Freakz BFA Linux install guide

[dieselboyy]

Hello! This is a short, fast forward guide on running World of Warcraft on a Debian based linux distribution. In my case, Ubuntu 20.04 LTS with Nvidia graphics card. Commands may vary, especially if you are using Arch or other distribution, but the procedure stays almost the same.

Start with a small apt update

Code:

sudo apt update sudo apt upgrade

Enable 32 bit architecture:

Code:

sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386

Make sure your Nvidia graphics card driver is installed correctly (AMD graphics card will differ!):
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:graphics-drivers/ppa

Code:

sudo apt install nvidia-driver-xxx #make sure to replace xxx with the given number. At the time making this post, is 455 for me.

Install support for Vulkan API:

Code:

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

Install Wine (Wine Is Not an Emulator)

Code:

sudo add-apt-repository 'deb https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/ubuntu/ focal main' sudo apt install winehq-stable

Install Lutris:

Code:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:lutris-team/lutris sudo apt update sudo apt install lutris

Install World of Warcraft script from lutris, and follow the "continue" and "install" buttons

Code:

curl https://lutris.net/api/installers/world-of-warcraft-battlenet?format=json -o /tmp/script.json | lutris -i /tmp/script.json

A window with BattleNet login screen will appear. If you continue using it, you can play Retail World of Warcraft if you want. In order to finish our configuration and play on Freakz, we should close the BattleNet window and wait for lutris to finish the installation. (around 1-2 minutes more, in order to detect battle net has been closed)

Opening the lutris app, should have an entry "World of Warcraft". Right click on it and follow:

Code:

Configure > Game Options > Executable > Browse > select-path-to-your-launcher-freakz.exe

Now you should be able to double click the World of Warcraft entry in order to play wow freakz

Notes:

First couple of minutes will be slower because DXVK (DirectX-Vulkan) is compiling the shaders
Right now (december 2020), there is an issue with shaders caching in the nvidia45x drivers for Linux. Nvidia team stated it will be fixed in the 46x update, so you might have to wait around 1-2 minutes for shaders to compile at each "enter world". Nvidia being nvidia and "supporting" linux
Make sure you set DirectX11 (or DirectX11 Legacy, feel free to test the difference) in Advanced settings, ingame, in login screen. Otherwise, lutris will use vkd3d from Wine instead of DXVK (which is better performance-wise, at least, theoretically). If you feel that using DirectX12 works better on your machine, feel free to play
You might want to disable GPU rendering in discord, for a better performance
You can see your fps by adding an entry in lutris Configure > system options > environment variables with the key DXVK_HUD and value fps

In case of "NO_PUBKEY" error at the apt update after the winehq add-apt, there is an easy fix:

Code:

wget -nc https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/winehq.key && sudo apt-key add winehq.key && sudo apt update

Documentation and Sources:

https://github.com/lutris/docs/blob/master/InstallingDrivers.md
https://github.com/lutris/docs/blob/master/Battle.Net.md
https://lutris.net/downloads/
https://wiki.winehq.org/Ubuntu
https://linuxconfig.org/install-and-test-vulkan-on-linux

[KarolisCreation]

If you are having issues with having major input lag from keyboard when moving, it's a "known" issue. It happens for people on retail too and iirc it only happens on Wayland, especially Gnome wayland. There is 1 solution that I know which is using wine <= 4.12. Anything above 4.12 will cause issues with input lag. Haven't tested QT wayland, such as KDE.

[k0s]

If i get more confirmations that it's working, i'll add it to connection guide.

[KarolisCreation]

k0s wrote:

If i get more confirmations that it's working, i'll add it to connection guide.

Can confirm. Works fine on both Debian and Arch (Some modifications were done to the tutorial, obviously) based systems

Yeet

[k0s]

Added

[NuBz]

My install method is pretty simillar and about to try with my machine that runs Fedora33.
Never ran a BFA client before to have much to say right now.Especially on Fedora that I just switched to a few weeks ago.
I can post back in a few days and let you all know how it worked out with a little writeup on what I may have to do different if anyone would like that.

[taro12]

Ubuntu 20.04 with Wine-5.18 (Staging) and DXVK works without problems. Worked with the wow-freak Legion and works with the Shadowlands retrail.

Nvidia 440 proprietary drivers(455 has some issues detecting the right resolution of the monitor)

[taro12]

Small note:

Right now Wine 6.0-rc5 is the latest "staging" version. It doesn't work right, it causes 1-2 sec freezes every 30sec so I reverted back to 5.18

[xHashii]

Will definitely try it on my old laptop and tell you my results!
It uses Linux mint, so it shouldn't be a problem

[Lightning]

Both me and my friend seemed to have some issues connecting to BFA while having e-sync option enabled in Lutris, so disabling it helped.
Other than that it seems to work perfectly on and almost on par with Windows.
Tested myself on Debian, Fedora and Arch with latest zen kernel.

--
Very well written guide! Thanks for taking care of Linux users.

[R0BEARTH]

32 bit architecture is no longer supported. If despite that it is still possible to install on Linux, please update tuorial.

[Sarah]

R0BEARTH wrote:

32 bit architecture is no longer supported. If despite that it is still possible to install on Linux, please update tuorial.

This guide was made for our server's BFA client, which wasn't changed at all since the guide was made, there is no reason for it to be outdated. 32 bit already wasn't supported by the time it was first made by the author.

[dieselboyy]

R0BEARTH wrote:

32 bit architecture is no longer supported. If despite that it is still possible to install on Linux, please update tuorial.

You enable the 32bit architecture in order to use some of wine's dependencies and (if you choose to play on retail) to be able to start BattleNet (which is a 32 bit application).
Wow freaks runs on 64 bit

[R0BEARTH]

Sarah wrote:

This guide was made for our server's BFA client, which wasn't changed at all since the guide was made, there is no reason for it to be outdated. 32 bit already wasn't supported by the time it was first made by the author.

dieselboyy wrote:

You enable the 32bit architecture in order to use some of wine's dependencies and (if you choose to play on retail) to be able to start BattleNet (which is a 32 bit application). Wow freaks runs on 64 bit

In other words I just need to install it with Wine & that's it?

[taro12]

Besides wine you need an adequate driver for your videocard so it can run 3D games. For Nvidia you need the proprietary driver not the open-source one. AMD has a good open source driver.

Also you need the DXVK libraries because the wine Direct 3D isn't that good. DXVK gives you performance on par with Windows or better. For example on my Laptop may games run like crap in Windows because the Intel/Nvidia videocard combo-crap doesn't work right. But they all work just fine in Linux/Wine

You can use Lutris or PlayOnLinux as launchers