fufexan / nix-gaming

Gaming on Nix

🎮 nix-gaming

Gaming related stuff for Nix and NixOS.

See an overview of the flake outputs by running nix flake show github:fufexan/nix-gaming.

🗃️ What's in here?

Package	Description
faf-client	Forged Alliance Forever client (multiple packages)
osu-lazer-bin	osu! lazer, extracted from the official AppImage
osu-stable	osu! stable version
rocket-league	Rocket League from Epic Games
star-citizen	Star Citizen
technic-launcher	Technic Launcher
wine-discord-ipc-bridge	Wine-Discord RPC Bridge
wine	Multiple Wine packages
winestreamproxy	Wine-Discord RPC (broken)
northstar-proton	Proton build based on TKG's proton-tkg build system to run the Northstar client on Linux and SteamDeck
viper	Launcher+Updater for Titanfall2 Northstar Client

• legendaryBuilder is a function that installs games with legendary-gl. You are expected to log in before using it, with legendary auth. The function takes an attrset containing at least the attrset games which includes the games you want installed. Optionally, you can set an opts attrset that will set the options you set inside for all games listed. You can find a usage example in example.nix.

Install & Run

It's recommended to set up Cachix so you don't have to build packages (most useful for wine).

# configuration.nix
{
  nix.settings = {
    substituters = ["https://nix-gaming.cachix.org"];
    trusted-public-keys = ["nix-gaming.cachix.org-1:nbjlureqMbRAxR1gJ/f3hxemL9svXaZF/Ees8vCUUs4="];
  };
}

Now, rebuild your configuration and continue reading for install instructions.

If you're not using flakes, go here.

❄️ Flakes

Add these packages to your home.packages or environment.systemPackages by adding nix-gaming as an input:

# flake.nix
{
  inputs = {
    nixpkgs.url = "github:NixOS/nixpkgs/nixos-unstable";
    home-manager.url = "github:nix-community/home-manager";

    nix-gaming.url = "github:fufexan/nix-gaming";
  };

  outputs = {self, nixpkgs, ...}@inputs: {
    # set up for NixOS
    nixosConfigurations.HOSTNAME = nixpkgs.lib.nixosSystem {
      specialArgs = {inherit inputs;};
      modules = [
        ./configuration.nix
        # ...
      ];
    };

    # or for Home Manager
    homeConfigurations.HOSTNAME = inputs.home-manager.lib.homeManagerConfiguration {
      pkgs = import nixpkgs {
        system = "x86_64-linux";
        config.allowUnfree = true;
      };

      extraSpecialArgs = {inherit inputs;};

      modules = [
        ./home.nix
        # ...
      ];
    }
  };
}

Then, add the package(s):

{pkgs, inputs, ...}: {
  environment.systemPackages = [ # or home.packages
    inputs.nix-gaming.packages.${pkgs.system}.<package> # installs a package
  ];
}

If you want to install packages to your profile instead, do it like this

nix profile install github:fufexan/nix-gaming#<package>

Everything is available as an overlay if you prefer that, though your results may greatly differ from the packages.

Nix Stable

To install packages to environment.systemPackages, add this in configuration.nix:

{pkgs, ...}: let
  nix-gaming = import (builtins.fetchTarball "https://github.com/fufexan/nix-gaming/archive/master.tar.gz");
in {
  # install packages
  environment.systemPackages = [ # or home.packages
    nix-gaming.packages.${pkgs.hostPlatform.system}.<package>
  ];
}

Modules

Here are some NixOS modules for setting gaming related options.

Installation

Flakes

Assuming you've followed the Install/Flakes instructions, all you need to do is add the module to your configuration like this:

{inputs, ...}: {
  imports = [
    inputs.nix-gaming.nixosModules.<module name>
  ];
}

Now you can skip to the Usage section of a specific module.

Stable

Assuming you've followed the Install/Nix Stable instructions, all you need to do is add the module to your configuration like this:

{pkgs, ...}: let
  nix-gaming = /* ... */;
in {
  imports = [
    nix-gaming.nixosModules.<module name>
  ];
}

PipeWire low latency

PipeWire is a new audio backend that replaces ALSA, PulseAudio and JACK. It is as low latency as JACK and as easy to use as Pulse.

This module extends the PipeWire module from Nixpkgs and makes it easy to enable the low latency settings in a few lines.

Usage

After importing the module in your configuration like described above, enable it along with PipeWire:

{
  services.pipewire = {
    enable = true;
    alsa.enable = true;
    alsa.support32Bit = true;
    pulse.enable = true;

    lowLatency = {
      # enable this module
      enable = true;
      # defaults (no need to be set unless modified)
      quantum = 64;
      rate = 48000;
    };
  };

  # make pipewire realtime-capable
  security.rtkit.enable = true;
}

If you get no sound, you may want to increase quantum.

You can calculate the theoretical latency by dividing quantum by rate (48/48000 is exactly 1ms).

Platform optimizations

SteamOS on the steam deck has set some specific sysctl settings, so that some games can be run at all, or perform better under certain circumstances.

This module extends the Steam module from Nixpkgs but can be enabled as a standalone option.

Usage

After importing the module in your configuration like described above, enable it like this:

{
  programs.steam.platformOptimizations.enable = true;
}

⚙ Game overrides

Wine-based game derivations were written with versatility in mind.

These arguments can be modified in order to get the desired results.

{
  wine      ? wine-ge,          # controls the wine package used to run wine games
  wineFlags ? "",               # which flags to run wine with (literal)
  pname     ? "game-name",      # name of the script and package
  location  ? "$HOME/${pname}", # where to install the game/wine prefix
  tricks    ? [],               # which wine tricks to install

  preCommands  ? "",            # run commands before the game is started
  postCommands ? "",            # run commands after the game is closed
}:

osu-stable wine-discord-ipc-bridge wine overriding

Sometimes you want to override wine for various reasons. Here's how to do it:

{
  environment.systemPackages = let
    gamePkgs = inputs.nix-gaming.packages.${pkgs.hostPlatform.system};
  in [ # or home.packages
    gamePkgs.osu-stable.override rec {
      wine = <your-wine>;
      wine-discord-ipc-bridge = gamePkgs.wine-discord-ipc-bridge.override {inherit wine;}; # or override this one as well
    };
  ];
}

📝 Tips

In order to get the most performance out of your machine, you could use the following tweaks:

• custom/gaming kernel: linux_xanmod is the recommended one for games, since it provides many patches that aid wine and other games. It also provides a better desktop experience due to its preemptive build and tickless scheduler.
• gamemode: lets you achieve lower nice values and higher realtime privileges at game start. It can either detect games or be started with gamemode-run.

👥 Credits & Resources

Thank you: boppyt - gonX - InfinityGhost - LavaDesu - openglfreak - yusdacra and to all the contributors and users of this repo!