this has been rewritten yet again as most workarounds aren't required anymore since wine 3+

example video of the final result: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkqzQoeOGfU

with touchscreen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcIrlorWmaQ

performance is indistinguishable from windows. there might be a very slight ~25ms sound latency which is easily compensated with +25 local offset

tested on

gentoo, wine-3.5, radeon, dwm
arch, wine 3.5-1, nvidia proprietary drivers, gnome (thanks @_goeo for testing and helping out)

at the bottom of this guide you can find a bunch of extra tips about video drivers and other system tweaks which can help a lot in certain systems, make sure to read them if you have time

some cutting-edge distros run wayland by default. it's recommended that you log into xorg instead (most DE-s have an option at login to select X as your session). wayland is untested and will likely have a performance hit on osu as wine doesn't support it and needs to run though a xorg compatibility layer

install the newest wine version you can find for your distro, 3+ is recommended. if you're stuck with old 2.x versions you might wanna try 1.8 or 1.9 if you can get them

ubuntu: sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386 wget -nc https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/Release.key sudo apt-key add Release.key sudo apt-add-repository https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/ubuntu/
arch: pacman -Sy wine . you can also try wine-staging for extra gaming features if you play other games but as far as I know development has stopped.
gentoo: sudo emerge --ask =app-emulation/wine-vanilla-9999

if you have any problems installing wine, see the extras for useful links with more info

install winetricks

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Winetricks/winetricks/master/src/winetricks
chmod +x winetricks
sudo mv -v winetricks /usr/local/bin

create a new wine prefix and install .NET 4.6.2, gdiplus and japanese font aliases:

WINEPREFIX=~/osu-wine WINEARCH=win32 winetricks -q dotnet462 cjkfonts gdiplus

run winecfg

WINEPREFIX=~/osu-wine WINEARCH=win32 winecfg

navigate to graphics and ensure that "allow the window manager to decorate the windows" and "allow the window manager to control the windows" are enabled. this can allow native fullscreen to work which can help performance on bloated desktop environments like gnome

optional: fixing japanese fonts

as discovered by _goeo, it's possible to fix both the top right icons in the main menu and japanese fonts by copying fonts from a windows install or iso.

to extract japanese fonts from the Windows 10 iso:

download the iso from here https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10ISO

install 7z

ubuntu: sudo apt install p7zip
arch: sudo pacman -Sy p7zip
gentoo: sudo emerge --ask app-arch/p7zip

cd ~/Downloads 7z e Win10_*.iso sources/install.wim 7z x install.wim 1/Windows/Fonts sudo cp -r 1/Windows/Fonts /usr/share/fonts/WindowsFonts sudo chmod -R 755 /usr/share/fonts/WindowsFonts sudo fc-cache -f

fix wonky font hinting:

WINEPREFIX=~/osu-wine WINEARCH=win32 winetricks settings fontsmooth=rgb

see https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Microsoft_fonts#Extracting_fonts_from_a_Windows_ISO for more info

you can also just copy your fonts folder from a windows install and install it in the same way

set wine audio driver to alsa to reduce latency (works even if you use pulseaudio)

WINEPREFIX=~/osu-wine WINEARCH=win32 winetricks sound=alsa

registry dsound tweak to further minimize sound latency

cat > dsound.reg << "EOF"
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Wine\DirectSound]
"HelBuflen"="512"
"SndQueueMax"="3"
EOF

WINEPREFIX=~/osu-wine WINEARCH=win32 wine regedit dsound.reg

download the osu installer https://m1.ppy.sh/r/osu!install.exe

run it:

WINEPREFIX=~/osu-wine WINEARCH=win32 wine ~/Downloads/osu\!install.exe

the updater should say that it's installing in C:\Users\youruser\Local Settings\Application Data\osu!

