Installing EVE with Wine ( Guide )

EVE Technology and Research Center Linux
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I have been reading some topics from people still having issues to get EVE running on different distro’s and therfore I thought I would share with you how I got this running. Currently I have installed EVE on Ubuntu 18.04 and on Arch Linux, both of them are very different distro’s so I think my method would probably work with your running distro as well…

I will not show how to use the official (unofficial) EVE Linux Launcher or any other methods like Steam Proton, Play on Linux and etc. But just how to use basic Wine which can be installed on allmost all Linux distro’s out in the open. Further more I will show you how to create a new Wine prefix ( if you already use Wine ), which will only be used for EVE Online. This way it will not touch your default Wine prefix which can cause problems with your currently installed software you already use.

Step 1. Install MS Corefonts

This is needed to run EVE Launcher propperly otherwise it will not load correctly. The best way would be to use your distro’s package manager…( Thx Kitten Ripper )

For Debian (and derived distros):

apt install fonts-wine ttf-mscorefonts-installer

For Redhat (and derived distros):

yum install msttcorefonts

For ArchLinux (and derived distros):

pacman -S ttf-ms-fonts

>>>Optional/recommended for Arch:<<<

pacman -S lib32-mpg123 lib32-gnutls

For Gentoo :

emerge media-fonts/corefonts

For SuSE :

zypper install fetchmsttfonts

Step 2. Install Wine

First head over to WineHQ and install Wine accordingly mentioned on their website or you can download it from within your currently running package manager inside your distro ( Keep in mind that installing this way can be better then using WineHQ but depends on which distro your running).

Step 3. Create a new prefix for EVE

Although you can create a new Wine prefix and install EVE anywhere you want on your system but for the ease of use we will create a new prefix inside your home folder. Go inside your home folder and create a new one called “EVE”. So the path would be…

$ /home/YOUR_NAME/EVE

Start your “Terminal” and enter the following to create a new Wine prefix inside the “EVE” folder.

$ WINEPREFIX=/home/YOUR_NAME/EVE winecfg

Now Wine will build a new 64-bit prefix and ask to install Wine Gecko and Mono, choose yes to install it. Once done it will start Wine Configuration and you will know Wine has finished building your new prefix and you can close that window.

Step 4. Install EVE Online

By this time you probably already have downloaded the EVE installer ( Windows version) and if not now its the time to do so. Again open up your “Terminal” and enter the following.

$ WINEPREFIX=/home/YOUR_NAME/EVE wine /path_to_your/EVE_installer.exe

This will start the installation of EVE online, once done you are ready to play EVE.

Further more if you are using Gnome3 like I do then Wine will create a new EVE desktop shortcut automaticly, but this can be different on other DE’s and Distro’s.

>>>Optional info<<<

Currently from Wine 3.20 and newer EVE Online installs and run correctly ( even dx11 mode ) but keep in mind this can be different depending on your hardware (drivers) and which Linux distro’ your using or even which version of Wine you are using (newer or older). Wine regression can always happen in the future and with past information we needed to set WinePrefix to and install the following below ( installed with Winetricks ) to get the game running. ( info sourced from WineHQ )

* 32-bit Prefix
* Windows XP Mode
* D3DX9_36
* Dotnet40
* VCRUN2005,…2008,…2010

Right now all the above is not needed anymore and EVE installs and plays fine. If something or regression might happen in the future then the above might be worth to try. Or follow the steps above to create a new prefix to test installation and running EVE.

Secondly to speed up performance a little bit which might help on slower systems is to turn off Wine debugging with…

$ WINEDEBUG=“-all”

You can even put it inside your shortcut so you wont have to use the terminal each time.

I hope this will help some folks out there trying to get EVE running…Goodspeed :wink:

P.s. English is not my native language, so bare with my grammar and such…

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You don’t need the corefonts when you install WINE properly, that is when you install the required fonts through the appropriate distro package. You don’t install the corefonts just into the WINE prefix, but you install them with your distro, where these then become available system-wide, for all users and all applications, and not just for EVE Online. It is more appropriate and efficient (it also lets you view any Word document or website on Linux, which relies on MS fonts such as Arial).

