Full scan (for games) - what does it 'look' like?

[zixi]

I'm not convinced that Vortex is scanning properly for games. I think it's faking it. However, before I do something drastic, can some please tell me what the screen looks like during a full scan? Does something slosh about or what? I'm running Vortex via Lutris on a Linux box so some issues are totally understandable, acceptable etc etc... it wasn't exactly designed to do this...

[Pickysaurus]

Hi zixi,

 

We don't currently support Vortex on Linux however I can describe how it behaves on Windows.

 

When you do a full scan the bar at the bottom of the games Window will fill green as Vortex looks through the directories/partitions defined in Settings -> Games

 

If it finds a new game I believe there is a notification.

[zixi]

Hi Pickysaurus - I totally understand about Linux non-support so thanks for replying! I'm in awe at how stable Vortex is on my Linux box - that's real engineering. I just needed to know what I'm looking for and from what you say, it definitely isn't scanning! I'm glad that I'm still able to detect software that is 'pretending'... I'm going to install on a spare machine and see what happens. I don't want to destabilise my SkyrimSE set up until I'm sure what's going on. Thanks very much indeed for the help! :laugh:

 

The problem with Linux is that it spoils you... What I really want to do is open a terminal and find out what's going on... :laugh:

[Tannin42]

If you check on Settings->Games there is a list of "Search Paths". Vortex will search these folders (and only those) during a full scan.

This is pre-configured to include all fixed drive connected to the system on first startup (so no NAS, external drives, dvd drives and so on). We require native windows functionality to get that list so this is may fail on Linux (maybe virtual drives are reported in a way that Vortex thinks they are not fixed drives). You can of course manually setup paths to search.

 

The search itself also uses low-level native windows apis for performance reasons (on Windows the search would take several times longer with "generic" functions). This too may fail in wine. If this fails you will probably get a couple of other related problems because we're using this optimized api in various places and there wouldn't be a simple workaround.

[zixi]

@Tannin42 - thank you! I really appreciate the help as this isn't a Linux site! I think Vortex find things OK on an initial setup but then goes into retirement. If I'm right then the thing to do is to make sure all games are added *before* installing Vortex. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to recreate this on the spare machine as that is running Mint and Cinnamon. I'm going to install Ubuntu Game pack on that and see what happens... My main PC is very stable and as all I want to do is to add a couple of mods in Morrowind I really I ought to do that manually given the issues with Morrowind mods in any case - I'm just spoiled rotten by mod managers I'm afraid. And it's interesting to see how much you can run on Linux using Lutris, Proton and Wine! There's a bit of me that still wants to push software until it breaks!!!! :devil:

 

I've tried manually configuring the search but I don't think Vortex does it in any case and it clearly can't see the extra games added *after * it was installed even though I can see them and it can see the games it is already managing. There's something I'm misunderstanding here and I'm not sure what. I may have to call in the big guns and get my husband (the resident Linux specialist) to take a look! :laugh:

 

But thank you - both of you! :happy:

[Tannin42]

You can always manually select the game path instead of relying on the discovery.

[zixi]

If only I'd rtfm I would have known that what I described was indeed correct. According to Lutris, Vortex won't recognise any games installed after if has been installed unless the symlinks are rebuilt. I'm pretty sure it doesn't scan. But given it was built for Windows not Linux I'm still amazed at how robust it is! :happy: If ever Nexus decides to support Linux then here's one person who'll volunteer to beta... :laugh:

[zixi]

@Tannin42 - just saw your reply... manually setting is proving to be a problem. I've just reinstalled Vortex *after* installing Fallout4 and as I suspected it picked up Fallout4. But if I manually try to point, it can't see the folders... I suspect that actually there's either some config file floating about that I don't know about or where I think Vortex needs to be manually pointed is not really where it needs to be even though the folders are all present there... As you know, running Vortex on top of Wine and Lutris and via Steam and Proton is not exactly how the software engineers thought it would be. I'm truly amazed at how stable it is... And I've now seen some of their warning messages as well - they've really made me smile! Apparently I'm mad and I mustn't whine! :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: It's no big deal. It works perfectly with SkyrimSE and Skyrim and apparently Fallout4 though I can't stand the latter! Never finished it... :ermm:

 

Thanks again! You've both been great!

[zixi]

Just in case anyone is trying to do this on Linux then the easiest way (if you've added games *after* Vortex) is to build symlinks! Vortex now recognises Morrowind! I must admit I resorted to the resident Linux specialist! :laugh: