There are countless guides out there for how to run the Retail copies of Unreal Tournament 2004 on Linux, but they all assume that you have the CD. What about us Linux users who happened to buy their copy off of steam? Unfortunately, I couldn’t really find a clear cut guide, so I’ve decided to help out by creating a guide detailing the steps you will have to take to run Unreal Tournament 2004 natively on Linux, with the Steam Version of the game.
Before I start off, this entire Tutorial was done on Linux Mint 17.2 (Ubuntu 14.04) 64BIT. This guide SHOULD work for other versions of Ubuntu (or other Distros), but I can’t guarantee that.
First off, your going to need to Download Steam in Wine. I used PlayOnLinux for this Tutorial, but if you find yourself more proficient in Wine, you can follow along and do these steps yourself.
Install a Program using PlayOnLinux and select “Install a Non-Listed Program”.
Click Next and select “Install a program in a new virtual drive” and click Next.
Give your Drive a name, such as “UnrealTournament2004” and press Next.
When asked what you would like to do before installation, select “Install some libraries” and click Next.
This step doesn’t matter too much, but I selected “32 bits windows installation”. You can pick 64 bit, but it doesn’t matter. Click Next.
Once the virtual drive has been created, you will be asked to make a choice. Scroll down the list until you find “POL_Install_steam”. Select it, and press Next.
You will then be taken to a Wine Steam Installation Screen. Go through the prompt and Install Steam. When you get to the end, Uncheck “Run Steam” and press Finish.
The PlayOnLinux window will ask you to login to your Steam Account once the Update is Complete. Press Next to Continue.
When you get to the screen where it asks “Please select the install file to run.”, click Cancel. Now, on the Main PlayOnLinux Window, click on Configure. You should see your virtual drive you made. Click on it.
Click on the “Wine” tab, and click “Configure Wine”.
When the Wine Configuration Window appears, press the “Graphics” tab, and Check “Emulate Virtual Desktop”. Set the Desktop Size to something like 1024x1024. Click “Apply” and “Ok”.
Click on the “General” Tab on PlayOnLinux Configuration Window, and click the button “Make a new shortcut from this virtual drive.”
Select “Steam.exe” and press Next. Name your Shortcut whatever you want to name it, and press Next. When it asks you to pick another file to make a shortcut, press Cancel. You should now see a Steam Shortcut on the PlayOnLinux Configuration Window. Close the Window.
On your Main PlayOnLinux window, you should see your Shortcut. Click on it, and press “Run”.
Let Steam Update, ignore any PlayOnLinux Failure Windows that might appear, and when prompted, Log into Steam.
Once logged into Steam, select Unreal Tournament 2004 and click Install, and let Steam Download all the files.
Once Unreal Tournament 2004 has finished downloading, press Play. If any DirectX Dialogs appear, install them.
When you get to the Game’s menu, click Exit Game. You just need to run the game once, to get the CDKey inserted into your Registry. If you want, you can play the game like this, but in my experience, the sound is choppy and the entire game isn’t as responsive as it is on the Native Linux version. You can close the Wine Desktop now.
On the PlayOnLinux Menu, select “Configure” and select your Unreal Tournament 2004 Virtual Drive. Click the “Wine” tab and click on “Registry Editor”.
Navigate through the Registry Editor. (HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE -> Software -> Unreal Technology -> Installed Apps -> UT2004) You will see a Registry Key with the name CDKey and you will see your CDKey. Write down this value on a Piece of Paper. You will need this later. You can close the Registry Editor.
If your still with us, you’re almost there.
Now, navigate to your Home Folder on your Linux Machine and go to the PlayOnLinux’s Virtual Drives folder.
Navigate through the Virtual Drives folder. (“Your Virtual Drive Name” -> drive_c -> Program Files -> Steam -> steamapps -> common -> Unreal Tournament 2004). You should see all the Unreal Tournament 2004 files.
Open a new “File Explorer” window, and create a folder in your Home Folder and name it whatever. COPY all the files from the Unreal Tournament 2004 Steam Folder to this new folder in your Home Folder. You can close the File Explorer Window that contains the Steam Files now.
In your new Unreal Tournament 2004 folder, go to System, and create a new file, naming it “cdkey”. Open “cdkey” in your Text Editor, and enter the CD Key EXACTLY how it was shown on the Registry Editor. Save it and exit your text editor.
Normally, you would need to download a patch file along with the patched Linux Executable. However, since the Steam Version is the most patched version of the game, you don’t need these other files, just the executable. You can download this at http://www.gamechaser.net/share/files/ut2004linux.7z. Once it is downloaded, extract it to wherever you want, and move the “ut2004-bin-linux-amd64” binary to the System Folder of your Unreal Tournament 2004 folder that you created in your Home Directory.
You can now try running Unreal Tournament 2004 using the Terminal Window by navigating to your System Folder, and running “./ut2004-bin-linux-amd64”. If all works out, you should be greeted by the game. However, you may run into some problems running the game. DON’T PANIC. There is a great Troubleshooting guide I myself used, available at https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Games/Native/UnrealTournament2004#Startup_troubleshooting. This will help you with libSDL-1.2.so.0 not found, libstdc++.so.5 not found, and Missing Audio issues.
Hopefully this all works out for you. If it did, have fun, and enjoy Unreal Tournament 2004 running Natively in Linux!
