Lutris gaming and piracy guide

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Introduction

I highly recommend using a desktop environment since they usually come with tons of quality of life features preconfigured. Your distribution doesn’t really matter but choosing a popular rolling release one ensures up-to-date packages, long term support and easier troubleshooting. This website (archive) explains your choices and Linux in general more in-depth.

Unless you know what you’re doing I don’t recommend using any performance apps or tweaks other than the ones listed in this article. I try to be as comprehensive as possible.

Lutris setup

Lutris is used to easily change the large amount of tweaks a Wine application can have through a nice GUI and on a per game basis. It can also be used to download and install games from different stores.

Before installing Lutris you will have to install Wine with this guide and install the relevant drivers using this guide.

Next you will need to actually install Lutris by following the guide for your distribution on their download page.

Gamemode

To have the best performance possible you will also need to install gamemode. On Arch based distros you’ll need to run this command in the terminal: 
 sudo pacman -S gamemode lib32-gamemode

This will install gamemode and it’s 32 bit version (you should have enabled 32 bit repositories when installing wine).

On Debian based distros the command is: 
 sudo apt install gamemode

This command does the same thing as the Arch equivalent. Gamemode might also be available through your distributions graphical package manager if you prefer to install it that way.

Now open Lutris, click on the hamburger menu, “Preferences”, the “Global Options” tab and then make sure that “Enable Feral GameMode” is enabled.

Desktop effects

Disabling desktop effects increases fps, reduces input lag and stuttering at the cost of things like shadows, animations and blur not working outisde of the game (like when you alt+tab). Gnome doesn’t need this.

If you’re running KDE you can either install Autocomposer or click on the hamburger menu, “Preferences”, the “Global Options” tab and turn on “Disable Desktop Effects”.

If you’re running XFCE put this command 
xfconf-query -c xfwm4 -p /general/use_compositing -s false
in the “Pre-launch script” box and this command 
xfconf-query -c xfwm4 -p /general/use_compositing -s true

in the “Post-exit script” box.

If you’re running Mate the first command is 
gsettings set org.mate.Marco.general compositing-manager false
and the second is 
gsettings set org.mate.Marco.general compositing-manager true

Note that these commands might not work since I haven’t actually tested them. Cinnamon, Pantheon and other DEs don’t support command line/partial compositor disabling, although Cinnamon can fully disable it’s compositor in fullscreen applications at the cost of screen tearing. To do this in Cinnamon go to “System Settings”, “General” and enable “Disable compositing on full-screen applications”

This info was taken from here (archive).

Check Esync compatibility

You’ll need to check if your system is Esync compatible. Follow this guide to check if it is and what to do if it isn’t.

ProtonUp-Qt

Next you’ll need to install ProtonUp-Qt for managing and downloading wine versions and DXVK Async. It can be installed through flatpak, appimage or the AUR. I tested the AUR (2.7.0-1), appimage and flatpak versions and they all worked perfectly.

Now launch ProtonUp-Qt, click on “Add version” and install the latest version of Wine GE that doesn’t have LoL in the end. Then install the latest version of DXVK Async.

If you have the disk space to spare, Proton, Proton Experimental and vanilla Wine can be installed by selecting “Kron4ek Wine-Builds Vanilla” and the relevant version. The Proton and Proton Experimental changelogs mention that DXVK and vkd3d-proton are not included, but note that they still work since they are handled externally in Lutris. The newly installed Wine versions only show up after Lutris is relaunched.

wine-mono

A wine-mono install prompt might come up if you launch a game with a Wine version that requires a newer wine-mono version than the one you have. Either download wine-mono through the prompt or downgrade and wait for an update. The only reason I see to wait for an update in your package manager is not to have to download wine-mono with each new wine prefix (which are like tiny windows installations that get created for every new game you install in Lutris) you create. The space wine-mono takes up is neglegible though.

DXVK performance overlay

If you want to have a performance overlay and your game uses Direct3D 9/10/11 you can use DXVK.

To enable the DXVK overlay globally click on the hamburger menu, then “Preferences” and then the “Global options” tab. Then scroll down to “Environment variables”, add a new one and set “DXVK_HUD” as the key and either “fps” (for only showing fps), “full” (for showing all possible info) or a combination of options as the value.

If no overlay shows up then your game doesn’t use Direct3D 9/10/11.

