Disclaimer: this is an guide of installing ED on Linux distribution using Windows library wrapper Wine. This is not official (and not officially supported), and is deemed experimental, so only use your commander account only if you know what you are doing. Also please don't ask FD for help as they won't be really aware about this setup and don't support it. Also ED Horizons using Wine won't work on MacOS due of Apple not supporting OpenGL beyond 4.1 version.
This OP will get regularly updated so check it out for newest updates
QUICK LINKS
1. How to solve CRC error (please note this should be solved for Wine 3.18 and later) - instructions from commander RedMcG
here
2. How to install ED Horizons on SUSE - instructions from commander wstephenson
here
3. Fedora 29 has newest GNU TLS library which has bug that doesn't allow to launch launcher. Use
these instructions to work around this issue;
4. Currently Steam Play freezes with ED - see
RedMcG update regarding this. No ETA where his (and other required) work will appear in Proton, but work is ongoing;
STATUS
As for
30.10.2018 using
Wine 3.19 staging version with Nvidia binary driver
- GAME WORKS, there are few ongoing issues, currently figured out by lot of people who test this thing. People report also success with
Proton / Let's Play,
SUSE,
ArchLinux,
Fedora.
Please note that while technically Wine translates to appropriate OpenGL version, and thus DirectX11 will be translated to OpenGL 4.3 at least, various graphics drivers will behave differently. It is highly suggested to use newest stable driver version for your card. Also if you are using DXVK, you MUST use newest drivers for best Vulkan API support along with up to date DXVK patches.
Installation steps for Elite Dangerous under Wine 3.19 (For lower versions see notes)
1. To initialize Wine 64-bit prefix use
WINEPREFIX=~/ed-wine wine64 winecfg. Then choose '
Windows 7' in version list and hit Apply for configuration change
2. To install Winetricks dependencies use
WINEPREFIX=~/ed-wine WINE=/usr/bin/wine64 ./winetricks dotnet452 corefonts quartz vcrun2012 dxvk
This provides .NET 4.5.2 support, Core Fonts, C++ runtime support 2012, and DXVK support
For Wine 3.17 and lower you will need quartz dll for intro video -
WINEPREFIX=~/ed-wine WINE=/usr/bin/wine64 ./winetricks quartz
3. Switch back to Windows 7 after winetricks have changed it with
WINEPREFIX=~/ed-wine wine64 winecfg to switch Windows version used to
Windows 7
4. Install Elite Dangerous installer and launcher
WINEPREFIX=~/ed-wine wine64 EliteDangerous-Client-Installer.exe
5. Launch ED launcher:
Wine 3.19 and higher -
WINEPREFIX=~/ed-wine wine64 "c:\Program Files\Frontier\EDLauncher\EDLaunch.exe"
Wine 3.18 and lower - WINEPREFIX=~/ed-wine wine "c:\Program Files\Frontier\EDLauncher\EDLaunch.exe"
!!! Also note please that for wine 3.18 and lower you need to change registry to match MachineID entries with what launcher expects you to get !!! - See instructions
here
8.
Install EDH and try to play it. There are however numerous issues, so be aware. Performance wise currently there's penalty which is about 10% of performance loss comparing to Windows (might differ from setup to setup though), There are ongoing work for sorting out bindings, be sure you are using newest Wine possible due of patches that are included in Wine and Wine Staging 3.19 and above for better experience. Also don't be shy and ask if you have issues, we are here to help!
Report all bugs to Wine bugzilla
https://bugs.winehq.org. Also there's ongoing rendering bug for Elite Dangerous
https://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=43162 so you can add your experience there.
SIDE NOTES
* Regular DirectX -> OpenGL translator have visual glitches. For best performance / visual result use DXVK; However, if you want to try OpenGL, then use winecfg to switch d10/d11 dlls to builtin.
* setting up is not that easy - there can be issues with dotnet40 installation, sometimes it crashes or not working fully. Try again if you fail for first time;
* graphical artifact issues with launcher, annoying, but allows to login and launch game;
5. For wine 3.18 and later you don't need winetricks installation of quartz, as native implementation has fixed to play ED intro and menu videos;
6. For wine 3.19 and later you can run EDLaunch.exe with wine64 again;
7. You can control previous bindings, but you have to figure out right IDs for devices. Investigation continues;
Known issues
* ED Launcher parts of info panes disappear/appear (all Wine versions, but not Proton / Steam Play version of Wine from Valve)
* ED Horizons 64-bit version having CRC error - (Wine 2.13) https://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=43464 - WORKAROUND by commander RedMcG, see solution here . THIS IS SOLVED in wine 3.19 and higher.
* ED Horizons having issues with keybindings - patches here https://www.winehq.org/pipermail/wine-devel/2018-April/125332.html. Patches are included in Wine 3.19 Staging so you don't need them if you use Staging Wine 3.19 on your distribution.