For Debian (and derived distros):

apt install fonts-wine ttf-mscorefonts-installer

For Redhat (and derived distros):

yum install msttcorefonts

For ArchLinux (and derived distros):

pacman -S ttf-ms-fonts

For Gentoo:

emerge media-fonts/corefonts

For SuSE:

zypper install fetchmsttfonts

I suspect there might be a similar reason for why you require dotnet40. It isn’t needed for Debian and Ubuntu is derived from it. So it will likely be that Ubuntu only needs the right package installed to enable in WINE whatever is missing here for EVE Online. Please remember, when you install WINE from your distro or WineHQ do you only get a minimal WINE installation. You then need to install additional packages to enable further features of WINE.

…

Reading through the instructions at WineHQ did I find this: * WineHQ does not at present package wine-gecko or wine-mono. When creating a new wine prefix, you will be asked if you want to download those components. For best compatibility, it is recommended to click Yes here. If the download doesn’t work for you, please follow the instructions on the Gecko and Mono wiki pages to install them manually. …

You will likely have forgotten to install WINE Mono & Gecko and hence do you have to work around it with winetricks dotnet40. WINE Mono is WINE’s implementation of Microsoft’s .NET.

Check that you have the /usr/share/wine/gecko/ and /usr/share/wine/mono/ directories and that these contain the required packages:

> ls /usr/share/wine/gecko/
wine_gecko-2.47-x86_64.msi  wine_gecko-2.47-x86.msi
> ls /usr/share/wine/mono/
wine-mono-4.7.3.msi

If you’re using wine-development instead of just wine then the paths are /usr/share/wine-development/gecko/ and /usr/share/wine-development/mono/.

See WINE Gecko and WINE Mono for more information about these additonal WINE packages.

You should try and stick with the WINE version provided by your distro, because Ubuntu does come with its own WINE versions (wine and wine-development) and you shouldn’t follow the WineHQ instructions unless you have a really good reason for it. The WineHQ instructions for Ubuntu are misleading and force you to add unnecessary repositories (i.e. do you have to add an OpenSUSE repository, which is pretty stupid for when you use Ubuntu).

See here for what you should have done instead:

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NO ! NO, PLEASE NO !

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mkdir -p .tmp
wget https://binaries.eveonline.com/EveLauncher-1423047.exe -O .tmp/eve.exe

WINEPREFIX=$HOME/EVE wine .tmp/eve.exe

No problem on last version of wine .

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You are right, it is indeed possible to install corefonts from within your distro and that also solves the same problem if you ever need them to run EVE online with Wine. But personally I like to install it within the prefix so it’s really a matter to everyone’s taste on how to do it, but thanks for the tip for those want to do it like you describe it. :wink:

Although to install dotnet40 was required in my case somehow, and I did install Wine gecko and mono since it automaticly started when I created a new prefix. Correct me if I’m wrong but not installing dotnet40 had something to do with EVE launcher not showing up the “login” interface on some distro’s because EVE launcher had changed QTwebengineProcess.exe and gave that as error. Once dotnet40 was installed the error was gone and the Launcher worked.

Also it’s one’s choice to use Wine from it’s distro or the one from WineHQ (even stable or development version), personally I choose the latter since it’s more up to date then the one provided by your distro, especially on Debian/Ubuntu. Though on Arch you have more recent version… In the end it’s all up to yourself on how to install and use Wine but again all the information is welcome… :wink:

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Thanks for the tip Anderson, hopefully this will help others too. But turning off dx9 only depends on your hardware, probably if you have AMD/Nvidia ( perhaps Intel too but not in my case) you can turn it off but still if you check WineHQ some people still have rendering issues with it. So in the end if it works for you terrific, if not then you can fall back to dx9. Personally I have a big FPS drop turning off dx9 so I choose to run with it. But like I said in my first post, it depends on your system.

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I want you and others to know that there is a better way of installing it and should you ever want to add a report to the WINE AppDB is it necessary that you do it right or you won’t be able to give EVE a Platinum rating, which is the highest rating possible. I don’t mean to be overly pedantic here and in fact did I mostly ignore how people installed the game under Linux in the past. It’s that the game can be installed and run flawlessly now that I’m pointing it out. Before did it require minor work-arounds, but we’re officially back on Platinum now. :+1:

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I have tested it again with a new Wine prefix and installing corefonts your way and the game works as espected, it even runs stable on a 64bit prefix too. I have altered my first post with your information and hopefully it will help others too :slight_smile: . It is indeed important to get it the right way and for now hopefully EVE will get Platinum status back again. But like always regression is also possible so we need to keep testing and updating the information back.

