How to install HD textures (completely optional)

I. download stuff

1. SMOS 4X AI Textures (4 GB), unpack to ~/tmp/
2. TFC Installer for UE2-UE3, unpack to ~/tmp/
3. .NET 6.0.36 - Windows Desktop Runtime - x64 (click the x64 on the right), put in ~/tmp

II. in terminal

1. TFC can't handle dot-files in paths, so make a symlink:

   ln -s ~/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/ ~/SteamGames
   

2. install .NET 6 (required by TFC), follow installation wizard:

   protontricks-launch --appid 242640 ~/tmp/windows*-runtime*.exe
   

3. run the TFC itself:

   protontricks-launch --appid 242640 ~/tmp/TFC*/TFCInstaller.exe
   

III. in TFC window

1. set Game folder  to Z:\home\<your-username>\SteamGames\Styx
2. set Mod folder  to Z:\home\<your-username>\tmp\Styx4X
3. click Update Styx: Master of Shadows  and wait until done

NOTE: to confirm path selection, you need to highlight the directory on the right side of the window, not in the tree view on the leftkj

HD textures have now been baked into the game files, you'll see high resolution textures after starting the game.

IV. no longer needed

• files downloaded in the 1st step (4 GB)
• unzipped versions of those files (5 GB)
• original LQ textures backup in the game directory TFCInstallerBackups (2 GB)
• if you want, you can also remove the SteamGames symlink made in the 2nd step

V. (optional) config tweaks

Before clean-up, you can also install config tweaks provided by that same HD texture pack. Not all of those tweaks make sense, though. Things like extending buffers, fog height, shadowing & lighting, or LOD distance will somewhat improve the visual fidelity, but degrading textures filters from anisotropic/linear combo to linear/point certainly won't, especially if you run the game above 1080p resolution.