Guild Wars 2 Linux Multibox Launcher Script

Gw2Launcher is a fantastic tool for windows, and the author is thankfully responsive to Linux issues, but the tool relies on a poorly documented Windows feature to kill the GW2 mutex which does not always consistently work through wine. See Healix/Gw2Launcher#249 (comment) for the comment which inspired me to build this.

Because each WINEPREFIX has a separate windows-like environment, the mutex is not shared between WINEPREFIXs, allowing simultaneous instances of the game from distinct WINEPREFIXs. However, the Gw2.dat file is 66 G and counting, making storing multiple instances challenging.

This script uses fuse-overlayfs, setsid, and xdotool to dynamically create WINEPREFIXs with minimal overhead, run the game, and detect launches (allowing sequential launch to avoid X11 CPU overuse trying to draw overlapping odd geometry partially transparent windows).

It requires you to already be able to run GW2 from the command line (if you have a working install via Lutris, you can use something like lutris guild-wars-2 --output-script gw2.sh).

It works great on the two machines I use (both Arch Linux, one installed w/Lutris and one w/o), but will need broader testing to verify it works for others; consider this an alpha release. The command line options may change.

Support

Please let me know if you find any bugs - especially if you also have generalizable fixes. I may not have time to add features, and want to keep the script relatively simple - if you have a great idea, feel free to let me know about it, implement it, and/or fork the codebase as necessary.

If you'd like help running this, or are having trouble installing GW2 on your Linux distribution I'd be interested in helping. Contact me via email or Discord (iiridayn, [email protected]) if you've exhausted other support avenues and are willing to wait around for me to be available to help. Follow the principle of don't ask to ask.

Usage examples

If you don't want a bunch of fuser mounts in your system between runs:

gw2-alt.sh -c 01 02 03 # create mounts and run
gw2-alt.sh -x 01 02 03 # close each
gw2-alt.sh -d 01 02 03 # remove mounts

When the game releases updates, first run:

gw2-alt.sh -cu 01 02 03 # create mounts and update
gw2-alt.sh 01 02 03 # run, given mounts exist already

To change saved username/password or settings in one account at a time:

gw2-alt.sh -o 01 # change options/configure

Initial setup

1. Install GW2 normally and ensure it runs.
2. Create a launch script, and ensure it runs GW2 from the command line
3. Backup your GFXSettings.GW2-64.exe.xml (in <gw2 WINEPREFIX>/drive_c/users/$USER/AppData/Roaming/Guild Wars 2/), run the game and set graphics to values you'd like to run multiple clients with (all minimums likely), then stash the modified GFXSettings.GW2-64.exe.xml and restore your nice one for regular use.
4. Run the script
5. Choose a base location for the script to use to run and store data, create $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/gw2alts, and update $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/gw2alts/config.sh as directed.
6. Run again
7. Copy your GFXSettings.GW2-64.exe.xml to the conf folder of the directory you chose for the script to use.

Once you're set up, you can create new Local.dats for each account with gw2-alt.sh -co "<name>", then enter username, password, save them (unless you like retyping them each time you launch), launch the game and change settings however you'd like (you can't change them during normal launches, only when launching with -o, which launches the game in exclusive mode), then exit. This should set things up so that in the future you can set up and launch multiple accounts with just gw2-alt.sh "<name>" "<name 2>", etc as normal. Quotes are only needed if you want a space in the account name, which I've not tested yet but should probably work.

Troubleshooting

• Arbitrary clients crash occasionally: relaunch that account. The game does that, which is why the name is in the window title, to make it easier to spot which account crashed.
• The login screen won't load, some red text about downloading (I think?): update each account by running gw2-alt.sh -u "<name>" "<name 2>" etc, then try launching normally. If one crashes during the update, re-run the update for that one.
• My computer is too slow: reduce graphics settings (and update the stashed GFXSettings.GW2-64.exe.xml), buy more RAM (I think each account requires around 4 G of free RAM), get a CPU with more cores, etc. RAM is often a key bottleneck here.
• Something else: check the log file for the account; they often have useful information to diagnose and fix issues.

License

This script is licensed under the terms of the WTFPL version 2.

If you submit any pull requests, you agree to license them under the same, to avoid potential legal headaches I'd rather not deal with.