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One last note, the above is no longer necessary when you have WINE 3.20 or newer. The issue with the Windows XP mode has been fixed.

You could mention the variable WINEDEBUG, whens set to -all, will reduce log message and improve performance a bit. But it’s only recommended for when the game has been installed and run successfully (otherwise will you need it to find the cause of any remaining problems). I.e.: export WINEDEBUG=-all

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You are correct, I am used to set it to XP mode. Currently runnning Wine 3.21 on Arch system and using Windows7 mode the game starts and runs fine. I also added the WINDEBUG info to the post, it could make a difference on slower systems.

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How did you get around the dotnet40 issue? Was it a missing Mono or did it all go away by installing the fonts?

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I saw somewhere on this forum, one using ubuntu 18.4 was adviced to install dotnet40 and as well on WineHQ and that is why I also noted that information first. In my own prefix I did all those steps first and got a running EVE installation afterwards, no problems detected at all. But with your new information I created a new 64-bit prefix and installed corefonts ( the distro way ) EVE also worked without using dotnet40. The only thing I can think of is the difference in Wine version I was using. Perhaps something got fixed on newer version of WIne, which is good tho but unknown as well…

Further more I have to say that there are some other things to note. Running EVE with dx11 does have a big FPS drop on slower systems. Currently on my Intel HD gpu running in dx9 mode is simply faster. But on my other system with NVIDIA the difference is allmost not noticable. So one should surely test with your own hardware how this game will perform.

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This is where DXVK comes into play. Vulkan has replaced OpenGL. It’s the official successor. DXVK is a set of Windows .DLLs, which map DirectX10/11 onto Vulkan, much like WINE does. Only WINE uses OpenGL.

The advantage is huge. Using DXVK to run EVE with DirectX11 is as fast, if not a bit faster even, than running DirectX9 over OpenGL. Not only that, but it also uses less CPU while doing so and reduces the power draw. When you minimise EVE will your CPU often drop into idle mode.

Here is a comparison of the different performances (the latest DXVK produces 112 fps). If you want to give it a try, then here is what you can do:

# For full OpenGL & Vulkan support with Nvidia graphics cards:
apt install \
    nvidia-alternative \
    nvidia-alternative:i386

# For full MESA Vulkan support:
apt install \
    mesa-vulkan-drivers \
    mesa-vulkan-drivers:i386

# Installing DXVK from your distro:
apt install \
    dxvk \
    dxvk-wine64-development \
    dxvk-wine32-development:i386

# Set up DXVK for EVE Online:
export WINEPREFIX=/home/$LOGNAME/EVE
dxvk-setup install

This should install Nvidia’s proprietary libraries including full Vulkan support, MESA’s Vulkan support and also install the DXVK .DLLs into your WINE prefix. This enables support of Vulkan within WINE and allows DXVK to map DirectX10/11 to Vulkan (on Windows) within WINE, which then gets passed through by WINE to your platform’s Vulkan API (on Linux).

There are also some more variables one can or should set:

# This is needed when running multiple EVE clients, because DXVK cannot handle multiple state caches per executable currently:
export DXVK_STATE_CACHE=0
 # For when you use a config file with DXVK:
export DXVK_CONFIG_FILE=/home/$LOGNAME/.config/dxvk/dxvk.conf
# Turn off logging in DXVK:
export DXVK_LOG_LEVEL=none

# Turn off logging in WINE:
export WINEDEBUG=-all

 # This is for Nvidia's proprietary libraries and can give better performance (probably no longer needed):
export __GL_THREADED_OPTIMIZATIONS=1

I actually set these variables directly with the EVE launcher icon on my desktop. This is how it starts EVE for me (I use ~/.eve as my prefix and I also use my own build of WINE):

env DISPLAY=:0.0 DXVK_STATE_CACHE=0 DXVK_CONFIG_FILE=/home/$LOGNAME/.config/dxvk/dxvk.conf DXVK_LOG_LEVEL=none __GL_THREADED_OPTIMIZATIONS=1 WINEDEBUG=-all WINEPREFIX="/home/$LOGNAME/.eve" /home/$LOGNAME/wine/bin/wine "C:\Program Files (x86)\EVE\Launcher\evelauncher.exe"
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True, DXVK is very promissing and looks stable enough to use with allot of games ( Steam Proton does it too) including EVE online tho it is still much in devolpment and you need a Vulkan commpatible GPU ( from what I understand,correct me wrong tho). But there are other methods too like Wine-PBA, Gallium9 and etc. but thats beyond the scope of installing EVE with basic Wine. True that Wine uses a slower method towards OpenGL but its more stable and works with more systems, nevertheless your method to use DXVK is still a good tip to get faster preformance those who want to try that method for themselves.