if it's not, you better take note of where it's installing or click to change the location

if the updater gets stuck in a loop at the discord-rpc dll see section troubleshooting

osu will start up and start downloading the bundled beatmaps, let it finish, set it up however you like and check how it feels

don't worry if it's stuck with vsync, we will disable it with our launcher script. also see extras for more info on vsync tweaks

if you're on a fancy desktop environment with a compositor and effects, you might want to run in fullscreen (which should be the default). this will potentially bypass the compositor.

if you use multiple monitors and/or fullscreen isn't working well, you are forced to use window or borderless windowed. since window mode can suffer all kinds of performance issues because of desktop environments and their compositors, I recommend turning off your compositor or not using one at all. if you keep having poor performance or input lag, try a lightweight window manager like openbox, dwm, jwm, i3, or a de with no compositor like lxde

if you use a tiling window manager like dwm, fullscreen might not play well with it (freezes when you switch workspaces on dwm), so disable fullscreen which will make the game borderless fullscreen (unless you change resolution)

create a shortcut to your osu folder:

ln -sv osu-wine/drive_c/users/loli/Local\ Settings/Application\ Data/osu\! ~/osufolder

create a script to start osu:

cat > osu << "EOF"
#!/bin/sh

export vblank_mode=0
export WINEARCH=win32
export WINEPREFIX=$HOME/osu-wine
wine ~/osufolder/osu\!.exe "$@"
EOF

sudo mv osu /usr/bin/
sudo chmod +x /usr/bin/osu

create a script to kill osu and shutdown wine. this is useful when osu freezes or doesn't seem to start

cat > osukill << "EOF"
#!/bin/sh

export vblank_mode=0
export WINEARCH=win32
export WINEPREFIX=$HOME/osu-wine
wineserver -k
EOF

sudo mv osukill /usr/bin/
sudo chmod +x /usr/bin/osukill

you can now run osu in a terminal or launcher to start osu and osukill to force-kill it

and of course you can access your osu folder to drop in skins and whatnot at ~/osufolder

if you're a more gui oriented person, you can create a desktop shortcut like so (replace loli with your username):

wget http://w.ppy.sh/c/c9/Logo.png -O ~/osulogo.png

cat > ~/Desktop/osu\!.desktop << "EOF"
[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Name=osu!
Comment=Weeb circle clicking game
Type=Application
Exec=osu %F
Icon=/home/loli/osulogo.png
StartupWMClass=osu!.exe
Categories=
EOF

chmod +x ~/Desktop/osu\!.desktop

Extras and troubleshooting

remember to read your or other distro's wiki (I recommend arch and gentoo wikis) to find potentially known solutions to your problems

here's some useful resources:

troubleshooting

approach circles look weird/choppy (by @_goeo)

limit your fps.

while the game is not running, open your osu!.user.cfg, and set the CustomFrameLimit to the highest fps your computer can handle stably. Note that osu! normally shows how many milliseconds it takes to render a frame instead of the fps in the "fps counter", so the math is fps = 1000/(how many milliseconds it takes to render one frame)

if you get red X'es upon running the installer:

arch linux users have reported seeing red X'es on the osu installer / launcher. this seems to be caused by a broken or missing 32-bit libpng. try installing libpng (both the 32bit and 64bit versions) like so (this command is for arch, but the fix applies to all distros where this happens):

pacman -Sy lib32-libpng libpng

if it still doesn't work, check what version of libpng you have by doing

ls /usr/lib | grep libpng

then symlink it to libpng12.so.0 (replace libpng16.so with whatever version you have)

sudo ln /usr/lib/libpng16.so /usr/lib/libpng12.so.0
sudo ln /usr/lib32/libpng16.so /usr/lib32/libpng12.so.0

note that the lib32 part is only required if you are on a 64-bit system.

osu! updater stuck in a loop or stuck at discord dll get the discord-rpc dll from a working osu install or download it from here http://hnng.moe/f/Zzq and place it into your osu folder

