Posted January 20, 2021
Hello All,
sorry if this has been discussed in other threads, I just want to share my experience with running DF2 and MoS under Linux in the hope it will help someone like me who is a Linux enthusiast but not exactly a whiz, so basically this is a newbies or lazy Linux user guide for running these two glorious SW games. I will detail the installation procedure for DF2 here, but it is exactly the same for MoS.
I am using Linux Mint, the latest version 20.1 with Cinnamon desktop environment, which I cannot recommend enough for anyone who is like me - fed up with Windows and not a Mac fan, yet does not like tinkering with too much of the technical Linux stuff. Second great thing to have is Lutris, again a fantastic tool for running games under Linux, especially GOG games as it comes integrated GOG account source for seamless downloading and installing games from your GOG catalogue.
Now assuming you have Lutris installed and your GOG account logged in under it, go ahead and install DF2. The beauty of this it does so automatically, no need to bother with Wine versions and whatnot. The only thing to watch out for is to exit the GOG installer dialogue when it is done, DO NOT run the game from it!
Once this is done head over to MODDB and download the Dark Forces 2 Remastered Mod. https://www.moddb.com/mods/jedi-knight-remastered/downloads is the link for both DF2 and MoS Mods, download the relevant one. Again, this is something I cannot recommend enough - it elevates the game to a whole new visual level, and helps tremendously with compatibility. In fact, I wasn't able to run the game without it installed, whenever I tried running it without the mod, the menu screen froze and I wasn't able to do anything about it besides having to log our or reboot. So if you want the vanilla experience, look elsewhere.
Once downloaded, unpack the archive. It is a very beautifully simple thing to run - just one executable that does everything for you, a big thank you to the modders here! So once you have it unpacked, go back to Lutris and click on your DF2 icon - do not run it though. At the bottom of the Lutris window there are a Play and Wine icon with arrows pointing up next to them. Click on the arrow next to the Wine icon (the champagne glass) and click "Run EXE inside Wine prefix". Browse to where you downloaded and unpacked the mod directory and run the executable. When in the mod installation menu, make sure you pick the correct directory for your copy of DF2, in my case it would be /home/USER/Games/gog/star-wars-jedi-knight-dark-forces-ii/drive_c/GOG Games/Star Wars - Dark Forces 2. Let the installer do its thing and exit when finished.
Now we have to configure the mod - go into the DF2 installation directory and find file jkgm.json. Open it with a text editor and change the resolution to whatever you fancy, ideally your native desktop resolution. Now this is personal preference, up to you how you want to have it, but I change the menu aspect ration to false to make it stretch to my screen, then I change the HUD scale to 2.0, highly recommended for anything Full HD and above, put "false" int eh enable_bloom (don't like the effect) line and put jkr-fov100.exe in the command line. This changes the field of vision to 100 degrees, which I think works best for my FHD resolution . Again, these are personal preferences, feel free to play around with the settings and see what it does for you.
Once this is done close the file and save and go back to your Lutris library screen, click on DF2 incon and select "winetricks" from the bottom Wine pull up menu. Select the default wineprefix and click OK, then select run winecfg and select OK. A wine configuration window will appear - go to the libraries tab and write "winmm" (without the " of course) in the New override for library line and click add. Then scroll down to it in the existing override list click on it and select edit. Select Native then Builtin option and click OK. This is absolutely essential if you want to have in game music. Click OK on the winecfg window, cancel and cancel again on the winetricks window.
Now we have to tell Lutris to run the mod and not the vanilla game from the library, so left click on the DF2 icon and select configure. In the game options tab click on browse next to the "executable" option and look for the DF2 folder again, as explained above. Only this time go to the Desktop folder of your virutal Lutris C drive - mine looks like this /home/USER/Games/gog/star-wars-jedi-knight-dark-forces-ii/drive_c/users/USER/Desktop - and select the Jedi Knight Remastered.lnk file. Click OK and you are done.
Now you can finally run the game from the Lutris library, go ahead and do so. IMPORTANT thing to do now is to go to the ingame settting menu, selecting display settings and checking the use 3D acceleration checkbox and selecting your resolution. That's it! You now can play DF2 on Linux like a champ!
Oh, one more thing, it may happen to you that when you start the game the window will be smaller than your screen size, this can be corrected by the "+" key on your keyboard.
I trust at least some of you find this useful, it involved quite a bit of trial and error on my end to get this game running well under Linux, so I hope this will save you some tinkering.
