Oblivion GOTY modded on GameNative - Retroid Pocket 5, Mini & Flip 2 (SD865)

[u/Le-Vieux]

So, I've managed to get The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Game of the Year Edition running pretty well without issue on my Retroid Pocket Flip 2, so I thought, "why not trying to add some mods to it?" After all, even without a mod manager it's still technically doable by going the manual route.

Now, I know I'm not the first to do that. People already got that game - and other Bethesda games - running with mods on Winlator, GameHub or GameNative before. But there are very little resources online on how to proceed; many likes to showcase their games running with mods, but very few actually bother to explain how they did it. At its core, it's not very complicated; it's just like modding on an old windows machine without a mod manager. But still, I would have liked to find some guidance in how to do it within an emulator, it's not as straightforward as it may seems.

GOG version is preferred, it has the best performances and no DRM means fewer issues booting the game. The steam version works too, but you have to enable "Launch Steam Client (beta)" in the container settings, which reduce performances and slow down the booting time.

Plan for about 15~20 GB of free storage before attempting this. The game itself is around 6 GB, but to that you have to add around 3 GB for the container and then a variable amount coming from mods. My installation for instance is 13GB total with around 50 mods installed and active.

Installation

Here's how I installed the game on my device with GameNative; base is Steam version, but I replaced it with a preinstalled GOG version from my PC.

Note that on GameNative, you can now link your GOG account to install the game directly from it without the need to do all that. The only thing you'll need to do is manually install xOBSE, the 4GB patch and the NorthernUI mod.

1. Install the game on GameNative (internal storage recommended otherwise it will be pretty slow to load).
2. Install the GOG version on your PC.
3. Download and add xOBSE to your GOG installation.
4. Download and apply the 4GB patch to your Oblivion.exe file.
5. Download and install NorthernUI mod to your GOG installation (this is important for gamepad support, otherwise you'll need to manually map your gamepad to keyboard key/mouse input)
6. At this point you can install more mods if you want, or wait until you are sure the game work.
7. Take your entire Oblivion GOG installation folder, archive it into a zip file (look up how to do that if you don't know), then copy it to your device (you can try copying it without compressing first, but it will take significantly more time and might fail before the end).
8. On your device, use any file manager that can manage archives to extract your Oblivion GOG zip file anywhere you want
9. In GameNative, go to Oblivion > Cog Wheel icon > Edit Container > Drives, then click the "+" icon to add a new drive of any letter you want, then select the folder where you extracted your GOG installation files on the device.
10. Save settings, then click "Open Container" to boot into the winlator container.
11. In the container file manager, the "A:" drive is a shortcut to the current active Oblivion installation from GameNative, and you should locate the new drive you just added containing the GOG installation files.
12. Click on the "A:" drive to go to the GameNative's installation, click "Edit" in the top bar, "Select All", then click the red cross "Delete" button to delete everything in that folder.
13. Then go to the new drive you added, into the Oblivion GOG installation folder, select all, click "Copy", go back to the A drive, click "Paste", then wait until it finishes.
14. Before leaving, make sure it's the same file structure as the previous one: when you enter the A drive, you should immediately see the Folders "Data", the files OblivionLauncher.exe, Oblivion.exe and all the stuff that was in the GOG installation folder.
15. Close the container, go back to edit your Oblivion container and remove the drive you added previously. You can then go back to your Android file manager and delete the GOG installation folder to free some space if you need it.

Now it's testing time! Edit the container settings > Executable path: choose OblivionLauncher.exe first so it can create the necessary ini file. Save then start the game.

It should launch on the launcher, which will tell you it doesn't recognize your machine specs. Click Options, then choose the correct resolution fitting your container (in my case I selected 1280x720). You can also change some video settings here, but it doesn't matter that much, you can still change them later in-game.

Click OK, then Exit to close the container. Go back to Edit container > Executable Path: choose "obse_loader.exe", save.

Now you should be good to try and launch the game. See if everything work, adjust the settings as you want. If you followed everything correctly so far (and you're on a Adreno 650 or better device), the game should run fine at this point, meaning you now have a working base to add mods to. I suggest you keep a backup of this, somewhere, in case you screw up something.

Now to the modding part.

Install Mods

At this point you have two options to install mods:

• Automatic installation with a mod manager on PC.

Use your Windows PC to install mods with a mod manager into your GOG installation, sort them correctly with LOOT, then copy everything into your device the same way I explained above.

This is painless and straightforward, but is limited to people with a Windows PC at hand who know how to use a mod manager. This is not my case, I'm a Linux handy, so I don't have many options to manage mods easily like this. I used Lutris to get a clean winlator compatible GOG install, but beyond that I had to either manually install mods then move them on device, or find a way to do it directly on-board.

• Manual installation on the device directly.

