Alternative Installations

Prerequisites

Tip

New to Linux? See our Recommended Distributions for a list of the distros most compatible with Star Citizen.

1. Install Wine v9.4 or newer following the instructions for your distro. See the WineHQ Main Page for current versions. If your distro provides an up to date version of wine (ie. Arch), you may install from its repos instead.
2. Install winetricks 20240105-next or newer. Instructions are on the Winetricks Github
3. Set vm.max_map_count on your system to at least 16777216
4. Set the Hard open file descriptors limit on your system to at least 524288
5. See the Manual Easy Anti-Cheat Configuration instructions here.

To check and set vm.max_map_count temporarily

sysctl vm.max_map_count => To check the value
sudo sysctl -w vm.max_map_count=16777216 => To set it temporarily

To set vm.max_map_count permanently

Distributions using sysctl.d: Manjaro / Antergos / Arch / Arch-based (probably) / Ubuntu (and probably derivatives) / Fedora

• Create a new drop-in config file: /etc/sysctl.d/99-starcitizen-max_map_count.conf
• Add the following line to the file: vm.max_map_count = 16777216
• To reload it, run sudo sysctl --system

Distributions that use sysctl.conf

• Append the same line to /etc/sysctl.conf
• To reload it, run sudo sysctl --system

To set your system's hard open file descriptors limit

Distributions using systemd: Manjaro / Antergos / Arch / Arch-based (probably) / Ubuntu (and probably derivatives) / Fedora

• Create a new drop-in config file: /etc/systemd/systemd.conf.d/99-starcitizen-filelimit.conf
• Add the following line to the file: DefaultLimitNOFILE=524288
• To reload it, run sudo systemctl daemon-reexec

Distributions that use /etc/security/limits.conf

• Add the following line to /etc/security/limits.conf: * hard nofile 524288

Manual Wine Installation

1. Install and configure the necessary prerequisites
2. Create and configure your wine prefix:
   WINEPREFIX=$HOME/Games/star-citizen winetricks -q arial tahoma dxvk powershell win11
3. Download and run the RSI installer:
   WINEPREFIX=$HOME/Games/star-citizen wine "~/Downloads/RSI Launcher-Setup-2.0.5.exe"
4. An example launch script is provided on our LUG Helper's Repo

If you have trouble installing recent Wine versions on a Debian-based distro due to missing faudio, see this link.

Warning

We cannot guarantee that the alternative installation methods listed below will work or perform well.

The recommended installation method is to follow our Quick Start Guide.

If you proceed with an alternative installation method below, please be aware that not many members of our community use these methods. We may not be able to provide support for these installations if something isn't working right.

Proton Installation

1. Install Open Wine Components umu-launcher
2. Download and run the RSI Launcher installer:
   GAMEID="umu-starcitizen" umu-run "~/Downloads/RSI Launcher-Setup-2.0.5.exe"
3. Run the RSI Launcher:

   GAMEID="umu-starcitizen" PROTONPATH="GE-Proton" umu-run "~/Games/umu/umu-starcitizen/drive_c/Program Files/Roberts Space Industries/RSI Launcher/RSI Launcher.exe"
   

Heroic Games Launcher

1. Download latest Star Citizen installer.
2. Install Heroic Games Launcher.
3. Launch Heroic, browse to Wine Manager>Proton-GE and install Proton-GE-Latest.
4. Return to the Library page, and click Add Game.
5. Set Title to Star Citizen.
6. Click Show Wine Settings and ensure Wine Version is set to Proton-GE-Latest.
7. Click Run Installer First and select the Star Citizen install file.
8. Once install is complete, set Select Executable to the RSI Launcher.exe and click Finish.
9. Open the game settings in Heroic, change to Advanced tab and under Environment Variables add GAMEID=umu-starcitizen.
10. Run the RSI Launcher, log in, and click install to finish installing the game.