Project 1999 running on steam headless

[whiteice217]

Hello all,

I wanted to share about an interesting setup I just managed to do. I have an unraid server that I host Plex on and it's pretty powerful. Up to this point, I've been running some VMs on it and thought that I was wasting way too much of my resources just having VMs running idle. So I began looking around for an alternative and discovered this little hidden gem https://github.com/Steam-Headless/docker-steam-headless. This is a docker that runs steam, proton, moonlight, and works with Nvidia. So I knew that proton was sort of based on wine and I thought hey I should be able to run p99 on this. TLDR it works to my surprise. Below I've included a bit of a guide to get it working if you're interested but this is so slick I couldn't keep it to myself.

Step one get the docker

I'm assuming you already have unraid setup so I'll spare you the details there but navigate over to the app center and download Steam Headless.

NOTE: If you are using an Nvidia graphics card and haven't already gotten it you'll need to get the Nvidia-Driver app as well. This gets the drivers and behind-the-scenes stuff so your graphics card will work.

Once you have Steam headless and if need be Nvidia-driver the first step is to make sure your driver is working correctly this can be done by checking your plugins and selecting the Nvidia plugin it should be showing your driver and your GPU in the plugin window.

Step 2 Configure the steam headless

At this point, it gets a little weird if you're not used to this sort of stuff but you need to add a specific command to your docker for Steam headless to use your Nvidia graphics card. To do this make sure your Steam headless docker is stopped and then right-click it and edit it. On the top right, you'll see a tab to switch from basic view to advanced view. Head down to the extra parameters line and add the following

--runtime='nvidia'

once you do that switch back to basic view and make sure you point the games location to a folder you want to download all your Steam games and files to. I put mine on an M2 drive for speed but you can do whatever you want really. I would keep it off your array though as that may slow things down. Finally once your happy with the config save it and let it boot up.

Step 3 Linux setup

Now that the docker is running click it and open WebUI then select Connect. This will bring you to a Linux desktop. At this point, you need to open Steam which can be found under applications on the top left under the internet. Open that up and sign in. Once signed in we need to make a tweak to get proton working right. Select Steam on the top left and go to settings. In settings on the left select compatibility and check both boxes. This will make Steam try to use proton by default for none Linux games. This is where your mileage will vary. I then selected proton experimental for my case. It will have you restart steam after applying it so go ahead.

Step 4 Wine

I don't know if this is necessary but I used Wine to install p99 from the titanium disks but if you already have the p99 files you just need to get your p99 folder onto the machine however you see fit. I did the leg work because I was an idiot and didn't have a backup of the install folder. Then just patch the game files as you normally would.

Step 5 Launch

If you don't need wine then your last step is to add a non-steam game to your library and point it to your launch.bat for p99. Once added right click the item in your library and select manage. Finally set to compatibility mode and force it to use whatever version of proton you want. Like I said I found the experimental works well. Now that the setup is done you should be able to select it from your Steam library and launch it.

Final Stage

At this point, you should have the game running but the true colors show when you use Moonlight or Steam to launch the games from another system. You can do either really and I'm in no one camp over the other. I have both set at this point and don't see a huge difference. But with this setup, you can stream to another steam machine such as a steam deck or steam link. Let alone just using Steam on a PC and connecting to your headless version like in my case. IE I run a Mac and use Steam to stream my games to it. But if you want you can use Sunshine which works with moonlight and is available on most platforms also.

Additional notes...

I had a heck of a time installing p99 and getting it running. First I had to figure a way to mount the iso files I had which I used this tutorial https://askubuntu.com/questions/5373...etc-in-xubuntu

The next big issue I had was trying to patch my files after installing. I had to manually copy every file over because for some reason they were not copying correctly when I used the Thunar GUI or terminal cp command. So be warned it was a pain but doable.

This is the original thread I found about Steam Headless and just tweaked it a little to my own needs. But there is much more detail here if you are having trouble. I also do not pretend to know or understand all of this but if you really are stuck feel free to message me and I'll see what I can do to help. https://forums.unraid.net/topic/1183...team-headless/

[chmod 755 extermin8blx]

super cool - thank you. I've been looking for a way to do exactly this lately. I have wound up with more computers than I can count but I dont like having to sync my EQ between them XD

[whiteice217]

Originally Posted by chmod 755 extermin8blx [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

super cool - thank you. I've been looking for a way to do exactly this lately. I have wound up with more computers than I can count but I dont like having to sync my EQ between them XD

No worries, I could suggest saving your p99 on a network share and then pointing the clients to that folder. It might save you some headaches. I haven't noticed any issues as of yet.