[Guide] Warframe On Linux With Wine

[HACKhalo2]

Alright, so after much acclaim from the Subreddit, I decided to post my walkthrough on how to get this game running somewhat decently under the newest Wine (Development 1.5.29). The direct link to it is http://www.reddit.com/r/Warframe/comments/1dnnoj/warframe_on_linux/.

 

Alright, so first thing. I did this in Arch Linux, so your mileage will very depending on what distro you use. I've read good reports for Ubuntu working pretty easily, and other distros not so much. I would like feedback on what extra steps you would have to do to get it to work if mine didn't work for you.

 

Step one, Install Wine (I recommend Dev, but Stable may work) and, if your Package Manager doesn't package it together, winetricks. http://www.winehq.org/ for wine, and https://code.google.com/p/winetricks/ for winetricks. Optionally, create a prefix for Warframe so you don't clutter up the default one.

 

Step two, run winetricks d3dx9 xact (or /path/to/winetricks.sh d3dx9 xact if the package manager didn't install it). This will install the bare minimum DirectX9 and XAudio2 DLL's needed by most games. (You can omit d3dx9 for directx9, but that's usually overkill)

 

Step three, Download the Warframe.msi and put it somewhere you'll remember. I have mine on my Desktop.

 

Step four, open a terminal where the Warframe.msi file is at and run wine msiexec /i Warframe.msi. This will start the launcher. (You can optionally run wine msiexec /i /path/to/Warframe.msi)

 

After this step, the Launcher Window should open up. If it doesn't, try installing 'lib32-openal', 'lib32-libxml2', 'lib32-mpg123', 'lib32-giflib', 'lib32-libpng', and 'lib32-gnutls'. These are common compatibility libs most Wine programs need, so it wouldn't be to awful to install them all. These are also the names Arch Linux gives these packages, so you may need to Google around for the correct names for your Distro.

 

This is a (incomplete) list of Package names per DIstro. (Thanks Morcant!)

Arch             Ubuntulib32-openal     libopenal1lib32-libxml2    libxml2lib32-mpg123     libmpg123lib32-giflib     libgif4lib32-libpng     libpng12-0lib32-gnutls     libgnutls26

On a 64-bit system with multiarch, it may be necessary to use e.g. 'sudo apt-get install libgnutls26:i386' to install the 32-bit packages.

 

Step five, after the launcher opens up, DISABLE 64BIT IN THE LAUNCHER SETTINGS. It currently does NOT work right, and you're going to have a bad time.

 

Step six, Hopefully the launcher will be complaining about not being able to find Launcher.exe in your AppData path ($WINE_PREFIX/drive_c/users/<your username>/Local Settings/Application Data/Warframe/Downloaded/Public/Tools/Launcher.exe). It is there, but you need to move it over manually. CD into the directory and run mv Launcher.exe.tmp Launcher.exe. Click Retry on the launcher, and it should greet you with the login prompt. Enter your login information, and hopefully you will see the Licensing conditions. If so, congrats! Enjoy playing Warframe on a non-Microsoft system!

 

There is a chance that you will get the error that dreaded me for almost two weeks, the Could not log in: Could not find Server error. I have no clue why this error is there, but it fixed itself by compiling and installing https://github.com/madewokherd/wine-mono (https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/wine-mono/ for you Arch Linux users). It takes quite a bit of time to compile (I have an A10-5800K, and it took around 30 minutes to compile and install). MAKE SURE YOU HAVE A LOT OF SPACE IN /tmp, IT WILL TAKE A LOT JUST TO COMPILE IT!

 

If that doesn't fix it, Try compiling Wine from source. it's a long shot, but it may work (and it has worked for some people).

 

TIPS AND TRICKS

 

If your sound doesn't work (and it doesn't complain about not finding the XAudio2 Engine), try modprobing snd_seq. It may not of been loaded.

 

If your sound doesn't work (and it's complaining about not finding the XAudio2 Engine), run winetricks --force xact_jun2010. It may of not installed correctly the first time.

 

If the preprocess crashes when first starting the Launcher, run the launcher (or Warframe.msi) in the terminal. It fixes this error for me.

 

TURN OFF ALL THE FANCY STUFF AND HAVE THE GAME IN FULL SCREEN MODE. It raised my FPS from 10 to 60+.

 

Hopefully this guide helps you!

Edited May 12, 2013 by HACKhalo2

[godarklight]

I attempted to get this working, learned a few things today.

 

I copied the installation from my brothers steam folder, but you might need to move Cache.Windows to stop it from downloading again (from the root warframe folder to Downloads/Public/Cached.Windows.

 

Checking for new content takes *forever*. You can see it doing something in 'top' or some type of system monitor, but you can actually watch what it's doing by checking this:

tail -f .wine/drive_c/users/$USER/Local\ Settings/Application\ Data/Warframe/Preprocess.log

EDIT: Use Windows XP mode, Windows 7 mode seems a bit broken (it keeps checking for new content). On the plus side 64-bit seems to be working for me...