The same thing can be done on a per-game basis by left clicking a game, clicking “Configure” and going into the “System Options” tab. Desktop effects and gamemode can also be turned on/off here since the system and global options are the same.

MangoHud

Mangohud is a universal fps overlay that can be extensibly configured (the base config is fine). You can follow this guide to install it for your distribution

After that just left click a game in Lutris, click “Configure” and enable “FPS counter (MangoHud)” in the “System Options” tab. This can also be done in the global options by clicking the hamburger icon, “Preferences” and enabling it in the “Global Options” tab.

GOG

Downloading a GOG game through Lutris

It’s possible to view and download games from your GOG library by clicking the profile icon next to GOG under “Sources” and logging in.

Double click a game from your GOG library after logging in and you’ll be presented with installation options. These options can be: “linux GOG”, “wine GOG”, “(auto-generated)” and custom user-named ones. “wine GOG” means that the Windows version of the game will be installed through Wine with a user-made script. “linux GOG” means that a native linux version will be installed through a user-made script. “(auto-generated)” in front of an option means that the installation script was automatically generated. Any other options are user-made. You’ll need to check if the user-made scripts do something special on the Lutris website and decide what version you’re gonna download yourself.

I recommend the Wine option since it usually works better and more often than the native Linux build.

Using a manually downloaded GOG installer

To install a manually downloaded GOG game you can click the plus icon and then either “Search the Lutris website for installers” or “Install a Windows game from media”. I recommend the first option since the game might need some custom install script to function. Check the previous section to know what the different options that show up after mean.

If you want to be extra careful, it’s possible to verify a Windows GOG installer hasn’t been tampered with using gogcheck, just remember that you are putting your system at risk by running this script as the author might decide to make it malicious in the future. This can be mitigated by either using the archive link or reading through the code. There isn’t any way that I’m aware of to verify a linux GOG installer, which is just a very long shellscript, so I advise highly against pirating them.

The script requires you to first install unrar, osslsigncode and innoextract through your package manager. This can be done through this command on debian based systems: 
sudo apt install unrar osslsigncode innoextract
and this command on arch based ones: 
sudo pacman -S install unrar osslsigncode innoextract

After that open this link (archive link of the version i used), left click on the page and click on “Save Page As”.

Now you’ll need to make it executable by going to the folder you saved the file, and running this command in the terminal: 
 chmod u+x gogcheck
If your script has any other name than “gogcheck” change it accordingly. After that just run it with 
 ./gogcheck [game name.exe]
You can also see the help menu with 
 ./gogcheck -h

Installing a GOG game

After you’ve chosen an installation option you can choose if you want a desktop/application menu shortcut and where to install your game. The installation directory you choose will be the location of your Wine prefix, which is like a tiny Windows installation made just for that game.

Clicking the cache button lets you choose a folder to save the installation files for future re-use. If you don’t want to reinstall later it isn’t needed, and the files in the cache folder can safely be deleted whenever, if you decide to choose one. Click install.

Now there are multiple source choices. Choosing “Download” as the source will download the game through Lutris. If you set a cache folder, uninstalled the game and are now installing it again you can choose “Use Cache” as the source to re-use the installation files. If you downloaded the setup file manually you can use “Select File” as the source to select and install it. If you chose a cache folder, there will be a “Cache file for future installations” checkbox that will copy the selected installation file to your cache folder.

The GOG installation prompt should then show up. There is nothing in the options that will change anything (except for the directory but that’s useless since it puts it into the directory you defined anyway) since the installer thinks it’s running Windows. Click “Install”.

After the installation has finished just click on “Exit” since the button “Launch” launches the game and leaves the Lutris installation window running in the background. The installation window probably times out if you stay in the game long enough. Exiting the game after launching it gives the same result as just clicking “Exit”. Now do the general game configuration.

General game configuration

How to troubleshoot

If your game isn’t in a playable state there are several things you can do. First make sure that the executable path in the “Game Options” tab found by left clicking a game and clicking “Configure”, is pointed to the correct executable (your game is installed to “[game folder set through Lutris]/drive_c/[game folder set in installer]”). If it is and the game still isn’t playable, turn off Esync, Fsync and gamemode by left clicking a game, clicking “Configure” and turning off the relevant options in the “System Options” and “Runner Options” tabs and launch the game again. If it still isn’t playable try other Wine versions by left clicking the game, clicking “Configure”, “Runner Options”, then changing the Wine version and launching the game. Other Wine versions can be downloaded with ProtonUp-Qt.

