User:Mcnster/EVE Online
EVE Online is a space-based, persistent world massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) that is renound for its scale and complexity. It features free-to-play and pay-to-play versions--the pay-to-play version unlocking additional ships, skills, and training bonuses. Both versions access the same characters and assets belonging to the player.
There is no Linux client program for EVE Online. The game is installed with the EVE Launcher Setup (a Windows program) run under Wine, the windows emulator. The EVE Launcher, once installed (also a Windows program, under Wine), authenticates the player then starts the game proper. An internet connection to the EVE Online servers is maintained throughout play. The purpose of Wine is to translate the Windows API calls made by the install and game programs into compatible Linux API calls, on-the-fly as the programs run.
Requirements
Installing
- Internet connectivity
- Knowledge of how to install packages from the Arch User Repository
- Familiarity with Wine
- A Desktop environment
Playing
- Internet connectivity
- Patience; be prepared for a steep learning curve if you are a new pilot.
Installation
Install packages
- Install the base-devel group.
- Install the gnutls, gst-plugins-base-libs, libldap, libva, mpg123, openal, samba, and v4l-utils packages.
- Install the lib32-alsa-lib, lib32-alsa-plugins, lib32-gnutls, lib32-gst-plugins-base-libs, lib32-libldap, lib32-libpulse, lib32-libva, lib32-libxml2, lib32-mpg123, lib32-openal, and lib32-v4l-utils packages from the official multilib repository.
- Install the wine-stagingAUR and winetricks-gitAUR packages.
- If you are using the proprietary NVIDIA graphics card driver, install the lib32-nvidia-utils from the official multilib repository.
Prepare the Wine configuration
In this section, you will prepare a fresh Wine configuration suitable for installing the EVE Launcher into (as described in the next section).
- Wine configuration
- Background: An arbitrary Windows program running under Wine needs routine access to a minimum of files, such as Windows support programs, native and emulated .dll's, registry entries, and so forth. On the first invocation of Wine, these files are copied into a "working" directory (typically at
~/.wine
) in an arrangement that mimics a native Windows filesystem. An application such as the EVE Launcher is then installed into this minimal Windows filesystem by its setup program also run under Wine. At this point Wine can run the EVE Launcher in its proper filesystem context. Together, all this data comprises a single Wine configuration, particular to zero, one, (or more) Windows applications installed and runnable therein.
Set environment variables
If you have no other Wine configurations (i.e. this is a clean install), the environment variables WINEPREFIX
and WINEARCH
will not be defined--their defaults being ~/.wine
and win64
respectively, and you can skip to step 4. Otherwise read on.
- Select a location in your filesystem to store the Wine configuration: a location that you have access to, is persistant, and doesn't contain any files. It should be a directory, but it doesn't have to exist yet--Wine will create it if it doesn't exist. Note the path of this location.
- Warning: It would be unwise to select an existing Wine configuration and attempt to install the EVE Launcher into it unless you know what you're doing; better to start with a "clean slate".
- 2. Set the WINEPREFIX environment variable to the path you noted in the previous step.
export WINEPREFIX=path
- The value of
WINEPREFIX
is the path to the configuration that Wine will use at runtime. IfWINEPREFIX
is not defined~/.wine
will be used by default. A generic Wine configuration will be generated automatically at this path if it is empty, or updated if it contains files.
- The value of
- Tip: If you periodically redefine
WINEPREFIX
to run other Wine configurations, you would be wise to verify thatWINEPREFIX
is correctly set to the EVE Online Wine configuration path prior to starting the game.
If you have no win32 Wine configurations the environment variable WINEARCH
will not be defined, the default being win64
, and you can skip to step 4. Otherwise read on.
- 3. Ensure the WINEARCH environment variable is not defined (or is set to
win64
).
- Note: EVE Online requires a 64-bit Wine configuration.
- Tip: If you periodically set
WINEARCH=win32
to run Windows programs in 32-bit Wine configurations you would be wise to verify thatWINEARCH
is correctly set towin64
(or undefined) prior to starting the game.
Create the minimal configuration
- 4. Generate the minimal Wine configuration.
$ winecfg
- Generation will take place followed by the appearance of the
Wine configuration
window.
- Generation will take place followed by the appearance of the
- Tip: Wine writes alot of diagnostic messages to
stdout
which you can safely ignore unless you experience problems. - Tip: If you have Firejail installed and the
Wine configuration
window does not appear, see EVE Online#Firejail for a resolution.
- 5. On the
Applications
tab, click theWindows Version
drop-down box and selectWindows 10
. - 6. Click
OK
to accept changes and close the window.
winecfg
will exit.
Add supplementary components
- 7. Download and install the suplementary runtime components needed by EVE Online into the configuration using
winetricks
.
$ winetricks corefonts vcrun2005 vcrun2008 vcrun2010
- The components will be downloaded and you will see a series of dialogs asking you to confirm each installation.
- 8. Confirm each.
- The components will be installed into the Wine configuration, then
winetricks
will exit.
- The components will be installed into the Wine configuration, then
Install EVE Online
- Download the EVE Launcher Setup program.
- Note: The setup program's filename will in the format
EveLauncher-nnnnnnnn.exe
, where nnnnnnnnn is the release number.
- 2. Run the EVE Launcher setup under Wine.
$ wine EveLauncher-nnnnnnnnn.exe
- You will be presented with a series of dialogs where you can customize the installation of EVE Online.
- 3. Accept the defaults or customize.
- 4. Click
Finish
.
- The EVE Launcher setup will exit.
Play the game
- Ensure that
WINEPREFIX
andWINEARCH
are not defined, or defined appropriately. - Start the EVE Launcher.
wine start 'C:\EVE\eve.exe'
- 3. Login with your EVE username and password, or create an account. Accounts are free as in beer.
- Note: Everytime you start the EVE Launcher, it will verify that your EVE game software is up-to-date. If it needs updating, it will download and install file "bundles" automatically with no action necessary on your part. Game updates happen frequently (several times a week on average).
- Note: The first time you start the EVE Launcher, it will download and install a large number of "bundles" taking 1-5 minutes depending on your network bandwidth.
Tips and tricks
- If you experience "stuttering" in the graphics during scenes with many redrawings, try lowering the rendering quality to better suit your hardware and drivers. Pressing
Esc
at any time during the game will display a panel where you can adjust these settings.
Known issues
Game freezes during play
Symptoms
- Multi-second game "freezes" on a multi-core processor.
Resolution
- When starting the EVE Launcher, prefix the
wine
command as in the following:
$ taskset -c0 wine 'C:\EVE\eve.exe'
- This will force the EVE process to stay on one processor core only, preventing slow migration from core to core.
- Warning: This will decrease game performance and is not recommended unless you are experiencing freezes.
Firejail incompatibility
As of September 2017, the default Firejail profile for Wine is incompatible with EVE Online. If you install firejail subsequent to installing wine-stagingAUR, the Firejail configuration process may create a symlink /usr/local/bin/wine -> /usr/bin/firejail
that automatically "sandboxes" Wine with this profile. From this point forward, EVE Online will no longer run.
Symptoms
winecfg
,winetricks
, andwine
produce messages tostdout
then halt, with no game or configuration windows appearing.
Resolution
- Delete or rename the
/usr/local/bin/wine
symlink so$ wine
correctly runs/usr/bin/wine
, bypassing Firejail entirely.
See also
- Official site
- EVE Online at Wikipedia