I started osu but nothing pops up and it's hogging cpu this happens very rarely, the solution is to kill osu completely and restart it by running the osukill script created in the guide

more tweaks to get rid of vsync

if the game's framerate is still limited and you are on a radeon GPU, you can try the following which disables vsync on some old radeon GPUs:

sudo mkdir -v /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d
cat > tmp.conf << "EOF"
Section "Device"
   Identifier   "Radeon"
   Driver      "radeon"
   Option      "SwapbuffersWait"   "off"
EndSection
EOF
sudo mv tmp.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-radeon.conf

and reboot or restart xorg (change "radeon" to "amdgpu" if you're using the amdgpu driver).

if you are on nvidia, check the proprietary driver's control panel and make sure there is no vsync anywhere enabled. if it's still limited, doublecheck your in-game frame limiter from the options.

again, you can check your distro's wiki for more driver and distro specific tweaks

mouse players: polling rate and mouse acceleration

you can disable mouse acceleration by running

xset m 0 0

to check that acceleration is disabled, you can run:

xset q | grep -A 1 Pointer which will output

Pointer Control:
  acceleration:  0/1    threshold:  0

if you have a barebones xorg setup you can easily add the command to your .xinitrc or other init scripts.

on distros like ubuntu/mint you can open "Startup Applications", click Add -> custom command and set it up like so:

you can adjust the mouse polling rate like so:

echo "options usbhid mousepoll=1" | sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/usbhid.conf where 1 is the interval in milliseconds, meaning that 1 is 1000Hz, 2 is 500Hz and so on.

you must either reboot or "sudo rmmod usbhid && sudo modprobe usbhid" to apply changes, and if the command fails you will have no keyboard or mouse control until you reboot.

I don't recommend changing this unless you feel a clear latency or choppyness in your mouse movements, as it can increase cpu usage in xorg and firefox.

huion h420 / osu!tablet area and monitor mapping

if for some reason your huion isn't recognized or isn't working as a tablet, you can get the amazing digimend drivers:

however, many distros already come with them

if you have multiple monitors and the tablet is mapped to the wrong one, you can re-map it, otherwise just skip to xinput_calibrator.

list your monitors using xrandr:

xrandr

for me it shows two monitors named DVI-0 and DVI-1:

Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 3286 x 1080, maximum 16384 x 16384
DisplayPort-0 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
HDMI-0 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DVI-0 connected 1366x768+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 344mm x 194mm
...
DVI-1 connected primary 1920x1080+1366+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 531mm x 299mm
   1920x1080     60.00 + 144.00*  119.98    99.93    84.90    59.94  
...

in my case, DVI-1 is my main 144Hz monitor.

run xinput in a terminal to see the list of your input devices, mine is:

...
⎜   ↳ ELAN Touchscreen                        	id=10	[slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ HUION 420 Pen                           	id=11	[slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ HUION 420 Mouse                         	id=12	[slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ HUION 420 Consumer Control              	id=14	[slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ SteelSeries Kana Gaming Mouse           	id=16	[slave  pointer  (2)]
⎣ Virtual core keyboard                   	id=3	[master keyboard (2)]
    ...
    ↳ HUION 420 Keyboard                      	id=13	[slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ HUION 420 System Control                	id=15	[slave  keyboard (3)]

in my case, "HUION 420 Pen" is my device name.

you can now map your tablet to your desired monitor like so (remember to use your own device name and monitor name):

xinput map-to-output "HUION 420 Pen" DVI-1

you can set this command to run at startup as explained in mouse acceleration.

if you wish to change your tablet's area (I don't), install xinput_calibrator if it's not already:

ubuntu, debian and other derivates sudo apt install xinput-calibrator
arch aur: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/xinput_calibrator-git/
gentoo sudo emerge --ask x11-apps/xinput_calibrator

apt install xinput-calibrator now list your devices to find out your tablet's id and name:

xinput_calibrator --list

this is what it outputs for me:

Device "ELAN Touchscreen" id=10
Device "HUION 420 Pen" id=11

sometimes there will be two huion devices for 1 tablet, just pick the first one.

you can now run xinput_calibrator with your tablet's name (id also works). don't do anything, just let it run to get the default area values in case you lose them.

