How Can I Transfer Game Saves from Windows to Linux?
Asked by
CuriousSky22
I'm currently dual-booting Windows and Cachyos on my computer with two separate drives to keep them separate. My goal is to transition fully to Linux, but I still have some ongoing games in Windows. I'm looking for advice on how to transfer these games, especially keeping my save files intact. I mainly play story-driven games, so preserving my saves is important to me. Any tips on what I need to do?
Answers
First off, if your games are on Steam and support cloud saves, just reinstall them on the Linux version of Steam, and your saves should be auto-synced. If not, you'll need to figure out where the save files are stored on Windows and manually copy them over after reinstalling the games in Linux.
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Thereโs also a tool called Ludusavi that can help automate the backup and restore process for save files across different platforms. It might save you some time if youโre dealing with many games.
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If your games run through Wine or Proton, look for a folder called 'wine prefix' which acts like a Windows C: drive and find your gameโs save files there. For Steam games, they would be located in something like ~/.steam/steam/steamapps/compatdata/[AppID]/, where [AppID] is the game's specific identifier. Knock on wood, and hopefully you wonโt run into any major issues!
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Another good resource is PCGamingWiki; they have a wealth of information about where different games store their save data. If it's stored locally, you can easily back it up and transfer it to wherever the game in Linux expects to find it.
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For games that arenโt on Steam or donโt support cloud saves, it can get tricky. Many games built with engines like Ren'py or Unity typically have a default location for save files, but you'll need to do a little digging or a quick Google search to find the exact path. Once you know where their save files go in Linux, itโs usually just a matter of copy-pasting them into the right folder after reinstalling the game.
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