Same here.

The following worked for me:

1. I used the Sethioz Industries ArmA 2 key conversion tool to convert my Product Key into Hex.
2. Below, I assume these environment variables. Reorganise them as you see fit.

   SA=~/.local/share/Steam/steamapps
   WINE=${SA}/common/Proton\ 4.2/dist/bin/wine
   export WINEPREFIX=${SA}/compatdata/${GAME_ID}/pfx
   

3. I edited that value into the Windows Registry using ${WINE} regedit with WINEPREFIX as above. You need to edit HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\bohemia interactive studio\arma 2, key Key. You should find it empty before you edit.
4. Don't run the game via Steam. When Steam launches the game, it clears the key from the registry for some reason.
5. Run the game using ${WINE} ${SA}/common/Arma\ 2/arma2.exe, with WINEPREFIX as above.

I also observed that during the installation of the game, the installer displays the Product Key for you to copy and then it opens the Explorer window in the "My Computer" view. That's strange because I don't know what to do there and I have to close the Explorer window to let the installer continue. I suppose that this is a result of some installer script gone wrong and that instead of prompting you for the Product Key, it opens Explorer instead, which leaves the key empty in the Steam configuration. Steam then saves this empty key into the registry every time you run the game, I guess.

@ziman That worked for me too, although in my case, my appid was 33910, not 33900. Here are some commands that might make starting arma 2 easier:

protontricks -c 'wine /path/to/ARMA2_Keychanger.exe' 33910
protontricks -c 'wine regedit' 33910
protontricks -c "wine $HOME/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/Arma\ 2/arma2.exe" 33910

Also, the key is under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Wow6432Node\bohemia interactive studio\arma 2 on proton 4.11-1.

By the way, Arma 2 hangs when I try to exit. I had to switch to a virtual terminal to kill it after trying to use the in-game exit option in the menu. Alt tabbing and killing the protontricks command will make it exit cleanly though.

I made a small executable script called arma2.sh with the following contents:

#!/bin/sh
exec protontricks -c "wine $HOME/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/Arma\ 2/arma2.exe" 33910

I then added it to steam as a non-steam game and renamed it to Arma 2 (protontricks). I am now able to launch Arma 2 from steam using that. I have access to the steam overlay. I can exit the game by force quitting via the steam overlay.

@ryao I didn't get it working myself but why not just run the program mentioned by @ziman through protontricks directly? It should be able to set the key itself.

Edit: Actually it did work for me, but it set the key for arma2 oa both times.

Hey but @ryao seeing as this is a common issue with ArmA 2 in general I think you should close this issue, nothing proton can do about it...

I got so annoyed by this bug I started writing a workaround that should be as easy as possible. It does require a few things. but after that it should more or less work out of the box.

runarma2

@LevitatingBusinessMan This is a late response, but the following ProtonDB report indicates that the issue is partially caused by steam running the start script for this game at every launch on Linux:

https://www.protondb.com/app/33900#o20Z765PX6

I am not sure if the game properly installs the key into the registry at first start, although it presumably does on Windows. if it does on Linux, it gets clobbered by this script it on first start (and every subsequent start). Removing read permissions (and possibly) execute permissions will keep the script from being run according to that report and I can confirm that it works. It feels like this could be a bug in steam.

@ryao How do I remove read permissions and execute permisions from Steam on Linux ? And will this affect other Windows games and cause them to not launch properly ?

This should be fixed by Wine Mono 6.2.0.

There's currently no Proton release that includes the new Wine Mono, but the MSI can be manually installed for a specific game. @redmcg has a helpful guide here: https://github.com/redmcg/wine-mono/wiki#install-later-version

@ryao How do I remove read permissions and execute permisions from Steam on Linux ? And will this affect other Windows games and cause them to not launch properly ?

chmod 000 <file_location>

You don't give permissions to software. You associate them to files.

I am unable to reproduce the issue on a vanilla wine installation. However, vanilla wine runs too slowly for the game to be playable. The issue of the red shift only occurs on Proton. At this time I am unable to verify if the issue would persist without PROTON_USE_WINED3D however I have been using proton for quiet sometime with that setting enabled for most every game and have never encountered an issue before.

@madewokherd https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/1308#issuecomment-855262717

This should be fixed by Wine Mono 6.2.0.

There's currently no Proton release that includes the new Wine Mono, but the MSI can be manually installed for a specific game. @redmcg has a helpful guide here: https://github.com/redmcg/wine-mono/wiki#install-later-version

Could anyone confirm this was indeed the case? I'm still experiencing the issue of the registry key containing the serial being wiped when using both Proton 6.3-8 (Mono 6.4.1) and 7.0-1 (Mono 7.1.2).

fwiw i've been able to launch fine with 7.0-3 and play a little single player.

Even with Proton 7.0-3, the binary value named key located in the \HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Wow6432Node\Bohemia Interactive Studio\Arma 2 OA key is still being wiped on every launch.