xinput_calibrator --device "HUION 420 Pen" Calibrating EVDEV driver for "HUION 420 Pen" id=11 current calibration values (from XInput): min_x=0, max_x=8340 and min_y=0, max_y=4680 in my case, the default area is 0 8340 0 4680.

you can now set the area values using your device's name (replace the values with your desired values, see below on how to calculate them): xinput set-prop "HUION 420 Pen" "Evdev Axis Calibration" 0 8340 0 4680

you can set this command to run at startup as explained in mouse acceleration.

touchscreen

same configuration as huion tablets. my Asus VT168N is supported out of the box and shows up as "ELAN Touchscreen". all you have to do is use map-to-output as explained in the huion section and map it to itself.

calculating tablet area values

this is really simple maths and logic. Just read through the examples and you will get it.

let's say I wanted an area half the size of the full area in the top left corner with the same aspect ratio as the default area.

in my case, the default area is 0 8340 0 4680.

8340 / 4680 = 1.78205128205
BottomX = 8340 / 2 = 4170
BottomY = 4170 / 1.78205128205 = 2340

The new area is 0 4170 0 2340.

Let's say I wanted to center this area.

TopX = (8340 - 4170) / 2 = 2085
TopY = (4680 - 2340) / 2 = 1170
BottomX = 4170 + 2085 = 6255
BottomY = 2340 + 1170 = 3510

The new area is 2085 6255 1170 3510.

Let's say I wanted this area in the bottom right corner.

TopX = 8340 - 4170 = 4170
TopY = 4680 - 2340 = 2340
BottomX = 4170 + 4170 = 8340
BottomY = 2340 + 2340 = 4680

The new area is 4170 8340 2340 4680.

if you want to achieve the same effect as "forced proportions" you can calculate the aspect ratio of your monitor and use that instead of 1.78205128205 in the above calculations. The aspect ratio for 16:9, for example, is simply 16/9 = 1.77777777778.

wacom tablets

input-wacom has great support for wacom tablets

arch: sudo pacman -S xf86-input-wacom
ubuntu: sudo apt install xserver-xorg-input-wacom
gentoo: sudo emerge --ask x11-drivers/xf86-input-wacom

see "mapping wacom tablets to a subregion of the screen" to adjust the area

these 2 settings control smoothing of the cursor movement

xsetwacom set "device name" Suppress 2
xsetwacom set "device name" RawSample 4

you can get your device name with

xsetwacom --list devices

Suppress makes the cursor position update only for bigger changes, which can stabilize it but can also introduce unresponsiveness. it's recommended to keep this low, range is 1-100

RawSample is how many position samples are interpolated together. this smooths cursor movement and stabilizes it, but also creates input latency. it's recommended to keep this low. range is 1-20

see http://linuxwacom.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Tablet_Configuration for more info

fixing hover range on wacom tablets

(discovered by @_goeo)

if you use a wacom tablet and you do not drag, you may notice that you go out of your tablet's range much easier than on windows. this is because of a tablet feature where it has two different states of being in proximity, and in range, in which the pen is still close enough that the tablet detects it but not as close as "in proximity". the current linux wacom drivers completely ignore this second state, and only update your pen's location if it's in proximity. but the maintainer of the linuxwacom project has done some work on it (i'm not sure if they're planning to merge it (perhaps as a setting) to the main driver), and this branch is the fixed driver where you can lift your pen as high as you could on windows.

https://github.com/jigpu/input-wacom/tree/bamboo-inrange

you will have to manually install it.