 

EDIT 2: Nope, 64-bit crashes after a while with a general protection fault along with this message:

Error [Debug]: Loaded unexpected version of dbghelp.dll from C

Edited February 13, 2014 by godarklight

[Dude_on_the_Moon]

hi guys,

ive returned to my Ubuntu again ^^

13.10, latest Wine, dx10, dx11, dx9 are installed via winetricks.

going to download the warframe, started to play and have a crush...

after some steps warframe asked me that XP doesnt support now,.. so ive put a Win7 mark in wnie,.. more then 1 hour warframe trying to download something..im wondering why, cause ive already downloaded all before.

 

2696981    1796.127182000    192.168.1.40    205.185.216.10    HTTP    219    GET /Lotus/Objects/Guild/Structural/Doors/CrpDoorMedium_s.png!5A3_FUsCoeFQlRW5Cs6Rn47rFg HTTP/1.1

 

or like this

 

3347674    2217.122857000    192.168.1.40    205.185.216.10    HTTP    211    GET /Lotus/Levels/GrineerGalleon/GrnSpawnTwo/0_l0.png!5A3_LnwhiqQoFpK6HqSJ02D7qw HTTP/1.1

[Windbow]

XP is not supported? That's odd. I was just testing it on XP last night and it worked just fine.

Iinm, 64bit Warframe on wine is still a bit iffy. Most people report instability and most (all?) of the success stories are from 32bit (XP) environment on wine.

As for the download lines you mentioned, that's just the assets - they look like textures. Stuff often gets redownloaded as it is updated so that's normal. The long download times, I'm afraid has many causes.

[Dude_on_the_Moon]

XP is not supported? That's odd. I was just testing it on XP last night and it worked just fine.

Iinm, 64bit Warframe on wine is still a bit iffy. Most people report instability and most (all?) of the success stories are from 32bit (XP) environment on wine.

As for the download lines you mentioned, that's just the assets - they look like textures. Stuff often gets redownloaded as it is updated so that's normal. The long download times, I'm afraid has many causes.

no no, its more sounds like the game starts to re-download it self... after change from XP-to win7 in wine

[Windbow]

That sounds about right - XP is 32bit, Win7 is 64bit. Different version, so the game needs to redownload. Binaries and checksums of packages would be different for example. If it downloads all and then runs fine, you should be golden. Just wait it out. Good luck!

[fazeinc]

ok i have done the  winetricks d3dx9 xact (installed successfully)

but when i start it says the xaudio2 is not working along with dx9

 

pls help  

 

im running ubuntu 13.11 with wine1.7 i believe 

[TheCrazyT]

Sadly I seem to have a small problem with textures sometimes.

Sometimes they are entirely black.

On Infestation maps on areas where you normaly see a flashlight it just shows some annoying red textures like in the following image:

http://i61.tinypic.com/281wrqo.jpg

 

On normal maps it just looks like on windows without any trouble.

Is this a common problem or is there a way to fix it?

 

Here some information about my environment:

My wine-version: 1.7.2

Using playonlinux with wine 64-bit bottle and setted "Video memory size" manually to 512.

(but 64-Bit Mode in warframe settings is disabled)

Using additional librarys as described on first page.

 

Hope somebody helps me with that, because it is damn annoying to find your way in a dark area.(especially if you are surrounded by black textures :D )

Edited March 1, 2014 by TheCrazyT

[Windbow]

I think Warframe still has trouble with 64bit on wine. You might want to try using a 32 bit bottle. And increase video RAM to 1 gig. See how that goes.

[TheCrazyT]

Thank you.

 

Looks like a 32 bit bottle really gets rid of the red textures on infestation maps :D

 

Not shure about black textures yet, because those just appear at random places.

 

 

I think Warframe still has trouble with 64bit on wine. You might want to try using a 32 bit bottle. And increase video RAM to 1 gig. See how that goes.

[0blivion7]

hey after the new update it does not work anymore for arch linux...

[0blivion7]

scratch what i said i was wrong i had it working for about 2 weeks and then i went to go to the bathroom so i left the game came back and boom the game keeps reinsalling itself in a  loop :/

Edited March 8, 2014 by 0blivion7

[0blivion7]

im guessing im not gonna get help soon on this post maybe some day  ill get it working on  arch linux......

 

i just dont have the $$ for windows and there is only some time left for that event :'(

[Morcant]

scratch what i said i was wrong i had it working for about 2 weeks and then i went to go to the bathroom so i left the game came back and boom the game keeps reinsalling itself in a  loop :/

 

Make sure you replace the Launcher.exe file with the Launcher.exe.tmp that was downloaded. That has to be done manually when the launcher gets updated, but if you've only been running 2 weeks, you wouldn't have seen a launcher update before. I run via a script that checks for the tmp file's existence and replaces it, then proceeds to run the game.

[TheCrazyT]

I had trouble,too.

I copied the Launcher.exe.tmp(as usual) over the Launcher.exe and update allways told me it can't find Launcher.exe.

 

 

After some tries i renamed the "Launcher.exe.tmp" to "Launcher.exe.tmp_" and finally it was working.