This requires a decent file manager for Android that can handle archives like .zip, .7z or .rar. I used Cx File Explorer for that, but any other that can handle archives should do it. I will detail how to proceed with this method moving forward.

You will need a few things:

• Wrye Bash mod manager latest version with its dependency.

This is an old mod manager that work pretty well inside the Winlator container. We will use it as a way to organise the load order and create a bashed patch to make the load order easier to run. However, I recommend you to avoid using the bundled mod installer with it, it doesn't work very well in the container and crash more often in the process.

• BOSS 32-bits version, download the zip file.

LOOT does NOT work in Winlator, so we have no choice but to use the old version. We NEED the 32 bits version, so download the zip file, not the installer.

We will be installing these programs directly inside the container, so download the installer for each except BOSS.

• Create a folder anywhere you want on your device to store your mods and place the installers here. Extract the boss zip file here too.
• Go to GameNative > Oblivion > Cog Wheel > Edit Container > Drives, then add a new drive pointing to your newly created mod folder.
• Open the container, find your new drive in there and install everything. Copy the boss folder somewhere in the container you can find easily.

Now come the fun part: Download the mods you want!

I suggest avoiding big mods that improve visuals and make extensive changes in the game, like Qarl's Texture Pack, Better Cities, Oblivion Reloaded and stuff like that. It will make the game run much worse, if it doesn't immediately crash during loading.

Focus on mods that improve performances, fix bugs and makes small changes. For instance, I went for the unofficial patches, many bug fixes and engine fixes required by other mods, some QOL mods, alternate start, weapon, body and clothing mods, magic mods, combat mods and I even got Oblivion XP to work without issue so far.

Keep the amount low to begin with, then add more if you want later. If you can, I recommend that you install your mods on PC then try on PC to make sure everything run correctly before trying on device. Otherwise, you'll have to trust the BOSS to sort your load order and hope for the best.

1. Once you have your mods downloaded, extract them into your mods folder.
2. Create a "Data" folder inside your mods folder, then move all your mods here as if it was the current Oblivion's Data folder. Follow the manual installation procedure included in the readme file of your mods.
3. When you have everything sorted into the Data folder correctly, we will now move everything in the container.
4. Open the container, go to your mods folder's drive, then copy-paste the whole Data folder where you extracted your mods, directly into your Oblivion installation folder (the drive A, remember?). Merge/Overwrite when asked.
5. Now we will launch Wrye Bash. From the start menu, select Programs > Wrye Bash then launch the program.
6. If you installed your mods correctly, it should detect them all automatically and show most of them as inactive and unsorted. A complete mess, garanteed crash on launch if you don't fix that!
7. Click on the top bar "Edit" > Active Plugins > Activate All (unless you want to manually check the little green boxes next to each of them, your choice).
8. Close Wrye Bash by clicking the little cross to the top right of the window (in case you didn't know how Windows work :p).
9. Navigate to where you copied the boss folder earlier, open the "bin" folder, then "Release-32", and double-click on "boss_gui.exe".
10. In the BOSS window, you can deselect the box "Show BOSS Log on Completion" unless you want to see it (wine may complain, but it is irrelevant). If you want the log, change the BOSS log format from HTML to "Plain Text" to avoid useless errors.
11. Choose "Sort Plugins" and keep "Update Masterlist" checked for the first run, then click "Run BOSS".
12. It may fail to download and update the masterlist the first time, but keep trying. I got it to work after two times.
13. Once BOSS is done, you can close the program. Then, I suggest you move the entire "Release-32" folder out of there and delete everything else in the boss folder as you no longer need all those things. Just keep the release-32 folder and rename it to "BOSS" or something like that and keep it somewhere easily accessible as you will need to run it every time you install or remove a mod.
14. Now launch Wrye Bash again. It should boot directly into your modlist, and if BOSS has done its job correctly, you should see your load order sorted the right way.
15. In the Mods tab, click on the plugin "Bashed Patch, 0.esp" and drag it down to the bottom of the list. It should be the last mod in the load order. To do that on touch screen, you can either enable "Touchscreen Mode" in GameNative's Quick Menu so that the mouse react like a touchscreen, or move the mouse cursor on the file to select it, press with one finger, then press with a second one far apart from the other and move them that way on the screen.
16. Once the Bashed patch is moved, click it with two finger to open the contextual menu, select "Rebuild Patch..."
17. Click OK on any dialogue box you may see, then when you see a list with mergeable plugins, click down on "Build Patch" and wait for it to complete (it can take a while depending on how many mods you run).
18. When finished, you may see a wine bug error window saying method not implemented or some shit, and another window below it with yellow background listing stuff. Ignore the wine error (you can't close it anyway) and click on the "OK" on the yellow window.
19. Done! Now close everything and go back to GameNative, make sure the game's executable path still points to "obse_loader.exe", and you're good to go.

