Getting Tyrian 2000 to work on Steam Deck

maquise@ttrpg.network to Steam Deck@sopuli.xyz – 11 points –

cross-posted from: https://ttrpg.network/post/1361746

I know this might be a bit of a long shot, but I figured I would give it a go;

I am trying to get Tyrian 2000 to work properly on my Steam Deck, via installing it from my gog library on Heroic. While it managed to install correctly I have a few issues that need to be resolved before I can continue;

The controller support is non-existent. I am unsure if that is fixable, though I suspect I might be able to get around it by remapping the Steam Deck controls. Not really a problem though if anybody knows a solution I'd be happy to hear it.

The real issue is that the music is not playing. Sound effects work just fine, so far, but I don't get any music. I suspect it has something to do with Dosbox, given the age of the game in question.

4

Ha, funny timing, I actually just got this working yesterday.

I recommend going with OpenTyrian2000 rather than the GOG edition. It has some extra scaling options and music works out of the box.

Basic steps:

  • download OpenTyrian and data files (in Github description) from https://github.com/KScl/opentyrian2000
  • extract all to same folder. Data files should sit in same directory as OpenTyrian2000.exe
  • (optional) if you have a Windows PC, you can try running it and it should start up normally
  • assuming that’s all working, copy the files to your Deck
  • add a new Lutris shortcut to existing game. I used latest Wine.
  • test that you can run the game on Deck, it should boot and play fine with sound and all. Scaling options are in the OpenTyrian2000 menu option.
  • (optional) on Steam side map escape key to start so you can pause the game if needed. All the other default keybinds seem to work though I did not test for long so others like weapon switching may need to be changed.

Hope that helps! Let me know if I’ve messed anything up or if it’s not working for you

I have managed to get it running quite well in Lutris, and it would need my recommendation to use over Heroic Games Launcher - the latter tries to run the game in Windows version of DOSBox through Wine, whereas the former has a ready-made script for configuring the Linux-native DOSBox for this particular game.

Controls may still be wonky (DOS era games didn't have the niceties of unified XInput interfaces), but I've worked around it by using Steam Input remapping to have the left joystick simulate mouse movements.

I have Tyrian 2000 on GOG as well and was feeling nostalgic. I could replicate the issues and here's what I did to fix it.

  • Installed the game with Heroic and added it (automatically) to Steam.
  • Applied a community control layout named "Tyrian" to fix the mapping issue.
  • Launched the game from Steam and used the onscreen keyboard to press 3 to go to "Game DOS settings". I had to run it twice before the controls worked for some reason. Change the music device to "FM Sound" (I think the default was "Midi 330h") and saved.
  • Returned to the launch menu and pressed 1 to launch Tyrian 2000.

I usually like running DOS games in EmuDeck/Retroarch though.

That seems to have fixed the music problem, thanks!

I have a new issue though; I'm getting a phantom control input, seems to be pushing to the right sometimes. This is exclusive to Tyrian, so it's not a worn out stick or anything.