if settings are set to Ultra, however if I change the settings to use the High, Medium, Low or Poor settings, it opens in MO2 and closes straight away. No logs I can see to see whats wrong

My guess it is setting resolution wrong, as BethINI is only designed for Windows. Try just tweaking the individual settings to lower values against your Ultra preset, since it seems to be working. 

If you provide working ini versus bad ini, I can likely tell you what is wrong. 

You could also try using my dev Python build of Bethini Pie, as it likely is more compatible with Linux. https://github.com/DoubleYouC/Bethini-Pie-Performance-INI-Editor

[z929669]

@Ayohaych Answer in previous post ^

At top of responses as "best answer"