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I don’t recommend Wine-PBA. It was developed for World of Warcraft and the guy who developed it wrote in his blog that he took shortcuts with knowledge of the game’s internals in order to speed it up. Now others don’t care that much for this little detail and have started using the PBA patches everywhere. I’ve tested them myself and for me did it make EVE Online unstable and caused frequent crashes (i.e. a crash every hour or less).

Have you tried looking into Vulkan yet? Nvidia, AMD and Intel do support Vulkan on Linux. I’ve read that older versions of DXVK such as 0.54 do work with Intel GPUs (HD620, HD5500) and that Intel has been adding code to their driver to support the latest Vulkan extensions just to keep up with the development (newer version of DXVK do require the very latest driver for Nvidia, AMD and Intel). It will definitely be the path forward for you with gaming on Intel GPUs.

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Very true it is not recommended but I was using it as an example in the meaning there are more branches of Wine out there in the open which can be used to speed up, but this topic is not ment for that. Keeping it with basic Wine might solve future problems easier before we look into other performance adjustments even DXVK which is still under development and might even break things in the future. But for now it seems to work very well. and also has the support from Valve too. So like I said earlier DXVK seems very promissing…

I have looked into Vulkan a little bit, my Intel HD GPU does not support it although that might change in the future depending on Intel but my other system with Nvidia does but I have not tried it yet. But even without it EVE still plays very smooth with that GPU and for future regression I will stick with that way until Wine officially implents DXVK into their own branch with offical support from their side.

Secondly you might wonder why CCP has not made a Linux/Mac version with Wine3.20 including DXVK if everybody seems very positive about it?

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WINE will never include DXVK into their project. It was up to the developer of DXVK to provide the code to WINE and he deliberately decided not to. So this is never going to happen. WINE does however have their own folks working on a DX12 implementation based on Vulkan. For DX10/11 will someone have to create a set of patches, likely copying most of DXVK, and send it to the WINE project. No idea if or when this will ever happen.

CCP doesn’t support Linux. They did a long time ago in the past and it didn’t work out. Steam then is doing all the work and we might soon see EVE Online getting white-listed on Steam, which means anyone who installs Steam on Linux will be able to play EVE Online and CCP won’t have to lift a finger.

The Mac support is also getting weaker, because OpenGL has been phased out by Apple. CCP has already made some statements regarding the future of the Mac support. They did not say it will end, but they did say they’re now looking for options over what to do after Apple dropped OpenGL. If anything will CCP be busy keeping Mac support alive.

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I do not expect Wine will ever implent DXVK too, hence why I choose a setup with a basic Wine install to begin with so if future regression might happen we turn to the basic Wine first. But those who want/need performance improvements can try DXVK for sure, if you have a supported GPU to begin with but with a recent GPU you’re pretty much safe.

Hopefully EVE gets whitelisted on Steam but at this point we all know we need Wine 3.20 to get there and as for now I think Steam is up to 3.16 I believe, so for now one need to edit the steam pfx prefix to make it work but you have DXVK enabled thanks to Steam.

But for now, like I said before, for first time users that want to use Wine + EVE then the above in the first post is just a good start to get EVE running. And if something breaks ( or Wine regression happens) this might be a good topic to help eachother and hopefully with some support from EVE devs too…

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Quick note to Arch (or Manjaro) users. I recently supported someone setting EvE up on their fresh system and it was necessary to install both lib32-mpg123 and lib32-gnutls for the client to start.

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Using a fresh Antergos install ( prebuild with Wine) I did not need to do that, probably depends which derived version of Arch one might use and how it is installed tho… Nevertheless thanks for the tip and I added it to the first step of this guide for Arch users.