Look like it checks for an existing Launcher.exe.tmp-file and tries to overwrite the Launcher.exe during start.(wich fails on linux)

[BurnMage]

I recently got this working in linux and wanted to throw in my experience.  I am running Fedora 20 x86_64 but running 32bit wine only. 

 

I had a problem with an endlessly downloading patcher that would download up to 8GB, then silently just start over again at 0.  It looked like it would download forever if I didn't stop it.  In the end Morcant's instructions here https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/41660-guide-warframe-on-linux-with-wine/page-7#entry1954499 followed manually fixed it.  I had to install Warframe via steam in my steam wine prefix then symbolically link it into my warframe wine prefix.  In short I'm bypassing Warframe's patching by using Steam's, and then when warframe starts it up the patcher thinks everything is fine and will continue.

 

I was able to log in and get into a round, I simply started terminus solo, saw it worked, then bailed.

[0blivion7]

Hey guys fixed just got it working with steam but i still have this one issue i have had these black textures since the start and im just fed up with them

btw i use arch linux if that helps and i would post a few pics but i cant seem to find the option

Edited April 7, 2014 by 0blivion7

[InhumaneSlayer]

One thing that's always confused me.. Linux is a very task specific operating system, why use wine to run Windows applications? There is a reason they was not developed for Linux

[0blivion7]

One thing that's always confused me.. Linux is a very task specific operating system, why use wine to run Windows applications? There is a reason they was not developed for Linux

i dont think they have enough man power but really anyone have a fix for this?

[Morcant]

Hey guys fixed just got it working with steam but i still have this one issue i have had these black textures since the start and im just fed up with them

btw i use arch linux if that helps and i would post a few pics but i cant seem to find the option

 

I have yet to find a solution for this. Fortunately I know my way around all the rooms pretty well, so even when textures in certain rooms go all black and unlit, I can find my way out.

 

One thing that's always confused me.. Linux is a very task specific operating system, why use wine to run Windows applications? There is a reason they was not developed for Linux

 

The only reason Warframe isn't on Linux natively is that it's a much smaller potential market, and it's not worth the porting effort (yet). There's no intrinsic weakness in the operating system; the customer base simply isn't there.

 

But since Linux users and developers are intrepid do-it-yourselfers, they decided it would be worthwhile to implement a POSIX translation layer for Windows software, which has over time extended to games and DirectX support. In short, the answer to your question of "why" is: Because we can.

[0blivion7]

oh ok thx for the reply

[Racercowboy]

Nice guide here, I recently switched from windows to zorin (which to my understanding is like a reskin of ubuntu?) and liking it a whole lot better. Followed this guide to try and get warframe working on it, though I'm having some trouble.

 

The launcher launches, and even patches, but it patches forever. It keeps cycling through different patches that have enormous sizes (maybe 44-5 different ones ranging from 2000 - 7000 megabytes) and it never stops. I'm certain I remember warframe not taking up that much space on windows, but I'm also wondering is it something else causing that?

[Kafouille]

Same issue here, the launcher downloads infinitely with Bad LZMA stream and LzmaDec_Allocate failed errors in the log.

[Morcant]

Nice guide here, I recently switched from windows to zorin (which to my understanding is like a reskin of ubuntu?) and liking it a whole lot better. Followed this guide to try and get warframe working on it, though I'm having some trouble.

 

The launcher launches, and even patches, but it patches forever. It keeps cycling through different patches that have enormous sizes (maybe 44-5 different ones ranging from 2000 - 7000 megabytes) and it never stops. I'm certain I remember warframe not taking up that much space on windows, but I'm also wondering is it something else causing that?

 

Same issue here, the launcher downloads infinitely with Bad LZMA stream and LzmaDec_Allocate failed errors in the log.

 

While mucking about, I accidentally deleted my Cache.Windows folder contents, so I just had to face this issue myself. You can resolve this one of two ways. Run the download in Windows, then copy or symlink Cache.Windows to wherever your Wine Warframe installation expects it to be. Or you can use Steam (via Wine, not Linux-native Steam) to download the game, and do the same thing. Not sure if it runs properly through Wine Steam, but aside from the Steam overlay I don't see why it wouldn't. That would save the hassle of copying/linking.

 

I'm not sure why the standalone installer fails repeatedly with LZMA-related errors while Steam works perfectly. But at least the Steam repository has been updated to a more recent version of the game (dated sometime in April).

[Saicoman]

How is the performance under linux? I run several flavors and am curious. I may give this a try though I mainly play from a windows workstation (game machine) but if it runs well in wine, well I would prefer not to run windows if I can help it.

[Morcant]

How is the performance under linux? I run several flavors and am curious. I may give this a try though I mainly play from a windows workstation (game machine) but if it runs well in wine, well I would prefer not to run windows if I can help it.

 

In my experience, approximately 66% of Windows performance on a i5 3570K and Radeon HD 7950. I get between 30 and 80 fps in missions, generally, depending on envvironment and enemy density, dips of similar scale are evident on Windows 7 as well. Debian testing got a couple relevant updates just before I left town, so I'll test more when I have a chance to see if there's any improvement.