I’m trying to play Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 (Windows version) on my Steam Deck, but I’m hitting a wall. I don’t want to mess with emulators since I know there’s a remake of 3+4 on the way. I’ve successfully installed other non-Steam games on my Steam Deck using the same method, and they work fine. I managed to get THPS3 running on my laptop after applying a NoCD patch, and even moved the folder to a different PC where it worked perfectly.
For my Steam Deck, I zipped up the game folder, uploaded it to Google Drive, and downloaded it in desktop mode. I unzipped it and added skate3.exe as a non-Steam game in Steam, setting it to use Proton GE. However, when I switch back to gaming mode and try to launch it, the Steam logo appears for a moment and then it just returns to my library without starting the game. I’ve also attempted different Proton versions, including GE, experimental, and hotfix.
One thing I considered is that when I got it to run on my PC, I set skate3.exe to run in compatibility mode with XP SP3 and gave it admin rights. Should I remove the compatibility settings from the .exe file before trying to launch it on the Steam Deck?
2 Answers
Have you tried renaming or moving the MOVIES folder in the game’s Data folder? It might be causing the game to crash due to the intro videos. When I had issues before, altering that folder helped me get it running!
Just a heads up, if you’re avoiding emulators, you’re making this a lot more complicated for yourself. Running it through an emulator would seriously simplify things! But if you’re set on making it work, maybe try running skate3.exe without the XP compatibility mode since it worked fine on your laptop.
That definitely sounds like a solid idea! I’ve heard those intro videos can be problematic for some games. I’ll give it a shot next time I try.