You might need to sometimes click “Play” and “Stop” a couple of times on first launch.

Another reason the game might not be playable is because of missing dependencies. This can be solved with winetricks.

It is also possible to read through the log by left clicking a game, clicking “Configure” and setting “Output debugging info” to “Enabled” in the “System Options” tab. Then left click the game in Lutris, click on “Show Logs” and read through it to see what went wrong.

Then you can look up your issue online or just the game name appended with Linux. You can find more info on how to get answers here (archive) and here (archive). You can also check on ProtonDB, the Linux Crack tips database (Ctrl+f) and Wine AppDB.

DXVK Async installation

Once the game is able to be played DXVK Async should be enabled which should reduce stuttering (remember that this isn’t needed if the game isn’t using Direct3D 9/10/11). Beware that using DXVK Async in multiplayer games might get you banned but this hasn’t actually happened to anyone yet.

To use it left click a game in Lutris, click “Configure”, then “Runner Options” and in DXVK version write the name and version that DXVK Async has in ProtonUp-Qt. In my case it’s “dxvk-async-1.10.3”. You can check if it’s working by setting up the DXVK performance overlay. It can also be enabled globally by clicking on the cog icon next to “Wine” under “Runners” on the main page.

FidelityFX SuperResolution (FSR) setup

First you’ll need to install lutris-fshack by clicking on the lighter icon under “Runners” next to “Wine” on the main page and then clicking install next to the latest lutris-fshack version. Then follow this guide (archive). This should greatly increase performance if the GPU is your bottleneck.

Disabling internet usage

Giving a game that’s meant to be played offline network permissions by default is never good, especially if it’s a game that you got from a random person on the internet. Note that internet access will still be available when directly installing games (in other words, when NOT installing a game by clicking the “Add locally installed game” button).

It will also prevent wine-mono from downloading. Just remove the command temporarily if you want to download it.

You will need to install firejail through your package manager. Debian, Ubuntu and their derivatives have special installation instructions.

After that go into either the “System Options” tab by left clicking a game and then clicking “Configure” (only works per-game) or into the “Global Options” tab by clicking the hamburger menu and clicking “Preferences” (works globally). There put this command 
 firejail --net=none --noprofile"

in the “Command Prefix” box.

You can check if it worked by launching the game and then writing 
 firejail --list

in the terminal.

This info was taken from this post.

Winetricks

Winetricks should first be installed through your package manager. If you just want to install the most common dependencies for a game, edit and run this command in the terminal: 
 WINEPREFIX=$HOME/[game path] winetricks vcrun2003 vcrun2005 vcrun2008 vcrun2010 vcrun2012 vcrun2013 vcrun2019 xna40

If you get a “warning: sha256sum mismatch!” error try following this guide (archive).

The game path has to start with the root directory or you’ll get an error. Then just follow the installation wizard instructions and install the dependencies.

If the most common dependencies aren’t enough you can install additional ones through winetricks in a GUI/terminal. For the GUI you will need zenity (preinstalled in Gnome) or kdialog (preinstalled in KDE). Then just edit and run this command in the terminal to launch it (the below command assumes your game is in your home folder, which is “/home/[username]”. If it’s anywhere else, like external storage, you will need to provide it’s full path after “WINEPREFIX=”, removing $HOME. Example: “WINEPREFIX=/media/jaxon/USB STICK winetricks”): 

WINEPREFIX=$HOME/[game path] winetricks

After it launches select “Select the default game prefix” and then “Install a Windows DLL or component”. Here choose what you need and click “Ok”.

To use winetricks in the terminal just append “list” to the previous command, which would be: 
WINEPREFIX=$HOME/[game path] winetricks list
Then put the option you want, in this case “dlls” to see the available libraries, and put “list” after it. The command would be: 
WINEPREFIX=$HOME/[game path] winetricks dlls list
To search for a library you can run the command output through (also called piping) grep. The command would then be: 
WINEPREFIX=$HOME/[game path] winetricks dlls list | grep [search query]
To install a library, run this command with your wanted library: 
WINEPREFIX=$HOME/[game path] winetricks [library name]

Installing a FitGirl repack

A repack is an extremely compressed version of a game mostly for those that have bad internet connections. This way you’re trading installation time with download time. Note that repacks can take a very long time to install depending on your CPU and the game size. FitGirl is someone that creates such repacks.

