Running the game on Linux

Linux support is currently experimental, but it's still possible to successfully run the game on Linux and achieve good performance. Linux support is not native, but achieved with a translation layer (Wine).

Important to note that each Linux distro is different, the setup in your particular case may be different and it's up to you to research. This article only covers general steps and some examples for specific versions Ubuntu and Linux Mint.

In summary, the game requires the latest stable version of WineHQ (10.0 or higher), DirectX 9, core Microsoft fonts, and .NET Framework 4.5.2. It is also highly recommended to use DXVK and Vulkan drivers for your GPU.

For more information on how to achieve this setup, see below.

Installing Wine

Wine is available for most Linux distros and the setup is documented very well. Just navigate to the Download page and pick your distro. We're going to cover the case of installing it on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS or Linux Mint 22 on a 64-bit system below. DO NOT try to use the commands below on other systems, refer to the WineHQ article instead.

sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386

sudo mkdir -pm755 /etc/apt/keyrings
wget -O - https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/winehq.key | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /etc/apt/keyrings/winehq-archive.key -

sudo wget -NP /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/ubuntu/dists/noble/winehq-noble.sources

sudo apt update

sudo apt install --install-recommends winehq-stable

Installing Winetricks

Winetricks script allows you to download and install additional Wine components required for this setup. On Ubuntu or Linux Mint you can install it directly via apt. For other distros refer to the official Winetricks article.

sudo apt install winetricks

Configure Wineprefix

For the game to run correctly, you'll need a win32 wineprefix with corefonts, d3dx9, and dotnet452 components. If you already have one, make sure it's compatible.

In this example we're going to assume that you're starting from scratch and we're going to create a default wineprefix compatible with the game. In this case, make sure you delete the ~/.wine folder (if you have it) before proceeding.

WINEARCH=win32 wine wineboot
winetricks corefonts d3dx9 dotnet452
winecfg -v win10
winetricks videomemorysize=2048

During the installation, various Microsoft installers will pop up. Just install each of them normally.

Installing Vulkan Drivers

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It's highly recommended to use Vulkan drivers for your GPU to achieve acceptable performance.

The way you install them depends on your distro and your GPU. It's important to install the 32-bit version of the drivers as that is what the game is going to use. Below is the simplest example of installing open-source drivers on Ubuntu or Linux Mint, but please do your research and install appropriate drivers for your distro and your hardware.

sudo apt install mesa-vulkan-drivers:i386 libvulkan1:i386

Installing DXVK

DXVK allows the game to use Vulkan drivers while running inside Wine. Without it, you'll still be running the game using the default Wine DirectX implementation even if you have the Vulkan drivers installed. It needs to be installed into the Wineprefix that you're going to be using to run the game.

First, download the latest release from the official Github releases page and extract it into a folder. If you're using the default Wineprefix as described in the steps above, navigate to the extracted folder in the terminal and execute the following:

export WINEPREFIX="$HOME/.wine"
cp x32/*.dll $WINEPREFIX/drive_c/windows/system32

Next, run winecfg and under the Libraries tab manually add native DLL overrides for d3d8, d3d9, d3d10core, d3d11 and dxgi.

Running the game

At this point, you should have the latest version of Wine installed along with all the required components and drivers.

Now you can just download the original YmirheimLauncher and, if you're using a default wineprefix, just run it as it would be a normal Windows program. For most modern distros this will also create a shortcut in your programs menu and/or on the desktop.

Refer to the Running the game article for more information.