Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines (2600)

Whitelist Request

• Name of the game to be whitelisted: Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines
• Steam AppID of the game: 2600

System Information

• GPU: 980-Ti
• Driver/LLVM version: 396.54.09
• Kernel version: 4.18 (Manjaro)
• Full System Info: https://gist.github.com/Rabcor/3c1d3443564644dfa2b0e37e85182b71
• Proton version: 3.16-3(Beta), 3.16-4, 3.16-9(Beta)

Note: In Proton 4.2-3 the game does not work out of the box; The main menu won't be rendered after startup. This solution can be solved by using an older version of proton, installing the unofficial patch, setting the resolution to your native resolution and restarting the game in 4.2-3 again.

2024 Edit:
On Proton 4.11 you can play if you use the PROTON_USE_D9VK=1 option.
On Proton 5.0-7.0 you can play if you use the PROTON_FORCE_LARGE_ADDRESS_AWARE=0 option
On Proton 8.0, 9.0 and Experimental you cannot play at all, more info here

If anyone reading this wants a recommended proton version, I suspect quite strongly that proton 7.0 is going to give you the best results.

I confirm:

• that pressing the Play button in the Steam client is sufficient.
• that runtime config options are necessary to run the game.
• that no workarounds other than the mentioned ones are necessary.

Issues

• I haven't experienced any issues.

• There are no issues left open for this game.

• Although I consider the gaming experience equal to Windows there are
  remaining issues:

• Environmental audio sounds funny at times/weird echoing sounds (This issue also affects windows in the exact same way)

• No 16:9 resolutions available (requires unofficial patch to fix; Windows has the same issue)

• May occasionally crash when loading new cells (reportedly this issue is related to when the game tries to load MP3s and was present on Windows as well for some users; happened once for me, it should be a rare issue)

• Crashes on alt+tab/switching workspaces (probably an issue on windows too, common for old games; possibly fixed in proton 4.2-3; I've been able to get away with alt-tabbing a few times on 4.2)

• Quicksaving (pressing F9) crashes the game

• Startup movies (BIK files) do not scale up to fullscreen. (Proton specific, does not happen in wine-staging; Fixed in Proton 4.2-3)

• Process persists after exiting the game (vampire.exe needs to be killed)

Additional Info

I have confirmed the game works with the unofficial patch, but installing it is a little bit more of a hassle (because you need to select the appropriate path for the installation directory). It amazes me that this patch is still being developed and is up to version 10.1, with the latest update having been done on the day I write this (10.1-RC3).

You need to run the game once before doing this

To install unofficial patch you need to download it, and run the following command:
WINEPREFIX=/path/to/steamapps/compatdata/2600/pfx wine vampirepatch.exe

Remember to correct the path to the proper steam library where the game is installed, and correct vampirepatch.exe to the name of the downloaded unofficial patch file!!

After opening the installer, to navigate to the path of the game you need to go to the Z:\ drive (which is wine's equivalent for / or root), if you scroll down to the bottom of the browse menu you will find it labeled as /. from there browse to where the game is installed (if you are unsure of where, right click on the game in steam and hit properties, go to local files, and select browse local files, this will open the appropriate directory so you can find it's location).

Then proceed with the installation of the patch. This will enable resolutions of up to 2K in the game, the ResPatcher from extras is required to get a higher resolution than that. This will allow your game to scale properly to a 16:9 resolution and fix a plethora of issues.

In Patch_Extras/Player_Mods (if you installed the patch extras) you will find the ResPatch and files for ENB and SweetFX among other things. Using respatch is done with the same method as the unofficial patch as shown above (just for respatch.exe instead of vampirepatch.exe).

I do not recommend using SweetFX or ENB, below are my results testing both.

The SweetFX installer (ReShade Setup.exe) currently does not work giving the following error:

The entry point method could not be loaded due to Could not load file or assembly 'PresentationFramework, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35' or one of its dependencies. assembly:PresentationFramework, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35 type:<unknown type> member:<none>

This is because the installer requires .NET Framework 4.0. Currently the support for installing .NET Framework in Proton is poor (see issue: https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/1786 )

Manually installing SweetFX does not work (game fails to launch), it is possible that an older version of SweetFX can work.

For ENB to work you need to run protontricks 2600 -q d3dx9 (these files only need to be installed, they don't actually have to be set to native) and then running protontricks 2600, select the default wine prefix, and go to winecfg, from there add the d3d9 library (needs to be set to native).

The default ENB settings as provided by the patch look absolutely terrible though (ssao causes too much noise with indirect lighting on, and depth of field ranges are way too small), so you're probably better off not using it unless you enjoy tweaking it yourself.

It should also be known that enabling ENB seems to break a few things (graphical elements) with the current setup; I hear ENB has issues on windows as well, so it would be better to focus efforts on getting SweetFX working if you're in that kind of mood.

That about sums it all up 👍

Start with the reported Proton 8.0, 9.0, and Experimental behavior and review the linked issue comment for current details. Compare the listed Proton versions, launch options, and remaining symptoms against a fresh run of Steam AppID 2600. Done means establishing the game's current compatibility status and recording any confirmed result or required workaround.