DOOM Eternal

DOOM Eternal

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How to play Doom Eternal on Linux
By Ryhon
This guide will teach you how to play Doom Eternal on your GNU/Linux system
   
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Overview
Since Doom Eternal is not available for Linux on Steam or the Bethesda launcher even though it's supposed to release on Stadia, which is just Linux we're going to use something called Wine. Wine is a compatibility layer, which basically allows you to run Windows applications on Linux.

Valve has created their own version of Wine called Proton, it is available for everyone on Steam, however it's missing some patches, which make it possible to run Doom Eternal. In this guide we're going to download a custom version of Proton with these patches.
Enabling Steam Play and Steam Beta
If you're running Manjaro or any other Arch based system make sure you're NOT using steam-native. as we need a new Vulkan driver, which is not available in the Arch repositories yet.

Only do this if you use Manjaro or other Arch distribution
To make sure you're not using steam-native run this command to uninstall it:
sudo pacman -R steam-native
We need to install the steam-runtime. To do that, simply run
sudo pacman -S steam-manjaro

Do this regardless of your distribution
After that's done you need to enable the Steam Client Beta. It's quite simple.

1. Open the settings menu
2. Go to the account tab, click on change and select the Steam Beta. This should download the updated Vulkan drivers
3. If Steam asks you to restart, restart it
4. When Steam finishes updating go to the settings again but this time go to the Steam Play tab and enable Steam Play

Downloading a custom version of Proton
We're going to be downloading a custom version of Proton created by Glorious Eggroll from this link

https://github.com/GloriousEggroll/proton-ge-custom/releases

Go to this link and download the latest release.
After it's done extract it. Most file managers should allow you to double click the archive to view it's contents or extract it.

If you can't extract the archive using your file manager open a terminal and enter this command.
# Replace ~/Downloads with whatever folder you downloaded the file to cd ~/Downloads tar -xf Proton-*

After you extracted the archive you should Have a Proton-(Your version here) folder. In my case it's Proton-5.4-GE-3.

You need to move this folder to ~/.steam/steam/compatibilitytools.d/
~ is your home folder.
You might notice that there's no "compatibilitytools.d" folder. You have to create it manually


I don't see a .steam folder, what should I do?
Files and folders that start with a dot are hidden by default. To show them press Ctrl+H. If that doesn't work look online on how to show hidden files on your system or you can use the command bellow.
# Replace ~/Downloads with whatever folder you extracted the archive to cd ~/Downloads # Create the compatibilitytools.d folder if you didn't already mkdir ~/.steam/steam/compatibilitytools.d/ # Replace Proton-5.4-GE-3 with whatever folder you just extracted mv Proton-5.4-GE-3 ~/.steam/steam/compatibilitytools.d/

After you've installed the custom version of Proton you have to restart Steam.
Once it's restarted open the Doom Eternal properties and force it to use the custom version of Proton. In my case it's Proton-5.4-GE-3.

You're almost there! Now you need to follow the AMD or Nvidia parts of this guide depending on what GPU you use.

AMD GPU
If you have a AMD GPU in your system you're going to have to enable the LLVM shader compiler as the ACO compiler crashes when you start the game.
To do this open the Doom Eternal properties and set the launch options to this

RADV_PERFTEST=llvm %command%

You're done! Check out the extras section of this guide for some extra information.

Nvidia GPU
Warning: This could potentially stop your system from booting
The Nvidia drivers are absolutelly terrible on Linux. You have to download a developer version of the drivers because the Vulkan 1.2 drivers didn't work properly.

You can download them from here
https://developer.nvidia.com/vulkan-driver

Or if you use Manjaro/Arch this is way easier because you can use this command
sudo pacman -S git git clone https://github.com/Frogging-Family/nvidia-all.git cd nvidia-all makepkg -si
After that's done you have to follow this guide to enable Nvidia Direct Rendering Manager https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/NVIDIA#DRM_kernel_mode_setting

You're done! Check out the Extra part of this guide for some extras
Extra
Here's some tips for running Doom on Linux

How do I disable the outdated drivers popup?
Modify the launcher.cfg file in the folder you have Doom installed in and change the following lines to this
rgl_minNvidiaDriverVersion 44261 ... rgl_showAMDStartupWarning 0 rgl_showIntelStartupWarning 0 rgl_showNvidiaStartupWarning 0

How do I hide the Wine tray?
If you're using GNOME download this extension
https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/1503/tray-icons/

How do I skip the starting intros?
Add this to the end of your launch options
+com_skipIntroVideo 1

How do I disable the Bethesda login?
Add this to the end of your launch options
+com_skipSignInManager 1

Game crashes/hangs when I alt-tab
Changing the window mode to fullscreen-borderless is a possible fix, however it's not 100% guaranteed this will work.
6 Comments
ymo 28 Dec, 2022 @ 6:47pm 
confusing unintutive operating system, but hey, it's free!
Master 28 Dec, 2022 @ 3:01pm 
A better operating system than Windows.
Golum 26 Oct, 2021 @ 10:06am 
what is liunux
?
komio 7 Nov, 2020 @ 12:37am 
Installed 450.80.02 Nvidia Drivers and Proton-5.9-GE-8-ST. Nvidia DRM is enabled by default. It crashes after old driver warning.
hr.knight 14 Apr, 2020 @ 12:38pm 
Thanks for posting this
Lamiiku 14 Apr, 2020 @ 10:37am 
Thank you for the helpful guide! Glad I can run DE in Linux now.

Suggestion for an addition to the guide: I had to set PROTON_NO_ESYNC=1 in the game's launch options for it to boot.