uninstall any older version of input-wacom just to be sure

first of all, get the prerequisites:

debian, ubuntu, mint: sudo apt-get install linux-headers-$(uname -r) build-essential
rhel, centos, fedora: sudo yum install gcc "kernel-devel-uname-r == $(uname -r)"
arch:

    sudo pacman -Syy
    sudo pacman -S linux
    sudo reboot

after the reboot sudo pacman -S linux-headers

open SUSE 11.4:

sudo zypper install kernel-devel
sudo zypper install --type pattern devel_basis

cd
git clone --branch bamboo-inrange --depth 1 https://github.com/jigpu/input-wacom
cd input-wacom
if test -x ./autogen.sh; then ./autogen.sh; else ./configure; fi && make && sudo make install || echo "Build Failed"

reboot and enjoy your drivers

see https://github.com/linuxwacom/input-wacom/wiki/Installing-input-wacom-from-source for more info

converting your Windows wacom tablet area to linux (wacom only)

see the calculations in the huion section if you need to decide an area from scratch.

mapping wacom tablets to a subregion of the screen

xsetwacom allows more advanced area configuration on wacom tablets. you can map your tablet's area to a specific region of the screen instead of an entire monitor.

xsetwacom --set <device id> MapToOutput <width>x<height>+<x>+<y>

you can get your device id with

xsetwacom --list devices

here's some examples:

full screen:

xsetwacom --set 15 MapToOutput 1920x1080+0+0

full screen, right monitor of a dual monitor setup with 2 1920x1080 screens:

xsetwacom --set 15 MapToOutput 1920x1080+1920+0

800x600 rectangle in the top left:

xsetwacom --set 15 MapToOutput 800x600+0+0 how to calculate XY to center the area: x = (monitor width - area width) / 2 y = (monitor height - area height) / 2

note that the xy coordinates are across all screens, so for example if you have a 1024x768 monitor on the left and you want your area on the right monitor you must add 1024 to x.

installing obs-studio for streaming and recording

ubuntu:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:obsproject/obs-studio
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install obs-studio

arch: sudo pacman -Sy obs-studio
gentoo: sudo emerge --ask media-video/obs-studio

once that's done, just run OBS and set it up like you would on windows. I am using a PS3eye as a handcam which is supported out of the box on linux.

if window capture gives you a black screen, scroll down in the settings and tick "use alpha-less texture format".

if you compiled your kernel from scratch (for example on gentoo) and you want to use the ps3eye, the required kernel modules are:

CONFIG_VIDEO_V4L2=y
CONFIG_USB_GSPCA_OV534=y
CONFIG_USB_GSPCA_OV534_9=y

you can set these in /usr/src/linux/.config and recompile, or search from them in make menuconfig.

remember to reboot.

on a pure ALSA system you need to manually add an ALSA audio capture device in your scene with the correct device.

here's my ~/.asoundrc with loopback audio set up correctly for recording (you need to have the alsa loopback device enabled in your kernel)

https://github.com/Francesco149/loli-overlay/blob/master/sys-config/loli/files/asound.conf

adjust it to your devices if you're gonna copy it. and then in OBS you would select the loopback PCM as the device

pure alsa

a pure alsa setup can achieve lower latency than pulseaudio. here's my ~/.asoundrc for reference

https://github.com/Francesco149/loli-overlay/blob/master/sys-config/loli/files/asound.conf

adjust it to your devices. you should tweak the buffer sizes to the limits of your hardware by trial and error.

more info: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Advanced_Linux_Sound_Architecture https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/ALSA

if you don't want to remove pulseaudio you can always use pasuspender to temporarily stop pulseaudio while playing osu:

pasuspender -- osu

video drivers

for amd, the radeon open-source drivers are recommended. if you're feeling adventurous, you can try amdgpu. it has better vulkan support and better support for newer GPU's. it might have a performance hit on specific models though.

for nvidia, it's recommended to use the proprietary nvidia drivers.

