Windows & Steam games with Lutris: Install guide (Wine, DXVK, Drivers)

If you're using Linux already, and you like to play some games, you probably already have tried your hand at Steamplay and proton. It's a great tool to play some of your windows only games, but what of the games that don't run through steam ? There is a simple solution, with Lutris. Let's see what it can do !

What is Lutris ?
Lutris is an open source game library manager that aims to centralize all your games on Linux, from your native or steamplay steam games, to your games installed through your repositories, your emulated games, and even your games running with wine. Lutris puts all of them in a single interface to start and manage these games.
It also comes with a huge library of install scripts, which will make the download, installation and setup of all these games a lot easier, especially those running with Wine.

How to install Lutris ?
Once that's done, you're all set to start importing your games.
Lutris is able to import a ton of different games, from your steam games, native or enabled through steamplay, your Wine games, emulated titles, or GOG games. To start that process, click the "+" dot menu on the top left corner, and select "Import Games". You'll get a window that allows you to import selected games, or all of them, for each "runner" or game provider you enabled in Lutris's main menu, accessible by clicking on the Lutris icon in the to left corner.
Once games are imported, you can simply start them from Lutris' main window, and manage them from here.

DXVK and Wine
Now, to play most games at an acceptable framerate, you'll need DXVK, which is a conversion layer that translates DirectX instructions into Vulkan instructions, that Linux can actually understand. Installing DXVK is a simple process on any Arch based distro, just go to the AUR, and look for dxvk-bin. On Debian, DXVK is available in the main repositories, just install the package names DXVK. Ubuntu users can download that same package and install it as well. I'll leave links in the description below so that you can get easy instructions on how to do it.

Finally, for playing Windows games that do not run through steamplay or proton, and have no native Linux client, such as Blizzard games, you'll need Wine. Wine is, in short, a compatibility layer that allows some Windows program to run on Linux, without resorting to virtualization or emulation. For the best compatibility, you should install the staging version of Wine. To do so, head over to the Wine HQ website, and follow the instructions there, depending on your distribution. I'll leave a link in the description down below.

This might seem complicated, but it's nothing more than 2 packages to install. The final step is to make sure you have the latest drives for your graphics card. AMD and Intel users should be allright on most distributions, Nvidia users will have to install the latest version from the repositories, or add a PPA on Ubuntu based distributions, such as the graphics driver PPA, link in the description below.

Installing a game
Lutris has a whole library of install scripts that do the heavy lifting for you. To start any installation, go to the Lutris website, and click "games". Just browse the games available here. Some of them offer multiple versions, such as a Steam Version, a GOG version, or anything else.
Some games will exhibit a rating, going from "Garbage", which means the game does not run, for some reason or other, to Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum, this last one meaning that everything runs flawlessly with near native performance.

Select the game you want to install, and click the "install" button. This should open the Lutris window.

The Lutris installer window should open, now you just have to follow the steps !

Obviously, these scripts are provided by the community, so you can review them to see if they install anything not to your liking, and they also come without any guarantee: a script might not work on your machine even if it's reported as working great for somebody else.

Read the game's descriptions carefully, they often contain some tips to help you run the games you'll need ! Some will have instructions for specific packages to install, others will recommend you enable or disable some options.

And here it is ! Once you went through the setup needed to get some games running, everything is really easy and automated, and you'll save a ton of time to try out the games you want to play on Linux.

[tannisroot]

Hi! I am a member of the Lutris Team and just want to point out that you don't need to install DXVK as a separate package at all. Lutris takes care of it!

[kolt]

We are nearly there! I can't wait till we can finally say goodbye to

[-rhys]

Not a project that I was aware of, so big thanks for posting this.

[captainchris]

The train to linux gaming starts here!

[a.l.b.o.m.]

Thanks! Lutris has been working for me for months and then today I get an error message about DXVK. This helped me fix it. 😊

[adziup]

pls, help me guys, when i try to play TES:Legends using steamplay with proton, it says
"Failed to initialize graphics.
Make sure you have DirectX 11 installed, have up to date
drivers for your graphics card and have not disabled
3D acceleration in display settings.
InitializeEngineGraphics failed"
thou, i have wine with d3dx11 already.
what do i do?
pls, help ;-;

[eddieteah]

the best tutorials I have ever had. you Linux guys are really good at explaining thing. I was totally nervous to transition...but Linux has so many help tutorials...all thank to you people!

[noverclocker]

For any one that has to watch this video to set it up it would probably be better to recommend the padoka stable ppa instead of the daily built oibaf ppa.
Most Ubuntu based distros also need the vulkan drivers to be installed
sudo apt install mesa-vulkan-drivers mesa-vulkan-drivers:i386
But good job making a video to help newcomers.

[masoodali]

Can i know how much data will this whole process will consume because i have limited metered connection. 🙏 Tell

[Phanbot]

I just installed Final Fantasy XIV last night and after some minor tweaking discovered the controller support is borked. In the game's controller calibration program, the directional button isn't recognized so proper calibration isn't able to be completed. I tried an XBox One and 360 controllers which both failed to be configured so I can play the game with them. Controllers work fine with other games so I know it's an issue with the game and lutris. I am doing this under Xubuntu 19.04.

[saltyant]

How can I install the game to a custom path? It works well when I install it by default. But I if I change path to a custom folder in my HDD, Lutris simply can't find Wine files and doesn't run an app

[Lorriar]

When I try to download any game from lutris website it's not popup anything's when I install otherwise the webpage say that you need to download something to download it but I already download lutris pls solve the problem my pc stat
Os:linux mint 19.3
Gpu:intel graphics mean I don't add any graphics card

[wilsonrabellojr]

Just followed all the instructions, but, still facing problems to start simple Steam Windows Games, like KARDS, at my Virtualbox( Ubuntu 20.04 LTS)...sounds not importing any of my Steam games, even my profile being set as Public....any thoughts? :/

[oscarchavez]

Quick question if you don't mind: I downloaded Lutris, Wine, etc etc, and followed all the steps recommended for running games on Linux (Ubuntu). My problem is, running a game such as Diablo 4 through Lutris works buttery smooth. But trying to run Steam games such as Elden Ring, or even older games like Remnant From the Ashes (which worked fine before switching to Linux) now consistently crash, or have horrendous FPS drops all the way down to 1 FPS at times.

Is this a compatibility issue? Is it Vulkan? Proton? Steam? Or Linux itself? I just switched to Linux because Microsoft's Windows 10 update of June 12th, 2024 purposely broke my Windows OS to the point the thing is beyond corrupted and unsalvageable. So, I am a novice at best, and I would appreciate any help.

Thanks.

[cjtronan]

thank you, but what if you cant find the install script in the website of lutris, like my game the forest I have it from older harddrive with windows before I changed to linux, how can I run the exe game without install script

[diegomarquez]

How do I fix intel haswell support is incomplete wine and my GPU is compatible with vulkan so I do not know why this is happening please help ☹️

[fatbeard]

I am running LMDE 3 64-bit and I cannot for the life of me install Lutris via commands. Any help would be appreciated. I will try the forums in a bit. Thought this might help.

[randomdude]

OMG Mate, my games work perfecly for me, it almost run as good as in windows 10 (in some case better), Thank you !

[AlaKernel]

What distro and theme you are using in this video ... how you made it like this ?

[catapimbasmcdudu]

HI! I use lutris but I cant install epic games! how I can resolve??