Installation

Click on the plus icon and choose “Add locally installed game”. Give the game a name and optionally a release year, and choose Wine as the runner. Next click on the “Game options” tab, click on the “Browse” button in front of “Executable” and choose either the .bat executable from your downloaded FitGirl repack to verify that the game files aren’t corrupted or the setup file to start the installer.

The folder you choose to put your Wine prefix (tiny Windows installation) will also be where the game is installed, although beware that the Wine prefix doesn’t create a folder for itself, meaning it will be created directly in the folder you specify. If you don’t choose a location for your Wine prefix, one gets created in your home folder.

If you want to disable network access for the installer, it can be done by following this part of the guide.

Wine tweak

If you clicked the “Save” button by accident, you’ll need to get back to the configuration menu by left clicking on the game you’re trying to install in Lutris and clicking “Configure”.

Then you’ll need to select the “System Options” tab, scroll down and next to “Environment Variables” click on “Add” and add “WINE_LARGE_ADDRESS_AWARE” as the key and 0 as the value. If you’re using a Proton runner that you downloaded with ProtonUp-QT, the key will be “PROTON_LARGE_ADDRESS_AWARE” and 0 will be the value. This will limit the available ram to 2GB for 32-bit applications which should fix some errors when installing repacks. It’s recommended to remove the environment variable once installation is finished if you’re playing a 32-bit game. This info was taken from here (archive) and here (archive).

Now click “Save”, and then run the game. If you chose the .bat file it should verify your bin files and if you get no error just close the window, left click on the game you’re trying to install in Lutris, click “Configure” and then change the executable to the setup file. If you do get an error during the integrity check, just download those bin files again and replace the faulty ones.

Then start the game and a setup wizard should appear. Choose a language and click OK. You limited the installer to 2GB ram already by doing the Wine tweak so clicking the checkbox doesn’t matter (the whole reason the Wine tweak was done was because this reportedly doesn’t work I think).

When you get asked to select the destination location click browse, scroll up a bit until you see the C drive and click it. You’ll be installing in the base C drive and NOT the Z drive (so the installation path will be “C:[game name]”. The start menu and desktop icon checkboxes don’t do anything. Click next.

Then click install. After it’s finished it will show a list of checkboxes. “Open fitgirl-repacks.site” does open the website in your browser but “Redirect fake FitGirl sites to the real one” doesn’t do anything. “Launch [game name]” does actually launch the game so you should turn it off. Keep all of the dependency checkboxes on (note that you might have to use winetricks afterwards as the dependecy installation might not work).

After clicking install it will open a window that will check file integrity. After you close that installation wizards for dependencies will open. Just install them like normal.

After that change the executable path in your installed game by left clicking it in Lutris, clicking “Configure”, switching to the “Game options” tab and changing the path to “[Wine prefix folder]/drive_c/[game folder set in installer]/[game executable]”). Then do the general game configuration.

Installing a repack from an ISO file (ElAmigos, TinyISO)

Mounting ISO files in Linux is usually done in the terminal. If you have some sort of graphical application you can use that instead but doing it in the terminal is easy.

First make a directory named whatever you want with (remove square brackets): 
 mkdir [directory-name]
Then specify your .iso file location and the location of the folder you just created in this command: 
 sudo mount [iso-image-location] [created-folder-location]

and run it in the terminal. The warning it gives you saying it mounted read-only is normal. If you check the contents of your created folder there should now be game files.

Now open Lutris and do follow along the FitGirl installation guide above until you finish the Wine tweak, with the difference being that you choose the setup file from the folder you created. Note that after choosing that setup file it will give you a warning that the destination folde is not writable, which is normal.

After you run the game an installation window should now pop-up. All such installers are pretty much the same, just make sure to set the game directory to the C drive, to tick all of the boxes for installing dependencies (this might not work so also use winetricks after installation if the game doesn’t work properly), don’t tick the checkbox to launch the game after install, tick the install crack checkbox if available and change the executable path to your game executable after install, which is “[Wine prefix folder]/drive_c/[game folder set in installer]/[game executable]”. Then do the general game configuration.

DODI repacks note

The installer visuals will be broken but the game installation should work fine. Remember to do the wine tweak before install.

Conclusion

Contact me only if there are improvements to be made to this article. If you need support, the ending paragraph in this section describes where to get it.

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