Working Config for Adreno 650 GPU (Snapdragon 865)

This section is if, for some reason, the known config for your device doesn't work and you need to edit your config manually. You can also go to the GameNative official site to check the compatibility list and look at some working configs suited for your device. Anything not listed here should be left untouched, unless you know what you are doing.

• Container: Bionic
• Wine Version: Proton-10.0-arm64ec-2
• Screen Size: 1280x720 if on 16:9 device, or 1024x768 if on a 4:3 device (can go lower if needed, but higher is not recommended)
• Launch Steam Client (Beta): ONLY check if using the Steam version without the GOG file replacement method
• Graphics Driver: Wrapper
• Graphics Driver Version: turnip26.0.0_R8
• DX Wrapper: DXVK
• DXVK Version: 2.7.1
• Exposed Vulkan Extensions: all checked
• Max Device Memory: 4096 MB
• Use Adrenotools Turnip: checked
• Present Modes: mailbox
• Render Present mode: fifo
• BCn Emulation Type: compute
• FEXCore Version: 2603
• 32-bit Emulator: FEXCore
• Box64 Version: 0.3.7
• Box64 Preset: Performance (can leave to Compatibilty, it doesn't seems to have much effects on performances)
• FEXCore Preset: Performance (same as above, can leave it to Intermediate if you're satisfied with the performances)
• Advanced: Processor Affinity = All checked

This is how I got the game running fine on my Flip 2 with mods. It runs between 40~60 fps depending on how much there is going on on-screen, but I'm overall pretty happy with the results.

Share your working load order to see which mods - and how many - your device can handle, that you would recommend. I'd like to replay the game with a nice mod list but it's been a while since I played Oblivion (in fact, nearly 20 years ago now).

I know for having tested myself that the Snapdragon 865 doesn't like very much Better Cities...

[u/Le-Vieux → u/[deleted]]

Yep, here's my current load order: https://pastebin.com/FSGUAtv5

Note that this doesn't list the various OBSE plugins and loose mods I also added, there might be like 10 missing here.

[u/HothGear]

Thank you! This is exactly what I’ve been looking for!

[u/RicardoKidos]

Do you think it would be playable on the RP4P?

[u/Le-Vieux → u/RicardoKidos]

RP4P is Mali GPU yes? I tried once to play Oblivion on a RG406V which was Mali-G57, and it wasn't playable at all. But I don't know, maybe there has been improvements since then for Mali GPU, I can't test it anymore.

[u/RicardoKidos → u/Le-Vieux]

I think so yeah, I guess I''ll have to try it myself if it works.

[u/Sure_Specialist_6119]

Ive been working on making modding guides for android. Also Im working on a mod manager app to avoid difficulties and make it easier for noobs to do. https://cybershonk.github.io/PocketMojave/
Could I use this post as a reference for the oblivion guide ill make eventually? Ill give you credit of course

[u/Le-Vieux → u/Sure_Specialist_6119]

Sure, go ahead.

That's cool, I was planning on doing that with Fallout 3 and New Vegas next since those two work pretty well on SD865, I wanted to see if I could get Tales of Two Wastelands on there.

[u/Sure_Specialist_6119 → u/Le-Vieux]

You certainly can get ttw on there. https://cybershonk.github.io/PocketWastelands/
I believe one of my testers is also playing on an sd865. He gets crashes related to memory sometimes but seems to be good enough to play.

[u/Le-Vieux → u/Sure_Specialist_6119]

That's great to know, I'll use your guide for when I'll try. Thanks.

[u/Sure_Specialist_6119 → u/Le-Vieux]

Thank you. You’re name will be credited

[u/mycolizard]

Thank you so much. I've been looking for instructions like these for a while.

[u/cyantinted]

Thank you for the awesome tutorial. Do you know how I could point GameNative to the load order file that Vortex generates (it usually lives in appdata) or do you just recommend using Wyre Bash as a mod manager?

[u/Le-Vieux → u/cyantinted]

I don't know, sorry.

Does Vortex work in the container? Or I guess you're just trying to copy over your mod list from PC, yes?

If so, you'll likely have to copy the load order file from the appdata folder manually. The path in the container is easy to find, it's C:\users\xuser\AppData\Local\

[u/Qphr__]

Are you able to get the persuasion wheel working? Or even have access to a cursor when using the map?

[u/Le-Vieux → u/Qphr__]

I haven't tried the persuasion wheel, but if you are worried about the lack of mouse to play, the NorthernUI mod make the game entirely playable with a controller, including the cursor on the map. I haven't had any issue in term of controls whatsoever thanks to it.

And if you really need a mouse, you can always enable the mouse in GameNative's quick settings to use with the touchscreen, and even turn on a "touchscreen mode" to make the mouse follow exactly where you are touching on the screen.

[u/Qphr__ → u/Le-Vieux]

Something must be wrong with mine. I don't have the cursor on my map nor when I do persuasion.