Enjoy!
sorry if this has been discussed in other threads, I just want to share my experience with running DF2 and MoS under Linux in the hope it will help someone like me who is a Linux enthusiast but not exactly a whiz, so basically this is a newbies or lazy Linux user guide for running these two glorious SW games. I will detail the installation procedure for DF2 here, but it is exactly the same for MoS.
I am using Linux Mint, the latest version 20.1 with Cinnamon desktop environment, which I cannot recommend enough for anyone who is like me - fed up with Windows and not a Mac fan, yet does not like tinkering with too much of the technical Linux stuff. Second great thing to have is Lutris, again a fantastic tool for running games under Linux, especially GOG games as it comes integrated GOG account source for seamless downloading and installing games from your GOG catalogue.
Now assuming you have Lutris installed and your GOG account logged in under it, go ahead and install DF2. The beauty of this it does so automatically, no need to bother with Wine versions and whatnot. The only thing to watch out for is to exit the GOG installer dialogue when it is done, DO NOT run the game from it!
Once this is done head over to MODDB and download the Dark Forces 2 Remastered Mod. https://www.moddb.com/mods/jedi-knight-remastered/downloads is the link for both DF2 and MoS Mods, download the relevant one. Again, this is something I cannot recommend enough - it elevates the game to a whole new visual level, and helps tremendously with compatibility. In fact, I wasn't able to run the game without it installed, whenever I tried running it without the mod, the menu screen froze and I wasn't able to do anything about it besides having to log our or reboot. So if you want the vanilla experience, look elsewhere.
Once downloaded, unpack the archive. It is a very beautifully simple thing to run - just one executable that does everything for you, a big thank you to the modders here! So once you have it unpacked, go back to Lutris and click on your DF2 icon - do not run it though. At the bottom of the Lutris window there are a Play and Wine icon with arrows pointing up next to them. Click on the arrow next to the Wine icon (the champagne glass) and click "Run EXE inside Wine prefix". Browse to where you downloaded and unpacked the mod directory and run the executable. When in the mod installation menu, make sure you pick the correct directory for your copy of DF2, in my case it would be /home/USER/Games/gog/star-wars-jedi-knight-dark-forces-ii/drive_c/GOG Games/Star Wars - Dark Forces 2. Let the installer do its thing and exit when finished.
Now we have to configure the mod - go into the DF2 installation directory and find file jkgm.json. Open it with a text editor and change the resolution to whatever you fancy, ideally your native desktop resolution. Now this is personal preference, up to you how you want to have it, but I change the menu aspect ration to false to make it stretch to my screen, then I change the HUD scale to 2.0, highly recommended for anything Full HD and above, put "false" int eh enable_bloom (don't like the effect) line and put jkr-fov100.exe in the command line. This changes the field of vision to 100 degrees, which I think works best for my FHD resolution . Again, these are personal preferences, feel free to play around with the settings and see what it does for you.
Once this is done close the file and save and go back to your Lutris library screen, click on DF2 incon and select "winetricks" from the bottom Wine pull up menu. Select the default wineprefix and click OK, then select run winecfg and select OK. A wine configuration window will appear - go to the libraries tab and write "winmm" (without the " of course) in the New override for library line and click add. Then scroll down to it in the existing override list click on it and select edit. Select Native then Builtin option and click OK. This is absolutely essential if you want to have in game music. Click OK on the winecfg window, cancel and cancel again on the winetricks window.
Now we have to tell Lutris to run the mod and not the vanilla game from the library, so left click on the DF2 icon and select configure. In the game options tab click on browse next to the "executable" option and look for the DF2 folder again, as explained above. Only this time go to the Desktop folder of your virutal Lutris C drive - mine looks like this /home/USER/Games/gog/star-wars-jedi-knight-dark-forces-ii/drive_c/users/USER/Desktop - and select the Jedi Knight Remastered.lnk file. Click OK and you are done.
Now you can finally run the game from the Lutris library, go ahead and do so. IMPORTANT thing to do now is to go to the ingame settting menu, selecting display settings and checking the use 3D acceleration checkbox and selecting your resolution. That's it! You now can play DF2 on Linux like a champ!
Oh, one more thing, it may happen to you that when you start the game the window will be smaller than your screen size, this can be corrected by the "+" key on your keyboard.
I trust at least some of you find this useful, it involved quite a bit of trial and error on my end to get this game running well under Linux, so I hope this will save you some tinkering.
Enjoy!