for intel integrated graphics, the open-source drivers that ship with the kernel should be fine

if you have ubuntu, it's likely that the drivers installed by default will just work

to check that your driver is properly accelerating graphics, open a shell and run:

glxinfo | grep render You should get something like (the important part being the first line):

direct rendering: Yes
    GLX_MESA_multithread_makecurrent, GLX_MESA_query_renderer,
    GLX_MESA_multithread_makecurrent, GLX_MESA_query_renderer,
Extended renderer info (GLX_MESA_query_renderer):
OpenGL renderer string: Gallium 0.4 on AMD PITCAIRN (DRM 2.43.0, LLVM 3.8.0)
    GL_ARB_conditional_render_inverted, GL_ARB_conservative_depth,
    GL_NV_conditional_render, GL_NV_depth_clamp, GL_NV_packed_depth_stencil,
    GL_ARB_conditional_render_inverted, GL_ARB_conservative_depth,
    GL_NV_blend_square, GL_NV_conditional_render, GL_NV_depth_clamp,
    GL_OES_element_index_uint, GL_OES_fbo_render_mipmap,

another thing you can use to test is

vblank_mode=0 glxgears

which after a couple seconds should be outputting pretty high fps values (over 14'000 for me).

always check with your distro's wiki on how to install drivers as steps might be slightly different:

refresh rate

if you have a 144hz monitor or any monitor that isn't 60Hz you will want to take advantage of that.

run this:

xrandr --output DVI-1 --mode 1920x1080 --rate 144

replace 1920x1080 with your resolution, 144 with your refresh rate and DVI-1 with your monitor's name from the xml file (or you can run xrandr to find out your monitor's name on other distros):

if xrandr is not installed, your package manager will have it for sure, so install it.

you can put this into your ~/.xinitrc to run it on startup

for ubuntu and mint you might also need to edit monitors.xml. open a terminal an run the following

nano ~/.config/monitors.xml

then identify the monitor on which you want to change the refreshrate (in my case DVI-1) and change the number in

<rate>60</rate>

to your desired refresh rate, then press CTRL+O to save, press enter to confirm and press CTRL+X to exit.

this will take effect after a reboot. you can also immediately change the refresh rate using the xrandr command above

lightboost for VG248QE

my vg248qe monitor support lightboost, which greatly reduces the amount of motion blur and pixel ghosting for fast moving objects. you can enable it with the following commands (only tested on the vg248qe, other monitors might have different modelines):

xrandr --newmode "1920x1080_120lb" 286.7 1920 1968 2000 2080 1080 1083 1088 1149 +HSync -VSync
xrandr --addmode DVI-1 1920x1080_120lb
xrandr --output DVI-1 --mode 1920x1080_120lb

where DVI-1 is your monitor's name (see "refresh rate" above to get your monitor's name).

Francesco149/osu_on_linux_overhaul.md

Extras and troubleshooting

troubleshooting

approach circles look weird/choppy (by @_goeo)

if you get red X'es upon running the installer:

more tweaks to get rid of vsync

mouse players: polling rate and mouse acceleration

huion h420 / osu!tablet area and monitor mapping

touchscreen

calculating tablet area values

wacom tablets

fixing hover range on wacom tablets

converting your Windows wacom tablet area to linux (wacom only)

mapping wacom tablets to a subregion of the screen

installing obs-studio for streaming and recording

pure alsa

video drivers

refresh rate

lightboost for VG248QE

bitrot-alpha commented Mar 20, 2021

cindrmon commented May 16, 2021

OninDynamics commented May 25, 2021

Faithy3 commented May 28, 2021 •

edited

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Francesco149/osu_on_linux_overhaul.md

Extras and troubleshooting

troubleshooting

approach circles look weird/choppy (by @_goeo)

if you get red X'es upon running the installer:

more tweaks to get rid of vsync

mouse players: polling rate and mouse acceleration

huion h420 / osu!tablet area and monitor mapping

touchscreen

calculating tablet area values

wacom tablets

fixing hover range on wacom tablets

converting your Windows wacom tablet area to linux (wacom only)

mapping wacom tablets to a subregion of the screen

installing obs-studio for streaming and recording

pure alsa

video drivers

refresh rate

lightboost for VG248QE

bitrot-alpha commented Mar 20, 2021

cindrmon commented May 16, 2021

OninDynamics commented May 25, 2021

Faithy3 commented May 28, 2021 • edited Loading

Faithy3 commented May 28, 2021 •

edited

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